Moment of Zen is a weekly podcast where Dan Romero (Farcaster), Antonio Garcia Martinez (Spindl), and Erik Torenberg (Village Global/On Deck) discuss the latest in tech, business, and culture.
00:00 - Intro 1:00 - Unpacking the famous SBF quote 4:00 - Introducing Joe Henrich’s “WEIRD” 6:15 - Introducing Tom Holland’s “Dominion” 7:10 - Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity 8:45 - Christianity’s inversion of morality...
0:00 - Antonio’s circumcision 1:20 - The future of Replit 6:30 - The future of coding 9:46 - The Steve Jobs Blackpill 12:00 - Will AGI lead to the death of humans? 18:13 - AGM thinks AGI dystopia is bullshit, religion for ner...
0:00 intro and sponsor 1:20 introductions (who the f are we?) 3:00 Antonio introduction 5:12 Dan introduction 6:50 Farcaster 10:10 Erik introduction 12:30 the life of the mind vs the life of the founder 16:00 Being in the are...
Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) and Marshall Kosloff (@makosloff) of The Realignment (@therealignment) join Moment of Zen's Dan Romero (@dwr), Antonio Garcia Martinez (@antoniogm) and Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) for a discussion on tech, politics, and media 0:00 intro 2:00 Political and class realig…
Amjad Masad (@Amasad), Flo Crivello (@Altimor) and Nathan Labenz (@Labenz) join us for a heated debate on the AI moment, Crypto in an AI world, and a comparison of AI and crypto's relative value.
Our friends Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan join us this week as special guests
Brian Chau (@psychosort) joins us to discuss why ChatGPT is woke, how the arc of tech is centralization, and mental models for politics.
We speak with Noah Smith about our modern cold wars with China & Russia, the new right, and tech’s cultural & political shifts.
2:15 Replika caused Amjad to downgrade his view of humanity 3:15 Some men are down bad 5:15 Should we bring back monogamy? 8:15 If you’re not a top man, you’re screwed (phew) 13:00 Thought experiment 16:40 Antonio brings up I...
"If you can't compete on history, compete on philosophy" We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%. Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MomentofZenPodcast.
Anonymous founders of the Effective Accelerations (e/acc) movement Bayeslord and Beff Jezoz join Erik Torenberg, Dan Romero, and Nathan Labenz to debate views on AI safety. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%. (3:00) Intro to effective…
Byrne Hobart joins Antonio, Dan, and Erik to discuss SVB, finance, and crypto. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%.
Balaji Srinivasan tells us why he is making a $1M BTC prediction and discusses the banking collapse. (8:00) What happened with SVB (15:00) Constructive debate (59:00) Where we agree and where we disagree (1:07:00) If the U.S. implodes, there’s no where else to go (1:18:00) Responding to critics Mo…
Writer, VC, and podcaster Nic Carter joins us to talk about Balaji's bet, Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and the Fed's financial crisis. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%. Check out the debut of Erik's new longform interview podcast Ups…
Anton Troynikov of Chroma, Flo Crivello of Lindy AI, and Nathan Labenz of Waymark and co-host of The Cognitive Revolution podcast join Erik Torenberg for a timely debate on the issues raised in the AI open letter which advocates for a 6-month pause on AI system trainings.
Our guest this week is Mike Solana, founder and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires (Piratewires.com). We discuss the broken local politics of San Francisco, tech and media fights, how we should handle Tik Tok,and why AI enthusiasts are losing. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit…
Dan and Erik discuss picking markets, NFT's, disinformation, and Fentanyl.
San Francisco advocate Michelle Tandler (@michelletandler on Twitter) joins Erik and Dan to discuss how Twitter has impacted her life, the state of SF politics, and how she would address the homeless crisis in San Francisco.
Katherine joins Erik, Antonio, and Dan to discuss the hidden forces that shape founders, major divides in tech, and whether she should join our show as a cohost.
Ben Smith is the co-founder of Semafor and author of the forthcoming book Traffic joins Erik Torenberg and Antonio Garcia Martinez for a discussion about the hostility between tech and media, what digital media startups got wrong, analysis of institutions like The New York Times, and what the futur…
Dan and Erik discuss how Elon got coded right-wing, why liberals are more depressed than conservatives, crime and prisons.
Journalist and author Liel Leibovitz joins Antonio and Erik for a deep discussion that “solves all outstanding Israel issues once and for all.” They discuss what’s going on with Israeli and US politics, Israel’s foundational choice ahead, and why wokeness is not penetrating Israel.
Erik and Dan are joined by special guest Mike Solana, Editor-in-Chief of Pirate Wires (https://www.piratewires.com/) to discuss the recent AI congressional hearings, political polarization, Elon’s reign at Twitter, and much more.