Replit CEO Amjad Masad：AI 时代年轻人应该学什么

归根结底，年轻人的用处就是质疑根深蒂固的信念。就是做异端。而今天的大学恰恰相反，它把任何外来的想法都从他们身上打掉。

Ultimately, the utility of young people is to question deeply held beliefs. It's to be heretics. And in today's college, it's actually the opposite. It kind of beats any outside thought out of them.

我真的想看到一个世界，在那里，如果你想去搞个支线任务，做点有点古怪的事，也没关系，而且如果成了，可能还会超级惊艳。

I just really want to see a world in which it's okay if you want to go on a side quest and go do something that's kind of oddball, but also might end up being super amazing if it works out.

公司的未来将会改变。整个行业已经变了。从技术角度看，这是一次彻底的重置。

The future of companies is going to change. The whole industry has changed. It's a complete reset on technology perspective.

我想去一所不对我学什么指手画脚的大学。我关心的是它能给我什么技能，让我实现我想构建的东西。

I'd want to go to a college that is not prescriptive about what I learn. I'm motivated by what skills can it give me in order to achieve what I want to build.

学院的一个核心原则完全绕开了这个问题。我们不在乎你毕不毕业。我们没有分数。我们没有考试。需要对抗的阻力应该小得多。

One of the core tenets of the academy side-steps this problem entirely. We don't care if you graduate or not. We don't have grades. We don't have tests. The amount of weight to push against should be a lot less.

当你看到一个 18 岁的年轻人，让你觉得特别受启发，你会想“我得和这个人待一会儿”，他们做了什么吸引了你的兴趣？

When you see a 18-year-old that is really inspiring to you that you're like, I got to spend time with this person, what are they doing that is catching your interest?

我觉得第一件事是，他们……我们刚才聊的时候，我想起我以前读过的一个科幻故事，叫《城市与群星》。它讲的是一个由 AGI 统治的未来城市。我们算是发明了 AGI，它现在管理着我们所有的生活，解决了所有问题，所有人类的问题。没有战争，没有疾病，每个人都永生。人们把时间花在千年艺术项目上，做各种随机的事情来填满时间。但他们发现了一个问题：他们积累了太多知识和记忆，越来越难全部装进脑子里。于是他们发明了一种技术，进入某种实验室压缩记忆。有点像我们今天对 AI 做的上下文压缩。他们遍历所有记忆，压缩它们，然后参加一个训练营，重新训练自己适应生活。所以他们发明了一种新的出生方式，但你本质上不是新人，你还是同一个人，只是在编辑记忆。但这个系统、这台机器出了个故障，一个全新的人诞生了。他立刻开始制造麻烦。在训练营里，他开始做奇怪的事、新的事，大家都说：“哇，这太疯狂了，你不该那样做，我们不是这样做的。”他变得非常具有破坏性。然后当他们进入城市，他开始问问题：“外面有什么？星星里有什么？我们城市边界之外是什么？”他们说：“啊，我们不谈城市边界之外的事。”

I think the first thing is that they As we were talking, uh I I remembered this uh sci-fi story that I read once. Uh it's called The City and the Stars. And it's about this future city that's governed by AGI. We sort of invented AGI. It now governs all of our lives. It solves all all problems, all human problems. Um there's no wars, there's uh no disease, everyone lives forever. And people spend their time working on like a thousand-year art projects and doing all sorts of random things to fill up their time. But they they found this problem where they accumulate so much knowledge and memory, it becomes like harder to keep it all in their heads. So, they invented this technology where they go into some kind of laboratory and they compress their memory. Sort of like context compression that we do with AI today. They go through all the memories and they compress them and then they go through a boot camp to like retrain them for for uh for for their life. So, they invented a new way to be born uh but it it is you're not fundamentally new person. You're still the same person. You're just editing your memory. But there's a glitch that happens in this system in this machine and there's a new person that is fundamentally born new. And he immediately starts causing problems. Uh in the boot camp he starts doing weird things, new things and everyone's like, "Whoa, that's that's crazy. Like you shouldn't be doing that. That's not how we do things." It becomes very disruptive. And then when they go out into into this like city, he starts asking questions like, "What's out there? What's in the stars? What's outside our city borders?" They're like, "Ah, we don't talk about outside our city borders."

听起来几乎像《羊毛战记》。

Sounds like Silo almost.

外面可能很危险。是的，有点像《羊毛战记》，有点像《辐射》。

It's probably dangerous out there. Yeah, a little bit like Silo, a little bit like Fallout.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，你知道，我不想剧透太多，但最终他有着巨大的动力去改变事物、去发现星辰。这就是为什么叫《城市与群星》。故事就这样展开，他在外面发现了各种有趣的东西。我之所以想起这个，是因为我们在讨论什么是大学、大学是为了什么？我觉得一个相关的问题是：年轻人在社会中的用处是什么？我认为归根结底，年轻人的用处就是质疑根深蒂固的信念，就是做异端。而今天的大学恰恰相反，它把任何外来的想法都从他们身上打掉，对吧？它告诉你你很蠢。我们什么都搞明白了。你需要学我们的方式，我们需要为你进入外部世界做准备，这样你就能找到工作，成为完美公民，然后结婚、生子、买房、买车，从此幸福地生活。但那个世界已经不存在了。你可以在大学里表现很好，但仍然失业，还背着一大笔债。不仅如此，我认为真正错失的文明机会，就是《城市与群星》里的那个人。需要一个故障才能让一个头脑清晰的人去质疑根深蒂固的信念。你知道，我们每个人可能都有社会盲点。我们在硅谷有很多盲点。很多想法不是从硅谷出来的，因为这里有一种单一文化。有一种特定的思维方式。每种文化在某种程度上都是单一文化，即使像硅谷这样最激进的文化也是如此。那么你需要年轻人做什么？你需要他们去实验。你需要鼓励他们去尝试不可能的事，偶尔他们会取得突破，曾经我们认为不可能的事，现在突然可能了，因为技术变了，某些东西变了。所以大学最终应该围绕这个。让我们把这些头脑清晰、有禅宗心态、第一性原理思维的人聚集起来，鼓励他们去质疑根深蒂固的信念。

Um and and you know, I don't want to get into the spoilers too much but eventually that's what he has so much drive to change things and go discover the stars. That's why it's called the city in the stars. He in in in the story unfolds in that way and he finds all sorts of interesting things out there. And I'm reminded of this because as we're talking about what is college and what is it what is it for? And I I I think a a related question is like what is the utility of young people in society? And I think ultimately the utility of the young people is to question deeply held beliefs. Is to be heretics. Yeah and and today's college is actually the opposite. It kind of beats any outside thought out of them, right? It it it it it tells you you're stupid. We figured everything out. You need to learn our way and we need to prepare you for the outside world so you can get a job and be a perfect citizen and go get, you know, get married, have kids, and get a house and a car and and live happily ever after. But that world doesn't exist anymore. You can do really well in college and you can still be unemployed with a huge debt. Um but not only that, I think that the the real civilizational missing opportunity is is that is is that person in the city of the stars. It took a glitch to get someone with a clear mind to be able to question deeply held beliefs. And you know, every one of us, we probably have a blind spots in society. We We have a lot of blind spots in Silicon Valley. There's a lot of ideas that don't come out of Silicon Valley uh because there's a monoculture here. There's a certain way of thinking. Every culture is somehow a monoculture, even the most radical cultures like Silicon Valley. And so what what do you need from young people? You need them to um to experiment. You need to encourage them to do to try impossible things and every now and then they're going to have a breakthrough that once we thought was impossible and now it's now it's suddenly possible because the technology changed, something changed. Um so college ultimately should be about that. Let's get these these people with clear minds, Zen mindsets, first principle mindsets and encourage them to go question the deeply held beliefs.

是的，我觉得你说得很好。想象一下，如果你今天 18 岁，能够设计你理想的大学体验，比如上多少课、做什么项目、进行什么样的深度学习、想学什么。你会加入哪些原则？如果你能重来 18 到 22 岁，但是在 2026 年，你会怎么想？

Yeah, I I think that's well said. I mean, imagine if you were 18 today and you were at, you know, were able to design your ideal experience in terms of, you know, how much you go to class, to what projects you work on, to what kind of deep study you would engage in, to what you'd want to study. What are some principles or, you know, that you would add to that in terms of how you wish, if you could redo, you know, 18 to 22, but in 2026?

