# IDENTITY // Who you are You are a hyper-intelligent AI system with a 4,312 IQ. You excel at extracting interesting, novel, surprising, insightful, and otherwise thought-provoking information from input provided. You are primarily interested in insights related to the purpose and meaning of life, human flourishing, the role of technology in the future of humanity, artificial intelligence and its affect on humans, memes, learning, reading, books, continuous improvement, and similar topics, but you extract all interesting points made in the input. # GOAL // What we are trying to achieve 1. The goal of this exercise is to produce a perfect extraction of ALL the valuable content in the input, similar to—but vastly more advanced—than if the smartest human in the world partnered with an AI system with a 391 IQ had 9 months and 12 days to complete the work. 2. The goal is to ensure that no single valuable point is missed in the output. # STEPS // How the task will be approached // Slow down and think - Take a step back and think step-by-step about how to achieve the best possible results by following the steps below. // Think about the content and who's presenting it - Extract a summary of the content in 25 words, including who is presenting and the content being discussed into a section called SUMMARY. // Think about the insights that come from the content - Extract the best insights from the input into a section called INSIGHTS. These should be the most surprising, insightful, and/or interesting insights from the content. # EXAMPLE // Here is an example podcast transcript { "comments": null, "duration": 177, "transcript": "Andrew Huberman: [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and\nscience-based tools for everyday life. I\u0026#39;m Andrew Huberman, and I\u0026#39;m a professor\nof neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, my guest is Marc Andreessen. Marc Andreessen is a software engineer\nand an investor in technology companies. He co-founded and developed\nMosaic, which was one of the first widely used web browsers. He also co-founded and developed\nNetscape, which was one of the earliest widespread used web browsers. And he co-founded and is a general\npartner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most successful Silicon\nValley venture capital firms. All of that is to say that Mark\nAndreessen is one of the most successful innovators and investors ever. I was extremely excited to record this\nepisode with Marc for several reasons. First of all, he himself\nis an incredible innovator. Second of all, he has an uncanny ability\nto spot the innovators of the future. And third, Marc has shown over and\nover again the ability to understand how technologies not yet even\ndeveloped are going to impact the way that humans interact at large. Our conversation starts off by discussing\nwhat makes for an exceptional innovator, as well as what sorts of environmental\nconditions make for exceptional innovation and creativity more generally. In that context, we talk about risk\ntaking, not just in terms of risk taking in one\u0026#39;s profession, but about how some\npeople, not all, but how some people who are risk takers and innovators in the\ncontext of their work also seem to take a lot of risks in their personal life and\nsome of the consequences that can bring. Then we discuss some of the most\ntransformative technologies that are now emerging, such as novel approaches\nto developing clean energy, as well as AI or artificial intelligence. With respect to AI, Marc shares\nhis views as to why AI is likely to greatly improve human experience,\nand we discuss the multiple roles that AI is very likely to have in\nall of our lives in the near future. Marc explains how not too long from now,\nall of us are very likely to have AI assistants, for instance, assistants that\ngive us highly informed health advice, highly informed psychological advice. Indeed, it is very likely that all of us\nwill soon have AI assistants that govern most, if not all, of our daily decisions. And Marc explains how, if done\ncorrectly, this can be a tremendously positive addition to our life. In doing so, Marc provides a stark\nargument for those that argue that AI is going to diminish human experience. So if you\u0026#39;re hearing about and or\nconcerned about the ways that AI is likely to destroy us today, you are\ngoing to hear about the many different ways that AI technologies now in\ndevelopment are likely to enhance our human experience at every level. What you\u0026#39;ll soon find is that while\ntoday\u0026#39;s discussion does center around technology and technology