Dialectic

Jackson Dahl

Conversational portraits of original people, across technology, media, business, and creativity. By Jackson Dahl.

  1. 1d ago

    Nan Ransohoff: Power Laws for Philanthropy

    Nan Ransohoff (X, Substack, Website) is Head of Public Goods and former Head of Climate at Stripe. This includes Frontier (which she co-founded): an advance market commitment that accelerates carbon removal by guaranteeing demand for it before it exists. They also recently launched Intercept Fund, a new effort to end respiratory infections, led by Nan and Charlie Petty. Nan has written extensively about Stripe’s efforts and philanthropy broadly, including her call for general managers for the world’s pressing problems, and on what she calls the third wave of American philanthropy. We talk about what a "Nan" is and why we need GM’s: ambitious founder-like people who obsess over an outcome and work backwards from it, wearing whatever hat the problem requires. We discuss taste in big problems, slicing them up and making them tractable, and why vision is in short supply. We also discuss the coming wave of new philanthropic dollars (est. ~$40B/year), primarily driven by The OpenAI Foundation, Anthropic Founders, and Anthropic employee matching, and how the ecosystem will need to mature to effectively deploy this much capital. Nan also reflects on her unlikely turn toward philanthropy and what it felt like to get off the ladder of a specific kind of ambition. We wrap up with a range of miscellanea and some fun debates. I hope you are inspired to notice problems you can’t ignore, be optimistic and specific about the world you hope for, and choose an (unlikely) path that you are proud of. Transcript and all links: https://dialectic.fm/nan - Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Watch here for more on Notion's new developer platform and workers. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. - Timestamps: (0:00) Opening Highlights (1:15) Intro to Nan (3:18) Thanks to Notion (4:53) Start: What is a Nan? Nerd-Sniped by Orphaned Problems (12:39) GMs, Seeing the Chessboard, and Working Backwards from Outcomes (18:55) Good Taste in Problems, Vision, and Good Finish Lines (35:43) Advance Market Commitments Tactically Solving Carbon Removal (41:35) Focus and Sketching Out or Slicing Up Messy Problems (49:39) Legibility, Public Rallying, and Ambition in Philanthropy (54:38) Third Wave Philanthropy and Hard to Quantify Problems (1:06:50) Risk Tolerance in Philanthropy and Scarcity of Funders and Allocators (1:15:22) The $40B Tidal Wave of New AI-Money and Why Start Now (1:19:53) Amount of Capital, Government Philanthropy, and Making Philanthropic Founders Rich (1:31:44) Nan's Mid-Career Inflection Point and Getting Off the Obvious Path (1:39:47) Grab-bag: Why Stripe Funds Public Goods, Making Things with Friends, Creative Partnership, Iceland Drone, and Scone Heads (1:49:39) Syllabi for the Squishy Topics & Study vs. Experience (1:57:01) Inputs & Outputs and GLPs for Attention (2:04:38) Closing: Interviewing Parents and Imagining an Obituary (2:09:58) Thanks Again to Notion

