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Dialectic: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Jackson Dahl
Conversational portraits of original people, across technology, media, business, and creativity. By Jackson Dahl.
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- 2 days ago2h 17m
62: Quinten Farmer - Technology That Helps Us Be
Quinten Farmer (X, LinkedIn) is a co-founder and the CEO of Tolan, which makes voice-first AI characters designed to be a friend and guide. He previously co-founded Even, a fintech company for workers with unpredictable paychecks, which was acquired in 2022. Quinten believes that we all deserve someone who believes in us unconditionally. Tolan is his attempt to give everyone that. We discuss technology that helps us be rather than do, building for people close to him, the early design decisions that shaped Tolan, and helping people grow in small, iterative ways. Then: morally opinionated technology and the sacred, why superintelligence became "the easy part," and Quinten’s dual life, splitting his weeks between San Francisco and a much slower life on an island in Washington State. I hope you’re inspired to show up for people, believe in them a little irrationally, and build things that stand for something. Full transcript & links: https://dialectic.fm/quinten-farmer --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is a collaborative workspace for your life’s work and a context system for everything you and your team use to work with each other and with AI. New models are available in Notion the day they launch, and you can work with agents you build in Notion or any other agents and tools you already use. Notion keeps every collaborator and agent on the same page. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps Intro to Quinten Start: Why Everyone Needs Someone Who Believes in Them Do vs. Be: What We Should Ask of Technology Quinten's First Company, Even, and Building for People Close to You Clarence, Quinten's Tolan Early Design Decisions: Non-human, Lore, Voice, and Presence Therapist vs. Supportive Friend & Growth One Small Step at a Time Bringing People Closer, Memory, and Why Tolans Forget Why You Can't Edit Your Tolan: Personality, Healthy Behavior, and a Point of View Morally Opinionated Technology, Religion, and the Sacred Personal Superintelligence and Why Everybody Needs a Cute Little Guy Kindness to Machines, Digital Spaces, and Naming Tolan New Characters and Demographics Pricing, Trust, and Avoiding Dark Patterns The Team at Tolan His Dual Life Between The Island and SF Spaces that Create Belonging Closing Questions
- 2 weeks ago1h 54m
61: Josh Miller - A Good Rectangle
Josh Miller (X, LinkedIn) is co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, makers of Dia and Arc. The Browser Company was acquired by Atlassian last year. Before The Browser Company, Josh was an investor at Thrive Capital, Director of Product in the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, and co-founder of Branch, which was acquired by Facebook. He studied sociology and has always been thoughtful about environments: institutions, companies, and digital and physical spaces. We talk about his effort to improve the space many of us spend our days in: the browser. We discuss the tension between Josh’s creative and commercial instincts, optimizing for feelings, and hiring unlikely stars. Josh reflects on much of the journey with Arc and Dia and why he’s still betting on the browser in the AI era, now as part of Atlassian. I hope you are inspired to believe in people and leave your fingerprints on what you create. Full transcript & links: https://dialectic.fm/josh-miller --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is a collaborative workspace for your life’s work and a hub for all the context you and your team use to work with each other and with AI. New models are available in Notion the day they launch, and you can work with agents you build in Notion or any other agents and tools you already use. As tools change, Notion is the Switzerland in the middle that keeps your context consistent across all of them. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps: Intro: Josh Miller Start: Not Commercial Enough & Optimizing for Feelings Sociology, the Obama White House, Thrive, and the 5% Favicon Bowling Alone, James Turrell, and Roden Crater Betting on People, Leaving Thrive, and Where Computing Goes “Assume You Don’t Know” and What Was Sacred at The Browser Company Intuition, Road Trips, and Leaving Fingerprints on Things Building in Public, Pulling Back, and the Road to Atlassian The Internet Computer in the AI Era: Codex, Cloud Browsers, and Why Everything Is Converging How Dia Wins Agents, Muse, and the Red Giraffe Software Is Becoming Art Believing in People, Leaving Facebook for the White House, and What’s Next Closing Questions Subscribe at newsletter.dialectic.fm for email updates.
