He called it New Atlantis, a utopia powered by relentless invention and discovery, where Merchants of Light pushed beyond the limits of the known.

Nearly 400 years later, the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships & Grants are here to write the next chapter.

We’re hunting for the next generation of trailblazers - builders, researchers, and creatives, like you, who will advance civilization.

If you’re working on something that can radically transform the world, we want to hear from you.

Apply Now

1 Year. $100,000.

No debt.
No equity.
No dilution.
No committees.
No corporate overlords.
No thesis requirements.

Just you, twelve months, and the backing you need to make it real.

Starting something audacious is terrifying - especially when you have responsibilities, rent to pay, or mouths to feed. We believe innovation requires freedom: the freedom to tinker, to fail, and to learn fast.

All Fellows receive $100,000 to pursue their projects for the year. All Grantees receive at least $10,000. Either way, you retain 100% ownership of your work.

Apply Now

Need Inspiration?

O’Shaughnessy Fellows and Grantees come from nearly every place and domain imaginable.

Over the past three years, we’ve scoured over 160 countries to find and fund over 75 extraordinary individuals.

They are creating synthetic cells, reconstructing dreams in 3D, saving dying languages, building homes for homeless children, researching biological machinery to stop aging, making sci-fi films, designing novel roses that don’t exist in nature, launching the New Yorker for the Spanish speaking world, building anti-recording devices, creating global #1 viral songs, building mechanical hands for amputees, storing data in plants and numerous other scientific, artistic, and technological projects.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

This year alone, we’ve already received hundreds of applications from dreamers all around the world.

What You Need to Know

One application. Two opportunities.

All Fellowship applicants are automatically considered for Grants. There’s no separate application. In 2026, we will award ten $100k Fellowships and up to twenty Grants of at least $10k.

Equity-free.

You keep 100% ownership. We want to support your work, not own it.

Application timeline

Applications opened January 1, 2026 and close April 30, 2026. After you submit the application form, we'll review on a rolling basis - so the earlier you apply, the sooner you hear back. Most applicants get an update within 30 days.

Global and inclusive

Anyone can apply, from anywhere in the world. Last year, our youngest applicant was thirteen years old.

Fully remote

No relocation required.

Apply Now

Jason assembled a top-tier team to make this movie (including Pixar alumni), and it shows. It’s a sweeping, inspiring story about a man risking everything to build something extraordinary, brought to life with remarkable VFX and made for a fraction of a typical sci-fi blockbuster’s budget.

In September, the film premiered to 1,000 people at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, receiving rave reviews. It’s now out in the world. Check it out on YouTube (link below).

Set in the year 2730 IA, Dr. Evren Kon dares to think beyond a United Council request to build an orbital supercomputer and proposes an idea far bolder: a plan to build an artificial planet. The film takes place during the final century of the project.

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Our friends at Edge City are selecting six builders aged 25 or under for a fully-covered, in-person residency in a popup village in Patagonia (Oct 18–Nov 15, 2025). ()

You’ll have a month to ship a concrete outcome, with access to mentors across AI/bio/XR/governance/emerging markets/consciousness and more. Expect demo nights, salons, deep-work blocks, and village infrastructure (coworking, wellness, community dinners, etc).

Post-program, fellows receive warm intros across the Edge network.

The deadline is TODAY, August 28. Apply here.

Also open: SHIFT Grants support scientific and technological breakthrough projects that align with d/acc philosophy (decentralized, democratic, differential, defensive acceleration). $5k–$15k micro grants and $20k–$40k development grants are available on a rolling basis. Details: shiftgrants.org.

In case you missed it, we recently announced our 2025 cohort of O’Shaughnessy Fellows (Culture & Society, Frontier Technology) and Grantees.

Launched in 2023, the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers creatives, builders, and researchers who are ready to make their mark on the world. Fellows receive a $100,000 grant, plus access to OSV’s network of founders, investors, and experts. Applications are currently closed, but they’ll reopen on January 1, 2026. If you’re curious to learn more, head over to our website.

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This is our third cohort.

While the world debates whether civilization has stalled, we’ve just awarded twenty-two Grants (in addition to twelve Fellowships) across four continents. We’re backing the defiant ones. The ones who think we can talk to animals, create new art forms, live in space, revolutionize sleep, and much, much more.

These are the folks who are actively creating the future.

Our mission is to help them do it.

Let’s get to know them. Maybe you’re next.

The Ones Decoding the Secrets of Biology (and Giving Humans Superpowers)

Addy Cha (Boca Raton, FL) is a researcher at Florida Atlantic University’s Machine Perception Cognitive Robotics Lab. As the founder of Ekkolápto, Addy’s building systems to talk to animals. “We have blind spots we don’t even know we have.” Time to hear what other species have been trying to tell us.

Alfaxad Eyembe (Kyoto, Japan) is getting Africa on the AI revolution. His Nadhari lab is training models to think in Swahili to advance frontier AI research and applications in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.“The intelligence age is an inflection point through which we can unlock tremendous value for people all over the world.”

Daniel Van Zant (Plantation, FL), is a PhD candidate in computational neuroscience at Florida Atlantic University. Tired of watching so many brilliant minds drown in garbage hallucinations by AI, Daniel built them a lifeline: an AI software that cites everything and hallucinates nothing. 150 alpha users are already on board.

