Nat Friedman (Github CEO) — Reading ancient scrolls, open source, & AI

Nat Friedman was the CEO of Github from 2018 to 2021. Before that, he started and sold two companies - Ximian and Xamarin. He is also the founder of AI Grant and California YIMBY. And most recently, he has created and funded the Vesuvius Challenge - a million dollar prize for reading an unopened Herculaneum scroll for the very first time. If we can uncover these scrolls, we may be able to recover lost gospels, forgotten epics, and missing works of Aristotle. We also discuss the future of open source and AI, running Github and building Copilot, and why EMH is a lie. Vesuvius Challenge: https://scrollprize.org/ Nat's Wisdom: https://nat.org/ Nat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/natfriedman 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/nat-friedman * Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3TCHFcY * Spotify: https://spoti.fi/42rce9v 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 - Vesuvius Challenge 00:30:00 - Finding points of leverage 00:37:39 - Open Source in AI 00:40:32 - Github Acquisition 00:50:18 - Copilot origin Story 01:11:47 - Nat.org 01:32:56 - Questions from Twitter

Nat FriedmanguestDwarkesh Patelhost

Mar 22, 20231h 38mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: March 22, 2023
Duration: 1h 38m
Channel: Dwarkesh Podcast
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Nat Friedman was the CEO of Github from 2018 to 2021. Before that, he started and sold two companies - Ximian and Xamarin. He is also the founder of AI Grant and California YIMBY. And most recently, he has created and funded the Vesuvius Challenge - a million dollar prize for reading an unopened Herculaneum scroll for the very first time. If we can uncover these scrolls, we may be able to recover lost gospels, forgotten epics, and missing works of Aristotle. We also discuss the future of open source and AI, running Github and building Copilot, and why EMH is a lie. Vesuvius Challenge: https://scrollprize.org/ Nat's Wisdom: https://nat.org/ Nat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/natfriedman 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒
Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/nat-friedman
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3TCHFcY
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/42rce9v
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 - Vesuvius Challenge 00:30:00 - Finding points of leverage 00:37:39 - Open Source in AI 00:40:32 - Github Acquisition 00:50:18 - Copilot origin Story 01:11:47 - Nat.org 01:32:56 - Questions from Twitter

SPEAKERS

Nat Friedman
guest
Dwarkesh Patel
host
Narrator
other

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Nat Friedman and Dwarkesh Patel, Nat Friedman (Github CEO) — Reading ancient scrolls, open source, & AI explores nat Friedman on decoding ancient scrolls, AI, and open source leverage Nat Friedman discusses the Vesuvius Challenge, an open competition he’s funding to virtually read carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum using advanced CT scanning and machine learning, potentially doubling surviving texts from antiquity.

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