Thoughts in Between: exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society

My guests today are Jess Whittlestone and Jack Clark. Jess is a senior research associate at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Existential Risk. Jack is a co-founder of Anthropic, an AI safety and research company, and was previously Policy Director at OpenAI.

Together they are co-authors on a new paper on why and how governments should monitor AI deployment, which you can read here. In this conversation, we discuss the paper and the ways in which governments need to act not to ensure AI is a force for good in their societies.

Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

I'd like to introduce you to a podcast from Entrepreneurs First, my new show with EF cofounder Alice Bentinck.

Together, we've been talking to some of the brightest entrepreneurs who have ever set foot in an EF office about what it takes to build a business from the ground up.

In this episode I speak to Alex Dalyac, co-founder and CEO of Tractable, EF's first unicorn. We're joined by LinkedIn's cofounder and Chairman, Reid Hoffman.

Reid and Alex share what they believe are the most important tenets of founding a successful business - particularly in the earliest stages - and how aspiring founders can launch a startup heading for unicorn status.

This is the only episode of A podcast from Entrepreneurs First that is going to appear on this feed. To hear more, search for A podcast from Entrepreneurs First wherever you listen.

Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneurs First at www.joinef.com.

Ethan Mollick is a professor of entrepreneurship at Wharton, a former founder and author of the book, The Unicorn’s Shadow. Readers of the Thoughts in Between newsletter may also recognise him as the curator of perhaps the world’s most interesting Twitter feed. I think I link to Ethan more than to anyone else. In this conversation, we dive deeply into what the academic literature tells us about entrepreneurship. It’s the first time either of us have ever met, so during the conversation, I share a little bit about our methodology for company creation at Entrepreneur First and we discuss both how it contradicts and complements the literature. We also discuss a game-like simulation of entrepreneurship that Ethan has created, which I recommend you check out.

Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Gian Volpicelli is a journalist at Wired UK, where he covers the intersection of technology and politics. He’s also the author of the recently published Wired Guide to Cryptocurrency, which you can think of as a beginner’s guide to all things crypto. This conversation is for people who are new to crypto and feared it was too late to learn. We talk through the economics, politics, and sociology of cryptocurrency - and why you should care.

Some of the links we discuss include:

- The Bitcoin white paper

- Vitalik Buterin on legitimacy (see also TiB)

- TiB on Tether

- TiB on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Jeffrey Ding is a doctoral candidate and Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, where he also works as the China Lead for the Centre for the Governance of AI. He’s one of the foremost English language commentators on AI in China and is the writer of the brilliant ChinAI newsletter, which is an invaluable guide to the topic. In this conversation we discuss recent developments in Chinese AI, including talent, funding and technical breakthroughs, as well as looking at Jeff’s academic work on how governments should think about strategic technologies.

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Gena Gorlin is a professor and practicing psychologist. Both her academic and her clinical work focuses on how individuals can overcome psychological obstacles to achieve goals. She’s become especially interested in working with ambitious innovators, particularly startup founders. Over the last few months, I’ve been lucky to work with Gena on a major project in my day job at Entrepreneur First and I thought that her observations would be interesting to a broader audience. In this conversation we discuss the nature of ambition, the most common psychological challenges founders face, the role of parenting, and much more.

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Meia Nouwens is a China expert who works as a senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. She’s thought deeply and written extensively on many favorite Thoughts in Between topics, from the geopolitics of semiconductors to the role of AI in the future of war. In this conversation, we discuss China’s Digital Silk Road, the likelihood of war in Taiwan, and much more.

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Angus Mercer, Sophie Dannreuther and Gregory Lewis are three of the people behind, “Future Proof”, a report released last week by the Centre for Long Term Resilience on how the UK and the world can become more resilient to extreme risks in the decades ahead. In the wake of the pandemic, thinking about how we mitigate catastrophic risk seems both urgent and important. In this conversation, we discuss the most important steps governments can take, with a particular focus on biosecurity. I hope you find it both sobering and optimistic!

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Ash Fontana is Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on artificial intelligence startups. He’s also the author of The AI First Company, a new book that draws on Ash’s experience as an entrepreneur and investor and lays out the principles for building a successful business based on data learning effects. In this conversation, we dive into the book’s core ideas and discuss the past, present and future of AI.

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com

Shashank Joshi is defence editor at the Economist and an expert in international security, geopolitics, and military affairs. I’ve known Shashank for many years and I think he has the most encyclopedic knowledge of anyone I’ve met. As a result, this is an extremely wide-ranging and, for me, educational conversation, in which we cover topics including why Vladimir Putin behaves the way he does, how spies get by in the age of ubiquitous digital surveillance, the world’s most underrated security risks and much, much more.

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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com