Helena Rosengarten (Berlin, Germany) is a doctor by training, founder by spirit. With one goal in mind — to free humanity from biological constraints, she’s starting first with sleep — compressing it to four fully-restorative hours."This could be one of those moments you look back on and realize it completely changed your life's trajectory.”

Isaak Freeman (San Francisco, CA) escaped an Austrian valley, taught himself biology, and now, as a researcher at MIT, has decided that sleep is inefficient. His thesis is simple: we can get some of those eight hours back. Mouse trials are starting soon. Humans are next.

Zebo Furqatzoda (Khujand, Tajikistan) organized TEDx at sixteen years-old and has already built mental health programs across seven countries. Her new mission? Leveraging neuroscience to make 100,000 brains learn at superhuman speed.

The Ones Burning Down the Ivory Tower (and Building Something Better)

Advik Kapoor (Noida, India) is barely out of high school and already building Exerton, a micro-crowdfunding platform for those who build. Thirty young creators are already supported. After all, why should ambition have restrictions?

Zelda Poem (San Francisco, CA), a published author and founder of Nautilus, is running the first cohort of her three-month residency for young artists, scientists, and founders to live, create, and collaborate. With housing secured and its first 12-person cohort underway, Nautilus aims to become the cultural hub for emerging talent.

Nick Linck (San Francisco, CA) left AI research to revolutionize education. His goal is to expand The Residency — an alternative to college for ambitious inventors, founders, researchers, and storytellers. The program now operates in 12 cities worldwide, serving 100+ people per cohort.

Tommy Potter (Moline, IL) is a University of Michigan student who walked out of high school to "live in the real world instead of walking its hallways.” His mission is to grow Power Hour: a high-signal community for undiscovered talent — the CIA for entrepreneurs. Tommy has already hosted eight national retreats, collaborating with venture firms to showcase the thinkers and doers of tomorrow.

The Ones Creating Art That Matters (Both Here on Earth and Up in Space)

Elle Griffin (Salt Lake City, UT) built The Elysian to 22,000 subscribers with one rule: don’t forget the good news. She will continue to write about the future of nation states, economies, and humanity. Her cooperative media empire is living proof that optimism scales.

Jose Luis Sabau (Mexico City) is a writer and journalist who saw 600 million Spanish speakers reading in translation and decided that was unacceptable. He’s launching Perpetuo in response, envisioned as the New Yorker for the Spanish-speaking world.

Natasha Tsakos (Miami, FL) has worked with Cirque du Soleil, TED, the UN and performed on six continents. She’s now developing Paraboles: the first multimedia dance-theater performance in microgravity. “Receiving this grant is a meaningful step toward the evolution of the arts in space, and the creation of utterly original forms and content for this next frontier.” Her first Zero-G flight performance with MIT is scheduled for this fall.

Paul "Benbrick" Carter (London, England) is a Peabody Award-winning producer and multi-million-selling songwriter. The Financial Times said he was "among the most imaginative and forward-thinking producers in audio right now.” His project is the creation of an audio series that pushes the podcast medium into the stratosphere, blending orchestral composition, immersive sound design, AI experiments, and narrative storytelling. Your ears aren’t ready to hear audio stories this good.

Ti Morse (Anchorage, AK) is conducting 50 interviews with the next generation of great entrepreneurs. In person. Because the stories shaping our future deserve to be told in detail. “I want more people to be excited and optimistic about the future and I believe the best way to do that is by sharing the stories of the founders building it.”

The Ones Rewriting the Laws of Nature (and Exploring New Ones)

Chandhana Sathishkumar (Chennai, India) sees atoms as the source code of civilization. With three successful pilot studies in the bag, she’s now hunting down the biggest knowledge gaps in materials, polymers, and chemistry. "Tomorrow is forged at the atomic level as much as in code. With this boost, I'll keep rearranging matter!"

Nicholas Desnoyer (Norwich, England) is a plant researcher by day, flower artist by night. His passion is genetically engineering “designable” flowers for art and education. He’s already developed “micro-roses” from Arabidopsis thaliana that you can program like software.

Sulaiman Khan Ghori (Santa Clara, CA) believes that life is the only force that can defeat entropy. He’s researching von Neumann probes: self-replicating spacecraft to seed life across the universe. In his eyes, few other things can secure the cosmic future of humanity.

The Ones Fixing the Cracks in Civilization (and Maximizing Human Potential)

Jonny Miller (Santa Cruz, CA) has 500 people on the waitlist for Nervous System Mastery. His goal? Spreading somatic literacy in order to help humans navigate the stress of modern life. He also hosts the Curious Humans Podcast for the biochemically adventurous.

Laura London (Cincinnati, OH) is investigating how the atomic bomb reshaped America’s relationship with technology, replacing progress with caution, and how this shift now manifests in California's water policy, environmental regulation, and the retreat from large-scale infrastructure. Her goal? Get cracking on the manuscript for the book by year’s end.

Miyoba Hamuhuma (Chipata, Zambia) turned his wheelchair into a revolution. As the CEO of Enlight Abilities, Miyoba is advocating for inclusive education in Zambia. His mission is to enroll at least 500 disabled children in mainstream schools.

Shani Zhang (San Francisco, CA) draws the invisible. An artist and illustrator, she’s creating a year-long public art journal that documents the story of the city. Her work captures the quiet, everyday lives of San Franciscans in shared spaces. Solo exhibition incoming.

