Best Alexander Bentley Podcasts (2025)

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Cynthia Simons - May 2025 59:41

Play Pause

5M ago59:41

59:41

Guest: Cynthia Simons, Innovative Justice and Program Analysis Reentry Planning Manager for Travis County and Transformative Practices Consulting. Aired on May 16, 2025, on KOOP Community Radio 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas.By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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David Johnson - April 2025 58:02

6M ago58:02

58:02

By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#52 – Michael Nielsen on being a wise optimist about science and technology 1:16:51

6M ago1:16:51

1:16:51

This is my conversation with Michael Nielsen, scientist, author, and research fellow at the Astera Institute. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:01:06) cultivating optimism amid existential risks - (00:07:16) asymmetric leverage - (00:12:09) are "unbiased" models even feasible? - (00:18:44) AI and the scientific method - (00:23:23) unlocking AI's…

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Chas Moore - March 2025 57:39

6M ago57:39

57:39

By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#51 – Jeffrey Quesnelle on Nous Research, large language models, and the human mind 2:05:42

7M ago2:05:42

2:05:42

This is my conversation with Jeffrey Quesnelle, cofounder of Nous Research. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:01:08) working with new technologies - (00:06:15) Nous Research origin story - (00:14:08) open frontiers in research - (00:26:07) fourier transforms for gradient compression - (00:32:58) math behind distributed training - (00:38:18) spon…

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#50 – Alexander Long on Pluralis Research and protocol learning for frontier models 1:14:41

7M ago1:14:41

1:14:41

This is my conversation with Alexander Long, Founder & CEO of Pluralis Research. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:00:55) collaborative training - (00:09:49) economics of training - (00:13:10) what is protocol learning? - (00:20:48) protocol learning design and politics - (00:33:39) sponsor: Splits - (00:34:22) hardware requirements - (00:41:53)…

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Rosalind Alexander-Kasparik 59:04

7M ago59:04

59:04

By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#49 – Jim Posen on cryptographic acceleration with Binius 1:13:42

8M ago1:13:42

1:13:42

This is my conversation with Jim Posen, the Cofounder and CTO at Irreducible. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:01:12) getting deeper into cryptography - (00:07:06) revisiting binary fields - (00:15:50) building the verifiable internet - (00:26:14) sponsor: Splits - (00:26:57) revival of binary fields - (00:38:55) Binius - (00:42:46) bringing Bi…

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Nykea Arnold - January 2025 57:56

8M ago57:56

57:56

Aired on 01/16/24 on KOOP Community Radio, 91.7 FM in Austin, TexasBy Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#48 – Michael Bentley on Euler, credit, and natural selection 1:26:59

9M ago1:26:59

1:26:59

This is my conversation with Michael Bentley, the cofounder and CEO of Euler and previously a dynamical systems postdoctoral research associate at Oxford. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:01:11) early DeFi and experiencing the 2008 crash - (00:06:52) interest rate design and PIDs - (00:20:40) risk management - (00:28:27) sponsor: Splits - (00:2…

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#47 – Jake Chervinsky on regulations from first principles 1:19:56

9M ago1:19:56

1:19:56

This is my conversation with Jake Chervinsky, Chief Legal Officer at Variant, and previously the Chief Policy Officer at Blockchain Association and General Counsel at Compound Labs. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:01:15) ELI5: how the US government works - (00:10:44) DOGE and the powers of the executive - (00:19:27) DUNAs, DAOs, and decentrali…

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Sarah S. Bentley - December 2024 1:00:43

9M ago1:00:43

1:00:43

Aired on 12/19/24 on KOOP Community Radio, 91.7 FM in Austin, TexasBy Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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Musicology and Repair with William Cheng 1:00:07

10M ago1:00:07

1:00:07

Well, it's our final episode, and we have the exact right guest to help say goodbye to a podcast that focuses on music scholarship, and why it matters: William Cheng, whose work fundamentally reconsiders what musicology can be, by laying out a philosophy of care and repair. This conversation covers a large swath of Dr. Cheng's scholarship, includin…

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#46 – Andrew Miller on TEEs, account delegation, research, and the early days in Bitcoin 1:21:48

10M ago1:21:48

1:21:48

This is my conversation with Andrew Miller who is working on product at Teleport, and is also Associate Director at IC3 and Board Member at the Zcash Foundation. Timestamps: - (00:00:00) intro - (00:00:59) from bitcoin research to privacy, ZKPs, and MPC - (00:13:23) trust models and threat vectors to TEEs - (00:21:16) what is possible with trustles…

