Balaji Srinivasan — Bitcoin and Ethereum, Lee Kuan Yew, US vs China, and More

The Man Who Knew Infinity

“there's a book that was turned into a movie called the man who infinity it's a very fun movie to watch i mean it's it's engaging”— Balaji Srinivasan

The Journalist and the Murderer

Janet Malcolm (inferred)

“there's this great book called the journalist and the murderer that actually documents this so it's a phenomenal book you should read it”— Balaji Srinivasan

Trust Me, I'm Lying

Ryan Holiday

“there's also a book called trust me i'm lying by ryan holiday which covers a lot of this including the tactic of getting an email 20 minutes before a piece is going to be published”— Tim Ferriss

Beautiful Trouble

“beautiful trouble is an awesome window into another world which is it's sort of like you know it's a handbook for activists”— Balaji Srinivasan

Seeing Like a State

James C. Scott (inferred)

“if you read read this book seeing like a state this is a great book by yale university press that essentially talks about how names were developed”— Balaji Srinivasan

Exercism

Exercism (inferred)

“exercism.io this is an awesome site by the way it's got a funny name too has something where you can learn python by doing like 50 python problems”— Balaji Srinivasan

Popcorn Time

“popcorn time is actually quite a good app you know that's like basically streaming with the quality of like in itunes or whatever”— Balaji Srinivasan

Super 30

“have you ever seen the movie or even the trailer to super 30 you should definitely watch this all your viewers should watch this”— Balaji Srinivasan

Good Will Hunting

“if you've ever seen goodwill hunting i have yeah so goodwill hunting was kind of based on that”— Balaji Srinivasan

300

“the ideal was to have citizen soldiers like if you've seen the movie 300 where all the athenians come out and it's like you know i'm a potter”— Balaji Srinivasan

Nomad List

Nomad List (inferred)

“you go to nomadlist.com or teleport.org and you do a spreadsheet and you optimize your personal runway”— Balaji Srinivasan

Bitcoin

“put half into bitcoin half into a theorem the simplest thing that i think is you know guaranteed to produce really exceptional returns”— Balaji Srinivasan

Ethereum

“put half into bitcoin half into a theorem the dumbest meaning the simplest like the simplest thing that i think is you know guaranteed to produce really exceptional returns”— Balaji Srinivasan

Zcash

“you can use zcash to transfer money from one name to another pseudonymously zcash is basically like the truly anonymous version of bitcoin truly private version”— Balaji Srinivasan

PostgreSQL

“if you're starting from scratch you'll use postgres or an open source database or combination of some kind”— Balaji Srinivasan

Git

“there's a thousand details and how that works which are useful to get number one like git and stuff like that”— Balaji Srinivasan

Reddit

“there's 400 million pseudonyms you know or pseudonymous users on reddit pseudonymous like reddit is a persistent pseudonym that accumulates reputation”— Balaji Srinivasan

Filecoin

“asset issuers like creators of new cryptocurrencies and digital assets would pay users to do tutorials like file coin or orchard how to use decentralized storage”— Balaji Srinivasan

Orchid

“like file coin or orchard how to use decentralized storage or decentralized vpn”— Balaji Srinivasan

Udacity

“a sort of a caricature or attack or whatever of audacity udacity of these nano degrees they say oh you're getting a nano degree”— Balaji Srinivasan

Coursera

“the scanner which is like audacity and coursera and so on which are fine companies good companies billion dollar companies”— Balaji Srinivasan

Python

“the difference between a person who solved five problems or one problem in javascript versus zero is actually a big difference”— Balaji Srinivasan

Figma

Figma (inferred)

“you might be able to get paid more if you know figma or if you know python or if you know chemistry”— Balaji Srinivasan

Casa (keys.casa)

Casa

“i'm an investor in a company called casa keys.casa is url it's cold storage as a service so they go through with you how to set up your cold storage”— Balaji Srinivasan

StarkWare (Cairo)

StarkWare

“an investor in something called starkware which has something called cairo that is very promising and general so-called zero-knowledge roll-ups are very promising”— Balaji Srinivasan

Uber

“you go from a taxi ride you know it's standard taxi ride to uber which actually has very long trips and also very short ones”— Balaji Srinivasan

Spotify

“you unbundle all the songs from all the albums then you rebundle them in spotify playlists”— Balaji Srinivasan

Tinder

“tinder alone is a complete change in how making happens swipe right swipe left swipe right swipe left that itself is like this huge thing”— Balaji Srinivasan

Reliance Jio

Reliance

“india has brought about 400 million people online with something called reliance geo which basically 4g lte there is about 100 x cheaper than in the us”— Balaji Srinivasan

Ready Player One

“the easiest way to give them that pass is actually vr goggles ready player one here you go ready player knight exactly right”— Balaji Srinivasan

From Third World to First

Lee Kuan Yew

“he wrote a book called from third world to first and he took singapore from this third world swamp into you know this shining metropolis”— Balaji Srinivasan

The Lessons of History

Will and Ariel Durant

“if anyone has read lessons of history by will and ariel durant you know war famine and pestilence example given covet 19 also do a pretty good job”— Tim Ferriss

The Terminator

“it's like being a terminator the present is all idyllic everyone's gambling through the fields and then this crazy scientist invents some horrible new terminator”— Balaji Srinivasan

House of Cards

“you see a hollywood depiction of this house of cards and netflix in its first season actually depicted an evil ngo like a water thing”— Balaji Srinivasan

Ghostbusters

“the original ghostbusters depict an evil regulator so did dallas buyer's club depicted evil regulators”— Balaji Srinivasan

Dallas Buyers Club

“the original ghostbusters depict an evil regulator so did dallas buyer's club depicted evil regulators”— Balaji Srinivasan

Black Mirror

“they have this sort of black mirror world view this future sucks the west isn't the sort of black marathon where the only thing they can see in the future”— Balaji Srinivasan