Are You Next?

Every one of these twenty-two individuals was already building before we found them. The grant simply gave them fuel to go faster.

Tommy was already hosting retreats. Zelda was already finding geniuses. Sulaiman was already designing spacecraft.

They didn't wait for the right moment. They didn't wait for credentials. They didn't wait for someone to say yes.

Applications for the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships & Grants reopen January 1, 2026.

What are you building that's too important to wait?

Launched in 2023 alongside the $100,000 O’Shaughnessy Fellowships, the O'Shaughnessy Grants program discovers and empowers creatives, builders, and researchers ready to make their mark on the world. Grantees receive a $10,000 grant, plus access to OSV’s network of founders, investors, and experts. As stated above, applications will reopen on January 1, 2026. To learn more, head over to our website.

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Launched in 2023, the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers creatives, builders, and researchers who are ready to make their mark on the world. Fellows receive a $100,000 grant, plus access to OSV’s network of founders, investors, and experts. Applications are currently closed, but they’ll reopen on January 1, 2026. If you’re curious to learn more, head over to OSV’s website.

Israel Goodnews Balogun

Israel spent 12 years homeless before founding the nonprofit AKHIN Africa in 2019. He has since rescued 100+ homeless individuals and opened support centers in three Nigerian states. He learned to read English at the age of 22 and now holds two master’s degrees from the University of Ibadan.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

A “rehabilitation village” in Nigeria that will house 200 homeless and out-of-school youths while providing vocational training, mentorship, and food via a sustainable agriculture system.

Charlie Becker

Charlie is a Houston-native, second-generation bookseller who works at the bookstore his family has run since 1993. He previously spent three years in China scaling an education startup to 60 employees across 12 cities, before becoming a professor and managing director at the University of Houston's SURE Program, where he helped grow more than 1,200 small businesses. You can hear more from Charlie via his newsletter, , where he pens regular essays on books, philosophy, culture, and legacy.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

An AI sidekick that helps indie booksellers identify and catalog rare or obscure titles in seconds. Better cataloging keeps forgotten works in circulation, boosts margins for small stores, and helps readers discover what they didn’t know they were missing.

Long-term, Charlie is building an open-source database to serve as an Alexandrian library of overlooked books, pamphlets, monographs, and magazines.

Michelle Huang

Michelle is a Nagano-based artist, researcher, and founder of the nonprofit Akiya Collective. Last year, Akiya Collective acquired its pilot property, a traditional Japanese folk house, and renovated it into a community makerspace that has since hosted artist residencies and workshops. Michelle’s earlier projects span AI in mental health applications, citizen-science initiatives, and algae-yarn wearables. Her projects have been ​featured in Business Insider, NPR, ABC, and the BBC.

WHAT’S SHE BUILDING?

Turning Japan’s abandoned rural houses—​aka akiya—into community-run studios and makerspaces. By 2030, one-third of Japanese homes will stand empty. Reviving even a fraction of these as community hubs will inject life into shrinking villages and offer a new template for rural revival, one that has already inspired projects in Thailand, Korea, and India.

John Kennedy

John is a North Carolina-based founder, investor, and education expert. He founded the ed-tech company Mesa Cloud as a high schooler (acquired by Panorama Education in 2023). Now, he directs AI Solutions at Panorama Education and chairs Clean Air K12 for the Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation. John is also an angel investor and sits on the investment committee of a southeastern family office. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he was an Innovation Scholar.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

John is transforming classroom air with affordable, DIY air purifiers via the Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation's Clean Air K12 initiative.

Poor ventilation in elementary schools harms both health and cognitive performance. The Corsi-Rosenthal Box is a powerful, DIY air purifier that users can easily build for $60. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency testing has demonstrated that, after running for just one hour, the box is 99.4% effective in removing infectious aerosols in a typical room, making it an affordable fix that any district can replicate.

Mark Nelson

Based in Chicago, Mark is the founder of Radiant Energy Group and a Cambridge-trained nuclear engineer. He has spent 10 years researching and advising on national and international energy systems, and his analytical work has been covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other leading European outlets.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

Mark organized the sold-out “Anschalt Konferenz” (Restart Conference) in Berlin on May 22 to advocate for restarting Germany’s dormant nuclear reactors. The event welcomed speakers and attendees from all over the world, and drew key German politicians and media, as well as thousands more who tuned in online.

A nuclear restart could quickly generate power for millions of Germans, restore German energy independence, and help reverse the country's industrial decline.

Rob Stephenson

Rob is an award-winning, Brooklyn-based musician and photographer, whose work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and in venues across North America and Europe. His commissions include work for the Center for Architecture and the Architectural League of New York. His photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among other publications.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

Rob is expanding The Neighborhoods, his long-running documentary project that combines photography, field recordings, and research-based writing into a living archive of New York City’s 300+ neighborhoods, preserving the city’s constantly changing street corners for historians, city planners, and NY lovers alike.

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Launched in 2023, the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers creatives, builders, and researchers who are ready to make their mark on the world. Fellows receive a $100,000 grant, plus access to OSV’s network of founders, investors, and experts. Applications are currently closed and will reopen on January 1, 2026. If you’re curious to learn more, head over to OSV’s website.

