Best Steve Hsu Podcasts (2025)

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AIs Win Math Olympiad Gold: Prof. Lin Yang (UCLA) – #97 50:43

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12d ago50:43

50:43

Lin Yang is a professor of computer science at UCLA. Recently, he and his collaborator built an AI pipeline using commercial models such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok that performed at the gold medal level on International Mathematics Olympiad problems. Steve and Lin discuss this research, which relies on "verifier-refiner" LLM instances and large t…

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Patrick McKenzie - VaccinateCA and Institutional Dysfunction 1:32:24

12d ago1:32:24

1:32:24

Patrick McKenzie (aka patio11) is a strategic advisor at Stripe, an angel investor, writes the fortnightly newsletter ‘Bits About Money’ about financial infrastructure, and was CEO of the extraordinary VaccinateCA effort in 2021. Patrick and I previously spoke on his show ‘Complex Systems’ about system dynamics, local government challenges, and org…

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The Crafted Economy: Liquor and Beer in the Carolinas 26:46

18d ago26:46

26:46

Panelists:Cristina Hall Ackley, Co-Founder & President, Ginger's RevengeBruce L. TylerCo-Owner/Manager, Weldon Mills Distillery, LLCTrey BoggsOwner and COO, Palmetto DistilleryMatt BowesFounder/ Owner, The Southern Growl Beer CompanyVice President, SC Brewers GuildBy Carolina Business Review

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The Global AI Race: Z.ai and the View from Beijing — #96 1:06:35

26d ago1:06:35

1:06:35

Zixuan Li is Director of Product and genAI Strategy at Z.ai. He was educated at Renmin and Tsinghua University in China, and at MIT and Carnegie Mellon. Z.ai has released frontier open source LLMs but is largely unknown in the West except among AI experts. Steve and Zixuan discuss the AI race from the perspective of a startup in Beijing. https://ch…

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Seeking Truth From Facts: Weeks Where Decades Happen — #95 48:49

1M ago48:49

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This episode is a co-release with the Seeking Truth From Facts podcast: https://substack.com/@seekingtruthfromfacts The theme of this episode derives from Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” ― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Steve and Alf discuss: (00:00) - Introduction (01:32) - China Victory Day Parade…

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The Carolinas one year after Hurricane Helene 26:46

1M ago26:46

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Panelists: Kit Cramer, President and CEO, Asheville Area Chamber of CommerceDavid Jackson, President and CEO, Boone Area Chamber of CommercePeter O'Leary, Mayor, Chimney Rock VillageCarol Pritchett, Mayor, Lake LureBen Duncan, Chief Resilience Officer, South Carolina Office of ResilienceBy Carolina Business Review

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Andrew Hsu, President, College of Charleston 26:46

2M ago26:46

26:46

PanelistsAaron NelsonPresident and CEO,The Chamber For a Greater Chapel Hill-CarrboroJames McQuillaPresident, Orangeburg County Chamber of CommerceBy Carolina Business Review

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Kyle Chan on the Future of US-China Competition — #94 1:10:51

2M ago1:10:51

1:10:51

Kyle Chan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology at Princeton University. His research focuses on industrial policy, clean technology, and infrastructure with a regional focus on China and India. He is currently working on a book on Chinese industrial policy that aims to explain how China came to dominate certain industries …

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Steve Henry, President of Paper & Packaging, Domtar 26:46

2M ago26:46

26:46

PanelistsJohn HoodPresident, John William Pope Foundation Carl BlackstonePresident and CEO, Greater Columbia Chamber of CommerceBy Carolina Business Review

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Tom Barkin, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond 26:46

2M ago26:46

26:46

In this Executive Profile, Barkin talks inflation, spending, labor challenges, economic growth, global concerns and moreBy Carolina Business Review

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Joleen Liang: 40M+ kids educated by adaptive AI — #93 59:07

2M ago59:07

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Dr. Joleen Liang is Co-founder of Squirrel AI, which pioneered adaptive learning at scale, first in China and now in the US. By 2021 its technology had served over 60,000 public schools in 1,200 cities across Asia. Squirrel AI has implemented large knowledge graphs mapping out the main concepts in the K-12 math, science, and language curriculum. Th…

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#6 Charles Ferguson - Dot Com Boom Silicon Valley, Winning an Oscar, Government and Innovation 1:11:05