- 3 weeks ago1h 56m
60: Patrick Hsu - Speedrunning the Infinite Game
Patrick Hsu (X, Website, Arc lab) is co-founder and core investigator of Arc Institute, assistant professor of pathology at Stanford, and venture partner at Thrive Capital. Patrick has always been precocious: he began college as a young teenager and contributed to early CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing breakthroughs as part of Feng Zhang’s lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Today, the Hsu Lab at Arc works where genome engineering meets AI, from bridge recombinases that can rearrange up to a million bases of DNA at once to Arc's Evo biological foundation models. We discuss Patrick’s pace and ambition, infinite games, and why he was drawn to biology. Then, we traverse power laws in biotech and the reach of GLP-1s, research taste and success, Arc’s multidisciplinary model, data limits in AI-enabled bio, and cell and bio foundation models. We also discuss how AI and new science will help us solve diseases, design life, and push the boundaries of sci-fi when it comes to human health. I hope you are inspired to raise your bar, commit to reinvention, and hold a lightness that makes the long and challenging journey fun. --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is a collaborative workspace for your life's work, and it works with whatever AI you use. New models are typically available in Notion the day they launch, you can tag agents from inside Notion, and you can tag Notion from your other AI tools. As the tools around you change, Notion stays the one place that holds your context. Notion is also hiring across product, engineering, design, storytelling, and more. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- This episode is supported by Google. Gemini 4 Argon recently launched and is built for long-horizon work. I used it inside Antigravity and gave it all 60 Dialectic transcripts: more than a million words. Instead of summarizing episodes one by one, Argon synthesized across them, tracing how ideas from early conversations connect to later ones. Together we made The Dialectic Compendium, an interactive book of the themes that run across the show, with a dossier on every episode and a 3D version you can page through on the web. Gemini 4 Argon is available in the Gemini app, Antigravity, Google AI Studio, and the Gemini API. Compendium: https://jacksondahl.com/dialectic/compendium --- Timestamps Opening Highlights Intro: Patrick Hsu Start: Boldness, Infinite Games, & Ambition GLP-1s and Power Laws in Biotechnology Expelled at 13 and Falling for Biology What Makes a Good Biologist, Research Taste, and Biology’s Data Challenges The Arc Model: Full-Stack Science Betting on People, Style, & Learning to Simplify Perturbation, World Models, and Evo Virtual Cell Models Designing Life: From Stem Cells to Genome Writing Testing, Bro Science, and Human Data Can It Exist vs. Will It Exist: Science Meets Markets Biofuturism: Interoception, Peptides, Muscle Modulation, Sleep, and New Forms of Life Fun, Obsolescence, Going Slow, and the Future Outro
- Oct 8, 20261h 49m
59: Joe Gebbia - Design We Deserve
Joe Gebbia (Website, X, LinkedIn, Wikipedia) is the first U.S. Chief Design Officer, leading the National Design Studio. He is also the co-founder of Airbnb and Samara. The NDS and this role were created by executive order of President Trump in August 2025. I met Joe Washington, D.C, to reflect on the past year and talk about bringing the care and ambition of great product design to the digital services that every American uses. Joe & NDS just launched America.gov, their flagship project of the last year: the central entry point for how Americans get what they need from the government. Joe believes that design is how you respect and value the people who use a product or service. At Airbnb, that meant helping strangers feel comfortable in each other’s homes. In government, it means refusing to accept a low bar for the websites and processes that Americans use to interact with the government. We begin with CritBuns, Joe’s RISD project that taught him that design is as much about storytelling as it is about product. Then, we discuss what he learned about designing for trust at Airbnb and his initial work at DOGE, streamlining and digitizing the federal retirement process. Joe walks me through America.gov, a single, AI-powered front door to government services. We discuss the challenges of scale and designing for people who are skeptical of both government and AI, including what it means to pass the “grandma test.” We wrap up with why ambitious technologists should aspire to work in government and his collaboration with Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk. I hope this conversation raises your expectations for the things we’ve learned to tolerate, and inspires you to think about how you might serve your community or your country. Full transcript & links at dialectic.fm/joe-gebbia --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. As new models and agents arrive constantly, Notion acts as a context and consolidation layer for all the ways you and your team work with AI: a command center or simply a resilience layer, so your context comes with you even if you switch models or agents. You can also work with agents right inside Notion and share skills with your team through the Skills API. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps: 0:00 Opening Highlights 1:26 Intro: Joe Gebbia 4:12 CritBuns & Why Design is Half Story 15:24 Airbnb, The Feeling of Belonging, & Designing for Trust 28:29 Public Service & Fixing Federal Retirement 42:16 Speed, Craft, and Respect 48:43 ND Studio Projects: TrumpRx, Trump Accounts, and Realfood.gov 56:18 America.gov: A New Front Door to Government 1:05:35 Trust, Privacy, and Government AI 1:15:30 America.gov’s Roadmap 1:19:54 Recruiting for ND Studio and Public Service 1:23:41 Reflecting on Year One & Passing the Grandma Test 1:31:05 A Ticking Clock Toward 2028 & Building Beyond One Administration 1:35:44 AI & Product Development 1:38:36 Closing Questions: Charles & Ray Eames, AirBnB Co-Founders, & Trust in People
- Oct 1, 20262h 6m
58: Adam Mastroianni - Let Me Be Useful
Adam Mastroianni (Website, X) is an experimental psychologist and the writer of Experimental History. He earned his PhD in psychology at Harvard before leaving academia to pursue research and writing independently. I first came across Adam through “Good conversations have lots of doorknobs,” which remains one of my favorite essays on Substack. We talk about why psychology is stuck, why science needs people willing to look stupid, and how prestige can lead you toward a life you don’t want. From there, unpack Adam’s coffee bean test for figuring out what to do, getting “de-bogged,” and what improv teaches us about better conversations (or: create doorknobs). We also discuss writing that surprises its author, his upcoming book, The Strangest Idea in the World, and the prayer he says before publishing: “Let me be useful.” I hope you leave a little more willing to question what seems obvious, risk looking stupid, and spend your time in ways you actually enjoy. Transcript & links: https://dialectic.fm/adam-mastroianni --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Notion AI works across your documents and context, while custom workers can automate recurring tasks and connect with your other tools. You can also explore Notion’s Knowledge Board, which evaluates how AI models perform on real knowledge-work tasks. Learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- This episode is supported by Google. Google Antigravity is Google’s agentic development platform. Describe what you want to build, and its agents can plan the work, write and run code, and test the result, with plans and changes you can review along the way. Gemini 3.5 Transcribe turns audio into text with a choice of verbatim and Smart modes. Verbatim mode keeps fillers and false starts, and supports speaker labels and word-level timestamps to help you check the transcript against the recording. Smart mode removes filler words and repetitions and formats speech into readable text. I used Antigravity and Gemini 3.5 Transcribe to build a Mac app for producing and reviewing Dialectic transcripts. --- Timestamps: 04:33 Start: Why Psychology is Stuck & The Focus of Adam's Blog 14:43 The Scientific Virtues of Stupidity and Rebellion & Escaping the Prestige Trap 25:08 Patronage for Weirdos 33:53 Progress in Psychology 52:15 Figuring Out What to Do, The Coffee Bean Test, and Unpacking Adam's Day-to-Day 01:03:22 Getting De-bogged and Making Ideas Land 01:14:11 Conversational Doorknobs: Giving and Taking 01:22:23 Blogging, Community, and Rules we Invent 01:28:35 Writing Advice, Thick Art, Giving The Reader an Egg to Crack 01:44:03 Adam's First Book: The Strangest Idea in the World 01:53:23 Closing Questions
- Sep 24, 20262h 1m
57: Immad Akhund - The Art of Irrational Effort
Immad Akhund (X, LinkedIn) is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury. He is also a prolific angel investor and co-hosts the Founders in Arms podcast. Mercury is a fintech banking platform used by one in three startups. It is Immad's fourth company in 20 years of entrepreneurship. Mercury is in the process of becoming an FDIC-insured bank and recently launched Mercury Books, AI-powered accounting software. Immad grew up in Pakistan, moved to London at nine, and left for San Francisco at 23 to become an entrepreneur "for real." Mercury is built on something rare in finance: a willingness to spend a disproportionate amount of energy on details, the kind of care Immad admits "seems irrational.” We start with a simple question (what is a bank?) and discuss why banking stayed bad for so long, what stays hard as AI makes software easy to build, and why Mercury's motto is "be extremely helpful." Entrepreneurship has shaped Immad's life, and he hopes Mercury can empower a generation of entrepreneurs. I hope you come away a little more annoyed by the mediocre things we've all learned to tolerate and inspired to put an irrational amount of care into making them better. https://dialectic.fm/immad-akhund --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. It works with all of your agents and keeps context across them and your team. Check out the new Notion Skills API. