Ryan Schiller: Yale student and creator of Librex, an anonymous discussion feed for college communities. A former competitive chess and poker player who taught himself to code to build the app.
What this episode covers
Ryan Schiller tells Lex Fridman how a professor's fear of broaching a controversial topic inspired him to build Librex, an anonymous, community-verified discussion app for Ivy League campuses. He recounts teaching himself Swift with no programming background, hand-delivering posters at Dartmouth to onboard a new campus, and his philosophy on anonymity, moderation, free speech, and refusing to sell user data. The conversation ranges across campus safe spaces, the Epstein-Minsky controversy at MIT, the Bitcoin and poker communities, and startup advice about ignoring experts. Schiller also shares a harrowing personal story of nearly dying from myocarditis, which shaped his sense of mortality and purpose.
Recommended on this episode
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
“i really like the book the the war of art um which is a book about creative resistance and the creative struggle”— Ryan Schiller
Good Will Hunting
Gus Van Sant
“what is it the goodwill hunting and went to see about a girl oh yeah that's a good movie i love that movie”— Ryan Schiller
The Beginner's Guide
Davey Wreden
“it's the beginner's guide which is what i it was made by the same guy davey rendon who made the stanley parable”— Ryan Schiller
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
“harare and sapiens rewinds that even farther back into like caveman times that's the thing that made us humans special”— Lex Fridman
The Mathematics of Poker
Bill Chen
“he wrote a book called the mathematics of poker that i started reading and that first of all kick started my interest in game theory”— Ryan Schiller
Turning Pro
Steven Pressfield
“he also has another one called turning pro i think i mean he in general espouses like taking it seriously”— Ryan Schiller
The Stanley Parable
Davey Wreden
“it was made by the same guy davey rendon who made the stanley parable which i i briefly saw you i i just clicked the video”— Ryan Schiller
Big reveals from this episode
- A Yale professor told Ryan he stopped teaching his Middle East expertise after a student reported him and he feared for his job.
- Schiller cites a Gallup poll that 61% of college students nationally are afraid to speak their minds due to campus culture.
- He traveled to Dartmouth knowing no one, slept on a stranger's floor, printed 2,000 posters, and signed up most of the campus overnight.
- Librex was rejected by Y Combinator in the final rounds partly because Ryan refused to sell user data.
- At 18 Schiller nearly died of myocarditis after a virus attacked his heart, given a 25-35% chance of dying.
- Lex challenges incoming MIT users to have the difficult, suppressed conversations about Jeffrey Epstein, Marvin Minsky, and academic funding.
- Ryan's core advice: as a young founder, listen to as few people as possible because experts can't know your social milieu.
Worth remembering
- Ryan built his first login page by Googling 'how to make a login page in Swift' and copying the first result.
- He accidentally structured his database as a heap with no knowledge of databases, baffling his CS friends.
- Librex enforces one verified .edu account per person, so users trust they're talking to real humans, not bots.
- Librex has a 'forget me' button that deletes your email from the database in two clicks.
- Schiller reached ~2000 USCF in chess by age 13 and later got into poker via a post-mortem with poker champion Bill Chen.
- He started playing poker at 14 using Bitcoin freeroll tournaments to get around age restrictions.
- Schiller argues the education system's hidden purpose is to lead you to a point where you must rebel and create your own path.
- An MIT mailing-list thread about Minsky and Epstein was quickly shut down, with Richard Stallman pushed out over it.