2M ago1:11:05

1:11:05

A modern renaissance man, Charles Ferguson was an Oscar and Sundance winning documentary filmmaker, one of the first internet entrepreneurs who founded the first mass market website builder that successfully sold to Microsoft in 1996, a governmental advisory on trade and semiconductors, and now an active angel investor. Truly one of the most intere…

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Maurice 'Mo' Green, NC Superintendent of Public Instruction 26:46

3M ago26:46

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PanelistsJohn HoodPresident, John William Pope FoundationCarl BlackstonePresident and CEO, Greater Columbia Chamber of CommerceBy Carolina Business Review

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Anish Tondwalkar - The Societal Implications of Reasoning Models 1:46:06

3M ago1:46:06

1:46:06

Anish Tondwalkar is a former employee of OpenAI and Google Brain, now the co-founder of Y-Combinator backed AI interpretability startup ‘dmodel.ai’. We sat down in June to discuss the underappreciated capabilities of the latest generation of AI models, and how individuals, institutions, and society is likely to respond, even if no further progress …

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Max Dama on HFT: Millisecond Algos and Bid/Ask Dynamics — #92 54:46

3M ago54:46

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Max Dama is the co-chairman of Headlands Technologies LLC, a global quantitative proprietary trading firm headquartered in Chicago, with offices in New York, Austin, London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, and Business from the University of California, Berkeley. A generation of quants know Ma…

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NC Auditor Dave Boliek 26:46

3M ago26:46

26:46

Panelists: Vicki Lee Parker High, Executive Director, NC Sustainable Business CouncilSusie Shannon, President & CEO, SC Council on CompetivenessBy Carolina Business Review

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State Employees' Credit Union CEO Leigh Brady 26:46

3M ago26:46

26:46

Panelists: Vicki Lee Parker High, Executive Director, NC Sustainable Business Council and Susie Shannon, President & CEO, SC Council on CompetitivenessBy Carolina Business Review

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Samo Burja - Live Players and Institutional Reform 1:22:59

3M ago1:22:59

1:22:59

Samo is an institutional theorist, the founder of Bismarck Analysis, and the editor of Palladium Magazine. We discuss why our political agreements are 80 years out of date, and how Estonia provides the same standard of public services at half the cost. Full transcript with reference links and notes available here: https://alethios.substack.com/p/sa…

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Steve Hsu - In No.10 with Boris and Cummings 1:57:12

3M ago1:57:12

1:57:12

Steve Hsu completed his PhD in theoretical physics at age 24. He’s since made numerous contributions as a scientist, tech startup founder, professor, and institutional advisor. Little is known about the role he played during Boris Johnson’s ill-fated tenure as Prime Minister of the UK. In Steve’s first interview on the subject, he shares that hidde…

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TracingWoodgrains - Journalism, Education Policy, and Political Change 1:16:22

3M ago1:16:22

1:16:22

Jack Despain Zhou, aka ‘TracingWoodgrains’, is an independent investigative journalist, education campaigner, online community expert, and internet commentator. We discussed evolving cultural dynamics, leadership, and how to reform everything from dog control laws, to education, to the Democratic Party. Full transcript available here: https://aleth…

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Nuño Sempere - Superforecasting and Global Risk 1:26:57

3M ago1:26:57

1:26:57

⁠Nuño Sempere⁠ is a founding member of the legendary forecasting group ‘Samotsvety’. His track record puts him at the top of the world’s most accurate predictors of the future. I sat down with him last month to discuss forecasting, global risk, and his new non-profit ‘⁠Sentinel⁠’, a free early-warning system for large-scale catastrophes like pandem…

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Andrew Song: Global Cooling with Sulfur Dioxide in the Stratosphere — #91 1:04:37

3M ago1:04:37

1:04:37

Andrew Song is a co-founder of Make Sunsets, a company focused on addressing climate change through solar geoengineering. The company launches balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere with the aim of reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth. https://makesunsets.com/ Previous Manifold episodes on climate: https://www.manifold1.co…

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Manifold Discord Channel: Live Q&A with Steve — #90 54:45

4M ago54:45

54:45

Manifold has its own Discord channel! https://discord.gg/dvcHS6NX The purpose of the channel is to create a community of listeners with shared interests. It developed from a series of in-person meetups with Steve in cities like SF, NYC, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai. Chapter markers: (00:00) - Manifold Discord Channel, Live Q&A (02:36) - Genomics an…

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Omar Shams: AI Founder and Google AI Agent Lead — #89 1:05:29

