I wanted the last part of this conversation to stay in the tension instead of picking a side. Marc holds abundance and extinction as both true. Spectators invent paperclip apocalypses. Builders open the lab.

We talk about danger-spotting as an evolutionary wiring, the stories people choose to believe, and why I still think we have some volition in the tools we put in human hands.

I wanted to know when a curve stops being a hockey stick and becomes a civilizational break. Marc’s answer starts with cheap energy: water, food, geopolitics, national security.

Then we get to AI. I asked whether this time is different because we are creating a species more intelligent than we are. Marc thinks it is — and that both abundance and extinction stay on the table.

I wanted the second part of this conversation to get practical. Marc’s version of leadership is not being the only visionary in the room. It is “goal cloning” so the team already has it — even at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.

We talk about hiring for vision, pulling from the future, and why pushing from the present drains everyone, including me.

I wanted this conversation to start with personal technology, not gadget nostalgia. Marc traces information as power from family history through Stanford, Apple, and General Magic — and why he refuses to be treated as a consumer.

Part 1 of 4 is the origin story: revolutions, media, and the idea that the tools in our hands should help us live a meaningful life, not just buy more stuff.

I sat down with Kevin Slavin to explore a Spotify-like transaction layer for nature's genomic data: open enough for science, but capable of rewarding the countries and communities whose biodiversity produced the value. This is part 4 of 4.

I sat down with Kevin Slavin to ask what it would take to make the next pandemic optional. We talk about wastewater, airplanes, genomic surveillance, and the political and commercial machinery needed to use tools we already have. This is part 3 of 4.

I sat down with Kevin Slavin to follow a strange path from punk-rock liner notes and Situationist psychogeography into location-aware games, bees, sewers, and the invisible microbial fingerprints of cities. This is part 2 of 4.

I sat down with Kevin Slavin to talk about how we cultivate curiosity: planting small moments of wonder, learning from light-touch mentors, and helping our children stay open to the world without turning every experience into a long-term optimization problem. This is part 1 of 4.

Sarah Rose Siskind and I talk about the uneasy dance between nature and human intention — from childbirth, medicine, and evolution to the technologies that help us survive and create.

We also explore AI filmmaking, creative pioneers, and how salt, pepper, and software reveal a recurring pattern: once-scarce tools can become universally abundant.

Sarah Rose Siskind and I talk about telling technology stories out of desperation—helping people see how inventions become meaningful, then disappear into ordinary life.

We move from Waymo, AI scribes, and the Sphere to global poverty, gratitude, and the case for celebrating human progress without pretending fear, tribalism, or nature have disappeared.