Aravind Srinivas

**Rick Rubin** (0:02)
Atheneum is a new podcast on the Tetragrammaton Network.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:10)
Do you know about the connection between Charlie Manson and MK Ultra, the US government's mind control operation? What if everything you thought you knew about the Manson murders was wrong? Join Ayesha Akhandi for a once-in-a-lifetime in-depth conversation with Tom O'Neill, author of the runaway bestseller Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the 60s. In this limited deep dive series, Tom O'Neill unpacks his 20-year investigation into the CIA's mind-control program, linking it to Charles Manson and the disturbing secrets buried in America's history. From missing FBI files to Hollywood cover-ups, government surveillance, LSD, and the dark collapse of the 60s hippie dream, this is the story behind the story. It's not true crime, it's true chaos.
Hear it on Atheneum, the new podcast on the Tetragrammaton Podcast Network, available wherever you get your podcasts. Truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's far more dangerous.

**Rick Rubin** (1:23)
Coming soon on the Atheneum Podcast. Tetragrammaton.

**Aravind Srinivas** (1:54)
Coding is generally seen as like a burdensome thing by most people, which is why there are very few software programmers in the world. And the reason it's burdensome is because there's a lot of, you know, the actual craftsman's face of this thing. People have to tolerate all these long tail bugs and errors, and most people give up. The tolerance is not there. And the hope is that AIs can reduce the level of tolerance you need by doing all the burdenful work for you. And that way a lot more people will create new apps. There are literally like tools now that just let you launch an iPhone app without writing a single line of code yourself. It's pretty fun. Like basic stuff, like, you know, oh, I want like a customized way to track my diet. And some existing diet app may not do it for you in the way you want.
You don't have to raise a customer support complaint or try to reach out to the founder of that app and have him do it for you.

**Rick Rubin** (2:56)
And it gives you an opportunity to really tailor to the way you want it to be.

**Aravind Srinivas** (3:00)
Exactly. So you're the creator of the app and you might be the only user of the app too. It doesn't matter. I think it completely breaks this whole existing idea that apps need to be created for a million others or else it's a failure app.
Like you create your own app and use it. And it may not need to work for anybody else and it's still okay.

**Rick Rubin** (3:24)
No, it's not only okay, it's just a different way of thinking of it. There was a time, you've heard of the auteur theory of movie making where a director thought of himself as an artist and created his vision for a movie and then he shared it with other people. And then over the years, as the movie business got bigger, it started happening more with test screenings and committees of people deciding what goes in a movie with the idea of making it more universal and less personal. And it seems like everything, when it gets big, in some ways gets watered down to make it more for everybody. So the idea of using AI as a customization tool to make the world you want to live in, it's a very beautiful idea.

**Aravind Srinivas** (4:13)
Yeah, actually another way to think about it is when you're trying to build something for so many people, it'll end up being the common pattern that everybody wants. And when you want something really beautiful and unique, it's often things that most people might not find interesting, but a few will.
Your first version of every great app has always been something that if you showed 100 people in a room, 90 people would say, yeah, what is this? Why do we need the 17 search engines? That's what Google ended up being. Why do we need the 21st social network? Or when Steve Jobs created Apple, nobody cared about it in the beginning. So I think that's what I increasingly realize is, our company is also scaling a lot of users, is the product is being pushed towards like, oh, give me real up-to-date information on sports, so like entertainment, the news and all that. The first set of fans who love the product are like, I don't want any of this. Just let me do more research. Remove all the clutter. If I'm looking for like say, what is the best headphones to buy? I just literally just want the research answer. I don't want you to show any product cards. Our goal is showing product cards so you can buy it right there. But there's always this thing of like when you're scaling up, how do you preserve your core original identity? I've still not been able to crack it. At the end, all social platforms become political and a lot of drama. Because that's what most humans are. But it originally starts from very intellectual discussions, or very interesting way for people to share what's going on in their life, and it's very positive and amazing. So I think that's something that is right. Either you have to move on and create new things or you have to figure out a way to retain the core thing. To me, Steve was the only guy who managed to do it. He kept Apple, did not become Microsofty. They just continued to stay very unique, and even if they were price high, he just wanted to retain the core identity. So I thought you might like the book, and that's why I got it. Beautiful.