Benjamin Arya

An Australian scientist and bioengineer now based in Boston, Benjamin finished high school in Australia's 99.95th percentile, earning a Chancellor's Scholarship to study biomedicine at the University of Melbourne. After graduating with first-class honors, he spent time in medical school and Silicon Valley before collaborating with researchers at Stanford University on a project mapping the molecular signatures of decay in aging human hearts. Outside the lab, Ben has founded or invested in several biotech and consumer health startups and hosts a science and technology podcast.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

Next-generation gene-editing tools and delivery systems. This research could pave the way for therapies that repair genetic damage, prevent cancer, and slow age-related decline.

Aida Baradari

A 22-year-old physics student at Harvard, Aida has already built an augmented-reality–controlled robotic limb and co-founded Augmentation Lab, a collective of scientists, artists, and technologists creating human-centered technologies. She has also conducted research at renowned institutions, including CERN and Harvard's Nanoscale Optics Lab.

WHAT’S SHE BUILDING?

A pocket-sized anti-recording device that blocks microphones from recording without your permission.

Smartphones and other everyday tech open the door to silent eavesdropping. Aida’s portable device will put control back in users' hands.

Jan Jedryszek

Jan is a doctoral student at the Technical University of Munich, working through the prestigious Max Planck School Matter to Life program. His research explores how cells communicate to form complex organisms and how we might design synthetic materials to self-organize like living systems. He holds a master’s in molecular systems chemistry and engineering from Heidelberg University and a bachelor’s in neurobiology from Jagiellonian University. He’s also contributed to bio-mining technology research at the European Space Agency.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

A proof-of-concept nanodevice that can monitor and transmit the internal conditions of individual cells at a molecular level. This kind of breakthrough research could one day connect biological cells to the internet, with potential applications in real-time health monitoring, advanced diagnostics, and even biological computing.

Ninon Lizé Masclef

Based in Paris, Ninon is an inventor, artist, and researcher currently affiliated with the MIT Media Lab, where she co-leads work on reconstructing 3D visual imagery from brain activity. In 2024, she was named one of France’s top 100 inventors by a panel including Nobel and Turing Prize laureates for her work on Strange Loops, her first brain-computer interface. She’s also performed music generated from brainwaves at the Internet Archive in San Francisco and the Deutsches Museum in Germany. She serves as chair of finance and sponsorship at Women in Machine Learning.

WHAT’S SHE BUILDING?

A prototype brain-computer interface capable of turning brainwave data into immersive, 3D reconstructions of dreams. Besides being undeniably cool, this work could help unlock deeper insights into the subconscious mind through neural technology.

Alexandros Petkos

An engineer based in Athens, Greece, Alexandros has been deeply involved in robotics from a young age. At just 20, he built both the hardware and software for a robot that could lift and place cardboard boxes, fabricating most of the parts himself, assembling the robot, and collecting the datasets to train it. Even earlier, at 17, he built a four-legged walking robot, a project that landed him on Forbes Greece's '30 Under 30' list in 2022. Alexandros was also a lead engineer at PNOĒ Inc., a Y Combinator-backed health technology startup.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

Open-source, general-purpose autonomous robots capable of performing hazardous and repetitive tasks. Robots like these could help tackle labor shortages across multiple industries.

Miguel Solano

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Miguel brings over a decade of experience in AI research, consulting, and engineering to his fellowship. He has licensed more than 100 advanced AI assets to government, financial, and life-science organizations.

WHAT’S HE BUILDING?

Ambitious AI “moonshot” projects, like pushing AI computing beyond today’s hardware limits and developing systems that could drive drug discovery and accelerate the creation of next-generation energy technologies.

Miguel believes that by efficiently scaling up current AI technology, we can unlock ways to tackle our most pressing problems, from disease to climate change.

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📚 Infinite Books

1. Say Hello to Infinite Books

We’ve launched Infinite Books, our new publishing venture completely reimagining the relationship between publishers, authors, and readers. We're thrilled to welcome bestselling author (and Infinite Loops regular) Jimmy Soni as our CEO and Editor in Chief.

More here. Got a manuscript? Reach out to us!

2. Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom

Our debut book is available for purchase!

Two Thoughts brings you 500 insights from 250 of the world's most influential minds. Open to any page and find a companion for your thoughts, a catalyst for your aspirations, or simply a moment of clarity in your day.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Spotify | Our website (affiliate links)

Bonus offer: Leave an Amazon review and get the digital bundle (PDF+EPUB+MP3+M4B) for FREE! Details here.

🎙️ Infinite Media

3. Two Thoughts Podcast

You can now listen to Two Thoughts as a daily podcast! Get a double dose of wisdom delivered to your podcast feed, complete with bonus thinker introductions and short quote analyses.

Spotify | Apple Podcasts

(P.S. Want to build something similar? The code is open-source and available here.)

4. Cato the Younger

Our partner, Alex Petkas at Cost of Glory, dropped an epic three-part series on Cato the Younger — aka “George Washington’s favorite Roman.” Packed full of fascinating anecdotes, some of which remain startlingly relevant.

Audio and takeaways here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

5. Infinite Loops

A reminder that we post full transcripts, highlights & reading lists for every episode here on Substack. Just visit the ‘Infinite Loops Podcast’ tab, or follow these links to our recent episodes: Alex Danco | Vizi Andrei | Barry Ritholtz | Jason Carman | Anne-Laure Le Cunff | Gabriel Kennedy | Christine Benz | Luke Fehily | Rudy Havenstein | Mark Daniel.