    Nan Ransohoff: Power Laws for Philanthropy

  2. Jun 30

    Tyler Cowen & Nabeel Qureshi: An Appetite For More

    Tyler Cowen (Website, X, Marginal Revolution, Conversations with Tyler) is an economist at George Mason University, leads the Mercatus Center, and is the author of many books including The Great Stagnation and Average Is Over. He has blogged nearly daily at Marginal Revolution for over 20 years, has interviewed hundreds of world-experts on Conversations with Tyler, and runs Emergent Ventures, a prolific grants program that has funded multiple Dialectic guests. Nabeel S. Qureshi (Website, X, Substack) is an entrepreneur, writer, and researcher. He runs a stealth startup. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at Mercatus and spent nearly eight years at Palantir. He writes some of my favorite essays, including "What Makes Art Great" and "Rented Virtue", and was previously a guest on Dialectic for episode 13: "The Will to Care." Tyler and Nabeel are good friends, and given how prolific Tyler is, I decided to use Nabeel as an entry point and interview them together. We discuss sacred commitments, AI acceleration, mentorship, friendship, and more, but I focused the majority of the conversation on art and aesthetics. Tyler and Nabeel are unlikely aesthetes given their day jobs, but in fact take art deeply seriously. They have a shared love for and similar tastes in art, music, and film, in particular. We discuss strange and beautiful art, aesthetic stagnation, and a wide range of favorites: The Beatles, Mozart, Mondrian, Springsteen, Lana Del Rey, Kanye West, Cassavetes, The Sopranos, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and more. Please enjoy, and thank you for supporting, listening, and watching through fifty episodes of Dialectic. I can't wait for the next fifty! Transcript and all links: dialectic.fm/tyler-nabeel --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Learn more about Notion's new developer platform and workers here. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. Timestamps: (0:00) Opening Highlights (1:18) Intro to Tyler & Nabeel (3:02) Thanks to Notion (4:38) Start: Sacred Commitments, AI, Markets, and Acceleration (20:23) How Art Moves Us (27:08) "Beauty," Strangeness, Great Art, Music, and The Beatles (44:09) Film, Critics, Learning to Appreciate Depth, More Music, "Lowbrow" Art (1:02:25) New Aesthetics, Sources of Inspiration, Optimism & Pessimism (1:11:22) The Internet & Twitter's Virtue, Group Chats, and Cities (1:21:35) Mentors, (Possibly Quitting) Writing Books, Friendship (1:34:54) Interviewing, Identifying Talent, and Agency (1:47:21) Closing Questions (1:53:38) Thanks Again to Notion

    Tyler Cowen & Nabeel Qureshi: An Appetite For More

  3. Jun 18

    Jasmine Sun: Close Enough to See Clearly

    Jasmine Sun (Substack, X, LinkedIn) is an independent writer and journalist. She is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and also writes for other major publications, like The New York Times. She previously led core product at Substack. Jasmine focuses on Silicon Valley and AI, and is something of a participant observer, living among the strange and inspiring people pulling the future forward in San Francisco. In her writing, she plays to both sides: focusing on a more endemic audience with her newsletter while telling the broader world about what she learns in flagship pieces for major publications. Several of these anchor around memes that she thinks may deeply matter: “the permanent underclass,” “chinese peptides,” and “claude code psychosis,” to name a few. Jasmine has done many interviews about these individual topics, so I wanted to focus on her and her approach: playing to both audiences, her taste in questions and topics, doing both “serious” journalism and more personal writing, how going independent wasn’t so risky, what she admires in great writing, AI and her coming “AlphaGo moment,” China, and more. Please enjoy. --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Learn more about Notion’s new developer platform and workers here. Check out Brian’s X/Twitter sync worker. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. Timestamps: (0:00) Opening Highlights (1:30) Intro to Jasmine (2:13) Thanks to Notion (3:24) Start: Being a "Historian of Vibe" and Learning to Look (15:00) Taste for Questions & The Depth Behind Memes (24:28) Translating Between Silicon Valley and The World (40:27) Substack vs. "Serious" Journalism and Integrity as a Writer (47:35) Integrity when Using AI and the AlphaGo Question (58:42) Strategy Across Publications & Maximizing an Idea's Reach (1:06:45) Going Independent, Risk, and Commercial Tradeoffs (1:24:35) Great Writing: Style, Voice, and Resisting Summary (1:35:35) Literary Inspirations, Favorite Essays, Writing vs. Thinking, and Getting Better (1:51:09) Writing to Publish, Authenticity, and Art (2:00:38) Grab Bag: China, Silicon Valley's Virtues and Problems, AI Transition, The Relational Economy, Parties, Debates, Self Belief, and More (2:35:16) Thanks Again to Notion Select Articles From Jasmine Silicon Valley is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass (NYT) ‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World (NYT) Claude code psychosis (Substack) Notes on AI, labor, and China (Substack) America against china against america (Substack) The Human Skill That Eludes AI (The Atlantic)

