Bretton Goods

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**Bretton Goods**

I talk to the most interesting people about economic growth

Latest Episodes:

Ep 57: India's Statistical Story Jan 10, 2024

Show notes

I spoke to Pramit Bhattacharya an independent data journalist about India's statistical system. We talked about

How did Indian statisticians adapt their statistical methods to account for India's informal sector?
How are India's GDP numbers constructed?
Why it's so hard to outright manipulate GDP numbers
The case for optimism

Ep 56: Talking AI Regulation with Harry Law Jan 03, 2024

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I talked with Harry Law of the University of Cambridge and Google DeepMind about AI regulation

We talked about

Me vs Harry on open source AI regulation
Being humble when regulating AI
Why a "Manhattan Project for X" is overrated

Ep 55: Adaptive markets and crypto with Derek Wong Dec 18, 2023

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I spoke with Derek Wong about the adaptive markets hypothesis, macro investing and investing in cryptocurrency markets

We talk about

Why investors should consider the financial markets as a complex adaptive system
How investing in China is very different from investing in the West
How he invests in crypto without fundamental anchors

Ep 53: The State of Indian Cities ft. Devashish Dhar Sep 11, 2023

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I spoke with Devashish Dhar, the author of the excellent book India's Blind Spot which talks about India's urbanisation crisis and solutions to it. We talk about

Why does India have a much lower reported rate of urbanisation than the rest of the world?
Explaining the global bias against cities
“Extremely high levels of traffic is caused by poor land policy”
Why are there so many floods in Indian cities?
How to climate-proof Indian cities
“India’s biggest unfulfilled promise is local government”

and much more!

Ep 52: Tyler Cowen on Singapore, AI and Economic Growth Sep 04, 2023

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I interviewed one of the most interesting thinkers today, Tyler Cowen.

We talked about

Why there are such few Singaporean famous people
What Singapore can do to get more weird
Why he's sceptical of an AI-driven singularity
What happens to kids in a post-GPT world
What happens to public intellectuals in a post-GPT world
Why he's optimistic on Kenyan economic growth

And so much more!

Ep 51: Why AI won't kill us all ft. Rohit Krishnan Aug 25, 2023

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I spoke to Rohit Krishnan the author of the blog Strange Loop Canon about why he is sceptical about the idea that AI will kill us all

We talked about

Why he’s sceptical of AI regulation proposals
Why AI “timelines” are not as meaningful as you think
AI deployment is harder than you think!
The value of incrementalism in AI policy
Why he thinks instrumental convergence is unlikely to happen

Ep. 50: mRNA vaccines in India ft. Soham Sankaran Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

I spoke to Soham Sankaran who runs PopVax, an Indian mRNA vaccine company. Their goal is to build low-cost broadly-protective vaccines to protect against the entire sarbecovirus species. Read Soham's experience here (https://chronicles.popvax.com/p/three-meetings-and-six-million-funerals) as a complement to this episode. Also check out their jobs page (https://jobs.popvax.com/) for opportunities.

This episode includes

How he started PopVax and (went bankrupt in the process)
Why there hasn't been a successful Indian mRNA vaccine yet
Why developing countries can't afford drugs for rare diseases
What they're doing to fix it
Their biggest constraints

Ep 49: Dwarkesh Patel - podcasting, Robert Moses, Effective Altruism and AI xrisk Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

I talked to Dwarkesh Patel of the Lunar Society Podcast about many topics. We talked about:

Why do AI researchers and rationalists disagree about existential risk?
What would happen if Robert Moses ran San Francisco?
Is localism overrated?
What does Effective Altruism get right and wrong?
Which politicians would he like to interview

Ep. 47: The World's Biggest Invisible Country: Indonesia May 20, 2023

Show notes

I talked to Faris Abdurrachman about Indonesia and it's nickel boom. We talked specifically about

Why Indonesia banned exports of raw nickel
Who gets the value from nickel exports
Indonesia's new sovereign wealth fund

Ep 46: Growth teams with Kartik Akileswaran May 13, 2023

Show notes

I spoke to Kartik Akileswaran who runs Growth Teams - an initiative which helps build state capacity for economic growth in developing countries. We talked about

- Why implementation is a binding constraint for economic policy

- How industrial policy helps reduce information constraints for investors

- Underrated growth reforms

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