Dwarkesh Patel
Dwarkesh Patel | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Patel in 2025 | |
| Born | August 19, 2000[1] India |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin |
| Occupations | Podcast host, researcher |
| Known for | Dwarkesh Podcast |
| Website | www |
Dwarkesh Patel (born August 19, 2000) is an Indian-born writer and podcaster based in the United States who hosts the long-form interview show Dwarkesh Podcast, focusing on artificial intelligence, science, and history.[2][3]
Early life
Patel was born in India and moved to the United States when he was 8 years old.[4] His father, a physician, frequently traveled for work. The family moved around the country, living in North Dakota, West Virginia, Maryland, and Texas.[5] While studying computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, Patel began interviewing writers and technologists in 2020 for an early version of his podcast, then called The Lunar Society.[6] He took the name of his show from the Lunar Society of Birmingham, an 18th century British dinner club that was part of an influential intellectual movement known as the Midlands Enlightenment.[3]
Career
The Dwarkesh Podcast features extended conversations with scientists, technology leaders, historians, and economists.[3] On the podcast, Patel has interviewed prominent and diverse figures, including AI researchers such as Andrej Karpathy and Ilya Sutskever, technology leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Satya Nadella, and political figures, including former British prime minister Tony Blair and former British political advisor Dominic Cummings.[7][8]
The podcast has received praise from journalists and technologists.[9] The Economist said in 2025 that Patel "rose from nowhere to become Silicon Valley’s favourite podcaster".[2] The New Yorker referred to the significance of the podcast as "to the doomer crowd what 'The Joe Rogan Experience' is to jujitsu bros, or what 'The Ezra Klein Show' is to Park Slope liberals".[3]
Patel is particularly interested in artificial intelligence, which he considers to be "the most multidisciplinary and intellectually stimulating topic." He was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in AI by Time in 2024.[10]
Patel is the co-author, with Gavin Leech, of the 2025 book The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025. The book is mostly composed of parts of interviews from the Dwarkesh Podcast conducted with those involved in contemporary AI research, including Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Mark Zuckerberg, and Leopold Aschenbrenner. Subjects explored include the training of AI models, including the cost of the data centers required to train larger models, the impact on business, scientific research, and AI's potential impact on geopolitics, exploring the ways AI can potentially be used by adversarial countries to attack others, with Aschenbrenner offering an hypothetical scenario of a country with a slight edge using small drones to destroy the nuclear submarines of its enemies. Some interviewed like Amodei and Aschenbrenner openly describe the inability of humans to comprehend the underpinnings and intentions of AI, particularly artificial superintelligence, with Amodei, while discussing AI alignment and AI interpretability, stating "We really have very little idea what we’re talking about." Aschenbrenner further explains the uncertainly, stating that in the millions of lines of code, "you don’t know if it's hacking, exfiltrating itself, or trying to go for the nukes."[11]
In August 2025, Patel organized a fundraiser for charities opposing factory farming. Patel pledged to donate up to $250,000 in matching funds. He and his listeners (including Patrick Collison, Liv Boeree and Noah Smith) raised over $2 million.[12]
Personal life
As of 2024, Patel lives in San Francisco.[7] He has stated that he obtained his U.S. green card shortly before aging out of child-status eligibility.[4]
References
- ^ "Dwarkesh Patel". X. Archived from the original on July 31, 2025. Retrieved December 4, 2025.
Born August 19, 2000
- ^ a b "The man who has the ear of Silicon Valley". The Economist. April 17, 2025. Archived from the original on April 18, 2025. Retrieved April 17, 2025.
- ^ a b c d Marantz, Andrew (March 11, 2024). "Among the A.I. Doomsayers". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on October 7, 2024. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
- ^ a b Mahapatra, Tuhin Das (July 26, 2024). "India-born immigrant shares the days fearing to self-deport from US due to 'ageing out'". Hindustan Times. Retrieved February 15, 2025.
- ^ Segan, Shreeda (February 29, 2024). "The future belongs to those who prepare like Dwarkesh Patel". Mercury. Archived from the original on September 17, 2025. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
- ^ "Interview: The Lunar Society with Dwarkesh Patel". The Roots of Progress. August 28, 2020. Archived from the original on March 22, 2025. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
- ^ a b Shirreff, Lauren (June 26, 2024). "How an unknown podcaster bagged an interview with Tony Blair". The Telegraph.
- ^ "Indian-origin man's cold email to Satya Nadella lands him interview with Microsoft CEO: 'Kids, don't underestimate'". Hindustan Times. February 20, 2025. Archived from the original on February 20, 2025. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
- "Satya Nadella said 'yes' in 4 minutes. How an Indian-origin man landed an interview with Microsoft CEO". The Economic Times. February 20, 2025. ISSN 0013-0389. Archived from the original on February 23, 2025. Retrieved September 6, 2025.
- Ho, Soleil (September 10, 2024). "Why did a major S.F. tech conference just host a panel about making more babies?". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ Shipper, Dan (July 24, 2024). "🎧 Dwarkesh Patel's Quest to Learn Everything". every.to. Archived from the original on August 4, 2025. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
- ^ Pillay, Tharin (September 5, 2024). "TIME100 AI 2024: Dwarkesh Patel". TIME. Archived from the original on January 17, 2025. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
- ^ Patel, Dwarkesh (July 29, 2025). Leech, Gavin (ed.). The Scaling Era:An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025. San Francisco: Stripe Press. ISBN 978-1-953953-55-1. OCLC 1535937039.
- Roose, Kevin; Newton, Casey; Cohn, Rachel; Jones, Whitney; Collette, Matt; Moxley, Alyssa; Powell, Dan; Lozano, Marion; Wong, Diane (March 28, 2025). "The Tech Behind Signalgate + Dwarkesh Patel's 'Scaling Era' + Is A.I. Making Our Listeners Dumb?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 31, 2025. Retrieved April 1, 2025.
- Rothman, Joshua (April 1, 2025). "Are We Taking A.I. Seriously Enough?". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on April 16, 2025. Retrieved April 15, 2025.
- Hutson, Matthew (September 12, 2025). "'These Strange New Minds' and 'The Scaling Era' Analyzing AI's Future". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Torrella, Kenny (August 21, 2025). "An unorthodox idea for solving one of the world's most underrated problems". Vox. Archived from the original on August 29, 2025. Retrieved September 6, 2025.