6. Peek Inside Creative Minds

In case you missed them, we published a few journal-like entries on the creative processes of some of our favorite artists: Alfred Hitchcock | David Lynch | Tchaikovsky | Salvador Dalí | David Byrne.

🚀 O’Shaughnesy Fellowships

7. You Still Have Time!

Got a bold, eye-wateringly ambitious idea? The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is here to back it with $100k. Applications remain open through April 30, 2025.

8. Introducing the Dream Map

Want to see who's joining the OSV community? Check out our Dream Map, a real-time view of everyone who's applied to our Fellowships. Apply now to add your pin!

9. Meet Our First 2025 Fellows

Congratulations to John Kennedy & Mark Nelson — our first two 2025 Fellows!

John is transforming classroom air with affordable, DIY air purifiers, while Mark is working to bring nuclear power back to Germany.

10. 2024 Fellow & Grantee Updates

• Filmmaker Jason Carman launched Story Company, an indie film studio in San Francisco, and premiered two feature-length ‘Frontier Films,’ both available online: New Space and Too Cheap to Meter. (Psst… he’s hiring!)

• Michelle Wang, who’s inventing a new kind of controllable magnetic material, is joining the DARPA residency program as an Entrepreneur in Residence.

• Author, novelist, playwright, poet, top-ten Irish musician, and Infinite Loops guest Julian Gough shared what he calls “the most important thing I’ve ever written” — a mind-blowing thesis on our universe's supermassive black hole origins. If true, this would represent a major scientific paradigm shift. Prepare for 🤯🤯

• Podcast host, progress blogger, and high-school dropout Arjun Khemani released Dynamic Societies, the third chapter of his documentary project.

• Johnathan Bi launched a new interview series on Philosophy x AI, kicking off with Tyler Cowen exploring how US sanctions help Chinese innovation.

• PhD researcher Maria Violaris’ Quantum Foundations podcast released an episode on Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip that got a shoutout from David Deutsch.

• John Hopcroft’s Cosmos AI made history at the Oxford Union as the first non-human to win a debate. Partnered with BanterAI, Cosmos was suited up in knight armor (because why not?) and delivered a performance that was both impressive and, well, a little quirky.

• Ramji Lal, the ‘Flower Man of India,’ continues spreading joy by planting hundreds of thousands of flowers across India. He has also helped set up around 300 green crematoriums in Punjab and Haryana.

⚒️ Infinite Adventures

11. Portfolio Company Updates

• Interintellect founder and friend-of-the-show Anna Gát has launched free weekly mentoring calls for women and immigrants.

• Margins, the book tracking and discovery app, skyrocketed from 400 to 75,000 users in its first few weeks of use. It’s the Goodreads killer (or Letterboxd for books) that you’ve been waiting for!

• Prophetic’s “Halo” lucid dreaming device was a finalist in the 2025 SXSW Innovation Awards.

• Synthesis School is partnering with school districts in Oklahoma to bring their AI tutor to all third-grade students this fall.

🐅 OSV in the Wild

• Love hearing Jim on the other side of the mic? He was recently a guest on Barry Ritholtz, Nick Gillespie, Michael Garfield, and Anna Gát’s podcasts.

• Our in-house Mr Meeseeks, Vatsal, is building ParetoFeed, a curated daily email of 𝕏 posts from accounts you actually want to follow, filtered to your tastes.

• Infinite Books Editor-in-Chief Jimmy Soni’s new book drops this month, written with a remarkable woman named Judy Henderson, who spent 36 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Jimmy wrote about what he learned from Judy here. Pre-order the book here.

• Infinite Books editor, Dylan O’Sullivan, continues to reach Jedi Mastery levels on Twitter.

• Our community manager, Camellia Yang, wrote about the ancient Chinese divination text, the I Ching, decoding what it can tell us about our coming era.

• If you’re not already subscribed to Infinite Media head honcho Liberty RPF’s Substack, you should be. Curiosity on tap!

• If you’re a movie fan, you may want to check out in-house writer Ed William’s Substack, Rough Cuts — here’s his take on the unfortunate merging of TV and cinema.

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

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“Color inside the lines.”

“Stick to the script.”

“Don’t rock the boat.”

If that’s your vibe, the O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is not the grant you’re looking for.

But.

If you’ve never fit the mold. If you’ve always wanted to write your own script. If they said your idea was too difficult – and you chased it anyway – we’ve got good news for you.

Ambition is back, baby.

The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is here to back your boldest, most out-there, eye-wateringly ambitious idea. And we’re ready to drop $100k into your lap to make it happen.

Don’t believe us? Here’s what some of our 2024 Fellows have been up to:

• Jack Connor is rescuing endangered languages, including by depositing rare language data in the Svalbard mines of northern Norway.

• Justh has skyrocketed to fame as an Indian music sensation, with his beautiful, timeless music amassing BILLIONS of views in 2024.

• Michelle Wang is developing groundbreaking 3D-printed magnets that could revolutionize manufacturing.

• Jason Carman is filming weekly documentaries spotlighting the forward-looking companies shaping our future.

• Monika Seyfried is developing technology to enable digital memory storage in plants and living organisms.

You could be next.

Are you a researcher, filmmaker, academic, artist, developer, musician, writer, scientist, builder, or undefinable tinkerer? Perfect. We want to hear from you.

Do you have what it takes?