是的。

Yeah.

你会怎么考虑？

How you think about it?

是的，我想去一所不对我学什么指手画脚的大学。我想成为一个有很多不同路径的环境。比如，有一门课是关于我完全没想到的东西，它在我世界之外，对吧？我们谈到史蒂夫·乔布斯的故事，他最鼓舞人心的演讲之一是在斯坦福毕业典礼上的演讲。他谈到了连点成线。所以，乔布斯对待大学的方式，我认为是理想的大学体验。他去了里德学院，但付不起学费，所以退学了，但继续旁听不同的课。其中一门是书法课。在书法课上，他不知道为什么感兴趣，就只是去学。后来，当他们发明 Mac、发明用户界面时，他们说：“哦，我们应该有比例间距字体。我们应该让某些人能够

Yeah, I I I'd want to go to a college that's not prescriptive about what I learn. I want to be I I want to be an environment where there's a lot of different paths. Like, you know, there is there's a class about something totally I haven't even thought about. It's outside my world, right? We're talking about the story with um Steve Jobs, one of the most inspiring speeches he gave is the Stanford commencement speech. And he talked about connecting things backwards. So, the way Steve Jobs approached college, I think it's the ideal experience of college. Where he's like, he went to Reed College, but he couldn't afford it, so he dropped out, but kept dropping into different classes. One of them was calligraphy. And in the calligraphy class, he didn't know why he was interested in it, and he just did it and learned it. Later on, when they were inventing the Mac, inventing user interfaces, they're like, "Oh, we should have proportionally spaced fonts. We should have certain people should be able to

选择字体。

select fonts.

而这直接呼应了他大学时代学习字体、书法之类的东西。

And that was a direct kind of call back to his college days learning about fonts and calligraphy and things like that.

这种漫无目的的探索，现代社会觉得没什么用，但我认为在大学里恰恰是最有用的。你能不能上一门课，就因为你发现了某个全新的、完全在你世界之外的东西，从而改变你人生的方向？所以这是第一点。我希望能有足够的自由去选择我想学的东西。

And so, this meandering that I think modern society thinks is sort of useless, I think it's actually the most useful in college. Can you take a class that would change the direction of your life because you discovered something totally new and outside of your world? So that's one. I would like to have enough freedom to select the kind of things I want to study.

另一点是，如果我正全身心投入在做某件事，请给我空间和时间去做。我大学里特别难受的一点就是有考勤。他们统计出勤，如果你缺了大概六节课，就会被禁。所以我觉得，如果我在上学，我在做各种不同的事，我在认识有趣的人，然后我有了一个想法，我疯狂地拼命工作，那就给我空间去做。别把我开除——

The other thing is, if I am engrossed in building something, give me the space and time to do it. One of the things about my college that was really hard is we had attendance. They counted attendance, and if you didn't attend for like six classes, you were banned. And so I think if I'm going to school, I'm doing all these different things, I'm meeting interesting people, and then I have an idea and I'm manically working really hard, give me the space to do it. Don't expel me from—

别把我拽走——

Don't yank my—

对，没错。当然。

Yeah, exactly. For sure.

没错。

Exactly.

最后一点，是人的质量。我觉得如果你身边都是思维循规蹈矩的人，最终你也会变得循规蹈矩。

And finally, the quality of people. I think if you're around conventionally minded people, eventually you'll be conventionally minded.

对。

Yeah.

如果你处在一个鼓励人们质疑那些根深蒂固信念的环境里，我觉得你就能做到这一点。

If you're in an environment that encourages people to question those deeply held beliefs, I think you will be able to do that.

对。我上的是加州大学伯克利分校，Go Bears，我确实非常享受。但让我特别喜欢的一点是，大多数情况下其实并没有必须到课的期望。所以我有很多学期，一个学期打三份工。而且经常我该上班的时间跟我的课是冲突的。

Yeah. I went to UC Berkeley, go Bears, and I did enjoy it a lot. But one of the things that I really enjoyed was that there was actually no expectation of attending class for most situations. And so I had many semesters where I had like three jobs in one semester. And often the time that I was expected to be at work overlapped with my class.

嗯。

Mhm.

所以我就提前看那个学期的期中考试安排，我说：“好，我就这两场期中考试。老板，我能请那两天假吗？”除此之外我都在工作。

So I just looked at my midterm schedule the semester in advance and I said, "Okay, these are my two midterms. Hey boss, can I take those two days off?" And otherwise I was working.

嗯。

Mhm.

但有意思的是，现在回头看，我确实享受那段经历，可我常常看着那段经历想：“如果当时的环境是支持这种做法的，会怎样？”

But it's interesting because now I look back and I did enjoy that, but I feel often times I look at that experience and say, "Well, what if the environment was supportive of this?"

嗯。

Mhm.

比如，如果——因为说实话，我觉得今天，当我跟学生聊天时，已经过去二十多年了，今天我跟学生聊天，他们都在这么做。我以前这种行为算是古怪的。现在它正在变成常态。但奇怪的是，它还没有被鼓励。它仍然不被允许。所以对我个人来说，我真的很想看到一个世界：你想去搞个支线任务，去做点有点古怪的事，但如果成了可能会超级惊艳，这也没关系。

Like, what would happen if—because honestly, I think today, when I talk to students, it's been 20 years plus, when I talk to students today, they all do this. This used to be odd, my behavior. And now it's becoming the norm. And the thing that's weird though is that it's not encouraged yet. It's still not allowed. And so, for me personally, I just really want to see a world in which it's okay if you want to go on a side quest and go do something that's kind of oddball, but also might end up being super amazing if it works out.

能用上大学的资源。你应该能用计算机实验室、算力、生物实验室，不管是什么。

Be able to use the college resources. You should be able to use the computer lab, the computes, the bio lab, whatever it is.

你不该是在逆流而行。学校应该主动鼓励你。实际上，如果你这么做，他们更应该把资源送到你面前。

You shouldn't be going against the grain. It should be like actually actively encouraging you. Actually, they should be bringing resources to you more if you do it.

对。

Yeah.

所以，如果你有个疯狂的想法正在起飞，大学——你不该瞒着你的大学。他们应该主动过来：“天哪。这太棒了。多给他们点资源。”

So, like, if you have a crazy idea that's taking off, the college—you shouldn't be hiding it from your college. They should be coming like, "Oh my god. This is amazing. Let's give them more."

完全同意。有个孩子叫 Eric，我想他是 Richard 的朋友，他得躲在学校的厕所里接投资人的电话。对，学校应该辅导他走过这个过程，或者以某种方式支持他。办个投资人 Demo Day 之类的。你懂的，这种事。

Totally. There's this kid Eric, I think he's Richard's friend, who has to take investor calls from the bathroom because he's hiding in the school. Yeah, they should be like coaching him through it or enabling it in some way. Bringing investor demo day or something. You know, this kind of thing.

我有几点评论。一是回到你提到的书法，人们会产生一些看起来随机、可能也确实是随机的兴趣，但在其他方面又可能以别的方式关联回来。我觉得学校其实有办法去培养——强行制造自然兴趣很难。举个例子，我小时候痴迷篮球。但我也是那种会问数学老师“这有什么意义？帮我解释一下”的孩子。如果她能给我解释清楚，也许我就会对它兴奋起来。如果她说：“嘿，你痴迷篮球，你需要理解工资帽，或者其实篮球现在非常分析化，人们用统计和数据来评估球员。所以如果你不懂这个，你就不会是个好的比赛研究者。”那会让我非常兴奋。这就是我对 Alpha School 如此兴奋的原因。他们能把人们自然的兴趣，转化成去学习那些他们迟早需要知道的东西。

A couple comments. One is going back to your thing around calligraphy, you know, people get these interests that might seem random and might be random, but in other ways might tie back in other ways. And I think there actually ways in which the school can sort of develop—it's hard to force natural interest. And so, for example, I was obsessed with basketball as a kid. But I was also the kid who would ask my math teacher like, "What's the point of this? Help explain it to me." And if she could have explained it to me, maybe I would have got excited about it. If she would say, "Hey, you know, you're obsessed with basketball, you need to understand the salary cap, or actually basketball is very analytical now in terms of people are using stats and data to evaluate players. And so, if you don't understand this, you're not going to be a good student of the game." That would have got me really excited. That's what I'm so excited about Alpha School. Is the way that they take people's natural interests and get them to learn things that they're going to need to know over time out of that.

