EP 70: Tim Urban (Author, "Wait But Why") on Wokeness, AI Girlfriends and Humans Living to 150 Years Old

Tim Urban is the Author of the blog "Wait But Why" and has one of the most listened-to Ted talks of all time. His work covers a broad range of topics from why we procrastinate, to how much time we have left with our parents, to breaking down the US involvement in the Iraq war. In this episode, Logan and Tim dive into some of the ideas that Tim has written about, as well as newer topics like the role AI will play in social relationships and how genetic engineering could impact the human lifespan. 

(0:00) Intro

(1:23) Welcome Tim Urban

(5:11) Thousand-page book

(18:40) Living to 150 Years Old

(24:04) Looking back on eating meat

(29:39) Changing expectations of success

(36:01) Shortform vs longform writing

(42:11) TikTok and different internets for different audiences

(49:10) College is an eternity

(55:39) North star for writing

(1:03:03) Tim's favorite part besides publishing

(1:17:55) Tribalism, wokeness, and politics

(1:43:25) Awareness and Courage

(1:52:01) Keeping identity small

(1:57:16) Feeling different about old blog posts

(2:03:55) AI Girlfriends

(2:08:19) Talking Elon

(2:15:54) Advice on picking a career

(2:21:43) AI and will it kill humanity?

(2:30:51) Signing up for Cryonics

(2:34:25) Twitter Talk

(2:38:15) Disagreeing with conventional wisdom
 

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson
 

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/three-cartoon-avatars/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg
 

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
 

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow
 

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.

Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.