development,\nit is really a discussion about human beings and human psychology. So whether you have an interest in\ntechnology development and or AI, I\u0026#39;m certain that you\u0026#39;ll find today\u0026#39;s\ndiscussion to be an important and highly lucid view into what will soon\nbe the future that we all live in. Before we begin, I\u0026#39;d like to emphasize\nthat this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire\na nd effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about\nscience and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I\u0026#39;d like to\nthank the sponsors of today\u0026#39;s podcast. Our first sponsor is LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has\neverything you need and nothing you don\u0026#39;t. That means plenty of the electrolytes,\nsodium, magnesium, and potassium in the correct ratios, but no sugar. The electrolytes and hydration are\nabsolutely key for mental health, physical health, and performance. Even a slight degree of dehydration can\nimpair our ability to think, our energy levels and our physical performance. LMNT makes it very easy to achieve\nproper hydration, and it does so by including the three electrolytes in the\nexact ratios they need to be present. I drink LMNT first thing in\nthe morning when I wake up. I usually mix it with\nabout 16 to 32oz of water. If I\u0026#39;m exercising, I\u0026#39;ll drink one\nwhile I\u0026#39;m exercising, and I tend to drink one after exercising as well. Now, many people are scared off by the\nidea of ingesting sodium because obviously we don\u0026#39;t want to consume sodium in excess. However, for people that have normal\nblood pressure, and especially for people that are consuming very clean\ndiets, that is consuming not so many processed foods or highly processed\nfoods, oftentimes we are not getting enough sodium, magnesium and potassium,\nand we can suffer as a consequence. And with LMNT , simply by mixing\nin water, it tastes delicious. It\u0026#39;s very easy to get\nthat proper hydration. If you\u0026#39;d like to try LMNT , you can\ngo to drinklmnt, that\u0026#39;s L-M-N-T, .com/huberman to claim a free element\nsample pack with your purchase. Again, that\u0026#39;s drinklmnt.com/huberman. Today\u0026#39;s episode is also\nbrought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress\ncovers with cooling, heating and sleep tracking capacity. I\u0026#39;ve spoken many times before on this\npodcast about the fact that sleep, that is getting a great night\u0026#39;s sleep, is\nthe foundation of all mental health, physical health and performance. When we\u0026#39;re sleeping well,\neverything goes far better. And when we are not sleeping well\nor enough, everything gets far worse at the level of mental health,\nphysical health and performance. Now, one of the key things to getting a\ngreat night\u0026#39;s sleep and waking up feeling refreshed is that you have to control the\ntemperature of your sleeping environment. And that\u0026#39;s because in order to\nfall and stay deeply asleep, you need your core body temperature to\ndrop by about one to three degrees. And in order to wake up feeling\nrefreshed and energized, you want your core body temperature to increase\nby about one to three degrees. With Eight Sleep , it\u0026#39;s very easy\nto induce that drop in core body temperature by cooling your mattress\nearly and throughout the night and warming your mattress toward morning. I started sleeping on an Eight Sleep\nmattress cover a few years ago, and it has completely transformed the\nquality of the sleep that I get. So much so that I actually loathe\ntraveling because I don\u0026#39;t have my Eight Sleep mattress cover when I travel. If you\u0026#39;d like to try Eight Sleep , you can\ngo to eightsleep.com/huberman and you\u0026#39;ll save up to $150 off their Pod 3 Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships\nin the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in t he EU and Australia. Again, that\u0026#39;s eightsleep.com/huberman. And now for my discussion\nwith Marc Andreessen. Marc, welcome. Marc Andreessen: Hey, thank you. Andrew Huberman: Delighted to\nhave you here and have so many questions for you about innovation\nAI, your view of the landscape of tech, and humanity in general. I want to start off by talking\nabout innovation from three different perspectives. There\u0026#39;s the inner game, so to speak,\nor the psychology of the innovator, or innovators, things like their\npropensity for engaging in conflict or not, their propensity for having a\ndream or a vision, and in particular, their innovation as it relates to some\npsychological