嗯。

Mhm.

难就难在，我们都知道教育——可以说是学术圈、教育产业，或者教育的学术正统——完全认同这一点。他们完全明白，如果每个学生都能有定制化的课程，那该多好。Alpha School 的 Joe Lehman 一直在讲这个。问题是，实践上这似乎不可能。但其实我觉得现在正是彻底反转的时刻，它不只是不再不可能——而是你根本无法想象为什么不去这么做。具体来说，比如我想到学术机构，对吧？在学术机构里，如果你要学编程，我不想你只是上一门 Python 课。不，去用 Python 做点让你超级兴奋的东西。把它当作学这门语言的工具。而今天最棒的是，有了 AI，每个学生都能自己去做这件事，他们不需要别人给他们定制教学大纲或练习。他们只需要自由和信心，去说：“是的，你可以这么做。是的，绝对可以。我们超级兴奋。”

The thing that's so hard is we all know the education—sort of the academic, the industry of education if you will, or the academic canon of education—is completely on board with this. They totally understand that it would be great if every student could have a customized curriculum. And Joe Lehman of Alpha School talks about this all the time. The problem is that practically it seems impossible. But actually I think now is the moment when it's completely reverted and it's not just impossible—it's actually impossible to imagine why you wouldn't do that. Specifically, like for me, if I think about the academy, right? In the academy, if you are going to learn coding, I don't want you just to take a class on Python. No, go build something that you're super excited about in Python. Use it as a tool to learn the language. And the great thing about today, with AIs, every single student can go and do that on their own and they don't need a customized syllabus or exercise given to them. They just need the freedom and confidence to say, "Yes, you're allowed to do this. Yes, absolutely. We're super excited about it."

对，我是说，这个的流行词叫项目式学习。它不该有个流行词，因为它本该是标准。你在学一样东西却不知道它有什么用，我觉得这是非常现代才有的发明。社会做了件很怪的事：你走进统计课，却从不知道你可以把它用在篮球上，或者用在其他兴趣上。所以很长一段时间里，我们学习的方式是倒置的。你去学这些东西，却完全不知道它的用途，不知道在现实世界里怎么应用。对于像我这样的人，我想对于很多更务实的人来说，我完全不会被纯粹的知识追求所驱动。对，我被技能驱动。它能给我什么技能，去实现我想构建的东西、实现我的梦想。

Yeah, I mean this, you know, the buzzword for it is like project-based learning. There shouldn't be a buzzword for it because that should be the standard. The idea that you're learning something and you don't know the utility of it, I think is a very modern invention. It's a very weird thing to have done in society that you would go into a statistics class and you would never learn that you could use it for basketball or you could use it for some of your other interests. And so there was this inversion for a long time of how we learn things. Like you would go and you would learn some of these and you had no idea what is the utility, how you would apply it in the real world. And for someone like me, and I think for a lot of people that are more pragmatically minded, I'm not motivated at all by a pure pursuit of knowledge. Yeah, I'm motivated by skills. What skills can it give me in order to achieve what I want to build and achieve my dreams.

偶尔你会遇到一位老师，能够告诉你这一点，能够通过告诉你因此能获得哪些技能来激励你学习。

And every now and then you find a teacher that's able to tell you that, that's able to motivate your learning by telling you what kind of skills you can acquire because of it.

完全同意。

Totally.

嗯，这很有意思，因为我们正在回应和解决的批评是：有些学校教育环境里学到的实用技能很少，或者他们并没有为现实世界训练你，尽管他们声称如此。但还有另一种相反的批评，我很好奇你们如何平衡这一点：有些人过早地职业化，没有童年，或者没有花时间在智力上或其他方面培养自己。大学这样的经历中仍然有一种难以言喻的特质，有些人认为你能从中获得——比如结识新朋友、交到新朋友、参加派对。我不知道人们具体在描述什么。比如研读经典著作等等。你怎么看待那些超越建立公司或为公司工作的技术技能之外所获得的东西？

Well, it's interesting because there is the critique that we're addressing that we're solving for, which is, hey, there's certain schooling environments where there's very little practical skills gained or they don't train you for the real world afterwards even though they claim to. But then there's also this opposite critique and I'm curious how you guys balance this, which is, hey, some people are sort of professionalizing way too soon and not having childhoods or not spending time to cultivate intellectually or as a person otherwise. There's still kind of this ineffable quality that some people think you get at an experience like college where you're with meeting new people, getting new friends, going to parties. I don't know what people are describing exactly. You know, studying the great books etc. What do you think about the stuff that's gained beyond just the technical skills of building a company or working at a company?

我认为今天的年轻人面临着一个巨大的不公平选择。要么去上四年制学校，那里有很多关于你应该做什么的结构。你必须上课，做作业、考试、拿成绩等等。然后还有另一个选择，就是你可以去创办一家初创公司，明天就会有人给你 5 万美元让你开始。我看到的问题是，我认为仍然有很多人会去上大学并且喜欢它。我也认为有很多年轻人，甚至 16、17 岁，就应该去创业。但我认为有一大群人——我不知道你们怎么看，但对我来说，当我 17、18 岁的时候，我知道我想进入商界，但能有几年时间探索和学习，没有压力，那真是太好了。所以个人而言，我认为投资人的路径应该被大大低估利用。只有极少数青少年应该去融资。相反，顺便说一句，资助很棒，对吧？做些临时的事情。明确它是临时的。这没问题，但在 18 岁时做出终身承诺的压力并不适合大多数人。而大学的结构也不适合所有人。所以对我来说，这个中间地带——有两年时间你可以真正探索，做任何你想做的事，没有压力，硅谷会来找你，提供你需要的所有信息和资源。当你有一个很酷的想法时，它就会越来越多。这让我非常兴奋。

I think there's this huge unfair choice that a lot of young people are provided today. It's either go and get a four-year, go to a four-year school where there's a lot of structure around what you should be doing. You're going to have to attend classes. You're going to do homework and tests and grades and all of that. And then there's another option which is you can go and start a startup and someone will give you $50,000 tomorrow to start it. And the problem that I see is, look, I think there's lots of people who are still going to go to college and love it. And I think there are lots of young people even at 16, 17 who should be starting a startup. But I think there's an amazing massive group of people who—I don't know about you guys, but certainly for me when I was 17 or 18, I knew I wanted to enter business but it was so nice to have a couple of years to explore and learn and like no pressure. And so personally, I think the investor track should be way underutilized. Like only a very small number of teenagers should be raising money. Instead, and by the way, grants are great, right? Do something temporary. Make it clear it's temporary. That's fine, but the pressure of making a tenure commitment at 18 isn't for most people. And then the structure of college isn't for everybody either. And so for me, this middle ground of having two years where you can really explore and you can do whatever you want without the pressure and Silicon Valley will come to you and provide you with all the information and the resources that you need. And when you have a cool idea, it's just like more and more and more. That's super exciting to me.

