AZEEM AZHAR: Hi there, I’m Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View and host of the Exponential View podcast. Every week, for the past six years, my team and I brought you conversations about our changing world. You followed as I delved into nuances of new technology platforms, broke down the complex feedback loops across technology, the economy, and politics, and raised awareness of the wide gap between exponentially developing technologies and the linear institutions that surround us. Now, 161 episodes in, and facing the summer, we’ve decided to take a break to rest, recharge, and take some time to think about how the world has changed. What we’ve learned from 161 amazing conversations, and through the hundreds of issues of my newsletter. And of course, through the publication of my book. We’ll be back soon enough. So, watch this space. To stay in the loop on my thinking and writing, do subscribe to my newsletter, Exponential View, at www.exponentialview.co.
Now, unless you are with us from the very beginning of the podcast in 2016, I would imagine that there is a good number of fascinating conversations you haven’t heard yet. And here’s a challenge: while we’re away, I’d like to invite you to go through our old episodes and find the gems that may have gotten lost in the always-growing podcast feed. You can always drop me a note on Twitter, @Azeem, when you find a particular nugget that you like. That’s @Azeem, A-Z-E-E-M, or if you are in the UK, @A-Z-E-E-M, but I’ll help you to get started. Here are some of the episodes I often go back to.
In October 2020, I sat down with a remarkable leader building the future of artificial intelligence. Demis Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010, with the mission to use games as a platform to test capabilities of AI algorithms, and first-principle learning and synthetic intelligence. In this wide-ranging conversation, Demis and I cover how his beginnings as an avid game player took him to AI, how the new era of scientific discoveries is emerging for our eyes, and what it takes to manage innovation at the scale that DeepMind operates on today. When Russia started its occupation of Ukraine in February 2022, I returned to my conversation with General Sir Richard Barrons, whose wealth of leadership experience in the military allowed him to see what was coming before most of us. In our prescient conversation from two years earlier, General Barrons and I discussed the intersection of warfare and the expanding digital play field – and what it would take to secure a longstanding peace and how we can build resilience into citizenship. Regular readers and listeners will know that I’ve been studying the effects of climate change for several years and throughout the podcast, I aim to bring closer the innovation and science going into climate change mitigation efforts. But for anyone who wants to understand economics of decarbonization, listen back to my conversation with Michele DellaVigna. Michele runs a carbonomics research program at Goldman Sachs, the bank.
We dig deep into how the capital markets, the consumer, and global politics are shaping the momentum behind decarbonization. What an orderly transition to a net zero economy could look like, as well as the emerging innovation that’s making carbon removal technologies possible. The third conversation that I recommend is with one of my intellectual heroes, the economist Carlota Perez. In it, Carlota and I discussed the life cycle of technology revolutions, and how they ultimately change every aspect of our lives. Carlota’s work has been exceptionally influential on me; I keep a copy of her book, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, on my bookshelf by my desk. And this conversation is one of my favorites. And finally, for something slightly different, the science of aging has been one of my deep interests. In a short essay called The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant, published in 2005, Nick Bostrom depicted the misery of inflicted by a dragon, symbolizing aging and death, who demands a tribute of thousands of people’s lives per day.
That dragon, larger than life, for so long seemed impossible to conquer, and people put their best efforts and developed a weapon to kill that dragon once and for all. Now, aging has forever seemed impossible to conquer, but the evolving science is moving in a new direction. And I spoke about the new science of aging with Harvard professor, David Sinclair. Now, you can find all these conversations at the Exponential View podcast. Find it in your normal podcast feed, or go to hbr.org/podcasts/exponential-view. That’s hbr.org/podcasts/exponential-view.
Of course, many of these conversations have helped me develop the key thesis for my book. It’s called the Exponential Age in the US and Canada, and Exponential in the UK. Pick up a copy to see how I’ve translated what I’ve learned, in these conversations, into my thesis about the transition to the exponential age. Thanks again for listening, and stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter, exponentialview@www.exponentialview.co for free. Or join as a premium member, where you can participate in our unique global community of people like you, who are building, working, and investing, in exponential transition. Have a great summer from all of us here at Exponential View, and see you soon.
