The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman recounts the company's 2015 origins competing against DeepMind's perceived insurmountable lead, the technical breakthroughs that validated the scaling hypothesis, the 2017 pivot from non-profit to for-profit to secure billions in compute, and the boardroom dynamics that led to Sam Altman's brief removal.

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

Mario Harik, CEO of XPO, shares how applying engineering problem-solving frameworks to business strategy—while rejecting perfectionism in favor of human-centered leadership—drives execution at a $25B trucking company.

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

Alpha School Principal Joe Liemandt argues that traditional schools waste time by rewarding only IQ and conscientiousness while letting standards collapse, whereas Alpha achieves top 1% academic results in just two hours daily through AI-adaptive mastery learning built on the radical principle that kids must love school more than vacation.

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

Brookfield CEO Connor Teskey explains how the firm achieves superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in critical global infrastructure while eliminating market risk through contractual lock-ins, and shares leadership lessons from his rapid rise from private equity to CEO.

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

Vlad Tenev recounts the acute 2021 GameStop trading crisis driven by overnight collateral demands and viral misinformation, contrasting it with the slower burn of 2022's 80% valuation collapse, which forced a strategic pivot from pure trading to a diversified fintech platform with eleven revenue streams.

The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)

Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norway's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, argues that high ambitions drive success regardless of failure, while the inability to predict macro events makes speed and agility more valuable than forecasting. He views AI as a once-in-a-lifetime productivity revolution transforming education and work, even as it creates bubble-like conditions, and warns that societal closedness and declining interpersonal skills pose the greatest threats to prosperity.