Rationalists in Tech Podcast

03: Alexei Andreev

noreply@blogger.com (Joshua Fox) — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 12:53:00 +0000

My third guest is Alexei Andreev

In this 13-minute interview, we discuss:

Alexei's record of donating to Existential Risk causes.
The trade-offs of donating from a salary as opposed to waiting to donate from a big exit on a startup.
The value of CfAR-style techniques for getting the job done; e.g. building good habit.
Working with other LessWrongers; collaborating with them professionally, and hiring them.

Alexei mentioned his LessWrong blog post: Maximizing your donations via a job.

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02: Dr. Daniel Reeves of Beeminder

noreply@blogger.com (Joshua Fox) — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 13:41:00 +0000

My guest is Dr. Daniel Reeves of Beeminder, a web service that helps you stick to your goals.

In this 11-minute discussion, Daniel talks about:

How Beeminder works to help you stay focused on your goals,
Working with other LessWrongers at the startup,
The value, or lack thereof, in getting a PhD; his was in Algorithmic Game Theory, which he links to Beeminder, and
Dogfooding their own product at Beeminder.

Daniel mentioned "Level 1" and "Level 2" actions, those that give value in their own right as oppose to those that make you effective: Here's the relevant post.

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01: Laurent Bossavit of Institut Agile

noreply@blogger.com (Joshua Fox) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:05:00 +0000

My guest is Laurent Bossavit of Institut Agile, known on LessWrong.com as Morendil. His book on The Leprechauns of Software Engineering, mentioned in the podcast, shows some interesting cases of industry legend in software: "How folklore turns into fact and what to do about it."

In this 29-minute interview, we discuss

The Leprechauns book
How CfAR-style rationality techniques apply specifically to tech work: Do they give you "superpowers"?
Building a career as a software engineer and consultant
Business networking for techies
LessWrongers as potential employees, employers and business partners.

Audio
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Bio:

After a first career as a software developer (20 years of coding experience) and a few years as an independent consultant, Laurent Bossavit now heads Institut Agile, whose aims include helping Agile software development become better established as a research topic and as a discipline, and helping grow a healthier market for clients and suppliers leveraging these practices.

Passionate about helping people in various Agile communities network and support each other, Laurent is a former member of the board of the Agile Alliance, a recipient of the 2006 Gordon Pask award for contributions to Agile practice and co-founder of the Coding Dojos.