3 ms·

I'm also curious how Lex managed the get the calibre of guests he did right off the bat. I understand he was some kind of MIT whizkid, but I don't know much ab

I'm also curious how Lex managed the get the calibre of guests he did right off the bat. I understand he was some kind of MIT whizkid, but I don't know much about him beyond that.

hollerith 5y ago
"Right off the bat"? He started uploading interviews to Youtube 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&f...
ok123456 5y ago
All his degrees are from Drexel University. He goes to lengths to hide, or at least obfuscate, that fact. Source: went to school with him.
- hollerith 5y ago
  Then he got a postdoc at MIT.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    you don't 'get a postdoc'. It's not a degree. It's a job you get that requires a PhD. It's a form a purgatory until you can get a real academic job. The goal of a post doc is to continue to do research work where you're the first position on publications to pad your CV to the point where it looks impressive enough when you're out giving job talks for tenure track positions. If you have a very strong PhD thesis, produced a lot of good work during your PhD and made enough connections, you can skip that step.
    - ausbah 5y ago
      and that discredits him somehow?
      - ok123456 5y ago
        Well he did stop doing anything that you could classify as research, and decided to become a youtube talk-show host instead. It's almost as if he was there just long enough to associate his name with the school as an ends to impress dumb people.
        ausbah 5y ago
        https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ... he's had his name on publications over the past few years while still doing the podcast
        ok123456 5y ago
        last position and chi pablum
    - tinyhouse 5y ago
      A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.
      - ok123456 5y ago
        His connections (his dad is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering) had more to do with that than hard work. Getting out of purgatory was also competitive.
tinyhouse 5y ago
I guess people like listening to him. Who cares where he went to school.
lrhegeba 5y ago
His father is a first-class scientist with lots of connections, that certainly helped with access (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en)

I'm also curious how Lex managed the get the calibre of guests he did right off the bat. I understand he was some kind of MIT whizkid, but I don't know much about him beyond that.

hollerith 5y ago

"Right off the bat"? He started uploading interviews to Youtube 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&f...

ok123456 5y ago

All his degrees are from Drexel University. He goes to lengths to hide, or at least obfuscate, that fact. Source: went to school with him.

hollerith 5y ago
Then he got a postdoc at MIT.
- ok123456 5y ago
  you don't 'get a postdoc'. It's not a degree. It's a job you get that requires a PhD. It's a form a purgatory until you can get a real academic job. The goal of a post doc is to continue to do research work where you're the first position on publications to pad your CV to the point where it looks impressive enough when you're out giving job talks for tenure track positions. If you have a very strong PhD thesis, produced a lot of good work during your PhD and made enough connections, you can skip that step.
  - ausbah 5y ago
    and that discredits him somehow?
    - ok123456 5y ago
      Well he did stop doing anything that you could classify as research, and decided to become a youtube talk-show host instead. It's almost as if he was there just long enough to associate his name with the school as an ends to impress dumb people.
      - ausbah 5y ago
        https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ... he's had his name on publications over the past few years while still doing the podcast
        ok123456 5y ago
        last position and chi pablum
  - tinyhouse 5y ago
    A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.
    - ok123456 5y ago
      His connections (his dad is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering) had more to do with that than hard work. Getting out of purgatory was also competitive.

tinyhouse 5y ago

I guess people like listening to him. Who cares where he went to school.

lrhegeba 5y ago

His father is a first-class scientist with lots of connections, that certainly helped with access (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en)