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Sound Expertise Reflections with Will Robin and D. Edward Davis 46:30

10M ago46:30

46:30

Well, we're almost done: this is the penultimate episode of our fourth and final season. In our final weeks, host Will and producer Eddie take some time to reflect back on what it's meant: the origins of the podcast, the community we've built, and the legacy of Sound Expertise. Show notes and more over at soundexpertise.org! Questions? Thoughts? Em…

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#45 – Quintus Kilbourn on TEEs and Secure Hardware 1:33:20

10M ago1:33:20

1:33:20

This is my conversation with Quintus Kilbourn, researcher at Flashbots and currently working on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Timestamps: - (00:00:00) - intro - (00:01:06) - what is a TEE - (00:12:23) - TEE use cases: one-shot transactions, autonomous AI agents - (00:25:27) - unbreakable hardware enclaves - (00:41:14) - physical hardware a…

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A Feminist Musicological Life with Suzanne Cusick 1:08:51

10M ago1:08:51

1:08:51

Musicology today could not exist without feminist musicology, and feminist musicology could not exist without Suzanne Cusick. Dr. Cusick's revolutionary work has scrutinized gender and sexuality in musical life for decades, and is foundational to musicology as we know it today. In this profound conversation, she reflects on her arc through the fiel…

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#44 – Markus Haas on ethOS and building a crypto-native device 49:24

10M ago49:24

49:24

This is my conversation with Markus Haas, the CEO of Freedom Factory and cocreator of the dGEN1. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:28) - ethOS origin story (00:07:54) - the vision and values (00:09:56) - the need for an alternative to iOS and Android (00:15:30) - sponsor: Splits (00:16:14) - building on GrapheneOS (00:28:32) - dGEN1, an everyda…

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Music and Eugenics with Alexander Cowan 48:59

10M ago48:59

48:59

From its beginnings, the eugenics movement has looked to music: for foundational figures like Francis Galton and contemporaries like Charles Murray, the child-prodigy composer or violinist could serve to demonstrate that talent was innate and inherited, and thus could be bred. The horrendously racist implications of such a vision have long been und…

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Marissa Rivera - November 2024 1:04:23

10M ago1:04:23

1:04:23

Aired on 11/21/24 on KOOP Community Radio, 91.7 FM in Austin, TexasBy Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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Sound Expertise LIVE with Jonathan Bailey Holland 1:01:12

11M ago1:01:12

1:01:12

We did it! Sound Expertise recorded its first-ever live episode at the American Musicological Society conference in Chicago. It was a super-fun event with a raucous crowd. Please enjoy this thoughtful conversation with Jonathan Bailey Holland, dean of Northwestern's Bienen School of Music, about his path as a composer and what it means to oversee a…

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Engaging Black Opera with Naomi André 49:55

11M ago49:55

49:55

Naomi André is one of the most important scholars of opera today, best known for her landmark 2018 book Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement. But the study of opera and race is not where Professor Andre’s career began: her path through musicology has been incredibly fraught, because of who she is, and what she wanted to do as a scholar. This wee…

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Taylor Swift Studies with Christa Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper 1:00:41

11M ago1:00:41

1:00:41

Everybody's studying Taylor Swift these days, from Swifties decoding her vault to YouTubers decoding her harmonies to right-wing conspiracists decoding her plot against America. But what does it mean to study Taylor Swift as a musicologist? Christa Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Harper know: they're co-editing Taylor Swift: The Star, the Songs, …

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Listening to the 2024 Election with Dana Gorzelany-Mostak 50:41

11M ago50:41

50:41

Election Day is approaching, and both presidential candidates have been foregrounding music, from Kamala Harris walking out Beyoncé's "Freedom" to Donald Trump...dancing for 30 minutes to "Memory" from Cats. It's been a weird, and terrifying, campaign season. But music can help us make sense of it, according to musicologist Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, w…

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#43 – Uma Roy on Succinct, STARKs, and zkVM architecture 1:11:21

11M ago1:11:21

1:11:21

This is my conversation with Uma Roy, cofounder and CEO of Succinct. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:57) - origin story (00:02:19) - SP1 architecture (00:09:43) - STARKs, FRI, and hash-based cryptography (00:15:09) - recursion (00:21:12) - upgrading the proof system (00:33:11) - sponsor: Splits (00:33:54) - security in ZK systems (00:37:46) -…

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Florence Price's Chicago with Samantha Ege 45:14

11M ago45:14

45:14

Florence Price was exceptional, but she was not singular. In the fascinating new book "South Side Impresarios," musicologist Samantha Ege situates Price amidst multiple generations of Black women who transformed Chicago into a Black classical metropolis. In this conversation, we discuss the city and community that built Price, including the pivotal…

