Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
00:12:21 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller, S2
[00:12:21] S3: K. So I gotta ask you one final question around physics and then we'll we'll kinda dive into 11 in the business world. Are there extraterrestrials, and are we living in a simulation? [00:12:31] S1: Both amazing questions. I don't know how you expect me to answer them really quickly before talking about the ElevenLabs. I don't know. It would be really fun if either of these were true. For the first one, I would say, like, what gives us the right to think that we're the only civilization out there? The universe is so vast. Like Yeah. Surely. But I don't have better insight there to to other people. But I think for that one, I... If you... If I had to choose, I would like to believe that yes. Yep. And for the latter, I think I think not. [00:13:04] S3: I think this [00:13:04] S1: is this is real. I think [00:13:06] S2: I think for the Who knows? [00:13:07] S3: I think for the latter, it's a fun Burning Man conversation, but it's not fairly... That's not necessarily one that really makes sense. But, you know, for for the ex Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense how we can be the only species in the entire solar universe. It it it just makes no sense. And and that will probably be the one regret that I would have before I die that we don't find something. Like it would just... That's kind of the one unanswered thing that would be kinda cool other than like why are we here which [00:13:33] S1: Yeah. [00:13:33] S3: We'll never figure that one out.
00:13:33 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:13:33] S3: We'll never figure that one out. [00:13:34] S1: That's another really frustrating thing about physics is you spend so much time trying to find the answer to these unsolved problems and you might die before the answer is found and it's just so frustrating to think that you might never know. We will never know. We won't be there for the answer of these things. And that's maybe another thing that deterred me from physics. [00:13:55] S3: It makes sense that it would deter you because I think all of a sudden your intelligence and logic would kick in and say like, what's the fucking point of doing all this work if it just isn't going to be used or pay off or if no one's really going to care? Like I see that one solar burst and great, three people care. Like really? Just spent a year doing something and no one... I get it. So it makes sense. [00:14:14] S1: I think it really depends what motivates you. Some people are excited by seeing those solar bursts and that's all they care about. They would do it even if no one read the papers or they wouldn't even get to write the papers. They just wanna think about solar bursts all day. But I'm personally someone that's also motivated by the recognition and therefore wanna do something where I see the impact either directly or indirectly on the way that we live our lives.
00:14:14 · Victoria Weller, Cameron Herold
[00:14:14] S1: I think it really depends what motivates you. Some people are excited by seeing those solar bursts and that's all they care about. They would do it even if no one read the papers or they wouldn't even get to write the papers. They just wanna think about solar bursts all day. But I'm personally someone that's also motivated by the recognition and therefore wanna do something where I see the impact either directly or indirectly on the way that we live our lives. [00:14:39] S3: I wanted to ask you about that. You mentioned when you were working in space medicine, which also is super intriguing, like, holy shit. By the way, just like a quick question, how different is the physiology and the needs of the human body in space versus on earth? Like, is it Yeah. Is it drastically different? Or is it Yes. Kind of similar? [00:14:58] S1: I mean, it's still a human body, and you still have to eat and and digest. The impact of gravity on the human body, though, is so much more profound than you will think. We're so used to, like, standing up from a chair and, like, when we're in a headstand, it just feels different. And in in space, that is taken away, and there are many things that happen as a consequence that you wouldn't think of right away. The impact that I spent most time thinking about was on the cardiovascular system where it also has... [00:15:30] S3: That's what I was just starting I was just starting to think that. Yeah.
00:15:30 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:15:30] S3: That's what I was just starting I was just starting to think that. Yeah. [00:15:32] S1: Yeah. Probably the hardest impact apart from muscle dystrophy. So astronauts have to work out for several hours per day to keep up their muscle, but also their bone mass as a result so that they're not completely weakened and stable when returning to Earth. But other than that, the cardiovascular system takes a huge hit as a result of the of gravity not pulling down all liquids to your lower extremities, but rather everything kind of moves up a little bit like you're in a handstand, but maybe somewhere in between. [00:16:05] S3: Yeah. [00:16:05] S1: And the human body has baroreceptors, so ways of measuring the pressure in the upper part, like, of of your body around your chest area. Sure. And if all the liquid is pushed up, the baroreceptors are like, oh, pressure's higher, it must mean that there's too much liquid. And then astronauts that just arrive in space, their their body is like, signal too much liquid. Let's start reducing our blood volume. [00:16:32] S3: Yeah.
00:16:32 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:16:32] S3: Yeah. [00:16:32] S1: They pee a lot, reduce the blood volume, everything's back to normal. They have a great time while they're up there and everything's like transferred... The blood is transferred up. But then when they go back to earth and everything's pulled to their feet, they often, like, they can't walk or they would faint when they walk. Wow. And there are many things that you can do to prevent that in a couple chapters in that book where it's about, like, what you can do to one, like, study it on Earth without having to go to space to see what happens, but also what can you do, be it like drink a bunch of salt water before returning to earth to make sure that once you arrive, you are actually more okay than you would be if you didn't have any anti precautionary measures. [00:17:17] S3: Okay. So like that science seems to be extraordinarily fascinating and also extraordinarily useful considering that we're working towards this being an interplanetary species where we are, you know, doing more in space. We are looking at potentially colonizing Mars. Like these are answers that are not only intriguing, but also we need to understand this soon. [00:17:39] S1: Yeah. Soon. Soonish. Soonish. Okay. Alright. Think I think relevant for Mars One, but I think AI is more relevant to the average. [00:17:51] S3: Alright. So so better left for a dinner party conversation than still. So then [00:17:55] S1: For another Burning Man conversation.
00:17:55 · Victoria Weller, Cameron Herold
[00:17:55] S1: For another Burning Man conversation. [00:17:56] S3: Yeah. Another Burning Man conversation. So then you then you get to work in AI. I mean, clearly it is the hottest industry and business areas being talked about today. And you're in the in the kind of text to speech side of things which is also super intriguing because, so so talk to us a little bit about what ElevenLabs is working on.