Nathan Myhrvold
Co-founder & CEO, Intellectual Ventures. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executivefounderscientistauthornathanmyhrvold.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
After serving as Microsoft's first Chief Technology Officer and founding Microsoft Research, Nathan Myhrvold founded the patent-investment and invention company Intellectual Ventures. A polymath with a doctorate in theoretical physics from Princeton, he is also the co-founder of TerraPower and the creator and lead author of the acclaimed Modernist Cuisine book series.
1shows
1appearances
18statements
8resolved
4supported
3contradicted
50%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Nathan Myhrvold said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Manned spaceflight is a reality TV show with no functional purpose
“I mean, today, the manned space flight is a reality TV show. And in fact, the cutting edge of manned space flight is space tourism. That's what Blue Origin and SpaceX and others are gearing up for, and there's just no reason to take a fragile human up there.”
Globally, society is doing effectively nothing to address climate change
“Currently we're doing, to first order approximation, exactly nothing for climate change.”
Natural gas produces more net global warming than coal
“Natural gas actually produces more global warming in almost every case than coal.”
Driving a Tesla on the US East Coast actively hurts the climate
“If you drive a Tesla and you live in the East Coast of the United States, statistically speaking, you're hurting the climate, not helping it.”
Air Force bias favors human pilots over superior combat drones
“It's been true for a long time that humans are the weakest part of a fighter jet. You should use drones. You should totally use drones. But the Air Force, which is composed entirely of pilots or former pilots, hated that idea. Yeah. But drones are here to stay…”
The space colonization drive is an imperialist holdover, not a necessity
“In terms of a need to, like, colonize the solar system, I don't think, I think people believe that that's an imperative as a holdover from the ideas of the age of imperialism when we thought, oh yes, we have to go conquer and colonize the whole world.”
The world will inevitably experience a major bioterrorism event
“So I think we'll see a bioterrorism event someday.”
Global temperatures will rise for a century even if emissions stop
“It turns out if you stopped all emissions on day one, the climate will continue to drift, drift upwards for about a hundred years. I have written a bunch of papers on global warming. I've done this calculation. Other people have done this calculation. You know…”
Geoengineering should be treated like emergency open-heart surgery for the climate
“Yeah, humans, there will probably be some consequences. So you should only pull out the, ah, the geoengineering, ah, fix if it's otherwise unmitigated disaster. Just like they wouldn't crack my chest open if I went into the emergency room with a hangnail. They…”
Treating Mars as a backup planet will inevitably ruin Mars too
“It probably makes a lot more sense to try to take care of this planet and not screw it up than to treat Earth as being disposable and say, oh, it's okay, we're gonna go, we'll have Mars. Because if you keep thinking that way, you're gonna screw Mars up too.”
Modern high-speed trains in Europe and Asia effectively operate autonomously
“Well, many modern train systems are autonomous for all intents and purposes. They will have humans on board as a safety or a backup feature, but when you have modern trains, by which I don't mean any train in the United States, I'm afraid, but if you have the …”
Myhrvold: Society fixes ecological problems that are localized with clear responsibility
“Whenever we have a problem that is an ecological problem that is localized in space, localized in time, and is easy to trace responsibility, we fix it.”
First-year methane warming impact is 120 times higher than CO2
“Methane, on the first year you spill it, it's a 120 times higher global warming impact than CO₂.”
Emitted atmospheric carbon dioxide persists for roughly 20,000 years
“So, when you emit CO₂, it stays in the atmosphere for a really long time. Thousands of years. Tens of thousands of years. People argue, but you wouldn't be totally wrong by saying there was a 20,000 year lifespan.”
TerraPower secures deal to build an advanced nuclear plant in Wyoming
“Now, as it turns out that project didn't go forward, and we're currently trying to build our new plant in Wyoming, and we have a deal to do that, which is very exciting.”
Myhrvold left a postdoc with Stephen Hawking to build a startup
“Took a leave of absence to work on a project I had started in graduate school with some friends. And that project turned into a software company, and I became the CEO of the company. And Then Microsoft bought the company, and I was at Microsoft.”
Stephen Hawking emailed Myhrvold asking if he was returning after Microsoft
“Many, many years later, I retired from Microsoft, and when that was announced, I got an email the next day from Steven saying, shall we clear out the office? Are you coming back?”
The other half of the tape: Nathan Myhrvold's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Nathan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Intellectual Ventures | 1 | 18 | 50% 4/8 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |