#440 – Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2024
⏱️ 233 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/pieter-levels-transcript
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EPISODE LINKS:
Pieter's X: https://x.com/levelsio
Pieter's Techno Optimist Shop: https://levelsio.com/
Indie Maker Handbook: https://readmake.com/
Nomad List: https://nomadlist.com
Remote OK: https://remoteok.com
Hoodmaps: https://hoodmaps.com
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(11:38) - Startup philosophy
(19:09) - Low points
(22:37) - 12 startups in 12 months
(29:29) - Traveling and depression
(42:08) - Indie hacking
(46:11) - Photo AI
(1:22:28) - How to learn AI
(1:31:04) - Robots
(1:39:21) - Hoodmaps
(2:03:26) - Learning new programming languages
(2:12:58) - Monetize your website
(2:19:34) - Fighting SPAM
(2:23:07) - Automation
(2:34:33) - When to sell startup
(2:37:26) - Coding solo
(2:43:28) - Ship fast
(2:52:13) - Best IDE for programming
(3:01:43) - Andrej Karpathy
(3:11:09) - Productivity
(3:24:56) - Minimalism
(3:33:41) - Emails
(3:40:54) - Coffee
(3:48:40) - E/acc
(3:50:56) - Advice for young people
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Peter Levels, also known on X as Levels I.O. |
| 0:07.0 | He is a self-taught developer and entrepreneur who designed programs shipped and ran over 40 startups, many of which are hugely successful. |
| 0:17.2 | In most cases, he did it all by himself, while living the digital nomad life in over 40 countries and over 150 cities. |
| 0:27.0 | Programming on a laptop while chilling on a couch using vanilla HTML, J-quarrie, Ph.B, and the SQL Light. |
| 0:36.0 | He builds in ships quickly and improves on the fly, all in the open, |
| 0:41.0 | documenting his work, both his successes and failures, with a raw honesty of a true indie |
| 0:46.5 | hacker. |
| 0:47.5 | Peter is an inspiration to a huge number of developers and entrepreneurs who love creating cool things in the world |
| 0:55.3 | that are hopefully useful for people. This was an honor and a pleasure for me. |
| 1:06.4 | And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description that's the best way to support this podcast. We got Shopify for e-commerce, |
| 1:11.6 | motific for LLLL.M. and Rag Deployment, A.G. 1 for health, Masterclass for learning, |
| 1:19.2 | Better Help for the Mind, and 8 sleep for Naps. Choose wisely my friends. Also there's a bunch of ways to |
| 1:26.7 | get in touch with me by giving feedback, sending in questions that I can answer and all other kinds of ways if you go to Lex Freeman. |
| 1:35.2 | com slash contact and now onto the full ad reads. As always no ads in the middle |
| 1:40.0 | I try to make this interesting but if you skip them please still check out our sponsors I enjoy their stuff maybe you will too |
| 1:47.2 | This episode is brought to you by shopify a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. |
| 1:56.0 | I recently tweeted about my belief as it stands now that Kamala Harris is not a communist and that |
| 2:07.2 | Donald Trump is not a fascist and there's some other nuance in that tweet. |
| 2:13.0 | And the response I got, the attacks I got from both sides that are very intense, that disagree. |
| 2:20.0 | We're fascinating. |
| 2:21.0 | So one of the things I have on my to-do list is to do a lengthy video and a lengthy |
| 2:27.3 | podcast on communism and fascism and other economic and political systems. |
... |
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