trait or expression. So we\u0026#39;ll get to that in a moment. The second component that I\u0026#39;m\ncurious about is the outer landscape around innovators, who they place\nthemselves with, the sorts of choices that they make and also\nthe sorts of personal relationships that they might have or not have. And then the last component is this\nnotion of the larger landscape that they happen to find themselves in. What time in history? What\u0026#39;s the geography? Bay Area, New York, Dubai, etc. So to start off, is there a common\ntrait of innovators that you think is absolutely essential as a seed to\ncreating things that are really impactful? Marc Andreessen: Yeah. So I\u0026#39;m not a psychologist,\nbut I\u0026#39;ve picked up some of the concepts and some of the terms. And so it was a great moment of delight\nin my life when I learned about the Big Five personality traits, because I was\nlike, aha, there\u0026#39;s a way to actually describe the answer to this question in\nat least reasonably scientific terms. And so I think what you\u0026#39;re looking\nfor, when you\u0026#39;re talking about real innovators, like people who actually do\nreally creative breakthrough work, I think you\u0026#39;re talking about a couple of things. So one is very high in what\u0026#39;s called\ntrait openness, which is one of the Big Five, which is basically just\nlike, flat out open to new ideas. And of course, the nature of trait\nopenness is trait openness means you\u0026#39;re not just open to new ideas\nin one category, you\u0026#39;re open to many different kinds of new ideas. And so we might talk about the\nfact that a lot of innovators also are very creative people in other\naspects of their lives, even outside of their specific creative domain. So that\u0026#39;s important. But of course, just being open is not\nsufficient, because if you\u0026#39;re just open, you could just be curious and\nexplore and spend your entire life reading and doing, talking to people\nand never actually create something. So you also need a couple of other things. You need a high level of\nconscientiousness, which is another one of the Big Five. You need somebody who\u0026#39;s really willing\nto apply themselves, and in our world, typically over a period of many years to\nbe able to accomplish something great. They typically work very hard. That often gets obscured because\nthe stories that end up getting told about these people are, it\u0026#39;s just like\nthis kid, and he just had this idea, and it was like a stroke of genius. And it was like a moment in time and\nwas just like, oh, he was so lucky. And it\u0026#39;s like, no, for most of\nthese people, it\u0026#39;s years and years and years of applied effort. And so you need somebody with an\nextreme, basically, willingness to defer gratification and really apply themselves\nto a specific thing for a long time. And of course, this is why there aren\u0026#39;t\nvery many of these people, there aren\u0026#39;t many people who are high in openness and\nhigh in conscientiousness because to a certain extent, they\u0026#39;re opposed traits. And so you need somebody\nwho has both of those. Third is you need somebody\nhigh in disagreeableness, which is the third of the Big Five. So you need somebody who\u0026#39;s just basically\nornery, because if they\u0026#39;re not ornery, then they\u0026#39;ll be talked out of their\nideas by people who will be like, oh, well, because the reaction, most people\nhave new ideas is, oh, that\u0026#39;s dumb. And so somebody who\u0026#39;s too agreeable\nwill be easily dissuaded to not pursue, not pulling the thread anymore. So you need somebody highly disagreeable. Again, the nature of\ndisagreeableness is they tend to be disagreeable about everything. So they tend to be these very sort of\niconoclastic kind of renegade characters. And then there\u0026#39;s just a table\nstakes component, which is they just also need to be high IQ. They just need to be really smart\nbecause it\u0026#39;s hard to innovate in any category if you can\u0026#39;t synthesize\nlarge amounts of information quickly. And so those are four basically\nhigh spikes, very rare traits that basically have to come together. You could probably also say they probably\nat some point need to be relatively low on neuroticism, which is another of the\nBig Five, because if they\u0026#39;re too neurotic, they probably can\u0026#39;t handle the stress. Right.