#827: Pablos Holman — One of The Scariest Hackers I’ve Ever Met

The Tim Ferriss Show

Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig

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4.6 • 17.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 152 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pablos Holman is a hacker and inventor and the author of Deep Future: Creating Technology that Matters, the indispensable guide to deep tech. Previously, Pablos worked on spaceships at Blue Origin and helped build The Intellectual Ventures Lab to invent a wide variety of breakthroughs. Pablos also hosts the Deep Future Podcast and is managing partner at Deep Future.

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:12 The hacker mindset

33:05 Nuclear

52:35 Autonomous ships

58:48 Pragmatic optimism

01:00:29 Risk tolerance

01:04:50 Blue Origin

01:11:59 Zero Effect philosophy

01:34:43 China

01:43:07 Taiwan

01:45:04 AI

01:50:42 Salsa

02:08:44 Deep tech investing

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show,
0:05.0	where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out how they do what they do.
0:10.4	My guest today terrified me so much when I first saw him in person, Pablo's Holman, that I effectively avoided him for 15 years, although we've crossed paths and now we are friendly, but I saw him
0:24.2	stealing a few dozen credit card numbers from people on the front row of an event using hacking
0:30.3	technology.
0:31.1	And I thought, you know what, maybe I should just keep my distance.
0:34.5	Pablo's Holman is a hacker and inventor and the best-selling author of
0:37.8	Deep Future, Creating Technology That Matters, the indispensable guide to Deep Tech. And we'll talk
0:43.6	all about what that means. Previously, Pablo's worked on spaceships at Blue Origin, you know,
0:48.5	that thing by Jeff Bezos, may have heard of him, and help build the intellectual ventures
0:52.4	lab to invent a wide variety of breakthroughs,
0:54.9	including a brain surgery tool, a machine to suppress hurricanes, 3D food printers, and a laser
1:00.6	that can shoot down mosquitoes, part of an impact invention effort to eradicate malaria with
1:05.4	Bill Gates. Pablo's hosts the Deep Future podcast, and his TED Talks have been viewed more than 30 million times.
1:12.2	He's also managing partner in Deep Future, investing in technologies to solve the world's biggest problems.
1:16.6	We talk about his upbringing in Alaska of all places, commonalities between skateboarding innovators and hackers in the more common computer science sense of the term. we get into all sorts of nooks and crannies.
1:31.8	And we have a few mutual friends in common.
1:34.9	So I was able to ask a lot of questions that were, I suppose, a bit from behind the scenes, which I really enjoyed.
1:41.3	So you can find all things Pablo's at deepfuture. Tech. You can find him
1:45.8	on X at Pablo's. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start
1:53.3	shaking. Can I answer your personal question? Now we'll just see an appropriate time.
1:58.4	What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endosclerosis.
	...

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