Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:35:34 · Caitlin Kalinowski, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:35:34] S0: This is like very [inaudible 01:35:35] territory, but I found this list that the poet Joseph Brodsky wrote, which is a list of things you should have read in order to have an intelligent conversation in English. And it is like an affected list. It's intense. It's like the Old Testament, Gilgamesh, and then all the way down through. But what I found is it's a pretty good distillation of what we used to call the Western canon and that actually I learned a lot in my public school education and in college, but I never really learned from what you would consider the Western canon. And so this is kind of in addition to that, there's some more, newer books on the list. I find it just fascinating to have something to work off of. And what I found is as I got into specifically the tragedies, the Greek tragedies, I just didn't have enough context to learn what I wanted to learn, and just reading them, I didn't have enough uptake. So I found an incredible postdoc who was willing to tutor me and I just get to ask him all these questions. He's an encyclopedia. He knows everything. I could ask him what was happening in Turkey at the time of this Greek, this tragedy that we're reading and what was happening in Athens and what this tragedian might be responding to. And he can answer the question. It's really fun to have the ability to have that sounding board. [01:37:01] S1: So cool. It's so cool you did that. Even though AI can do a lot of this, sometimes a human is much more interesting to talk to and feels better.
01:37:01 · Lenny Rachitsky, Caitlin Kalinowski
[01:37:01] S1: So cool. It's so cool you did that. Even though AI can do a lot of this, sometimes a human is much more interesting to talk to and feels better. [01:37:10] S0: Yeah. I find reading and communicating with AI is very helpful on the basics, but then understanding what was happening culturally and what the significance of the work is, it isn't adequate. [01:37:21] S1: It's because we're not 20 something. We're used to humans. [01:37:25] S0: [inaudible 01:37:25] wrong. [01:37:26] S1: I don't think it's wrong, but we didn't grow up this way. And I imagine college students, they would just not, "Why would I do that? I have Claude here." [01:37:34] S0: Yeah. [01:37:34] S1: So cool. I love that. Well, this was incredible. You're amazing. Where can folks find you online if they want to find you, if they want to reach out, I don't know, try to hire you? And then final question, how can listeners be useful to you?
01:37:34 · Lenny Rachitsky, Caitlin Kalinowski
[01:37:34] S1: So cool. I love that. Well, this was incredible. You're amazing. Where can folks find you online if they want to find you, if they want to reach out, I don't know, try to hire you? And then final question, how can listeners be useful to you? [01:37:47] S0: So I have a website, which is just my name .com. I'm also on LinkedIn. People can help me, I think helping imagine the future. This is not a single player game. This is a multiplayer game. Figuring out what future we want, what we want it to look like, what we want the human aspect to be in that future and what we think we want to hold for ourselves, how we want to augment ourselves. So right now we're in this dystopian niche where everything's just ... It feels like the future is horrible. And the way to not have that is to actually design our own future together, figure out what we want our future to look like. Paint a picture in fiction, in literature, in conversation, and then build that. And I think that that's possible. [01:38:34] S1: I love that. That's actually a message that's come up on a couple of recent podcast episodes. It's a really good reminder. Caitlin, thank you so much for being here. [01:38:44] S0: This was really fun, Lenny. Thanks for having me.
01:38:44 · Caitlin Kalinowski, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:38:44] S0: This was really fun, Lenny. Thanks for having me. [01:38:46] S1: Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.