Apply TODAY

More Information

• Funding: 10 $100k Fellowships + 20 $10k Grants

• Early Applications Due: February 28, 2025

• Final Deadline: April 30, 2025

• Application Details: https://www.osv.llc/oshaughnessy-fellowships

Apply!

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1. Two Thoughts: Pre-order Now!

Two Thoughts: a Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom is now available for pre-order (with exclusive bonus goodies!)

This lovingly made book, co-authored by Jim and OSV teammate Vatsal Kaushik, captures the essence of human thought and experience, presenting 500 insights from 250 of the world's most influential minds.

In a self-help market full of empty-calorie listicles and one-size-fits-all prescriptions, Two Thoughts offers something better: hard-earned, timeless wisdom.

Plus… it’s so pretty!

If you pre-order from our website right now (yes, now!), you will get some exclusive bonuses:

• 📚A vibrant hardcover featuring a cloth spine, elegant stamping, premium 100 GSM paper, UV spot cover, debossing, ribbon bookmark, and durable sewn binding.

• 🎧[Bonus] Audiobook featuring exclusive interviews with Morgan Housel, Anna Gát, and Rory Sutherland

• 📱[Bonus] E-book in PDF and EPUB formats

• 🎁[Bonus] Beautiful vinyl stickers and an Infinite Books bookmark

All of that for $34.95 USD.

Pre-order Two Thoughts!

2. On Linguistic Reshuffles, Stubborn Beliefs, Defiant Physicians & Getting Shit Done

• unleashed his theory of The Great (Linguistic) Reshuffle, which posits that we may be on the precipice of a new epoch for human exploration, fuelled by the dissolving of language barriers. Rahul brought some of his calling cards to this essay, namely insanely deep research and a cornucopia of historical references. Guaranteed to get you thinking!

• We still have a lot to learn from the sad story of Dr. Semmelweis.

• What links an Australian physician, an American quantum scientist, and a legendary French impressionist? This does!

• Having trouble getting shit done? This may help.

3. Temporal-Pincer Time

A rogues gallery of OSV friends and teammates jumped on ’s podcast to deconstruct Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s time-bending, brain-boggling, nerve-jattering action-thriller. Very fun!

Liberty’s Highlights

TENET Deconstructed: ↔️ Christopher Nolan's Mind-Bending Time Thriller 🔁

Listen now

a year ago · 12 likes · 4 comments · Liberty

4. Fellowship Corner

The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is here to back your boldest, most eye-wateringly ambitious idea. And we’re ready to drop $100k into your lap to make it happen. Applications for our next cohort open on January 1, 2025.

Here’s what some of our current Fellows and Grantees have been up to:

• The trailer for software engineer and linguist Jack Connor’s Endangered Voices doc is live. It looks awesome.

• Product design engineer Ian Davis is building an affordable, user-assembled prosthetic hand device. His story is remarkable.

• Filmmaker Jason Carman has been busy. As well as spinning up a “historic” format of his S3 documentary series to deep dive into the lore and inventions of Bell Labs, he has released multiple S3 episodes, including on the company leading the photonic revolution (which has since crossed 1.4M views on YouTube). Oh, and his YouTube hit 100k subscribers 🚀🚀

• Musician Justh has casually racked up 2.1 BILLION views across YouTube’s platforms for his song “Chor.” Listen to the song here.

• Podcast host, progress blogger, and high-school dropout Arjun Khemani interviewed David Deutsch.

• Miyoba Hamuhuma was featured in a Facebook post by the U.S. embassy in Zambia. Miyoba is the founder of Enlight Abilities, a Zambian organization that empowers people with disabilities by linking them with government social security programs.

• PhD researcher and prize-winning science communicator Maria Violaris’ Quantum Foundations podcast crossed 1k subscribers. Maria is also joining a podcast with our Fellow, Curt Jaimungal, on quantum “no-go” theories.

• Author, novelist, playwright, poet, top ten Irish musician, and upcoming Infinite Loops guest published this article for the Irish Times, digging into the “invisible problem with children’s books” - the gap between picture and young fiction books.

5 Jim on Advik Kapoor’s podcast

Jim visited the Revamped Founder podcast, hosted by 16-year-old Advik Kapoor. Advik has since launched a micro-crowdfunding platform for young builders.

6. The Prolific Alex Petkas

Friend & media partner of OSV, Alex Petkas, host of the Cost of Glory podcast, keeps shipping:

• Julian the Apostate’s lessons on how (not) to revive a religion;

• His episode on the notoriously stubborn, principled, Caesar-hating politician/stoic Cato the Younger is live.

• Cost of Glory hit 1m downloads!

7. Interintellect + Vatsal Kaushik: The Story of Civilization

Our in-house Mr-Meeseeks, Vatsal Kaushik, will be hosting an Interintellect Salon on March 15, 2025, on the first volume of Will and Ariel Durant’s magisterial The Story of Civilization (included on our Infinite Loops Canon list).

“In this salon, we will aim to discuss:

• The nature and elements of civilizations: Economic, political, morality, religion, science, arts

• Big picture history of ancient civilizations in Egypt, India, China, Japan, and the commonalities across them

• Will Durant’s “integral” writing style which makes history a literary experience instead of academic

• Comparing Our Oriental Heritage with other volumes in the series

• The reception of Our Oriental Heritage in 1935, and its legacy and relevance today

This salon is for anyone who is primarily interested in the viewing history from a philosophical and big picture angle, as this book does. This is the only book in the Story of Civilization series that focuses on non-European regions, so interest and insights into Eastern regions will make the conversation richer as well.”