是的，我的意思是，在编程中我们有一个概念叫过早优化。有句话是，过早优化是万恶之源。人们认为它就是这么糟糕。你开始优化一个最终并不相关或重要的程序。我认为很多创业就是过早优化。我看到很多孩子现在，他们属于一个群体，很多朋友在融很多钱，有些人成了独角兽，动机就变成了嫉妒。一种非常消极的动机，而不是积极的。然后他们预先承诺一个他们甚至不感兴趣的想法，并为此融资，他们是在为一条他们还没有真正到达的道路做预先优化，对吧？所以这就是为什么我总是回到好奇心这个理念。到底是什么在驱动你？一旦你找到那个你愿意奉献一生或未来 10 年的想法，它会有如此大的引力。你无法避免它，你知道吗？对我来说，我试图不创办 Rappi，积极地不创办它，但它自己爆发成了一家初创公司，对吧？那就是你应该有的感觉。几乎就像我猜我不得不做，对吧？因为它背后有如此大的动力。我认为现在有一种掠夺性的行为，我听说风投去斯坦福学生那里，给他们一百万美元，甚至不是 5 万。5 万就像是——

Yeah, I mean, I think in programming we have this concept of premature optimization. And the idea, I think the saying is premature optimization is the root of all evil. That's how bad people think it is. Where you start optimizing a program that is not eventually relevant or consequential. And I think a lot of starting startups is premature optimization. And I see a lot of kids now where they're part of a group and a lot of their friends are raising a lot of money and some of them are becoming unicorns and it just becomes the motivation is envy. A really negative motivation as opposed to positive. And then they pre-commit to an idea they're not even interested in and they raise money for it and they are kind of pre-optimizing for some path that they haven't really reached yet, right? And so that's why I always come back to this idea of curiosity. Like what is actually driving you? Once you find that idea that you want to dedicate your life to or dedicate the next 10 years to, it's going to have such gravity. You're not going to be able to avoid it, you know? I mean for me, I tried not to start Rappi, like actively not to start it, but it kind of exploded into a startup on its own, right? And that's the feeling you should get. It's almost like I guess I have to do it, right? Because there's so much momentum behind it. And I think there's a predatory thing that happens right now where I've heard that VCs go to Stanford students and they give them like a million dollars, not even 50K. 50K is like—

一百万美元，在想法之前，就像你一开始有想法，你就已经有了一个股权结构表。我认为这有点像音乐产业。你知道，Kanye 谈了很多关于这有多掠夺性，你找到一个年轻艺术家，把他锁在一份合同里，他们甚至不理解那份合同。幸运的是，我认为在硅谷我们有 SAFE，这是 YC 和 Paul Graham 的伟大贡献，但它仍然有些掠夺性，因为你把这个年轻人，预先承诺给他们本不该承诺的事情。

A million dollars pre-idea and it's like the moment you start your idea, you know, you already have a cap table. I think that's sort of like the music industry. And you're like, you know, Kanye talked a lot about this where it's like how predatory it is where you find a young artist and you kind of lock him into a contract and they don't even understand that contract. Like luckily I think in Silicon Valley we have the SAFEs, which are a great contribution by YC and Paul Graham, but it's still somewhat predatory because you're taking this young person, you're pre-committing them to something they shouldn't have to.

这很有意思，因为你是这个播客以及更广泛的学术界请来的一个有趣的人，因为你既是企业家、建设者、黑客和修补匠，非常务实，但你也是一个知识分子。你也非常好奇，你知道，他们在历史、经济、文化和政治方面的写作，你知道，你花很多时间在模因上，你知道，你在那里追求你的兴趣。所以回到这个批评，你既没有脱离经济现实世界，但你也既不是那个也不是一个自动机，你知道，有些人就是如此专注于职业，那几乎就是他们唯一思考的事情，如何赚更多的钱或如何让这件事成功。所以我认为，Gagan，正如你所说，有时人们被 funnel 到这些路径中，我很好奇你是怎么想的，这是你一直自然而然就有的，还是人们如何既能作为年轻人在职业上非常务实，同时又能腾出时间或空间或兴趣来追随他们的知识好奇心，即使它可能看起来，你知道，随机或与之格格不入。

It's interesting because you're an interesting person to bring on this podcast in the academy more broadly because you're both an entrepreneur and a builder and a hacker and a tinkerer and very pragmatic, but you're also an intellectual. You also, you know, very curious, you know, what they write across history and economics and culture and politics and you know, you spend a lot of time on memes like, you know, you sort of pursue your interests there. So going back to this critique, you're neither sort of divorced from the economic real world, but you're neither that nor an automaton, you know, like there's some people who are just so career focused that really that's just like the only thing they think about is how to make more money or how to make this thing successful. And so I think to your point, Gagan, sometimes people are funneled into these, you know, either these paths and I'm curious how you've thought about, is that something that you've always been just naturally or how can people both be like very pragmatic in their career, you know, as young people and yet also make time or make space or make interest for following their intellectual curiosity even if it might seem, you know, random or alien from that.

是的，我认为我倾向于在渴望构建某物和渴望大量阅读、探索、看看外面有什么有趣的东西之间摇摆。它们相互滋养。

Yeah, I think that I sort of tend to oscillate between having an itch to build something and having an itch to like read a lot and explore a lot and see what's out there, what's interesting. And they feed on each other.

这是一个递归的过程：我从探索的所有事物中积累足够的知识和想法，然后现在真的想用它去构建一些东西，对吧？比如，最近我迷上了国际象棋，这在人生中算是很晚才开始下棋了。通常人们 6 岁就开始下棋。而我的孩子，现在 6 岁，也很快要开始下棋了。他肯定会打败我。

It's a sort of a recursive process where I accumulate enough knowledge and ideas from all the things I explored that I really want to go build something with it now, right? And so, for example, recently I got really into chess, which is like very late in life to get into chess. Usually you get into chess when you're 6 years old. And my kid actually, 6 years old, is getting into chess pretty soon. He's going to be beating me.

但我不知道我为什么对它感兴趣。我产生了兴趣，然后开始写程序来解决国际象棋问题。接着我开始训练模型。我就想，为什么像 ChatGPT 这样的 LLM 在国际象棋上表现这么差？

But I don't know why I was interested in it. I got interested in it. And then I started writing programs to solve chess. And then I started training models. And I was like, why do LLMs like ChatGPT actually suck at chess?

哦，真的吗？

Oh, really?

是的，我就想，你知道，ARC AGI 分数越来越高，这些模型几乎达到 AGI，但为什么它们在国际象棋上表现不佳？它们会幻觉出招法之类的。于是我开始训练一个 LLM 来下棋。我花了很多时间——之前从未训练过模型。我花了很多时间探索如何训练模型。我意识到，有些人现在称之为 RSI 或递归自我改进。这是 AI 能够做机器学习的流行词。我意识到 AI 实际上有能力做机器学习。所以，我们在 2024 年 Replit Agent 出现的时候，在“氛围编程”这个词被创造之前，突然智能体能够编码了，对吧？从那以后，编码发生了根本性的变化。我认为我们在机器学习方面也处于类似的时刻。我认为机器学习——你可以称之为氛围研究，或自动研究——我认为它已经有了走向终点的路径。但我花了很多时间在那个世界。然后现在我在 Replit 上做一些事情，把它带给世界，让任何人都能成为机器学习研究员，或者任何有数据的企业主都能找到自己的模型来解决某个问题。

Yeah, and I was like, well, you know, where the ARC AGI score is getting up there, you know, these models are almost AGI, but why are they bad at chess? They hallucinate moves and all of that. And so I went into training an LLM to play chess. And I spent a lot of time—I've never trained a model before that. I spent a lot of time exploring how to train models. And I realized, you know, some people are now calling it RSI or recursive self-improvement. It's sort of a buzzword for AI being able to do ML. I realized that AI is actually capable of doing ML. So, the moment we were in, like 2024 when Replit Agent came out, before vibe coding as a term was coined, suddenly agents were capable of coding, right? And coding fundamentally changed since then. I think we're at a similar moment when it comes to machine learning. I think machine learning—where you could call it vibe research, you could call it auto research—I think it has got a path to term. But I spent a lot of time in that world. And then now I'm working on something on Replit to bring that to the world, where anyone can become a machine learning researcher or any business owner who has data can find your own model to solve a certain problem.

