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People I (Mostly) Admire

6. Nathan Myhrvold: “I Am Interested in Lots of Things, and That's Actually a Bad Strategy”

People I (Mostly) Admire

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.61.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

He graduated high school at 14, and by 23 had several graduate degrees and was a research assistant with Stephen Hawking. He became the first chief technology officer at Microsoft (without having ever studied computer science) and then started a company focused on big questions — like how to provide the world with clean energy and how to optimize pizza-baking. Find out what makes Nathan Myhrvold’s fertile mind tick, and which of his many ideas Steve Levitt likes the most.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Problems that are hard are usually hard because of the set of perspectives and tools that have been used to try to solve them.

0:12.0

So you have to solve them.

0:13.0

So you have to always ask,

0:15.0

and I'm bringing something new to this problem.

0:18.0

And if you're not, then you should say,

0:22.0

well, maybe I should either try to get a different perspective or a

0:25.8

different tool or any of a thing or maybe give it a rest and work on something that

0:29.7

I can be a little more progress with.

0:40.0

So there are people who know a lot about a few narrow topics, and then there are other people who know a little bit about just about everything. And then there's Nathan Meirveld, who knows everything about everything about everything.

0:48.0

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Leavitt.

0:54.7

I first met Nathan maybe a decade ago.

0:57.5

And from the very first time I met him,

1:00.0

I was just blown away by his intellect and his enthusiasm.

1:04.8

And I've never asked him a question

1:08.1

where he didn't give me an answer that was just profound

1:11.8

and detailed and knowledgeable. what I love about talking to Nathan

1:16.4

is not only that I learn a lot from him but somehow he makes me feel like

1:21.3

everything in the world is interesting.

1:25.0

Nathan Mervold, physicist and inventor, cookbook author,

1:31.0

archaeologists, tech mogul, scholar of penguin poop and dinosaur sex.

1:36.0

Let's just start at the beginning.

1:37.4

You graduated from high school

...

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