Get your tickets here!

8. Infinite Loops

• Exploring Indus Valley: Sajith Pai is a GP at Blume Ventures, one of India’s largest homegrown VC firms. He's known for his prolific writing and sharp frameworks, which have become part of Indian startup canon over the past decade. He provides us with a crash course to understanding India in the 21st century.

• How to Live an Extraordinary Life: Investor, entrepreneur, and media powerhouse Anthony Pompliano digs into some of the hard-earned insights he’s accumulated from investing in circa 200 companies, serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army, building & selling multiple businesses, and creating one of the world’s largest independent media platforms.

• On Mathematical Beethovens, Decentralized Education & the Voyage to the Human Brain: Mathematician, educator, and investor Professor Luis Seco joins us to discuss how maths resembles Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the future of the ‘metaversity,’ the most important lesson Luis gives his students and why investing isn’t what it used to be.

• How to Think About Biology: Parmita Mishra, a computational biologist and the founder & CEO of Precigenetics, joins us for a deep dive into cutting-edge biology.

• Max Meyer Launched a Print Magazine in 2024. Here’s Why.: Arena Magazine proprietor Max Meyer explains why he launched a print magazine in 2024, WTF happened to legacy media, the wisdom of Ratatouille, and more.

• Playing the (Mind) Jazz: Michael Garfield, a paleontologist/futurist/writer/podcast host/strategic advisor, explores how we can live curious, collaborative, and fulfilling lives in our deeply weird, complex, probabilistic world.

• Making A Point: Pointhound CEO and founder Jay Reno digs into his advice for first-time founders, his learnings from building Pointhound (a credit card points optimization platform), the whimsical world of credit card point programs, his thoughts on consumer psychology, and much more.

As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 247 episodes (and counting).

In the meantime, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues to deliver doses of wisdom straight into your inbox every Sunday. *Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity.*

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

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You will work directly with Jim in person, exploring and executing unique AI use cases across OSV’s media verticals, including book publishing, podcasts, newsletters, and films.

Perks include:

• Lodging just 45 mins from Midtown Manhattan, featuring a fully stocked kitchen, in-home gym, outdoor pool, and fire pit.

• Transportation (a Tesla!)

• A monthly stipend of $2k.

Apply by 15 December, 2024.

For more details and to apply, follow this link.

If you know someone who’d be a perfect fit, please share this post with them!

Apply!

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Hello, friends

No preamble this month. Let’s get straight to it.

Inside OSV

It’s nearly time.

Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom is coming in early 2025.

This will be the first book published under our Infinite Books imprint. It’s shaping up to be a doozy, featuring 500 timeless insights from 250 of the world's most influential minds, with select thinkers brought to life through striking illustrations.

We can’t wait for you to get your hands on it. Here’s a sneak peek at our cover:

And two thoughts from Nikola Tesla to whet your appetite:

Intrigued? Watch this space for pre-order and release info.

Fellowship Corner

The O’Shaughnessy Fellowship is here to back your boldest, most eye-wateringly ambitious idea. And we’re ready to drop $100k into your lap to make it happen. Applications for our next cohort open on January 1, 2025.

Here’s what some of our current Fellows and Grantees have been up to:

• Filmmaker Jason Carman has launched The Future This Week, a weekly newsletter/X thread curating the latest updates and breakthroughs in science, tech & progress studies. Jason breaks down the newsletter’s modus operandi here. You can dig into the inaugural installment here.1

• Amid a crowded field of over 110 submissions, architect-turned-writer Michael Dean emerged as one of two runners-up in the Cosmos Essay Contest. His piece explores how we can use AI to deepen rather than diminish human thought. Dive into Michael’s full essay here.2

• Software engineer and linguist Jack Connor is preparing for his second expedition to the Svalbard mines in April 2025 to deposit language at the Arctic World language vault. Can you help him?3

  

• PhD researcher and prize-winning science communicator Maria Violaris’ Quantum Foundations podcast delivers new episodes every Friday. Not a quantum expert? Never fear: each episode is split into two parts: an accessible discussion for curious minds and a technical deep-dive for those wanting to get stuck into the nitty-gritty, mathematical detail!4

• Podcast host, progress blogger, and high-school dropout Arjun Khemani released Chapter 1 of his upcoming documentary. He starts things off with a bang — the under-4-minute video features appearances from David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant. Watch it here.5

• Theories of Everything creator and host Curt Jaimungal is on a hot streak. As well as releasing his 200th episode, featuring the legendary scientist Sir Roger Penrose, his Substack has also been recognized as a featured publication.6

• Enlight Abilities, a Zambian organization that empowers people with disabilities by linking them with government social security programs, has received a letter of appreciation from the Zambia Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The letter thanks Enlight, which is founded and led by our grantee Miyoba Hamuhuma, for its “invaluable support,” highlighting the registration of 1031 people with disabilities and noting that “many previously unregistered individuals now have access to essential services.”7 The letter also thanks OSV. Additionally, Enlight has provided 20 wheelchairs to people in rural Zambia:

  

News From the OSVerse

• OSV portfolio company Precigenetics aims to be a rocket to precision medicine. Its founder, Parmita Mishra, was recently interviewed for Authority Magazine. Keep your eyes peeled for Parmita’s Infinite Loops appearance in the next couple of weeks!