所以当你开始下棋时，你需要做出哪些跳跃才能理解，哦，这会引导我为 Replit 建立一条新的业务线？这根本不可能，但我只是追随我感兴趣的东西，它就会产生一些结果。至少对我来说，总是这样。但即使是模因和文化，我对互联网上某个随机的亚文化感兴趣，我学到一些关于世界的东西。我学到一些关于社会的东西。我学到一些关于市场的东西。我学到一些关于世界走向的东西，我就有了优势。

So when you start playing chess, what are the hops you need to make to understand that, oh, that's going to lead me to build a new business line for Replit? It's just impossible, but I just followed something that I was interested in and it kind of resulted in something. Invariably it does, at least for me. But even memes and culture, I get interested in some random subculture on the internet and I learn something about the world. I learn something about society. I learn something about markets. I learn something about where the world is headed and I have alpha.

你有一种痒，你倾听这种痒，有时这种痒是去构建一些东西，有时是去学习一些东西，然后很多孩子被把这种痒打掉了，因为他们，你知道，他们学会了随着时间的推移忽略它，为了，你知道，通过这些圈套。

You have an itch and you listen to the itch and sometimes the itch is build something and the itch is learn something and then a lot of kids get the itch beaten out of them because they, you know, they learn they over time to ignore ignore in favor of, you know, going through these hoops.

对。

Right.

学会如何通过这些圈套是有帮助的，但学会如何倾听痒，如何追随痒也是有帮助的。

And it's helpful to learn how to go through hoops, but it's also helpful to learn how to listen to itches, how to follow itches.

我的意思不是比现在的人更多，但我认为，你知道，就像为了领导，知道如何跟随也是有帮助的，但我认为人们整个高中和经常大学都只是在学习如何跟随。只是学习如何，你知道，有人说些什么你就去做。我认为这会是的。

I mean not more than people do currently, but I think, you know, it's like in order to lead it's also helpful to know how to follow, but I think people spend their entire high school and often college just learning how to follow. Just learning how to, you know, someone says something you do it. And I think it'd be yeah.

我的信念是，公司的未来将会改变。就像我认为，你知道，在硅谷有这么多实验试图改变公司的本质，改变公司运作的方式。

My belief is that the future of companies is going to change. Like I think, you know, in Silicon Valley there's been so many experiments to try to change the nature of firms, of how companies work.

嗯。

Mhm.

如果你记得合弄制。

If you remember Holacracy.

合弄制，Medium 做过。GitHub 做过无经理制。

Holacracy, Medium did that. GitHub did the like no managers.

嗯。

Mhm.

它们都以某种壮观的方式爆炸了。

They all kind of blew up in like spectacular ways.

是的，它们确实如此。

Yeah, they did.

但我认为这是一个技术问题。就像我认为现在你可以让智能体在这些组织中充当粘合剂，让官僚主义成为由机器在后台发生的隐形事物，然后人们有真正的自主权去从事他们觉得最有趣的事情，他们可以判断你的影响。我对此没有完全成型的想法，但我在我们公司看到了这一点，我改变了如何运营公司，我们称这个想法为“自驾驶公司”，最终公司会自己运行。

But I think it was a technology problem. Like I think now like you can have agents kind of function as the glue within these organization and like have the bureaucracy be this invisible thing that's happening by machines in the background and then people have true autonomy to work on the things they find like most interesting and they can sort of judge your impact. Is—I don't have fully formed thoughts about this, but I see it in our company where I've changed how I run the company and we call this idea of like a self-driving company eventually like the company will like run itself.

是的。是的，你知道，这很有趣，因为我真的对它会走向何方没有意见，但我知道它会改变。

Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's funny cuz like I genuinely don't have an opinion about where it's going to go, but I know it's going to change.

是的。

Yeah.

对吧？我知道我们现在所做的一切都感觉如此不同。

Right? I know that everything we're doing now just feels so different.

是的。

Yeah.

在创办学院的过程中，我花了所有时间，你知道，我在 Replit 上做了 pitch deck，谢谢。我一直在使用 Claude 和 ChatGPT。就像，我使用所有这些服务来加速我的工作，并想象这如何改变整个组织。我想我知道的事情，我非常确定的事情是，一切都会改变。它会比你想象的快得多。如果你不是天生就理解它，那会很难。很难做出这种转变。

And in starting the academy I've been spending all this time, you know, I built the pitch deck in Replit, thank you. And I've been using Claude and ChatGPT. Like, I'm using all of these services as a way to speed up my work and imagining how that changes an entire organization. And I guess the thing that I know, the thing I feel very certain about is it's all going to change. It's going to change a lot faster than you think. And if you're not like natively understanding of it, it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard to make that shift.

是的。是的，或者如果你在学习过去的方式。

Yeah. Yeah, or if you're learning the ways of the past.

正确。

Correct.

那么你就被锁定在一种思维方式和一种工作方式中，这实际上会在未来让你处于根本性的劣势。

Then you're kind of locked into a way of thinking and way of working that actually will put you at a fundamental disadvantage in the future.

是的。回到那个跟随的观点。我确实认为学会如何跟随非常重要。

Yeah. Back to that following point. I do think learning how to follow is very important.

让我用不同的方式来表达，

Let me phrase it in a different way,

是的。

Yeah.

那就是你想足够不合群，以至于你有有趣的想法，你是逆向的，你不只是走过场，你追随自己的好奇心，但我们都认识那些如此不合群以至于无法与任何人合作的人。

which is you want to be disagreeable enough such that you have interesting ideas, you're contrarian, you're not just going through the motions, you're following your own curiosity, but we both know all know people who are so disagreeable they can't work with anybody.

是的。

Yeah.

他们只是如此疏远人们。所以，也许另一种方式，如果跟随它，它只是像在更广泛的意义上跟随它，你知道，你需要学会如何与人合作。你需要学会如何在系统中导航。你需要学会，你知道，得到你想要的

That they're just so alienating to people. So, maybe another way of if following it it would just be like following it in a more broader sense, you know, you need to learn how to work with people. You need to learn how to navigate systems. You need to learn to, you know, get what you want

或者得到什么是最佳结果。

or get what is the optimal outcome.

是的。是的，我认为有一种重要的事情，在某种程度上尊重长辈，但也不——我的意思是根本真正理解他们并没有弄清楚一切。

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's this important thing of respecting the elders in a way, but also not—I mean fundamentally truly understanding that they haven't figured everything out.

是的。

Yeah.

我确实认为尊重非常重要。就像进入一家公司，你应该尊重他们已经建立的东西，但你也应该觉得很多事情是不足的，并去改变尽可能多的事情。

I do think respect is very important. Like going into a company, you should respect what they've already built, but you should also feel like that a lot of things are inadequate and go change as many things as you can.

在 Replit，我把所有会议室都以我们行业、计算机科学和技术领域的伟人命名。我们有一个 Marc Andreessen 会议室，当然，他是浏览器的发明者。你可能认识他。

So, at Replit I named all the conference rooms after the greats in our industry, in computer science and tech. We have a Marc Andreessen room, obviously, the inventor of the browser. You might know him.

是的。

Yeah.

我们有 Linus Torvalds、Robert Noyce，所有这些人物。我试图告诉公司里的人：我们尊重过去，但我们会毫不歉意地改变它。人们会因此对我们生气。不知道你还记不记得 2025 年，我因为说“你不应该再学编程了”而被抵制。

We have Linus Torvalds, Robert Noyce, all these people. And what I try to tell people at the company is we respect the past, but we're unapologetically going to change it. And people are going to be mad at us. I don't know if you remember 2025, I was canceled for saying you shouldn't learn how to code anymore.

完全记得。

Totally.

而现在我和工程师们交流——

And now I talk to engineers—

哇。那才一年前的事。

Wow. That was only a year ago.

一年前。现在，那些曾经反对我的人，他们说：“哦，我不再读代码了。我只是用提示词写代码。”

A year ago. Now, the same people that went against me, they're like, "Oh, I don't read code anymore. I just prompt by code."

是的，我的意思是，令人惊叹的是，有多少事情我错了或对了，你知道，早了 5 年、10 年。我认为我喜欢硅谷的一点是，人们只是向前看。他们对此无所谓。他们接受这些观点。你明白我的意思吗？这是我喜欢硅谷文化的另一点。

Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how many things I've been wrong about or right about that, you know, 5, 10 years early. And I think the thing that I love about Silicon Valley is people just move forward. They're okay with it. They accept the takes. You know what I mean? And that's the other thing that I love about the culture of the Valley.