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps: Opening Highlights Intro: Immad Akhund Start: Banks and Why Immad Was Suited to Build One What Traditional Banks Do Well & What Mercury Got Right Why Mercury Wants a Bank Charter What's Scarce When Software Is Easy Becoming the Default for New Entrepreneurs Product: 100 Little Things Better The Right to Win Brand as Care Culture and Being Extremely Helpful Command, Agents, and AI Ambition, Investing, and Leading Family, Pakistan, and America Money, Freedom, and Energy Outro
- Sep 16, 202629 min
Independent Study: Personal Renewal by John W. Gardner (Speech)
Independent Study is a series of bonus episodes to accompany the interviews on Dialectic. I read essays and other writing that has influenced me. "Personal Renewal" was given as a speech by John W. Gardner to a group at McKinsey & Company in Phoenix, AZ on November 10, 1990. The transcript is available at PBS here. John W. Gardner was a public servant, educator, and public reformer. Learn more at PBS. This is one of my favorite things I've ever read. I hope you are similarly inspired. Transcript and audio for the also mentioned David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" available here, from Farnam Street. https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html
- Sep 1, 20261h 53m
56: Miles Grimshaw - Back Down the Mountain
Miles Grimshaw (X, LinkedIn) is an investor at Thrive Capital. He’s spent most of his career there, there, partnering with founders at the early stages of company building, including Cursor, Turbopuffer, Chai Discovery, Mesh Optical, Revel, XDOF, Socket, Benchling, GitHub, and many more. Miles was also briefly an investor at Benchmark before returning to Thrive in 2024. The conversation focuses on Miles’ appetite for change and continuing to begin anew, again and again. That starts with “adventure racing” as a teenager, and continues through his career as an investor in search of world-changing companies. We talk about how Miles proactively puts himself in position to work with great founders in a style that resembles courtship, his disposition of impatient patience, and why he loves change. The latter includes the dramatic shift in his primary domain: software. As the underlying assumptions for software businesses change due to AI, what traits will great companies have? And what moats if any will persist? Is software investing over? Miles also talks through how great companies and founders go where they are looking, prioritizing customers that help you live in the future, the learned intuition of greatness, and joining the expedition squad alongside the founders Thrive partners with. Finally, we talk a bit about Thrive, his departure to and return from Benchmark, and endurance. I hope you are inspired to find an infinite game where you are excited to see the stone roll back down the hill and begin to push again. Transcript & links available at https://dialectic.fm/miles-grimshaw Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are the speaker's own as of the recording date and are subject to change. Thrive funds and their affiliates have investments in certain companies discussed in this episode. References to those companies are illustrative, do not represent all investments made by Thrive, and should not be viewed as recommendations or indications of future investment performance. Past performance is not indicative of future results. --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Notion's custom agents are AI teammates that handle recurring work across your tools. Learn more about their new developer platform and workers here. Notion is hiring across product, storytelling, design, engineering, and more. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps Opening Highlights Intro: Miles Grimshaw Infinite Games, Adventure Racing, and Starting Anew, Over and Over Staying Hungry: Proactive Hunting and the Turbopuffer Story Impatiently Patient: Courtship, Cursor, Recruiting, and Joining the Team Loving Change: London to America, the Himalayas, and Learning New Sports The Genetics of Companies: "What Is It?" and "Who Cares?" House Cats & Tigers: Where Is the Founder Looking? Confidence in Uncertainty and Customers That Pull You Into the Future What Remains for Software: Moats, Cities, Wall-Clock Time, and the Barbell of Scale & Luxury Craft, Trust, and Why Software Isn't Over Intuition: Gradient Descent and Seeing Greatness Up Close "I Don't Know" and "I'll Figure It Out" Commitments, Not Bets: Closing People and Board Work Joining Thrive, Being a Punk, and Music Studios over Jury Trials Leaving for Benchmark and Returning to Thrive Dream Bigger: Lessons from Josh, Teaching Agency to Kids, and Going the Distance Outro
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