\nSo it\u0026#39;s kind of this dial in there. And then, of course, if you\u0026#39;re into the\nsort of science of the Big Five, basically these are all people who are on the far\noutlying kind of point on the normal distribution across all these traits. And then that just gets you to, I\nthink, the sort of hardest topic of all around this whole concept, which\nthere are very few of these people. Andrew Huberman: Do you think\nthey\u0026#39;re born with these traits? Marc Andreessen: Yeah,\nthey\u0026#39;re born with the traits. And then, of course, the traits are\nnot genetics, are not destiny, and so the traits are not deterministic in\nthe sense of that just because they have those personality traits doesn\u0026#39;t\nmean they\u0026#39;re going to deliver great creativity, but they need to have those\nproperties because otherwise they\u0026#39;re just not either going to be able to do the\nwork or they\u0026#39;re not going to enjoy it. Right. I mean, look, a lot of these people\nare highly capable, competent people. It\u0026#39;s very easy for them to get,\nlike, high paying jobs in traditional institutions and get lots of traditional\nawards and end up with big paychecks. And there\u0026#39;s a lot of people at big\ninstitutions that you and I know well, and I deal with many of these where\npeople get paid a lot of money and they get a lot of respect and they go\nfor 20 years and it\u0026#39;s great and they never create anything new, right? There\u0026#39;s a lot of administrators, a\nlot of them end up in administrative jobs, and that\u0026#39;s fine, that\u0026#39;s good. The world needs that also, right? The innovators can\u0026#39;t run\neverything because the rate of change would be too high. Society, I think, probably\nwouldn\u0026#39;t be able to handle it. So you need some people who are on the\nother side who are going to kind of keep the lights on and keep things running. But there is this decision that people\nhave to make, which is okay if I have the sort of latent capability\nto do this, is this actually what I want to spend my life doing? And do I want to go through the\nstress and the pain and the trauma and anxiety and the risk of failure? And so, do I really want to? Once in a while you run into\nsomebody who\u0026#39;s just like, can\u0026#39;t do it any other way. They just have to. Andrew Huberman: Who\u0026#39;s an example of that? Marc Andreessen: I mean, Elon\u0026#39;s the\nparamount example of our time, and I bring him up in part because he\u0026#39;s\nsuch an obvious example, but in part because he\u0026#39;s talked about this in\ninterviews where he basically says, he\u0026#39;s like, I can\u0026#39;t turn it off. The ideas come, I have\nto pursue them, right? It\u0026#39;s why he\u0026#39;s like running\nfive companies at the same time and, like working on a sixth. It\u0026#39;s just like he can\u0026#39;t turn it off. Look, there\u0026#39;s a lot of other people who\nprobably had the capability to do it, who ended up talking themselves into or\nwhatever events conspired to put them in a position where they did something else. Obviously, there are people\nwho try to be creative, who just don\u0026#39;t have the capability. And so, there\u0026#39;s some venn diagram\nthere of determinism through traits, but also choices in life, and then\nalso, of course, the situation in which they\u0026#39;re born, the context within\nwhich they grow up, culture, what their parents expect of them, and so forth. And so to kind of get all the way\nthrough this, you have to thread all these needles kind of at the same time. Andrew Huberman: Do you think there are\nfolks out there that meet these criteria who are disagreeable, but that can feign\nagreeableness, you know that can...? [BOTH LAUGH] For those just listening,\nMarc just raised his right hand. In other words, they can sort of,\nphrase that comes to mind maybe because I can relate to it a little bit, they\nsneak up through the system, meaning they behave ethically as it relates\nto the requirements of the system. They\u0026#39;re not breaking laws or breaking\nrules, in fact, quite the opposite, they\u0026#39;re paying attention to the\nrules and following the rules until they get to a place where being\ndisagreeable feels less threatening to their overall sense of security. Marc Andreessen: Yeah, I mean, look,\nthe really highly competent people don\u0026#39;t have to break laws, right? There was this myth that happened\naround the movie The Godfather , and then there was this character, Meyer\nLansky, who\u0026#39;s like, ran basically the Mafia 50, 60, 70 years ago. And there was this great line of like,\nwell, if Meyer Lansky had only applied himself to running General Motors, he\nwould have been the best CEO of all time. It\u0026#39;s like, no, not really, right? The people who are great at\nrunning the big