    Jasmine Sun: Close Enough to See Clearly

  4. Jun 17

    Henri Stern - Principled Enough to Be Pragmatic

    Henri Stern (X, LinkedIn) is the co-founder and CEO of Privy. Privy builds wallet infrastructure for developers, enabling them to let their users hold and use crypto, including stablecoins. Privy was acquired by Stripe in 2025, and remain an independent organization within the company. They work with large fintechs like Ramp and Klarna while also supporting some of the most notable crypto-native platforms like Hyperliquid. Henri also supports a number of other crypto efforts within Stripe. Henri is thoughtful, measured, and principled. Yet he is also pragmatic. He doesn’t like to play philosopher and yet he is one of my favorite people ask big questions about our future and our digital lives. Our conversation is anchored in the phrase at the bottom of Privy's website: "technical decisions are moral decisions." He and Asta Li started Privy to focus on user data privacy, and we talk about what digital privacy means and why it still matters. After realizing they were trying to serve the market something it didn’t want, Privy found an inflection point initially by enabling developers to embed crypto wallets in their apps. We talk about the painful decision to pivot, and later, to commit to both ends of the crypto market: hardcore, trading-oriented products and stablecoins as they flooded into traditional fintech infrastructure. We also talk about joining Stripe, what Crypto’s future looks like, and his level-headed mindset for our tumultuous future. All links and transcript available at dialectic.fm/henri-stern. --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Learn more about Notion’s new developer platform and workers here. Check out Brian’s X/Twitter sync worker. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 1:40 - Intro to Henri 3:10 - Thanks to Notion 4:51 - Start: Technical Decisions are Moral Decisions 15:41 - Ambition, Startups, and Crypto 23:39 - Why Digital Privacy Matters: Self-Determination, Security, and Identity 41:52 - Embedded Wallets, the Pivot, and Privy's Core Bet 55:18 - Reinventing Around Stablecoins Without Abandoning Crypto-Natives 1:06:42 - Joining Stripe, Privy Today, and What Stripe Is Becoming 1:22:54 - Crypto's Future, Power Laws, Optimism and Pessimism 1:38:14 - Closing: Asta, Stripe's Leaders, Being French, and Never Compromising 1:52:48 - Thanks Again to Notion

    Henri Stern - Principled Enough to Be Pragmatic

  5. May 27

    Paul Scherer - A Friend Who Brings Us Closer

    Paul Scherer (X, LinkedIn) is the founder of Eigen (check out their beautiful website), where he’s building a mutual friend: an AI that brings people closer together and helps us belong. Paul grew up in a small town outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and dropped out of high school at seventeen to work on startups, including Augment. He recently raised $15M from Benchmark, with legendary partner Peter Fenton comparing him to the founders of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. I was introduced to him by Notion co-founder Akshay Kothari, who is an angel investor in Eigen. Dialectic guest Brie Wolfson has also been working with Paul, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and why so many people I respect were so enamored with a kid who has yet to publicly launch a product. We start with Paul’s central influence: Michael Ende’s children’s novel, Momo, and the little girl who reminds a village to be present in the face of Time Thieves quietly pushing them to be more efficient. Then we talk about how even though the internet has shaped both of our lives and relationships, it increasingly feels that social media is making us feel both more connected and more alone. Paul explains what they are working on at Eigen, why we need an (AI) mutual friend, why it should be a single “person,” and why it feels less like engineering and more like parenting or growing someone/thing you don’t have complete control over. I also ask Paul about the pressures and psychology around being “blessed” by Silicon Valley’s powers that be, and why authenticity, or something like it, is in short supply. I hope you are inspired to be courageous in your convictions, even if they are strange, and to listen to the voice inside that so many of us stop listening to in adulthood. All links available at dialectic.fm/paul-scherer - Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Learn more about Notion’s new developer platform and workers here. Inside Notion by Brie Wolfson & Camille Ricketts for Colossus. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. Timestamps: (0:00) Opening Highlights (1:13) Intro to Paul (2:33) Thanks to Notion (3:28) Start: 'Momo', Presence, Friendship, and Time (11:10) How the Internet Connects Us and Isolates Us, and Conflating Social and Media (25:12) A Future Where We Talk to AIs (33:55) Paul and Eigen are Building a Mutual Friend to Help Us Connect with Other Humans (48:01) Why Do We Need a Mutual Friend? And Making a Friend We Can Trust (1:16:53) Belonging, Building the team at Eigen, and Inventor as Outlaw (1:25:38) Managing the Psychology of Being a Promising Young Founder (1:36:53) Maintaining a High Bar, Fighting Entropy, and Influences (1:53:50) Self-belief, Authenticity, Seeing the Water (2:10:30) Courage, and a Final Question from a Mutual Friend (2:15:04) Thanks Again to Notion

    Paul Scherer - A Friend Who Brings Us Closer

  6. May 11

    Nicole Seah (Nix): Loving What is Real

    Nicole Seah (X, Substack, LinkedIn), aka Nix, is a writer at Starting From Nix and investor at Costanoa Ventures. She recently launched New Ontologies, where she profiles founders and companies thinking ambitiously about the future. Her first piece is live now, on Ando: the team building a chat platform for the era of agents. Nicole balances identities with poise, moving between the literary and the practical. I spoke to her about different kinds of beauty and how it takes us out of ourselves, Nietzsche’s case for tolerating strangeness, and choosing reality over fantasy. Then we discuss duality and balancing intensity and lightness, and talk through Borges, Hesse, Miyazaki, Alyssa Liu, and Joan Didion. Nicole argues that freedom comes from not collapsing yourself into a single identity. I asked her about the drive behind New Ontologies, her obsession with techne, and Rebecca Solnit's "cosmology of self.” We then skate across a range of ideas, including memory, appetite and desire, and friendship and why other people’s unknowability is part of what makes them wonderful. I hope this conversation inspires you to look for and love what is real, to be patient with and attuned to the multiple people inside you, and to give freely with your creative life. Full transcript and all links and references: dialectic.fm/nix. - Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Notion recently launched custom agents: helpful AI teammates that handle recurring work across your entire suite of tools. Automate you and your team’s repetitive tasks so you can focus on the deep work. Inside Notion⁠ by Brie Wolfson & Camille Ricketts for Colossus. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. Timestamps: 00:00 - Opening Highlights 01:14 - Intro to Nicole 02:04 - Thanks to Notion 03:48 - Start: Beauty — Effort, Attention, Strangeness 19:59 - Fantasy and Reality 29:41 - Multiple Identities, Intensity, and Lightness 49:08 - New Ontologies: Profiling Founders Building the Future 1:08:57 - Memory, Lineage, and Process 1:18:41 - Appetite and Honesty 1:23:47 - Friendship, Proximity, and The Unknowability of the Other 1:41:18 - Closing Notes: Solitude, Noticing, and Generosity 1:53:40 - Thanks Again to Notion

    Nicole Seah (Nix): Loving What is Real

  7. Apr 28

    Nicholas Thompson: A Life of Long Form

    Nicholas Thompson (Website, X, LinkedIn, Wikipedia) is the CEO of The Atlantic, an elite distance runner, and the author of The Running Ground—a memoir about his father, his life, and the sport of running. Full transcript and all links at dialectic.fm/nick-thompson. Nick has led The Atlantic to tremendous subscriber growth and profitability since joining the then-money losing publication in early 2021. He was previously editor-in-chief of WIRED and editor of newyorker.com. He also co-founded The Atavist, wrote The Hawk and The Dove, and is a prolific interviewer, including his latest series, The Most Interesting Thing in AI. Nick is also the American record holder in the 50K, which he re-broke two days after we recorded this conversation (Exhales). We talked about the future of words in the age of AI, what makes a journalist, why legacy media institutions like The Atlantic are worth fighting for, and what great editing and coaching have in common. Then we turned to running and life: the small tailwinds that compound beyond what we can imagine, Nick’s trajectory—through a prodigious start, early career failure and African kidnapping, cancer at 30, and wild success since—to name a few beats, the trials and blessings of inheritance, and the versions of himself he may no longer have time to find. To close, Nick honors Scott Thompson’s memory by sharing how we might all be more like him and reflects on what drives aliveness. I hope you are inspired to get started, feel the wind at your back, clear unexpected hurdles, savor great words, raise your bar beyond what is reasonable, be grateful for those who came before and pay it forward to those who are next, and remember that there is always more waiting—for you, for me, for us. P.S. It’s unrelated to this conversation, but please read The Atlantic’s latest cover story and one of my favorite (and funniest) things I’ve read in ages. Caity Weaver on The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. Long live long form writing. - Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Notion recently launched custom agents: helpful AI teammates that handle recurring work across your entire suite of tools. Automate you and your team’s repetitive tasks so you can focus on the deep work. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. Timestamps: 0:00 Opening Highlights 1:17 Intro to Nick 2:24 Thanks to Notion 3:30 Start: Words, Reading, and Writing in an Automated World 18:39 Why Stories Matter and What Makes a Journalist 28:22 Media Institutions, The Atlantic, Democracy, Tech, and Power 44:21 Retaining Great Writers and The Virtues of Editors (and Coaches) 57:44 Magazines and America 1:05:57 Running, Motivation, Momentum, and Tailwinds 1:16:08 Aging, Fathers and Sons, Inheritance, and a Mother's Grace 1:31:00 Merging Machine-like Discipline and Wild Curiosity, The Boat that Never Touched Water, and Who We Might Still Become 1:44:11 Gratitude, Stalin's Daughter, Scott Thompson's Verve, and Feeling Most Alive 1:52:40 Closing and Thanks Again to Notion Key Links: The Running Ground - Nick Thompson Why I Run (excerpt from Running Ground) - Nick Thompson for The Atlantic Not Fade Away book - by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton Nick Thompson - Timeless (With Guarav Ahuja) Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here's What Happened (Wired) John W. Gardner — "Personal Renewal" Speech Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence? - D. Graham Burnett for The New Yorker