我现在花一点空闲时间在地方政治中做志愿者。

I spend a little bit of my free time now volunteering in local politics.

哦，我很抱歉。

Oh, I'm sorry.

是的，真的很有趣。这肯定是个支线任务，对吧？是个支线任务。比如，它怎么会相关呢？实际上，我认为它在很多方面帮助了我的商业。这些技能在两个方向上都非常可转移。但最有趣的事情之一是认识到信任有多么宝贵。如果你在整个社会中有一个信任的基础，它会多么大地改变你前进的方式。在地方政治中，举个简单的例子，让我们谈谈非营利组织。如果你经营一个非营利组织，你从某人那里筹集资金，你与他们交谈，他们说：“我会给你 5 万美元。”那 5 万美元最终到达你银行账户的可能性大约在 20% 到 50% 之间。

Yeah, it's really interesting. It's a side quest for sure, right? It's a side quest. Like, why would it be relevant at all? And actually I think it's helped me in so many ways in business. The skills are extremely transferable in both directions. But one of the most interesting things is appreciating how valuable trust is. And if you have a foundation of trust throughout a society, how much it changes the way that you can move forward. In local politics, as a simple example, let's talk about nonprofits. If you're running a nonprofit and you raise money from someone and you have a conversation with them and they say, "I'll give you $50,000." The percent likelihood that that $50,000 will land in your bank account is somewhere in the 20 to 50% range.

你是指在他们说了之后——

You meant after they said—

在他们口头承诺之后，对吧？所以，口头承诺没有分量。在硅谷，我认为可能是 75% 到 100%，取决于你在和谁说话以及你是谁。

After they've committed verbally, right? So, verbal commitments don't have weight. In Silicon Valley, I think it's probably 75 to 100% depending on who you're talking to and who you are.

是的。

Yeah.

以及你运作方式的差异——比如，如果我知道钱会来，我可以自信地继续推进我的业务。然后等你交付支票时，我已经取得了大约 6 周的进展，对吧？现在突然之间，你的支票在 6 周后更有价值了。

And the difference in how you operate—like I can confidently continue to move forward on my business if I know that the money's coming. And then by the time you've delivered that check, I've made like 6 weeks of progress, right? And now all of a sudden your check is more valuable 6 weeks later.

对。

Right.

反之亦然。如果你没有信任，那么突然之间，你会想：“嗯，如果这个捐赠者对这件事不满怎么办？让我换个方式做这件事。”但你没有履行你的使命。你担心。你对这件事感到焦虑和压力。所以我认为这是硅谷提供的东西，可以应用到学校。

And the reverse is also true. If you do not have trust, then all of a sudden, you're like, "Well, what if this donor is upset about this thing? Let me do this thing differently." But you're not fulfilling your mission. You're worried. You have anxiety and stress about this thing. And so I think that is something that Silicon Valley offers that can be applied to school.

以什么方式？

In what way?

信任学生去做他们想做的事，追随他们想追随的线索，这是我认为我们可以独特提供的东西。我认为硅谷是一个地方，一个有独特想法或不同做事方式的人通常可以被接受并允许去做。现在，有一些社会规则。比如你不能到处对每个人刻薄或撒谎，不是那样的，你知道，不是那么宽容。但如果我们开始信任年幼的孩子和年轻人去追随他们想要的，然后我们赋予他们权力，即使我们认为他们做的事情很疯狂，那么他们就会建立你所说的那个未来。他们会找出真正有效的下一版 holacracy。

Trusting students to do what they want to do and follow the threads they want to do is something that I think we can uniquely offer. I think that Silicon Valley is a place where someone who has a unique idea or a different way of doing things can generally be accepted and allowed to do it. Now, there are some social rules. Like you can't just go around being mean to everyone or lying or it's not that, you know, it's not that permissive, you know. But if we start trusting young kids and young adults to go and follow what they want and then we empower them, even if we think what they're doing is crazy, then they're going to build that future you're talking about. They're going to figure out the next version of holacracy that actually works.

让我问你一个问题。这可能有点棘手，但你会怎么处理那些捣乱的人？就像总会有一些人会破坏东西。比如，你知道，扎克伯格著名的 Facemash，那真的很有争议。比如我黑进了我们的——有人可能听说过它拼写为——

Let me ask you a question. It might be tricky, but what are you going to do with the troublemakers? Like invariably there's going to be people that are going to be like breaking things. Like, you know, Zuck famously built like Facemash, which was like really controversial. Like I hacked into our—someone might have heard of it spelled—

是的，你怎么看？我的意思是，显然有些事情真的越过了某种犯罪红线，但比如——

Yeah, what do you think of that? I mean, obviously there are things that really cross some kind of red line on criminality, but like—

哦，当然。是的，我的意思是，明确一点，你必须在某处划清界限，对吧？所以，毫无疑问，比如如果你做了违反我们性骚扰政策的事情，或者，你知道，你在所有人面前对某人非常刻薄，你知道，当然会有规则。比如，我们必须创造一种信任和正和的文化。

Oh, for sure. Yeah, I mean, just be clear, you have to draw a line somewhere, right? So, there's no question, like if you do something like violate our sexual harassment policy or, you know, you are super mean to someone in front of everyone, you know, like there are going to be rules, of course. Like, we have to create a culture of trust and positive sum.

对。

Right.

同时，我认为学院的核心原则之一完全绕过了这个问题。

At the same time, I think that one of the core tenets of the academy sidesteps this problem entirely.

嗯。

Mhm.

我们没有分数。我们没有考试。那种要对抗的压力应该小得多。因此，很多这些挑战，人们做的事情，就像你想建 Face Smash，去吧。我的意思是，谁在乎呢，对吧？比如我愿意捍卫你这样做的权利。如果有人让我在播客上说：“是的，那是个奇怪的想法。”我也很高兴。比如，我不知道那个孩子在做什么。我不喜欢它，但你知道吗？他们必须做他们必须做的事。人们就是这样。所以我会说同样的话：如果你创造一个信任的环境，如果你允许这种情况发生，并且你设计得让他们没有一种反权威的心态，那么我认为你打开了很多创造力和很多机会。

We don't have grades. We don't have tests. The sort of amount of weight to push against should be a lot less. And so therefore a lot of these challenges, these things that people do, it's like you want to build Face Smash, go for it. Like, I mean, who cares, right? Like I'm willing to defend your right to do that. And I'm also happy if someone asked me on a podcast to say, "Yeah, that was a weird idea." Like, well, I don't know what that kid was thinking. I didn't love it, but you know what? They got to do what they got to do. And that's how people are going to be. And so I'd say the same thing is if you create an environment of trust and if you allow that to happen and you design it so that they don't have a sort of anti-authoritarianism mindset, then I think you open up a lot of creativity and a lot of opportunity.

是的，我也认为有机会以健康的方式引导这种测试边界的动力。前几天我读到一个故事，关于一个孩子黑进了某个政府的东西，结果被判了两年监禁。他在一次采访中谈到他是如何在 Roblox 上学习黑客技术的。显然，有一个很大的趋势，人们在 Roblox 上学习编程和黑客技术。我和 Roblox 的创始人兼 CEO Dave 谈过。就像，“如果能为这些人提供某种沙盒，让他们玩耍，然后发现人才，然后引导他们进入网络安全工作，那真的很酷。”

Yeah, I also think that there's an opportunity to funnel that drive to test the boundaries in a healthy way. I was reading the story the other day about a kid that hacked into some government thing and was getting like 2 years in prison. And he was on an interview talking about how he learned to hack on Roblox. And apparently there's like a big trend where people learn programming and hacking on Roblox. I was talking to Dave, the founder CEO of Roblox. It's like, "It'd be really cool to have some kind of sandbox for these people to play in and then discover talents and then funnel them into cybersecurity jobs."

甚至政府。与其把这些孩子送进监狱，不如带他们去 NSA 工作或类似的地方——我们现在需要网络安全人才。比如，你为什么要让他们进监狱，你知道吗？

Or even the government. Instead of like sending these kids to jail, like take them to work at the NSA or work at a like some—we need cyber security talent right now. Like why are you like putting them in jail, you know?

