Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of C++, a programming language that after 40 years is still one of the most popular and powerful languages in the world. Its focus on fast, stable, robust code underlies many of the biggest systems in the world that we have come to rely on as a society. If you’re watching this on YouTube, many of the critical back-end component of YouTube are written in C++. Same goes for Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, most Microsoft applications, Adobe applications, most database systems, and most physical systems that operate in the real-world like cars, robots, rockets that launch us into space and one day will land us on Mars.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline with timestamps for this episode (on some players you can click on the timestamp to jump to that point in the episode):

00:00 – Introduction
01:40 – First program
02:18 – Journey to C++
16:45 – Learning multiple languages
23:20 – Javascript
25:08 – Efficiency and reliability in C++
31:53 – What does good code look like?
36:45 – Static checkers
41:16 – Zero-overhead principle in C++
50:00 – Different implementation of C++
54:46 – Key features of C++
1:08:02 – C++ Concepts
1:18:06 – C++ Standards Process
1:28:05 – Constructors and destructors
1:31:52 – Unified theory of programming
1:44:20 – Proudest moment