Ep 25: Kevin Kelly - WIRED Co-Founder, Polymath, Most Interesting Man In The World

Tim Ferriss (0:00)

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Quote, here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule, do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.

All they do is show that you've been to college, end quote.

I have a habit of using dashes in the same way, so I like to read this to remind me not to use that crutch. Also pretty, the adverb, I overuse that. So in any case, Kurt Vonnegut, lots of lessons, lots of amazing books. If you need one to start with, go with Cat's Cradle. Today's guest is Kevin Kelly. Kevin Kelly is one of the most interesting human beings I have ever met. He is a dear friend.

And as for the bio, Kevin Kelly is senior maverick at WIRED Magazine, which he co-founded in 1993 He also co-founded the All Species Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at cataloging and identifying every living species on earth. And in all his spare time, he writes bestselling books. He co-founded the Rosetta Project, which is building an archive of all documented human languages. And he serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation, which I've been honored to join as a speaker on one occasion.

As part of the Long Now Foundation, he's looking into, among other things, how to revive and restore endangered or extinct species, including the woolly mammoth. I'm not making this stuff up. Kevin is amazing. This is going to be a multi-part episode. So there'll be a number of different podcast episodes because we went quite long. This is part one.

I hope you enjoy it. You can find all links, show notes, and so on once we complete the entire series at fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast. You can also find all previous episodes I've done in this podcast, fourhourworkweek.com forward slash podcast, all spelled out. And without further ado, please enjoy and thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_2 (3:46)

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

Tim Ferriss (4:06)

Kevin, thank you so much for being on the show.

Kevin Kelly (4:08)

It's my honor.

Tim Ferriss (4:09)

And I am endlessly fascinated by all of the varied projects that you constantly have going on.

But that leads me to the first question, which is when you meet someone who is not familiar with your background and they ask you the age-old, what do you do question, how do you even begin to answer that? What is your stock answer to that?

Kevin Kelly (4:28)

These days, my stock answer is that I package ideas into books and magazines and websites. And I make ideas interesting and pretty.

Tim Ferriss (4:41)

Well, I like the pretty.

We'll come back to the aesthetic aspect. I think that's a really neglected piece of the entire puzzle. You do have, of course, a background, a lot of people are familiar with your background with WIRED, but perhaps you could give folks a bit of background on yourself. And is it true that you dropped out of college after one year?