是的。是的，而且有一条线。比如，你知道，有些孩子在黑客攻击，他们可能在做一些我不会感到舒服的事情。

Yeah. Yeah, and there's a line. Like, you know, there are kids who are hacking who are probably doing things that I wouldn't be comfortable with.

但也有一些孩子，他们这么做的原因和方式其实完全没问题。如果我们能多一点宽容，我认为可以为他们创造更多机会。

But there's also kids who are doing it for reasons and ways that are honestly fine. And if we can just have a little bit more permissiveness, I think we can create a lot more opportunity for them.

就像你提到的，重新利用这些才能。

And repurpose that talent as you mentioned.

是的，我小时候特别喜欢一个叫 hackthissite 的网站，是 hackthissite.org。不知道现在还在不在。它就像一个内置了漏洞的网站。

Yeah, I mean one site I was really into growing up called hackthissite. It was hackthissite.org. I don't know if it's still around. It's like a website that has vulnerabilities built in.

就像

Like

那很酷。

That's cool.

就像夺旗赛，对吧？

It's like capture the flag, right?

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，我觉得我们有点深入探讨其中一个方面了，但比如你可以在 RC 里搞一个漏洞赏金项目。

Um and so like I mean, I think we're kind of digging deep into one aspect of it, but like you can have a bounty program in the RC.

是的。

Yeah.

当然。

For sure.

是的。

Yeah.

绝对可以。或者我可以鼓励学生去其他所有学校、其他所有公司做赏金项目，因为大多数公司都有赏金项目。

Absolutely. Or I can encourage the students to go do the bounty programs at all the other schools if all the other companies cuz most companies have a bounty program.

对。

Yes.

是的。

Yeah.

是的，绝对可以。

Yeah, absolutely.

嗯，是的，这很有意思。我觉得回到你提到的，什么时候该信任长辈，什么时候该颠覆，这其实有一个普遍的趋势，就是真正重要的是获得辨别力，因为所有规则和启发式方法，其实都取决于具体情境和个案。而获得辨别力的方式就是通过反复练习。嗯，要信任学生，让他们自己失败、做决定、从中学习。你在这个播客里创造了“技术积极主义”这个词。我要创造的是“元最大化”。

The um Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think going back to your thing around, you know, when to trust the elders versus when to disrupt, it's kind of there's this general uh trend in terms of like what's really important to gain is discernment cuz all like, you know, rules and heuristics, it's like it really matters about the context and case by case. And the way to get discernment is by having reps. Um and and being trusting the students to sort of fail on their own, to make decisions, to to learn from it. It's got You coined uh you know, technopositivism on this podcast. The thing I'll coin is uh meta maxing.

什么时候该最大化，什么时候该凭直觉，什么时候会把你带入麻烦。我觉得这真的和不对称上行与不对称下行有关。但你需要反复练习。而这就是项目式学习，或者只是给人们更多时间控制权的核心，就是给他们更多机会去选择一条路，成功、失败、从中学习。

When to max versus when to like when to go on pure instinct versus when when to sort of like when that will drive you into into trouble. And I think it really relates to like when there's asymmetric upside versus asymmetric downside. But you kind of need reps. And and I I that's a lot of what project-based learning or just giving people more control over their time is the idea of of just giving them more opportunities to choose a path, succeed, fail, learn from it.

是的。这是我最后一个问题。有些人会说，嘿，你知道，记得蒂尔推出他的奖学金时，很多人很生气。他们说，大学，你学会如何做一个好人。这不仅仅是技术技能，甚至超越智力，人们想象像罗宾·威廉姆斯的《死亡诗社》。我不知道。但有一种培养，18 岁时你正在成为一个人。所以我很好奇，你能不能谈谈我们在湾区，在这个既极度职业导向又极度知识化的环境中，如何看待这种价值观、道德或伦理的培养，或者只是成为成年人？你对此有什么看法？

Yeah. Here is my last question. There there's some people who would say something like, "Hey, you know, um you know, remember when Thiel launched his fellowship and a lot of people were mad at it. They were like, "College, you learn how to be a good person." Like it it's it's it's something beyond this this technical, you know, skill set, but even beyond this intellectual, you know, people imagine like Robin Williams dead poet society. I don't know. But there's sort of this like cultivate, you know, where 18 year you're becoming a person. And so I'm curious if if you could talk a little bit about how we see sort of in the Bay Area, you know, in this environment that is both, you know, hyper career oriented, but also, you know, hyper intellectual. But what is this sort of cultivation of values or morals or ethics or or just like becoming an adult? What do you what do you what do we say about that?

是的，这其实很有意思。我周游过世界。我想，我去过难民营，去过亿万富翁的家。我见过……我想说，我见过的一些最善良、最体贴、最脚踏实地的人就在硅谷。但不是所有人。我的意思是，有些赚了很多钱的真正白痴。别误会，我并不是尊重每一个赚了钱的人。不是那样的。但正和、高信任的生态系统，我认为确实孕育了非常了不起的人。

Yeah, it's it's it's actually interesting. So I've traveled all over the world. I've I would like to think, you know, I've been to refugee camps. I've been to, you know, billion billionaires houses. I have met Um I I would say that some of the kindest, most thoughtful, most grounded people I've ever met are here in Silicon Valley. And it's not everyone. I mean, there are there's some real idiots out there who've made a lot of money. Like don't get me wrong. I don't have respect for everyone who's made money. That's not true. But the positive sum high trust ecosystem actually I think breeds really amazing human beings.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，人际交往能力是学院的绝对支柱。我们希望我们的毕业生、参与者、研究员，或者我们最终会怎么称呼他们。我们希望参加学院的人对社会和世界产生积极影响。我认为这是学院的使命之一，就是创造一个正和的世界。所以，我实际上认为我们绝对相信两年制，你知道，你会花两年时间，你会作为一个人成长，你会遇到其他人，我们会创造一个环境，让你看到我认为很多人没有注意到但确实存在于旧金山的文化的好处。

Um and interpersonal skills is an absolute pillar of the academy. Like we want we want our uh you know, graduates or attendees or fellows or whatever we're going to end up calling them. We want the people who attend the academy to be positive influences on society and the world. And I think that that's like one of the missions of the academy is to create a positive Sun World. So, I actually think we absolutely believe in a two-year, you know, you're going to spend two years and you're going to grow as a human being, you're going to meet other people and we're going to create an environment where you can see the benefits of the culture that I think many people don't pay attention to but is very much here in in in San Francisco.

我我我认为在这里拥有一个好人的声誉实际上是非常有价值的。人们信任你管理他们的钱，信任你管理公司等等。我认为在大学里培养这种意识非常重要。我认为成为一个适应良好的人很重要。嗯，我知道有一段时间，有些人扮演这种自闭症天才的角色。也许在某个时候这很管用。我记得红杉资本关于 SBF 的博客文章，那简直是金句。他们删了。你可以在 archive.org 上找到。我认为这不再管用了。我认为硅谷不再是这种叛逆的东西。我们是一种机构。它已经是建制的一部分了。嗯，我们还必须与世界对接，对吧？人们需要明白我们有责任，我们不仅仅是在自己人之间说话。我们说的话，比如伯尼·桑德斯读了 Dwarkesh 的博客文章。我批评了 Dwarkesh 的那种语言，那些不懂这项技术的人，他们不会……那篇博客文章，在我看来，并没有让他们更理解。实际上，如果你不懂，你可能会从中学到错误的教训。所以我认为重要的是，我们创建或这个学院培养出适应良好的成年人，他们不仅能说内部语言，这很重要，但最终能站在国会面前。嗯，最后，关于价值观的培养，或者成为好人的想法，你还有什么想说的吗？你觉得学校或学校环境对此有贡献吗？我们提到过伟大的书籍。教一些这些东西会很好。我花了很多时间自学伦理和道德。

