Arjun Khemani Podcast

Sean Bowe and Jack Grigg aka str4d are both cryptographic engineers working on the Zcash protocol. Sean’s latest project is Tachyon, intended to bring encrypted money into the hands of 8 billion people.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
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Timestamps
0:00 - Project Tachyon
10:20 - Privacy can’t be an afterthought for a protocol
15:24 - Encrypted Bitcoin
22:11 - Soundness bug in original sprout pool
30:15 - Sapling
33:00 - A decade of progress
39:04 - Zcash’s anonymity set
51:29 - Using private money as a passthrough doesn’t work
56:04 - The importance of ledger indistinguishability
58:30 - The ultimate privacy stack
1:05:58 - Tachyon removes all cryptographic bottlenecks of encrypted money
1:08:16 - What’s next after Tachyon?
1:15:25 - Weightless blockchains?
1:18:24 - Ragu
1:19:44 - What the next 12 months look like for Jack and Sean
1:31:22 - “Everything worth doing is worth doing on ambitious timelines.” — Sean
1:32:16 - Sean’s advice for young engineers
1:34:18 - What got Sean and Jack into Zcash?


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com

My conversation with Samo Burja, founder of Bismarck Analysis. He chairs the editorial board of Palladium Magazine.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
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Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
1:18 - Live players
5:41 - Great Founder Theory
11:20 - Our material technology rests on our social interactions
14:23 - Optimism, pessimism, and human agency
23:21 - Operationalized knowledge
25:22 - Lost and dead traditions of knowledge
27:34 - Tradition of criticism
29:36 - The most important piece of knowledge to preserve
32:27 - Common features of declining societies
39:18 - Are the Spartan warriors overrated and just had very good PR?
42:07 - DOGE and bureaucracy in America
45:28 - The machinery of freedom
47:43 - Tech Samo is most excited about over the next 5 years
50:10 - Curtis Yarvin and the orbital authority
55:01 - Samo’s advice for young people
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com

My conversation with Zooko Wilcox and Josh Swihart on unstoppable private money.
Zooko Wilcox is a legendary cypherpunk and one of the founders of Zcash—private, digital money.
Josh Swihart is the CEO of Electric Coin Company, the team behind the Zcash protocol and the Zashi wallet app.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
Watch on YouTube or X. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Follow me on X for updates on future episodes.
Timestamps
0:00 - Maya Protocol integrates with Zcash
3:52 - Coinbase social engineering attack
7:43 - Private money negates capital controls
14:13 - Privacy comes from money at rest
18:24 - The Zashi effect and future roadmap
25:11 - Project Tachyon
39:10 - Zcash’s anonymity set doesn’t depend on the number of its users
45:37 - Turnstiles in Zcash and the 2018 inflation bug
57:28 - “ZK” has become a marketing stunt among crypto projects
59:48 - On Binance delisting ZEC
1:01:35 - A transition toward using crypto as it was originally intended
1:04:52 - Should exchanges use transparent addresses?
1:17:38 - Coin holder voting in Zcash
1:23:38 - Sci-fi influence
1:28:37 - Gary Gensler
1:29:40 - Why I like Zcash
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com

My conversation with Ethan Thornton, founder of Mach Industries.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
Watch on YouTube or X. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Follow me on X for updates on future episodes.
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Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
1:07 - Why Mach needs to exist
3:16 - Early experiments
5:07 - Dropping out of MIT
8:36 - Raising $85 million at 19 years old
11:20 - Decentralized vertical supply chains
13:54 - The most important domain of the next century
15:55 - Betting on hydrogen
18:11 - Overview of Viper and Glide
21:06 - Building feedback loops across teams
25:29 - Facing regulatory hurdles
28:19 - Knowing when to be risk tolerant
29:54 - Time until China invades Taiwan
31:45 - The future of warfare
42:29 - Takeaways from the (unmanned) war in Ukraine
48:23 - Biggest influences on Ethan’s life
49:37 - Mach’s long-term plan
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com

My conversation with philosopher and author Peter Boghossian.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
Watch on YouTube or X. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Follow me on X for updates on future episodes.
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Timestamps
0:00 - The enlightenment
5:51 - The dangers of moral relativism
21:28 - Modern education is failing us
31:14 - What’s worth preserving in the West
37:00 - Is wokeism filling the void left by atheism?
38:04 - The spread of Islamism
45:49 - Speech is not violence
49:11 - Derangements of science
52:48 - The myth of the framework
56:34 - Why you should learn epistemology
58:05 - The instinct to belong trumps what’s true
1:02:44 - Chasing likes versus pursuing truth
1:05:08 - What is Peter most optimistic and most pessimistic about
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com