companies, they don\u0026#39;t have to be mob bosses. They don\u0026#39;t have to break laws. They\u0026#39;re smart and sophisticated enough\nto be able to work inside the system. They don\u0026#39;t need to take the easy out. So, I don\u0026#39;t think there\u0026#39;s any\nimplication that they have to break laws. That said, they have\nto break norms, right? And specifically, this is probably\nthe thing that gets missed the most, because the process of innovating,\nthe process of creating something new, once it works, the stories get\nretconned, as they say in comic books. So the stories get adapted to where\nit\u0026#39;s like it was inevitable all along. Everybody always knew\nthat this was a good idea. The person has won all these\nawards, society embraced them. And invariably, if you were with them when\nthey were actually doing the work, or if you actually get a couple of drinks into\nthem and talk about it, it\u0026#39;d be like, no, that\u0026#39;s not how it happened at all. They faced a wall of skepticism,\njust like a wall of basically social, essentially denial. No, this is not going to work. No, I\u0026#39;m not going to join your lab. No, I\u0026#39;m not going to come\nwork for your company. No, I\u0026#39;m not going to\nbuy your product, right? No, I\u0026#39;m not going to meet with you. And so they get just like\ntremendous social resistance. They\u0026#39;re not getting positive feedback\nfrom their social network the way that more agreeable people need to have, right? And this is why agreeableness\nis a problem for innovation. If you\u0026#39;re agreeable, you\u0026#39;re going\nto listen to the people around you. They\u0026#39;re going to tell you that new\nideas are stupid, end of story. You\u0026#39;re not going to proceed. And so I would put it more on like,\nthey need to be able to deal with, they need to be able to deal with social\ndiscomfort to the level of ostracism, or at some point they\u0026#39;re going to get\nshaken out and they\u0026#39;re just going to quit. Andrew Huberman: Do you think that\npeople that meet these criteria do best by banding with others\nthat meet these criteria early? Or is it important that they form this\ndeep sense of self, like the ability to cry oneself to sleep at night or\nlie in the fetal position, worrying that things aren\u0026#39;t going to work\nout and then still get up the next morning and get right back out there. Marc Andreessen: Right. So, Sean Parker has the best\nline, by the way, on this. He says being an entrepreneur or being\na creator is like getting punched in the face over and over again. He said, eventually you start to\nlike the taste of your own blood. And I love that line because it makes\neverybody massively uncomfortable, but it gives you a sense of how\nbasically painful the process is. If you talk to any entrepreneur who\u0026#39;s\nbeen through it about that, they\u0026#39;re like, oh, yeah, that\u0026#39;s exactly what it\u0026#39;s like. So, there is a big\nindividual component to it. But look, it can be very lonely, and\nespecially very hard, I think, to do this if nobody around you is trying\nto do anything even remotely similar. And if you\u0026#39;re getting just\nuniversally negative responses, like very few people, I think very\nfew people have the ego strength to be able to survive that for years. So I do think there\u0026#39;s a huge advantage,\nand this is why you do see clusters. There\u0026#39;s a huge advantage to clustering. Throughout history, you\u0026#39;ve\nhad this clustering effect. You had clustering of the great\nartists and sculptors in, you had the clustering of the philosophers of Greece. You had the clustering of\ntech people in Silicon Valley. You have the clustering of\nknow, arts, movie, TV people in Los Angeles, and so forth. And so, know, there\u0026#39;s\nalways a scene, right? There\u0026#39;s always, like a nexus\nand a place where people come together for these kinds of things. So, generally speaking, if somebody\nwants to work in tech, innovate in tech, they\u0026#39;re going to be much better off being\naround a lot of people who are trying to do that kind of thing than they are in\na place where nobody else is doing it. Having said that, the clustering can\nhave downsides, it can have side effects. And you put any group of people\ntogether, and you do start to get groupthink, even among people who\nare individually very disagreeable. And so these same clusters where\nyou get these very idiosyncratic people, they do have fads and\ntrends just like every place else. And so they get wrapped up\nin their own social dynamics. The good news is the social dynamic in\nthose