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#42 – Andrew Huang on Conduit and scaling onchain compute 52:26

12M ago52:26

52:26

This is my conversation with Andrew Huang, the founder and CEO of Conduit. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:42) - onchain and cloud compute (00:05:20) - parallel execution (00:09:08) - the application's perspective (00:16:14) - scaling the sequencer (00:26:52) - sponsor: Splits (00:27:36) - interoperability (00:33:11) - rollup economics (00:42…

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Jill Henderson - October 2024 57:47

12M ago57:47

57:47

Aired on 10/17/24 on KOOP Community Radio, 91.7 FM in Austin, TexasBy Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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The Future of Opera with Yuval Sharon 48:45

12M ago48:45

48:45

Welcome to Season 4 of Sound Expertise! Opera is a four-hundred-year-old genre, and it often looks and sounds that way: despite opera's revolutionary merging of artistic disciplines, its administrators and musicians are often stuck in the past. But in his visionary productions, the director Yuval Sharon has imagined many potential futures for the a…

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Season 4 Trailer!! 2:37

12M ago2:37

2:37

WE'RE SO BACK. Our fourth and final season begins October 15. Seeya then! soundexpertise.orgBy Will Robin

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#41 – Georgios Konstantopoulos on Reth, engineering management, and feedback loops 1:11:14

12M ago1:11:14

1:11:14

This is my conversation with Georgios Konstantopoulos, General Partner and CTO at Paradigm. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:47) - iterating on rollups (00:07:52) - Reth architecture (00:25:44) - sponsor: Splits (00:26:27) - feedback loops with performance, stability, extensibility (00:36:14) - feedback loops with the team (00:49:17) - writing…

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Sabrina Phillips - September 2024 37:43

1y ago37:43

37:43

Aired on 9/19/24 on KOOP Community Radio, 91.7 FM in Austin, TexasBy Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#40 – Vitalik Buterin on political philosophy in the 21st century 59:11

1y ago59:11

59:11

This is my conversation with Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:33) - the crypto lens on political philosophy (00:15:12) - the transition from the 20th to the 21st century (00:24:29) - sponsor: Splits (00:25:12) - the dimensions of uncertainty (00:46:14) - the duality between being idealistic and effective (…

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#39 – Eric Alston on the US constitution 1:14:15

1y ago1:14:15

1:14:15

This is my conversation with Eric Alston, faculty director at the Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder and research associate with the Comparative Constitutions Project. Timestamps: (00:00) - intro (01:29) - choice in institutions matters (08:53) - secondary rules as rules for making rules (17:41) - constitutional moments (20:41) - how the US con…

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Andrew Reginald Hairston - August 2024 50:55

1y ago50:55

50:55

By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#38 – BaseCamp 001: Jesse Pollak (Base), Ben Leventhal (Blackbird), Julian Holguin (Doodles), Yele Bademosi (Onboard) 1:35:12

1y ago1:35:12

1:35:12

This is my conversation with Jesse Pollak (creator of Base), Ben Leventhal (founder/CEO of Blackbird), Julian Holguin (CEO of Doodles), and Yele Bademosi (cofounder/CEO of Onboard). Timestamps: (00:00) - intro (00:50) - Jesse Pollak, Base (09:41) - how the Base team is structured (17:25) - how the mission and strategy came together (27:43) - the fo…

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#37 – Colin Armstrong: Paragraph, writing onchain 1:12:00

1y ago1:12:00

1:12:00

This is my conversation with Colin Armstrong, the founder of Paragraph. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:49) - Substack network effects (00:03:53) - new business models (00:15:32) - the content layer and the economic layer (00:21:18) - sponsor: Privy (00:22:34) - mechanisms to think about as a writer (00:29:32) - markets and social networks as…

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Amanda Johnston - July 2024 1:00:02

1y ago1:00:02

1:00:02

This episode revolves around the intersections of poetry, creative expression, identity, and racial justice. 2024 Texas State Poet Laureate and Founder and Executive Director of Torch Literary Arts Amanda Johnston highlights the importance of supporting Black women writers and amplifying their voices. The discussion also covers the significance of …

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#36 – Justin Glibert: from Economicus to Ludens 1:29:21

1y ago1:29:21

1:29:21

This is my conversation with Justin Glibert, CEO of Lattice and cofounder of 0xPARC. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:00:44) - digital physics (00:06:27) - changing physics + capitalism = theme parks (00:16:12) - objective functions are political (00:22:53) - sponsor: Optimism (00:23:58) - individual agency (00:27:25) - violence on the internet (…

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#35 – Jonny Mack: Hypersub, building for the crypto-native creator 1:16:46

1y ago1:16:46

1:16:46

This is my conversation with Jonny Mack, Cofounder of Fabric and Hypersub. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:05) - motivations (00:05:43) - pooled capital for shared ownership and upside (00:09:24) - the computer and the casino, the purist and the tourist (00:13:59) - sponsor: Privy (00:15:15) - $higher, memecoins, cashflow, headless brands (00…

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#34 – Stephane Gosselin: OneBalance, credible accounts and credible commitments 1:18:18

1+ y ago1:18:18

1:18:18

This is my conversation with Stephane Gosselin, cofounder of Flashbots, Frontier Research, and OneBalance. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:29) - sponsor: Optimism (00:02:34) - my existential question about crypto (00:07:13) - global consensus is the problem (00:14:27) - architecting a new system (00:21:56) - OneBalance and Credible Accounts (…

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Briona Jenkins - June 2024 59:51

1+ y ago59:51

59:51

By Stacie Freasier (she/they)

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#33 – Molly Mackinlay: building Filecoin 1:21:35

1+ y ago1:21:35

1:21:35

This is my conversation with Molly Mackinlay, Head of Engineering, Product, and Research Development at Protocol Labs, and CEO at FilOz. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:59) - sponsor: Privy (00:03:15) - motivation (00:09:30) - exabytes of network capacity (00:12:11) - edge computing, bringing compute to data (00:14:26) - the history of IPFS, …

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#32 – Rish: building infrastructure with Neynar 1:19:58

1+ y ago1:19:58

1:19:58

This is my conversation with Rish, cofounder of Neynar, building infrastructure for Farcaster. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:51) - sponsor: Optimism (00:03:01) - the idea maze for Neynar (00:12:46) - exit, building blocks, and monetization models (00:17:20) - how Neynar is architected (00:21:52) - handling Frames Friday (00:25:04) - scaling…

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Fatima Mann - May 2024 58:08

1+ y ago58:08

58:08

In this conversation, Stacie Freasier and Fatima Mann discuss topics of healing, liberation, and the intersection of activism and wellness. They explore the importance of self-care and taking care of one's own well-being in order to effectively engage in social justice work. They also touch on the power of ancestral knowledge and the need to create…

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#31 – Sreeram Kannan: building the verifiable cloud 1:11:00

1+ y ago1:11:00

1:11:00

This is my conversation with Sreeram Kannan, founder at EigenLayer. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:21) - sponsor: Optimism (00:02:42) - the AVS economy (00:05:24) - blockchains separate trust and innovation (00:16:53) - sponsor: Optimism (00:18:02) - specialized services and SaaS on EigenLayer (00:24:50) - rollups are open verifiable web ser…

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#30 – Doug Petkanics & Eric Tang: open video infrastructure 1:24:23

1+ y ago1:24:23

1:24:23

This is my conversation with Doug Petkanics and Eric Tang, cofounders of Livepeer. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:45) - sponsor: Optimism (00:03:55) - Livepeer origin story (00:11:54) - FFmpeg and the video infrastructure stack (00:17:07) - compute capacity and cost in open vs closed systems (00:22:59) - GPUs as the supply side, working at N…

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Tyra Clark - April 2024 58:48

1+ y ago58:48

58:48

This episode explores the topics of racism, grief, loss, and social justice. Guest Tyra Clark discusses her deep roots in Austin and her experiences with racism and displacement. She also discusses the importance of addressing racial trauma and the impact of racism on mental and behavioral health. Tyra introduces the Change Grief Project, a communi…

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Maggie Luna - March 2024 57:24

1+ y ago57:24

57:24

Stacie Freasier and Maggie Luna, Executive Director of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, discuss the systemic failures and challenges faced by individuals affected by addiction, incarceration, and the criminal justice system. Maggie shares her personal experiences of being failed by various systems, including the education system, law enforcement,…

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#29 – Martin Köppelmann: AI agents as onchain actors 1:09:37

1+ y ago1:09:37

1:09:37

This is my conversation with Martin Köppelmann, cofounder of Gnosis. Timestamps: (00:00:00) - intro (00:01:47) - sponsor: Privy (00:03:08) - Gnosis Pay as an onchain bank account (00:13:49) - security, passkeys and recovery (00:21:19) - privacy, Tornado Cash (00:28:25) - sponsor: Optimism (00:29:35) - AI agents as a new form of life (00:36:43) - tr…