The Child Prodigy Teaching Other People How To Learn

**Ashlee Vance** (0:00)
I don't know, I don't do like a crazy intro. I'll keep it pretty quick, but I'll babble here just for a second.
I don't know, you feel okay? Anything else? No, good.

**Andrew Hsu** (0:15)
Let's do it.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:28)
Thank you, Hsu, thank you for coming.

**Andrew Hsu** (0:30)
Of course, thanks for having me.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:32)
It's a pleasure, absolute pleasure. I know your brother, Patrick, who runs the Ark Institute, this temple of science.

**Andrew Hsu** (0:41)
Not too far from here.

**Ashlee Vance** (0:42)
Not too far, yeah, down the street in Palo Alto, and is a really cool place, I'm sure. Hopefully, we'll have Patrick on at some point. His life story, which I'm gonna write about, and I'm behind on writing about, just got me so fascinated with your family and you guys' background, and so, and then I got interested in you, you know, and just after speaking to him a little bit. Of course, yeah. Okay, so set the table for people who might not know. You are the co-founder and chief technology officer of Speak.

**Andrew Hsu** (1:20)
Yes.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:21)
It helps people learn new languages. You guys were ahead of the AI curve, I feel like. You started, it's almost eight years old?

**Andrew Hsu** (1:30)
Yeah, so we were YC Winter 2017 I think we technically incorporated at the end of 2016, but yeah, it's been about eight years.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:39)
And it was like AI from the beginning, right?

**Andrew Hsu** (1:41)
Yeah, it was always about AI and about this idea that at some point in five to 10 years, this is back in 2017, language models, speech models would become superhuman and that would let us build all sorts of really cool AI products that would be very transformative. And that was a good prediction.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:00)
Like really good. I feel like you guys were ahead of the curve. Transformers hadn't come out yet. I mean, people were doing AI stuff, but not, that was a good bet. So we are going to get in to speak. Another reason, and I hope this is, I don't think this is embarrassing. Maybe, I mean, I don't know. I mean, you've been described as a child prodigy whole life, and we're a child prodigy. I mean, you and your brother, I only know, there's three brothers.

**Andrew Hsu** (2:28)
Yes.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:28)
But I only know you and Patrick's story as well. And so, but both flew through school, ended up being homeschooled, went to university super early. You dropped out of your PhD program, and we can get in all that. But basically, we're just like flying through winning science contests, writing books. You even were like a really good athlete, I think, as well.

**Andrew Hsu** (2:57)
When I was young, that was a long time ago.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:59)
Yeah. So just like incredible accomplishments.
And I think it's like this fascinating window into a unique life. Thank you. And so I wanted to get into that a bit. So maybe if you're okay, we'll start biographically and then get into speak in the rest of the world.

**Andrew Hsu** (3:21)
Yeah, totally.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:21)
Okay. As always, this podcast is made possible by the fine people at E1 Ventures. Thank you, E1 Ventures, for doing your thing. Okay, here we go.
So you're okay talking about this. This is not...

**Andrew Hsu** (3:36)
Oh, I'm very used to talking about it.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:37)
I know. I know.

**Andrew Hsu** (3:37)
Let's do it.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:38)
I'm sorry. Okay.

**Andrew Hsu** (3:39)
Don't be sorry.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:41)
So Taiwanese parents, I believe, but grew up around Seattle.

**Andrew Hsu** (3:46)
Yes.

**Ashlee Vance** (3:48)
And it's like these stories, I was doing my research. I mean, I don't know why they necessarily highlighted this, but at the age of two building towering Lego robot structures and then six doing multiplication, reading classical literature and then started homeschooling around eight. Yeah. I mean, when did you, I've read enough to see that you were, it sounded like you were frustrated at the pace of school and, but you must have started to have some sense that you were a bit different than the other kids. And you're the oldest brother.

**Andrew Hsu** (4:24)
I'm the oldest and Patrick is one year younger and then we have a third brother, the youngest who is nine years younger.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:31)
Okay. Benjamin?

**Andrew Hsu** (4:33)
Benjamin, that's right.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:34)
Okay. And so you're the one who's like going through all of this first.

**Andrew Hsu** (4:38)
Yes.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:38)