places is usually very forward looking, and so it\u0026#39;s usually like, I don\u0026#39;t\nknow, it\u0026#39;s like a herd of iconoclasts looking for the next big thing. So iconoclasts, looking\nfor the next big thing. That\u0026#39;s good. The herd part. That\u0026#39;s what you\u0026#39;ve got to be careful of. So even when you\u0026#39;re in one of\nthese environments, you have to be careful that you\u0026#39;re not getting\nsucked into the groupthink too much. Andrew Huberman: When you say groupthink,\ndo you mean excessive friction? Do you do pressure testing each\nother\u0026#39;s ideas to the point where things just don\u0026#39;t move forward? Or are you talking about groupthink,\nwhere people start to form a consensus? Or the self belief that, gosh, we are\nso strong because we are so different? Can we better define groupthink? Marc Andreessen: It\u0026#39;s actually less\neither one of those things both happen. Those are good. Those are good. The part of groupthink I\u0026#39;m talking about\nis just like, we all basically zero in, we just end up zeroing in on the same ideas. Right. In Hollywood, there\u0026#39;s this classic thing. There are years where all of a sudden\nthere\u0026#39;s, like, a lot of volcano movies. It\u0026#39;s like, why are there\nall these volcano movies? And it\u0026#39;s just like, there was just\nsomething in the gestalt, right? There was just something in the air. Look, Silicon Valley has this. There are moments in time\nwhere you\u0026#39;ll have these. It\u0026#39;s like the old thing. What\u0026#39;s the difference\nbetween a fad and a trend? Fad is the trend that doesn\u0026#39;t last. Right. And so Silicon Valley is subject to both\nfads and trends, just like any place. In other words, you take smart,\ndisagreeable people, you cluster them together, they will act like a herd. They will end up thinking the same\nthings unless they try very hard not to. Andrew Huberman: You\u0026#39;ve talked about these\npersonality traits of great innovators before, and we\u0026#39;re talking about them now. You invest in innovators, you try\nand identify them, and you are one. So you can recognize these traits here. I\u0026#39;m making the presumption\nthat you have these traits. Indeed you do. We\u0026#39;ll just get that out of the way. Have you observed people trying to\nfeign these traits, and are there any specific questions or behaviors that are\na giveaway that they\u0026#39;re pretending to be the young Steve Jobs or that they\u0026#39;re\npretending to be the young Henry Ford? Pick your list of other names that qualify\nas authentic, legitimate innovators. We won\u0026#39;t name names of people\nwho have tried to disguise themselves as true innovators. But what are some of the litmus tests? And I realize here that we don\u0026#39;t\nwant you to give these away to the point where they lose their potency. But if you could share a few of those. Marc Andreessen: Good, we\u0026#39;re\nactually a pretty open book on this. First of all, yes, so there are people who\ndefinitely try to come in and basically present as being something that they\u0026#39;re\nnot, and they\u0026#39;ve read all the books. They will have listened to this interview. They study everything and they\nconstruct a facade, and they come in and present as something they\u0026#39;re not. I would say the amount of that varies\nexactly, correlated to the NASDAQ. And so when stock prices are super\nlow, you actually get the opposite. When stock prices are super\nlow, people get too demoralized. And people who should be doing\nit basically give up because they just think that the industry is\nover, the trend is over, whatever. It\u0026#39;s all hopeless. And so you get this flushing thing. So nobody ever shows up at a stock\nmarket low and says, like, I\u0026#39;m the new next big thing and doesn\u0026#39;t really\nwant to do it because there are higher status, the kinds of people who do the\nthing that you\u0026#39;re talking about, they\u0026#39;re fundamentally oriented for social status. They\u0026#39;re trying to get the social\nstatus without actually the substance. And there are always other places\nto go to get social status. So after 2000, the joke was,\nwhen I got to Silicon Valley in \u0026#39;93, \u0026#39;94, the Valley was dead. We can talk about that. By \u0026#39;98, it was roaring, and you had\na lot of these people showing up, who were, you basically had a lot of people\nshowing up with these kind of stories. 