The Exchanges

Q Tell us more about the, the personnel. Who, who's UHX hiring?

A So right now we're, we're the, our intellectual foundations curriculum, in particular the, the, the, the humanities side, Which was our priority at first, because that comes at first, comes in the first year, right? So we hire a lot of philosophy professors, a lot of history, historians, a lot of, uh, uh, theology professors, literature professors, to go through that, uh, Western civilization core curriculum that we have. That was the first step, right? Meanwhile, of course, you have, uh, some folks in science, mathematics, economics, and computer science. Those are the, the other, the other parts that we're focusing on right now. So we have three areas of focus at this moment. We're trying to get the core, Curriculum done right. We're trying to get a constant area of concentration in Western civilization, philosophy, and literature, one in politics and economics, and one in CS with a very strong focus on apply AI. And we're trying to be creative, especially in that later pillar, on trying to really be close to industry, try to work with industry and getting the sort of more dynamic things that are happening right now in the world. They're not happening in academia, they're happening in industry, and we're trying to bring that into our curriculum by directly engaging with engineers in the real world.

AI assessment note: “we hire a lot of philosophy professors, a lot of history, historians”

Q And so what type of students are we looking for? Obviously we have amazing entrepreneurial students. We want students with really top scores, but, but like, like, like what, what would you, who would you like to come to the university if we're going to attract more, more top people? Like who are they?

A Smart, patriotic Americans. That's like a very important component of it. Somebody that really, and when I say patriotic Americans, I need to be careful because I'm here. I came from Brazil. But America was always like something that I admired deeply. It was a very proud moment of mine when I became an American citizen because I always knew growing up that that is the place that is elevating the best of humanity forward. Being pro-America is being pro-humanity and being pro- Pro liberty, pro success of humanity. So, um, you know, we're going to be able to bring people from abroad as well that share that, that those ideas, share the notion that this is a special place that I want to come here and help build, help build things here that actually benefits the rest of the world.

AI assessment note: “Smart, patriotic Americans. That's like a very important component of it.”

Q his life in the trenches, doing something that seems related to, to what you care a lot about. Like he was on college campuses, you know, telling the truth, debating, kind of working against the indoctrination that a lot of people saw there, and he really was the best at it. He's doing it more than anyone else. Um, who, who's gonna continue on this mission now that he's gone?

A Well, I think all of us. Um, UATX is definitely committed and standing for liberty, standing for debate, standing for free speech, standing for America. Um, we're in the business of building a new elite. That's the goal here, and we saw through many examples in the past few years that our elites are, in some ways, failing us. Uh, we're talking, if we think about COVID, the summer of 2020, if we think about October seventh, and we think about what happened in the past few weeks, uh, these are, are, are examples of, of an elite that needs refreshing, an elite that needs to be recommitted to the ideas that make this country great, and the ideas of America, and I think that's what, that's what we're here trying to do, And, and we need to continue on that journey.

AI assessment note: “Well, I think all of us. Um, UATX is definitely committed”

Q How'd you go from statistics to also knowing classics and fighting for reform inside universities since you started doing that?

A So I, I study economics in college, and my economics education was, uh, was done in a school that was built around the Chicago school idea. Uh, so I got exposure early on to things like, you know, uh, Hayek and Smith, and, And then through natural interest, I, I got interested in the classics and Roman history. My wife, I think, was a huge influence on me. She's a political science PhD. She's an attorney now that reads, you know, voraciously about, about the classics and everything. So that was part of our, our, our, um, I think religion and later part of our lives also was part of that, part of that journey. Um, but, but internally inside of a university, I, I, you know, you get to a point of your career where you start Not necessarily just focusing on your papers. There was always somebody that liked to build, liked to build structures around me, right? And, and I started paying attention to what was happening around me circa, let's say, 2015, and I was like, wait, this is, you know, I got to be a full professor at that point, right?

AI assessment note: “through natural interest, I, I got interested in the classics and Roman history.”

Q these university presidents is to say one thing to the professors and kind of let them do it, and then one thing to the donor class, and, and, and, and one thing to the, to the political class, and keep them away, and kind of protect some of this nonsense, and, and I, and is this going to change, you think? Is there a societal push to stop this nonsense?

A So the societal push is there now, and I think it's happening primarily in the south of the U.S., in red states, Uh, I've seen this firsthand through the years. Presidents doing exactly what you said, right? They, they, they, they speak with both sides of their mouths. Inside, they do one thing to the donors and, and, and boards that are coming with a particularly different worldview. They, they speak in a different way. Uh, and then, you know, trying to, to, to hide from, now, this day is much harder to hide. Things are becoming more transparent, and I think over the past few, maybe years, and even closely a few months, uh, there's a lot of pressure on the universe to say, listen, you are, You are working with taxpayer money doing something that's antagonistic to the values of a lot of taxpayers that fund you, so we're gonna try to change that, and that's the, that you see more interventions happening here, so.

AI assessment note: “So the societal push is there now, and I think it's happening primarily in the south”

Q a lot more and we need a lot more people who are standing up and are fighting. We have a lot of other friends who are starting to do that. Uh, you know, we have crazy journalists. We have crazy judges. I've always broken things. Like, what can we do about that? How are we going to like scale enough to actually matter and affect these things in the future?

A Well, the, the, I think the good news is that a small number of people, very talented people have the ability to really shape the world. Um, so I don't think we need to create thousands. You know, the, the, the, the elites are not necessarily that big, right? Very few people have a huge impact on the way we live and the way we do things. So if we're very committed to this very high achieving Navy SEALs of the mind model, we're not going to be a huge institution because the Navy SEALs cannot It's not the Navy. We're building the Navy SEALs. I see, I think there's a, it's a two prong approach here. Institutions like ours will be small. And, and, and then maybe it can be replicated elsewhere, but I think it's very hard to try to do what we're trying to do in a 40,000 people campus. I don't think it's doable. Um, you, you, you, you end up getting into all sorts of problems of governance and, and, and, and, you know, maintain the level of excellence that we're trying to maintain here. So I think that the building elite school that they were trying to build, To be, to make those elites. And again, when I say elite, I'm not talking about an elite. Oh, only the rich can come here. No, it's free. We're, we're giving it for free. We want the talent and virtuous people to come here that then will be the great, uh, leaders of our society, right? Um, I think we can have a huge impact, an ou…

AI assessment note: “a small number of people, very talented people have the ability to really shape the world.”