4M ago1:05:29

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Shams was trained in theoretical physics before becoming an AI engineer at DeepMind and founding the company Mutable, which was acquired by Google. He is now lead engineer for Google's software agent group. Steve and Omar discuss: (00:00) - Introduction (01:18) - Journey from Physics to AI (10:51) - Elon Tried to Buy DeepMind (16:52) - Building Mut…

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NC Treasurer Brad Briner 26:46

4M ago26:46

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PanelistsBen KinneyPublisher, Business North CarolinaAllen SmithPresident and CEO, OneSpartanburg, Inc.By Carolina Business Review

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Patrick McGee: Apple In China — #88 59:33

5M ago59:33

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Patrick McGee is a longtime FT business reporter with extensive experience reporting on China. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Apple in China: the capture of the world's greatest company. Steve and Patrick discuss the history of Apple and its impact on technology development in China. “The best book about Apple ever written, one of the bes…

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Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles 26:46

5M ago26:46

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PanelistsAnna Beavon Gravely, Founder, Restless PoliticoMatt Martin, Regional Executive, North and South CarolinaFederal Reserve Bank of RichmondBy Carolina Business Review

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Blake Scholl, Founder and CEO, Boom Supersonic 26:46

5M ago26:46

26:46

Panelists: Frank Hefner, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, College of CharlestonJoe Waters, Co-Founder and CEO, CapitaBy Carolina Business Review

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Scott Keogh, President and CEO, Scout Motors 26:46

5M ago26:46

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What does it take to rebuild an American Icon? PanelistsDavid C. Lockwood III, CRE CCIM SIORExecutive Vice President and COO, Colliers, South CarolinaTony MeciaEditor, Charlotte LedgerBy Carolina Business Review

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GODZILLA DOWN! India-Pakistan Clash and Chinese Military Technology with TP Huang — #87 1:02:24

5M ago1:02:24

1:02:24

Steve and TP discuss the implications of the recent air battle between India and Pakistan, which involved over 100 fighter jets and took place entirely beyond visual range (BVR). What is sensor fusion, and have the Pakistanis achieved it with Chinese technology? Does the PL-15 outrange and outperform Western air-to-air missiles? What are the implic…

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Douglas A. Hicks, Davidson College President 26:46

5M ago26:46

26:46

PanelistsJohn HoodJohn William Pope FoundationDr. Joseph C. Von Nessen Darla Moore School of Business, University of South CarolinaBy Carolina Business Review

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Robots, Small Models, and RL with DeepSeek Alumnus Zihan Wang — #86 1:07:22

6M ago1:07:22

1:07:22

Zihan Wang is an AI researcher at Northwestern University, where he works on vision-language models, robotics, and reinforcement learning. Previously, he interned at DeepSeek, contributing to projects like DeepSeek-V2. Zihan's homepage: https://zihanwang314.github.io/ (00:00) - Introduction (01:13) - Zihan's Background, CS and AI Research in China …

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Dan Collins: Tariffs and the Future of US Manufacturing — #85 1:18:03

6M ago1:18:03

1:18:03

Dan Collins is Founder of Tyrell Chemical. He studied at Tsinghua University and spent 20 years working for companies like General Motors in China, helping to localize automotive manufacturing. Dan and Steve discuss tariffs, deindustrialization in America, the Go-Go days of rapid economic growth in PRC, and the future of the US-China relationship. …

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Todd Hall, President and CEO, Truliant Federal Credit Union 26:46

6M ago26:46

26:46

PanelistsJohn Hood, President, John William Pope FoundationJoseph C. Von Nessen, Ph.D., Research Economist, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South CarolinaBy Carolina Business Review

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Tourism in the Carolinas 2025 26:46

6M ago26:46

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We explore the impact of Hurricane Helene on this season, federal policy on hospitality hiring, and foreign travel, new state parks and a deal that will bring more foodies to visit the Carolinas.Special guests:Wit Tuttell, Executive Director, Visit NCDuane Parrish, Director, South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism…

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Seeking Truth From Facts: AI, China, Tariffs, Geopolitics — #84 45:42

6M ago45:42

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This episode is a co-release with the podcast Seeking Truth From Facts: https://seekingtruthfromfacts.substack.com/ (00:00) - Introduction (01:11) - China AI (02:30) - DeepSeek (04:21) - Redirecting Human Capital from finance (08:42) - US Policy and Financial Incentives (12:54) - China Meritocracy (24:24) - Trump's Tariffs and China (37:12) - Europ…