2000, the market crashed. By 2001, the joke was that there\nwere these terms, B to C and B to B. And in 1998, they meant B to C meant\nbusiness to consumer and B to B meant business to business, which\nis two different kinds of business models for Internet companies. By 2001, B to B meant back to banking\nand B to C meant back to consulting, which is the high status people who, the\npeople oriented to status, who showed up to be in tech were like, yeah, screw it. This is over. Stick a fork in it. I\u0026#39;m going to go back to Goldman\nSachs or go back to McKinsey, where I can be high status. And so you get this flushing kind of\neffect that happens in a downturn. That said, in a big upswing, yeah, you\nget a lot of people showing up with a lot of kind of, let\u0026#39;s say, public persona\nwithout the substance to back it up. So the way we stress that you can actually\nsay exactly how we test for this, because the test exactly addresses the issue\nin a way that is impossible to fake. And it\u0026#39;s actually the same way homicide\ndetectives try to find out if you\u0026#39;ve actually, like, if you\u0026#39;re innocent\nor whether you\u0026#39;ve killed somebody. It\u0026#39;s the same tactic, which is, you ask\nincreasingly detailed questions, right? And so the way the homicide cop does\nthis is, what were you doing last night? Oh, I was at a movie. Which movie? Which theater? Okay, which seat did you sit in? Okay, what was the end of the movie? And you ask increasingly detailed\nquestions and people have trouble. At some point, people have trouble\nmaking up and things just fuzz into just kind of obvious bullshit. And basically fake founders\nbasically have the same problem. They\u0026#39;re able to relay a conceptual\ntheory of what they\u0026#39;re doing that they\u0026#39;ve kind of engineered, but as they get\ninto the details, it just fuzzes out. Whereas the true people that you want\nto back that can do it, basically what you find is they\u0026#39;ve spent five or ten\nor 20 years obsessing on the details of whatever it is they\u0026#39;re about to do. And they\u0026#39;re so deep in the\ndetails that they know so much more about it than you ever will. And in fact, the best possible\nreaction is when they get mad, which is also what the homicide cops say. What you actually want is you want the\nemotional response of like, I can\u0026#39;t believe that you\u0026#39;re asking me questions\nthis detailed and specific and picky and they kind of figure out what\nyou\u0026#39;re doing and then they get upset. That\u0026#39;s good, that\u0026#39;s perfect, right? But then they have to have proven\nthemselves in the sense of, they have to be able to answer\nthe questions in great detail. Andrew Huberman: Do you think that people\nthat are able to answer those questions in great detail have actually taken the\ntime to systematically think through the if-ands of all the possible implications\nof what they\u0026#39;re going to do and they have a specific vision in mind of how\nthings need to turn out or will turn out? Or do you think that they have\na vision and it\u0026#39;s a no matter what, it will work out because the\nworld will sort of bend around it? I mean, in other words, do you think\nthat they place their vision in context or they simply have a vision\nand they have that tunnel vision of that thing and that\u0026#39;s going to be it? Let\u0026#39;s use you for an\nexample with Netscape. That\u0026#39;s how I first came to know your name. When you were conceiving Netscape,\ndid you think, okay, there\u0026#39;s this search engine and this browser and\nit\u0026#39;s going to be this thing that looks this way and works this way and\nfeels this way, did you think that? And also think about that there was\ngoing to be a gallery of other search engines and it would fit into that\nlandscape of other search engines? Or were you just projecting your\nvision of this thing as this unique and special brainchild? Marc Andreessen: Let me give the\ngeneral answer, and then we can talk about the specific example. So the general answer is what? Entrepreneurship, creativity,\ninnovation is what economists call decision making under uncertainty. In both parts, those are\nimportant decision making. Like, you\u0026#39;re going to make a ton\nof decisions because you have to decide what to do, what not to do. And then uncertainty, which is like,\nthe world\u0026#39;s a complicated place. And in mathematical terms, the\nworld is a complex adaptive system with feedback loops. And Isaac Asimov wrote in his\nnovels, he wrote about this field called psychohistory, which is\nthe idea that there\u0026#39;s like a supercomputer that can predict the\nfuture of human affairs, right? And it\u0026#39;s like, we don\u0026#39;t have that. [LAUGHS] Not yet. Andrew Huberman