The Exchanges

Q For people who might not know what a BCI is or what BCI is, could you explain what that is?

A Oh yeah, sure. Uh, so it's a brain computer interface. So something that, uh, directly inputs and outputs information into your brain and connects to your neurons. So the most famous example is obviously, um, Neuralink, uh, from Elon. And what Neuralink is doing is having this robot that is inserting these threads into your brain and They're, they're able to do a lot of really cool things with that, so they can, uh, you know, they can give someone who was not able to move, uh, his arms for a very long time, uh, now able to control the cursor and use a computer again, etc. So, um, that, that has been like a standard application, but, and, and there's more ideas, you know, uh, making blind people see again, or at least, Approximately, uh, science and Max Hodak have been working on that, which I think is also super cool. So, but that's a, that's a general idea. The general idea is like BCIs are all kinds of systems that can directly interface with the brain. And the long-term goal is that you get to much higher bandwidth than what we can do with a keyboard. Yeah, that's, that's, I guess that's cool.

AI assessment note: “so it's a brain computer interface. So something that, uh, directly inputs and outputs”

Q Why? How did you get exposed to it growing up in Germany?

A So I have this, like, whole story about how I think, how important that is, and how people in Silicon Valley always underestimate how important it is that Silicon Valley has this, um, centralizing force on talent, but, uh, I think it, kind of, the main, the main thing I can remember is, while I was, like, super young, um, for the, for the purpose of that discussion, um, 1112, maybe, Maybe even slightly younger than that. Uh, there was a, an article. It was the title page of their Spiegel, which is like the, uh, one of the largest German newspapers, and it was talking about Silicon Valley. And I was like, You know, I was obsessed with technology. I was, like, reading all these, like, technology books. My dad was the opposite of that. My dad was, like, an economist, and he, ah, always made, made technology sound like, you know, not, not that serious, and you should do more serious things. But in that story, they were talking about this idea that there's Silicon Valley, and there's all these people, all these technologists, they come together, and they work on, on things that they think will change the future. Well, the, the story itself was actually very cynical. Um, I was, I was too young to really realize that, but their Spiegel is like a little bit anti-tech. So it was like the underlying tone of the story was just making fun of Silicon Valley and like how funny it is that all…

AI assessment note: “there was a, an article. It was the title page of their Spiegel”

Q So like Merge, or I guess, like World and Merge, You like to go after somewhat of controversial spaces. And so biometrics has also perked some ears up. What are the biggest misconceptions that you're constantly facing?

A Well, I mean, the biggest one is, of course, around privacy, and I think what's so counterintuitive about what we're doing here is that we have designed a system that can be fundamentally anonymous and is fundamentally anonymous and privacy-preserving, and biometrics, I think, is the only way to actually solve the problem, and I would need to go much deeper into why it is, but I think it is the only way to solve the problem of human problem on the internet, but the cool thing is with cryptography and, and, you know, all the advancements that happened there over the last couple years, you can build it But I think that's like by far the biggest misconception. But there's like other things around like, do we collect data and is that our business model? And that's basically just all wrong. Like we, the business model is, you know, we think that this is a network. So it has very strong network effects. And so we are very confident that if this keeps growing and keeps scaling, And many platforms start integrating it. This will be very, very valuable and, you know, we will be able to charge fees on the network and things like that. But it's not the data of users, obviously. So that's another big misconception. Um, yeah. Probably talk to you. Okay.

AI assessment note: “Well, I mean, the biggest one is, of course, around privacy”

Q So do you think that's accurate? And then what are your values?

A Uh, I think that's broadly accurate. Uh, I mean, futuristic is an interesting one, because I think, uh, we will see if I'm right. Uh, I, I try to think a lot about the future, obviously, but I think many, many people say, give value to it. I think the interesting question is, are you correct with your predictions, which is the hard part, and who knows, like, I'm, I'm way too young to know that, but, um, I'm loyal to very few people, or like, the bar is very high. I think if I have a close friendship, I'm, I'm very, very loyal, and I also just usually, usually don't give them up. So like, I'm quite restrictive on my social circle, um, and so it's very hard to get in there, I guess. But, but, um, you know, I think that's how friendship should be. They should be deep and meaningful, and they should last many years, and, and so, Yeah, I would, I would probably say that's true. Like, my childhood was not always the easiest in that sense that I, you know, I was bullied and all these, these kinds of things, but I think the thing that I discovered for myself when I was around 15, 16, is that I could always get forward with discipline and with, like, being perfectly truthful and So like, uh, you know, a big, big thing happened back then where like my best friend died who, um, you know, was like perfect person you could think of honestly, uh, super honest, smart, and, and that, that insp…

AI assessment note: “I think that's broadly accurate... I could always get forward with discipline and with, like, being perfectly truthful”

Q Alex, I have to ask, what is the most exciting thing in this office you're legally allowed to share?

A Legally is an important addition. Um, I think it's, it's probably this one. This is like, uh, it's the control panel of a Soyuz, uh, space capsule that, you know, on a Saturday night, I was like, I tried to figure out what I should put in my house. And this is like, there was like, and so I was like, I was looking at Sotheby's, I never, I was never bidding at a Sotheby's auction, but there was a Sotheby's space auction, so it just went rogue, and they, you know, I bought like, infinite amount of space stuff, and so this is one of them, and this is like the control panel, and like, this is actually quite famous for this one, uh, because that's a spinning, like, that's actually how they navigate it, so like a spinning earth, And so now why this is disassembled is our security team is like, you know, as you can imagine, they're like quite obsessed with these things. And so now we actually try to make everything functional. And so.

AI assessment note: “it's the control panel of a Soyuz, uh, space capsule”

Q Is this a typical process you put everyone through? Test their quantum skills?

A Well, so we have, like, one of our core, so we have, we have values and we have operating principles, and one of the operating principles is fail-safe privacy, because, um, in some, like, that, that's the only way you could kill this company in, in a, in a second. Like, if, if, like, one engineer is doing something stupid, and we would, uh, leak user privacy, basically in any form or shape, That would be so harmful to the project, and so, like, we are obsessed about privacy, and, uh, yeah, and that's, and we have a very, very technical team. We have, like, many cryptographers that, you know, uh, are excited to be here, so we are, I think we are, like, on the very far extreme end on that dimension.

AI assessment note: “one of the operating principles is fail-safe privacy, because”