The Fire Next Time

The Fire Next Time

"God showed Noah by the rainbow sign / no more water, but fire next time." Our world is full of systems built on fairytales of eternal economic growth, that have been pushed beyond their breaking point. Maomao Hu explores how things are today and how they can be in the future with guests from diverse fields, in the hope we'll do better next time. read less

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Growing – Shikshya Khatiwada, The Fire Next Time #7

Growing – Shikshya Khatiwada, The Fire Next Time #7

I’ve always seen personal development and learning as my real job in life. I don’t even necessarily enjoy doing these things, but ultimately they equip me with the tools to continue to survive and push back my fear of death to manageable levels. So it was wonderful to chat on this topic with my dear friend Shikshya Khatiwada, who is one of the toughest, scrappiest, most adaptable people I know, and who has never, ever stopped evolving. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/XNYpuVNrEZc Shikshya was the project lead on the very first engagement of my career. That was a strange time in my life. I was fresh out of school and full of vigor to do, I don’t even know, fuckin something. It was at this time that I was tasked with building out an AI practice for the North American branch of a financial services management consulting firm of around a thousand people. I didn’t know shit about finance or consulting and barely knew anything about AI. In retrospect I think I overachieved spectacularly w

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Growing – Shikshya Khatiwada, The Fire Next Time #7

Growing – Shikshya Khatiwada, The Fire Next Time #7

I’ve always seen personal development and learning as my real job in life. I don’t even necessarily enjoy doing these things, but ultimately they equip me with the tools to continue to survive and push back my fear of death to manageable levels. So it was wonderful to chat on this topic with my dear friend Shikshya Khatiwada, who is one of the toughest, scrappiest, most adaptable people I know, and who has never, ever stopped evolving. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/XNYpuVNrEZc Shikshya was the project lead on the very first engagement of my career. That was a strange time in my life. I was fresh out of school and full of vigor to do, I don’t even know, fuckin something. It was at this time that I was tasked with building out an AI practice for the North American branch of a financial services management consulting firm of around a thousand people. I didn’t know shit about finance or consulting and barely knew anything about AI. In retrospect I think I overachieved spectacularly w

What the future looks like – Amit Pradhan, The Fire Next Time #6

What the future looks like – Amit Pradhan, The Fire Next Time #6

A few weeks back, I was in SF and just missed Amit Pradhan, with whom I recorded a podcast on how to live in the future over a year ago. You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/SL82mmGnWEI I did manage to catch up with Jason Kende, and had a fascinating conversation with a brilliant friend of his. She told me how she had spent some time a few years ago to project how the world might change over the next 50 years in order to map out her own decisions. She really focused on the inevitability of the singularity, in this case defined as the emergence of exponentially superintelligent AI, the eventual creation of two classes of people based on their proximity to neural uplink technology, and the need to stay ahead of the curve. As some of you may remember, I went through a phase right before graduating college where I was unhealthily obsessed with AI safety. I was consumed with fear from ideas like the paperclip problem, where a superintelligent AI misinterprets a

Empathy – Noah Klein, The Fire Next Time #5

Empathy – Noah Klein, The Fire Next Time #5

Empathy is something that’s always fascinated me. As a professional communicator and one of the most interesting people I know, I felt Noah Klein would have a lot to say on the topic, and I wasn’t disappointed. Here it is: https://youtu.be/BGu2LT1pLbQ I became interested in empathy around the same time I got hooked on AI. It takes a lot of empathy to work with machine learning based AIs. That might sound weird, but think about it this way. Training an ML model is like teaching a child, in that you can show them how it’s done, but you can’t guarantee they’ll listen to you. If your model isn’t producing what you want, you need to examine what you’re telling it (the data) and how it learns (the algorithm), just like you would a child. Through your conversation with the model, it starts to reflect your understanding of the world, and it comes alive. I think that is part of the allure of AI, is that it talks back to us when we’re so utterly alone. Yes, there are plent