    Nicholas Thompson: A Life of Long Form

  8. Apr 20

    Jared Weinstein: Within Earshot, Out of Camera Shot

    Jared Weinstein (LinkedIn, X) is an investor, advisor, civic leader, and founder of Overton. This is his first interview. Full transcript and all links at dialectic.fm/jared-weinstein. Jared spent his twenties in the George W. Bush White House, starting as a scheduling intern and rising to become the President's personal aide. He went on to Stanford GSB, consulted for Palantir in its early days, and was a founding partner of Thrive Capital in NYC, helping build it into one of the most respected venture firms in the world over eleven years. After leaving Thrive in 2022, Jared returned to Birmingham to focus on Overton, where he invests in local founders, leads civic initiatives including Small Magic — an early childhood language development program — and works to make his hometown the best version of itself. He also continues to invest in startups, serve on boards, and seed and advise new investors. By his own words, he is busier than ever. Despite his very serious resume, anyone who knows Jared will tell you that he radiates humanity. He has spent his career amplifying people and helping them become the best version of themselves. We trace the arc of his career, talk about what it's really like inside the Oval Office, what he admires about the President, and the unlikely pivots that led him beyond a prodigious start. We also discuss what he and Josh got right at Thrive in the early days, how high stakes environments can be psychologically safe, and how to support incredibly ambitious people. Then we talk about his theory of change for Birmingham, the work he is doing now, and his reflections on where he's been and what he'd like to be known for. I hope this conversation gives you a model for what it looks like to bring your full humanity into high-stakes work and inspires you to commit yourself to the people, institutions, and communities you believe in. - Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI-powered connected workspace where teams think together and create their best work. Notion recently launched custom agents: helpful AI teammates that handle recurring work across your entire suite of tools. Automate you and your team’s repetitive tasks so you can focus on the deep work. You can learn more at notion.com/dialectic. - Timestamps 00:00 - Opening Highlights 01:40 - Intro to Jared 03:32 - Thanks to Notion 04:38 - Start: Being a "Friend" and Bringing Humanity to Serious Work 10:55 - From Duke to the West Wing 31:45 - Riding Shotgun with President Bush 59:27 - Starting Over Out West: Post-WH, Stanford, and Palantir 1:16:05 - Meeting Josh Kushner and Building Thrive Capital 1:44:37 - Founders, Humility, and the Three-Body Problem of Ego, Ambition, and Impact 2:06:41 - Leaving Thrive, Coming Home to Birmingham, and Overton 2:32:40 - Busier Than Ever: Mentors, Life in Acts, and What You Hope to Be Known For 2:49:11 - Thanks Again to Notion

    Jared Weinstein: Within Earshot, Out of Camera Shot
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Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
36 Ratings

About

Conversational portraits of original people, across technology, media, business, and creativity. By Jackson Dahl.

Information

  • Creator
    Jackson Dahl
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Dialectic

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