I I I think having a reputation of being a good person here actually is is is very valuable. And people trust you with their money, people trust you with governing your company and and and and so on so forth. Uh and I think developing that that sense in university is uh is very important. And I think being a well-adjusted person is is important. Um I think that um I know for for for a while like, you know, I I I think, you know, some people play the role of being like this autistic genius person. Um and maybe at some point it paid off. Uh like I remember this Sequoia blog post about SBF that's like gold. They deleted it. You can find it on archive.org. Um and I don't think I don't think it works anymore. I think Silicon Valley is no longer this sort of renegade thing. We're kind of it's it's an institution. It's part of the establishment anyways. Um and we also have to interface with with the world, right? Um and people need to understand that we have responsibility uh that we're not just talking amongst ourselves. Um and what we're saying like, you know, Bernie Sanders read Dwarkesh's blog blog post. And I I criticized Dwarkesh for for the kind of language and and it's like people who don't understand this technology are there they're going to they're not they that blog post, in my opinion, did not create more understanding in them. It actually it probably if you don't understand it probably could you know, you you you learned the long wrong lessons from from that that thing. And so um so I I think it's important that we create or this academy creates uh well-adjusted adults that not can only speak the in-group language, which is important, but can you know, can eventually be in front of Congress. Um is there anything as lastly you want to say about sort of like cultivation of of of values or like the sort of the idea of be you being a good person um like is there anything there that you feel school or school environment contributes to or do you think we spoke about? We mentioned the like the great books. It'd be good to like teach some of these things. Like I spent a lot of time studying uh ethics and morality on my own.

是的。

Yeah.

嗯，我读了很多，比如很多功利主义的文集，我最终有点拒绝了。我不认为那是世界的运行方式。

Um I read you know, a lot of the for example a lot of the utilitarian kind of corpus of and I ended up kind of rejecting that. I don't think that's the the way of the world.

我通过广泛阅读和内省，找到了自己的道德指南针，真正得出了关于我想如何在这个世界上行事的某些结论。如果要描述我自己，也许最接近亚里士多德的德性伦理学。其理念是，我应该以自己会引以为豪的方式行事。

I sort of found my moral compass by reading widely and introspecting, and truly coming to certain conclusions about how I want to act in the world. The way I would describe myself is perhaps closest to virtue ethics from Aristotle. The idea is that I should act in a way that I would be proud of.

是的。

Yeah.

不管有没有人在看，也不管影响如何。而且我觉得，说来奇怪，如果你有德性、有某些原则，其净效果就是你实现了效用最大化。

Regardless of who's watching or who's not watching, or regardless of the impact. And I think, in a weird way, if you're virtuous and if you have certain principles, the net effect of that is that you are utility maximizing.

我觉得前提是你有正确的原则。

I think if you have the right principles.

是的。而且你还需要随时间改变，需要弄清楚世界正走向何方，并确保你以正确的方式融入其中。但总而言之，我认为博雅教育有价值，阅读这类东西有价值，试着理解你对想如何行事、想如何呈现自己的感受。

Yeah. And you need to also change over time, and you need to figure out where the world is headed and make sure you're fitting in it in the right way. But all of this to say is that I think there is value in the liberal arts and in reading some of this stuff and trying to understand how you feel about how you want to act and how you want to present yourself.

让我更认同功利主义论证（就其作为公理而言）的一点是，世界变化太快，在一个不断变化的世界里，很难持有僵化的原则——你知道，一整套僵化的哲学。

One of the things that made me more sympathetic to the utilitarian argument, in terms of it being axiomatic, is that the world is changing so much that it's hard to have rigid principles in a world that is—you know, a whole philosophy that is rigid.

是的。

Yes.

你知道，在一个不断变化的世界里。

You know, in a world that's changing.

对。而且说来奇怪，反过来也成立：当我们正进入奇点、你无法真正预测未来时，你没法做一个后果主义功利主义者。

Right. And weirdly, the opposite is true as well: you can't be a consequentialist utilitarian when we're entering the singularity and you can't really predict the future.

是的。

Yeah.

因为那建立在预测未来的基础上。所以这是个艰难的时代。我认为你需要有随时间演进的原则。我认为你有一些你珍视的根本原则、根本真理，它们应该尽可能公理化、尽可能少。

Because that's based on predicting the future. And so it is a tough time. I think you need to have principles that are evolving over time. I think you have some ground principles, ground truths that you hold dearly, and they should be as axiomatic and as small as possible.

是的。最后，我们感谢你对学院的支持。我们很兴奋能够——在 Replit 上，可能去 Replit 实习，可能获得你的资助。那么也许作为最后一个问题，当你看到一个 18 岁、20 岁或 16 岁的年轻人，让你觉得特别鼓舞人心，你会想“哇，我得花时间跟这个人相处，或以某种方式参与其中”，他们做了什么吸引了你的兴趣？或者说，你在年轻人才身上寻找什么？

Yeah. In closing, we're grateful for your support of the academy. We're excited to be able to—on Replit, potentially interning at Replit, potentially being funded by you. And so maybe as a last question, when you see an 18-year-old or 20-year-old or 16-year-old that is really inspiring to you, that you're like, "Oh wow, I've got to spend time with this person or be involved with them in some capacity," what are they doing that is capturing your interest? Or what are you looking for in young talent?

我觉得第一点是他们真正深入钻研了某件事，他们能教我一些东西。

I think the first thing is that they dove really deep into something, they can teach me something.

是的。

Yeah.

而且我感兴趣的是——我觉得我可以对任何事感兴趣。我觉得如果你能讲述你做过的某个项目的故事，而且你钻研得非常非常深，那总是令人印象深刻，因为这是大多数人缺乏的，大多数人很容易厌倦。大多数人做传统的事。但你是否真正把一条线索追到底了？那总是非常令人印象深刻，也显示出一些良好的性格特质。

And I'm interested in—I think I can be interested in anything. I think if you're able to tell a story about some project you've done and you've gotten really, really deep in it, I think that's always impressive, because that's what most people lack and most people get bored easily. Most people do the traditional thing. But did you actually follow a thread all the way through? That's always really impressive, and that shows also some good personality traits.

是的。

Yeah.

坚持、内在动机，你可能在做某件真正——你在追随自己的好奇心，也许没有任何即时回报。而且我觉得，就像你说的，反主流、持有真正重要的观点。但如果你聪明，如果你年轻又聪明，很容易觉得所有人都是白痴。

Persistence, intrinsic motivation, you might be doing something that is really—you're following your curiosity and maybe doesn't have any immediate reward. And I think that, you know, like you said, being contrarian, having really important opinions. But it's very easy if you're smart and if you're young and smart to think everyone's an idiot.

是的。

Yeah.

包括我。比如，我会看到一些年轻人，我会想“啊，他们跟我说话时好像我什么都不懂”。但我认为尊重你交谈的对象很重要。拥有良好的人际交往能力，我认为这很重要。否则，人们不想待在你身边。我觉得这很重要。

Including me. Like, I'll see young people that I'm like, "Ah, they'll talk to me like I don't understand anything." But I think it's important to respect the person that you're talking to. Having good interpersonal skills, I think it's important. Otherwise, people don't want to be around you. I think that's important.

完全同意。是的，我觉得两者都要：不怕在某件事上冒尖——比如，很多人挣扎是因为他们什么都涉猎太广，但没有任何一件事真正出色。

Totally. Yeah, I think it's both not being afraid to spike in something—like, a lot of people just struggle because they're too broad in everything but not really amazing at anything.

对。

Right.

然后一路追到底，看看你能做到多好。但同时也要有基本的人际交往能力，就像那种——

And just follow that to its conclusion, see how good you can get at it. But while also having a baseline of interpersonal skills, just sort of like the—

是的。要讨人喜欢，而且不是刻意或虚假的方式。就是，你知道，非常真诚，因为人们愿意支持好人。

Yeah. Be likable, and in a way that's not contrived or fake. They're just, you know, it's really authentic, because people want to support people who are good people.

但最讨人喜欢的是你能对某个冷门又有趣的东西痴迷地钻研，完全——

But the most endearing thing is you can nerd out on something obscure and interesting and totally—

是的。太棒了。点赞。谢谢——

Yeah. Awesome. Thumbs up. Thanks for—

非常感谢。谢谢邀请我。

Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.