The sacred tribe of bankers – Barry James, The Fire Next Time #4

The sacred tribe of bankers – Barry James, The Fire Next Time #4

Some time ago, a friend told me about a heart-rending experience she had, where she lost her best friend and the love of her life. I could feel the hurt and sadness pouring out of her, more than I had ever seen up close, and I told her I wished I could feel what she was feeling. Before I could finish, she snapped back that no, I never, NEVER wanted to feel any of it. That she knew I was trying to emphasize, but it wasn’t helpful and what she had been through was something no one should ever experience. Later on, I was devastated by a catastrophe of my own, and I felt that finally I was going through the same thing as her. Maybe more, maybe less. It’s meaningless to compare sadness. And I didn’t wish it on anyone. It took a long time to work through it and forgive myself. I know that most people out there have been hurt deeply in their own way, and have had to learn to process that trauma. I feel that from the Obama administration, and probably earlier, millions of people have le

Missing the monetary system for the money – Robert Greene, The Fire Next Time #3

Missing the monetary system for the money – Robert Greene, The Fire Next Time #3

Financial infrastructure is an obtuse and arcane subject, and I’m always grateful to talk things through with a specialist like Robert Greene. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are a topic we’ve discussed at length before, but it seems recent events have really pushed them to the forefront. I do want to emphasize the views below are mine and not necessarily Robert’s – check out the video to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjADjlJd90Q. CBDCs have always been mystifying to me. Let’s be honest, almost no one has any idea what a CDBC really is. The various schemes that have been thrown around vary widely in both function and specificity. Libra has shifted significantly since it was announced and has given up on its original goal of a multi-asset backed global currency, opting for the much simpler design of digital versions of existing currencies. It reminds me a lot of my favorite definition of AI: “AI is what computers do in movies.” In that same vein,

More empathy in the digital economy – Navroop Sahdev, The Fire Next Time #2

More empathy in the digital economy – Navroop Sahdev, The Fire Next Time #2

Whenever I’ve got a tricky economics problem, Navroop Sahdev is the first person I turn to. I’ve been privileged enough to get her advice on two projects in the past, and this was no exception. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgFrdSD9Da8 It was a wide-ranging conversation, where we unearthed one contradiction after another. We talk about the digital economy, and how much it’s going to drive things going forward. But we also talk about Tyler Cowen’s Average is Over, which predicts middle-skill, middle-income jobs will be hardest hit by advances in technology. In this scenario, the remaining jobs will be split into highly paid “haves” reaping the benefits of technology and low-paid “have nots” that fill in the gaps. Relying on future digital growth while also avoiding its polarizing effects isn’t going to be easy. To be honest, I don’t think the key lies in how we design social programs or how they’re implemented. I think the key

Central bank, stock buybacks and tech investment – Paul Schulte, The Fire Next Time #1

Central bank, stock buybacks and tech investment – Paul Schulte, The Fire Next Time #1

I recorded this with the incomparable Paul Schulte three weeks ago, right around when markets were going crazy. But I think we’re still in the same state: trepidation at what’s happening and shock at what’s being done to fix things. Paul’s one of the most experienced and erudite people I know when it comes to financial markets, especially around Asia, and it’s always enlightening to get his view on things. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ToACh5Hsc We mostly talk about the market crash, and what we’re going to do about it. During the bloodbath in March, I kept feeling that absolutely no one was surprised. The last few months, I’ve kept hearing the phrase “Grey Rhino”. And that’s what this was. It was a threat we all knew was coming. When it happened, it felt like an annoying guest showing up three hours late. What shocked me was what happened next. The Fed came out and sliced interest rates straight to zero. Besides the existing repo liquid

The end and beginning of financial systems: The Fire Next Time #0

The end and beginning of financial systems: The Fire Next Time #0

Welcome to the zeroth edition of The Fire Next Time Podcast/Newsletter. The world’s in a really weird place right now, and I want to talk about it with you and figure out where we’re going. This first video I want to share with you isn’t actually a podcast. It’s a presentation I gave in NYC at Lair East on February 11th, 2020, that was supposed to be about how our financial system was being pushed to the brink in a world drowning in artificial liquidity. I wasn’t in New York that day. Instead, I was halfway around the world in Japan, holed up away from the coronavirus. The talk itself is unfinished. I had made no slides when the day came, and when I woke up early to slam some slides out I felt like I was back in college, rushing out another essay that no one would read. Ever since I heard about the coronavirus, I felt that This Was It and my nerves were frayed from three weeks under a suffocating sense of crisis. The first half of the talk was about how fucked we