Smart Friends
Eric Jorgenson
Casual conversations with founders, technologists, investors, and artists about building a brighter future, together. Welcome to our digital living room. With science, technology and entrepreneurship we can *continue* to create unfathomable leaps in quality of life. We show you how to find, apply, build, and invest in technologies to change your life and the world. When we have smart friends, we do smart things. When we do smart things, we save the world. No matter who, where, or when you are – now you have smart friends, too. Outside this podcast, I’m the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and The Anthology of Balaji. Connect at ejorgenson.com Laugh and learn with people like Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant, Andrew Wilkinson, Austen Allred, David Senra, Josh Storrs Hall, Ashley Rindsberg, Zach Pettet, Bret Kugelmass, Omar ElNaggar, Grace Guo, Brett Kopf, Max Olson, Chris Williamson, Shane Mac, Tim Hwang, David Perell, Jason Hitchcock, Natalia Karayaneva, Sebastian Marshall, Taylor Pearson, Mitchell Baldridge and more.Join conversations with my partners in early-stage tech investing, Bo Fishback and Al Doan. Our Rolling Fun Episodes cover our investments and escapades as angel investors and startup helpers. We invest in startups creating the *next* industrial revolution. Learn more at rolling.fun“Surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future than of your past.”
Episodes
Mentioned books
43 snips
Sep 1, 2026 • 1h 5min
#106 130 Million Meals made by Robots: Rajat Bhageria of Chef Robotics
Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics and a pioneer in assistive computer vision, is building robots for food manufacturing. He discusses why previous food robots failed, the challenges of manipulating messy ingredients, and automating cold, repetitive assembly jobs. They explore specialized robots versus humanoids, personalized meals, safer and cheaper food, and Chef’s path from prepared meals to broader manufacturing.
61 snips
Jun 16, 2026 • 1h 14min
#105 Inside the Underground Meme Marketing World: Jason Levin of Memelord
Jason Levin, founder and CEO of MemeLord who builds AI-driven meme marketing tools. He discusses the midwit meme and how memes act as memetic warfare. He tells his internet origin story and how MemeLord scales with AI agents and owned meme pages. He explores using humor for serious brands, the coming robot-meme wave, astroturfed virality, guerrilla stunts, and building worlds around companies.
119 snips
Jun 2, 2026 • 1h 11min
#104 The Elite Private High School Where Students Earn A Million Dollars: [Nat Eliason of Founder School (via Alpha)]
Nat Eliason, entrepreneur and writer who launched Founder School at Alpha, aims to train teenage founders with a million-dollar-by-graduation guarantee. They discuss compressing academics with AI tutors to free afternoons, a sales-first freshman year, replicating Stanford’s startup advantages for teens, the $150K tuition and boarding model, and a ten-year plan to scale to thousands of students.
158 snips
May 19, 2026 • 2h 9min
#103 How to Destroy Bad Ideas Without Killing Relationships [The Dionysus Program with Sean Devine]
Sean Devine, author of The Dionysus Program and operator-investor who helps teams metabolize error, joins to explore identity, ritual, and organizational learning. He defines Apollo versus Dionysus and why ritual time and runtime both matter. Discussions cover building trust for hard conversations, anti‑scapegoat practices, and using metabolic rate as an investment edge.
290 snips
May 5, 2026 • 1h 19min
#102 The Next Renaissance, AI Reality vs Hype, and a Movement of Hope with Zack Kass
Zack Kass, former OpenAI go-to-market lead and author focused on human-centered AI, explores AI as infrastructure, not just a tool. He talks about translating tech for everyday people. He digs into why society adopts breakthroughs slowly, how automation may reshape identity and purpose, and why housing, local community, and civic life matter in an AI-filled future.
348 snips
Apr 7, 2026 • 1h 35min
The Book of Elon - Part 4
Eric Jorgensen, author and curator of The Book of Elon, offers a concise guide to Musk’s priorities. He covers companies-as-philanthropy, tunneling into genetics and synthetic RNA, and the push to take risks early in life. Topics include urgency in innovation, Neuralink and brain interfaces, autonomy replacing driving, Mars colonization logistics, and civilizational risks like AI and population decline.
551 snips
Apr 7, 2026 • 1h 44min
The Book of Elon - Part 3
A free audiobook release walks through Elon Musk's journey from South Africa to founding Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX. It covers bold bets like leaving grad school, reinvesting early exits, and the strategy of starting premium to fund mass-market products. The narrative highlights early failures, rapid iteration, and the push for reusable rockets and a multi-planet future.
501 snips
Apr 7, 2026 • 1h 10min
The Book of Elon - Part 2
A free audiobook release dives into unconventional thinking, frontline leadership, and ruthless humility. It covers building hard-driving teams, fostering a maker culture, and hiring exceptional problem solvers. Manufacturing, iterative testing, and simplicity in design get heavy focus. Speed, feedback over feelings, and attacking production constraints are recurring themes.
794 snips
Apr 7, 2026 • 1h 6min
The Book of Elon - Part 1
A free audiobook release explores engineering-driven missions, radical product launches, and the grind of extreme work ethic. It covers first principles thinking, obsession with truth and physics, and creating more than you consume. The discussion highlights probabilistic foresight, tunneling innovations, and why execution and manufacturing beat mere ideas.
135 snips
Mar 24, 2026 • 9min
The Book of Elon launches today
A creator explains five years of research to compile a practical collection of Elon Musk’s ideas in his voice. They describe the book’s mission to be immediately useful and widely accessible, including free digital and audio versions. Listeners hear about Musk’s species-level goals, efforts to inspire future entrepreneurs, and simple ways to support the launch.
