logo
episode-header-image
Yesterday
2h 49m

Elon Musk - "In 36 months, the cheapest ...

Dwarkesh Patel
About this episode
tail spinning
Up next
Dec 30
Adam Marblestone – AI is missing something fundamental about the brain
Adam Marblestone is CEO of Convergent Research. He’s had a very interesting past life: he was a research scientist at Google Deepmind on their neuroscience team and has worked on everything from brain-computer interfaces to quantum computing to nanotech and even formal mathematic ... Show More
1h 49m
Dec 23
An audio version of my blog post, Thoughts on AI progress (Dec 2025)
Read the essay here.Timestamps00:00:00 What are we scaling?00:03:11 The value of human labor00:05:04 Economic diffusion lag is cope00:06:34 Goal-post shifting is justified00:08:23 RL scaling00:09:18 Broadly deployed intelligence explosion Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at ww ... Show More
12m 28s
Dec 19
Sarah Paine – Why Russia Lost the Cold War
This is the final episode of the Sarah Paine lecture series, and it’s probably my favorite one. Sarah gives a “tour of the arguments” on what ultimately led to the Soviet Union’s collapse, diving into the role of the US, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the oil bust, ethnic rebel ... Show More
1h 54m
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2025
#477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism
Keyu Jin is an economist specializing in China’s economy, international macroeconomics, global trade imbalances, and financial policy. She is the author of The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridma ... Show More
1h 57m
Nov 2024
Huawei Does Gen-Fi
This week on Breaking Banks, host Brett King takes us to Shanghai for a riveting discussion with Jason Cao, CEO of Huawei’s Global Financial Services competency. In this eye-opening episode, they uncover how China is shaping the future with AI—not as a mere tool for profit, but a ... Show More
52m 4s
Oct 2025
Can the US Beat China’s Engineering State?
<p>From high-speed rail to electric cars to batteries to AI, it’s clear that China can operate with incredible speed at massive scale. Can the US still compete?</p><p>We sat down with Dan Wang, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of “Breakneck: China’s Ques ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 2025
Dan Wang - The US vs China In The 21st Century - [Invest Like the Best, EP.444]
My guest today is Dan Wang. Dan is a technology analyst and author who spent six years living in China studying its manufacturing ecosystem and tech development, best known for his new book Breakneck. Dan offers the most nuanced framework I've encountered for understanding US-Chi ... Show More
1h 36m
Aug 2025
China, China, China. Breaking Down China’s Tech Surge | BG2 w/ Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner
Open Source bi-weekly convo w/ Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner on all things tech, markets, investing & capitalism. This week, they dive deep into China’s explosive innovation across AI and EVs, the rise of open-source models, lessons for U.S. competitiveness, the real story on tar ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 2025
China Has Mass. Can America Catch Up?
<p>Ben, Marc, and Erik Torenberg are joined by Brian Schimpf, Cofounder & CEO of Anduril, and Chris Power, Founder & CEO of Hadrian. Together, they dig into America’s defense production gap: why the U.S. can out-innovate but not out-produce—and what it will take to turn that arou ... Show More
56m 21s
Nov 2024
The ideology behind Xi Jinping’s China
<p>Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister, has made a life-long study of China’s leadership. He tells Gideon how an understanding of Communist ideology helps explain Xi Jinping’s decision to roll back on the market reforms of his predecessor Deng Xiaoping. They are also ... Show More
25m 26s
Jul 2025
The Geopolitical Fight Over Huawei w/ Yangyang Cheng
Paris Marx is joined by Yangyang Cheng to discuss how Huawei became one of the most powerful companies in China and how current geopolitical narratives distract from the issues at the heart of surveillance capitalism in the US and China.Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law ... Show More
54m 5s
Jan 2025
The hidden cost of data hoarding. [Research Saturday]
This week, we are joined by Kyla Cardona and Aurora Johnson from SpyCloud discussing their research "China’s Surveillance State Is Selling Citizen Data as a Side Hustle." Chinese technology companies, under CCP mandate, collect vast amounts of data on citizens, creating opportuni ... Show More
31m 38s
Apr 2025
880: Manus, DeepSeek and China’s AI Boom
First developed in China, Manus AI and DeepSeek have made great waves on an international scale. Sought-after for their cost-effectiveness compared to US-made tech, Manus AI and DeepSeek are quickly becoming dominant technologies inside the country. In this five-minute Friday, Jo ... Show More
10m 17s