Patrick McKenzie — Money laundering, big tech censorship, SBF & Japan

I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence, and how a few individuals with high agency saved 1000s of lives. Plus unconstitutional censorship, money laundering, Factorio, and a friendly debate about crypto. Enjoy! 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/patrick-mckenzie * Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3RFuS7b/ * Spotify: http://spoti.fi/3APeQ3L * Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * This episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Go to https://stripe.com/ to learn more. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/advertise 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – Why hackers on Discord had to save thousands of lives 00:18:09 – How politics crippled common sense vaccine distribution 00:39:02 – Fundraising for VaccinateCA 00:51:52 – Why tech needs to understand how government works 00:59:41 – What is crypto good for? 01:13:50 – How the US government leverages big tech to violate rights 01:25:19 – Can the US have nice things like Japan? 01:27:24 – Financial plumbing & money laundering: a how-not-to guide 01:38:25 – Maximizing your value: why some people negotiate better 01:42:57 – Are young people too busy playing Factorio to found startups? 01:50:11 – Thinking well and finding true rigor 01:58:13 – The need for a post-mortem