• Prophetic, our portfolio company building a device to induce lucid dreams, is getting shit done!

• Our media partner, Cost of Glory host , recently wrapped up an 8-part series on Caesar’s Gallic Wars. He also joined OSV’s Head of Infinite Media, , to discuss timeless lessons from Ancient Greece & Rome.

Infinite Loops

“Everywhere you look, the old models are collapsing.”

A product of Jim’s defiantly messy, insatiably curious mind, Infinite Loops has always been a tricky project to sum up in a couple of sentences. So, we’ve done the next best thing — distilled its essence into an essay: ‘Welcome to Infinite Loops.’ We think you’ll like this one.

In October, we welcomed the following guests to Infinite Loops HQ:

• How to Build a Builder: Psychologist Dr. Gena Gorlin breaks down the “Builder Mindset” - a way of thinking that empowers people to live healthier, happier, and more fulfilled lives.

• How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Allocation Economy: Every founder Dan Shipper unveils his playbook for building new media companies.

• On Rockets, Dog Years & Robotic Space Snakes: Charter Space founder Yuk Chi Chan reveals how ‘ownership’ in space really works, why the sector impacts our daily lives FAR more than we think, and the mind-boggling mission of an intrepid robotic space snake.

• Games of Risk & Games of Confidence: Lux Capital editorial head Danny Crichton discusses Riskgames: strategic simulations that immerse players — including senators, major generals, congressmen, and think-tank CEOs — in complex scenarios reflecting real-world crises and challenges.

• Quantumania!: Quantum computing maestro Scott Aaronson unpacks what a quantum future would really look like.

As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 242 episodes (and counting).

In the meantime, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues to deliver doses of wisdom straight into your inbox every Sunday. *Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity.*

One Last Thing…

Turns out that OSV is, quite literally, heading for the stars…

That’s everything for October.

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

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I’m writing this in the wake of the annual Team OSV offsite. Last year, the week was summed up by a bemused stand-up comedian, whose attempt to decipher what exactly OSV does led to what has become our unofficial motto:

“WTF does this company do? Books in space?!”

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

This year, even “books in space” seemed too narrow a description. The speed of ideas per minute was supersonic. We had hands-on demonstrations of self-built prosthetic arms and lucid-dream-inducing technology. There were sneak peeks of documentaries, from the mouth-watering (literally) to the history-making (again, literally). Extended late-night conversations covered everything from the action filmmaking of Michael Bay to the intricate architecture of great essays.

The strangest thing was how, despite the whiplash-inducing diversity of projects and people, it all felt so… cohesive. Somehow, it seemed like everyone — whether an Indian musician, a Californian language preservationist, an Irish Dostoevsky appreciator, or a Polish interactive designer — was ultimately working towards the same outcome.

Our very own Liberty RPF hit the nail on the head last year when he wrote:

The ur-vertical at OSV is clearly ‘Infinite Curiosity’. 🕵️‍♂️

Although, if the past two offsites are any indication, you could just as easily define our shared interests with another two-word phrase:

Espresso Martinis.

We’ve shared some pictures below for those interested. Meanwhile, let’s get started with September’s rewind.

Inside OSV

Having rounded out our cohort of 10 Fellows earlier this year, we have also now announced our squadron of 25 Grantees, each of whom will receive $10k to pursue projects ranging from giving mice infrared vision to disability rights advocacy in Africa. 

You could be next. You’ve got three months before our next application window opens. Start tinkering today, and come January, you might find yourself just a 20-minute application away from a $100k grant and a year to dedicate to your passion.

In other OSVerse news:

• OSV’s Advisory Council member, Ben Reinhardt, runs the Brains Research Accelerator. Applications close on October 21st. If you know any talented scientists with ambitious ideas that don’t make sense as either a startup or in an academic lab, please share this with them. To make it super easy, here is a direct link to the application.

• Our Fellow, Jack Connor, has been shooting a documentary on endangered languages in Northern Norway. Our film vertical, Infinite Films, is producing the doc. He’s also probably the only person ever to have skateboarded in the Svalbard mines.

• Another of our Fellows, filmmaker Jason Carman, keeps on shipping. Episode 56 of his weekly documentary series profiled Boom Supersonic, the company bringing back supersonic flight. His latest episode, released a few days ago, documented Make Sunsets, a company launching sulfur dioxide-containing balloons into the stratosphere.

• If you’re interested in quantum tech, you can get involved with the open-source quantum community by completing Unitary Fund’s survey. Unitary Fund is run by last year’s Fellow, William Zeng.

• Infinite Loops guest, the razor-sharp Brendan McCord, has launched The Cosmos Institute, a "non-profit dedicated to promoting human flourishing in the age of AI."

• Alex & Books, who received a $10k OSV grant this year, is currently offering a 50% discount on his Art of Reading course. If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I could read for longer” or “I wish I remembered what I read,” this is the course for you.

• Another OSV grantee, Miyoba Hamuhuma, was recently invited to Abu Dhabi for the World Congress on Rehabilitation. Miyoba is the founder and CEO of Enlight Abilities, a disability organization in Zambia that empowers children with disabilities by linking them with government social security programs. You can learn more here and support them here.

• As if merely building brain simulations wasn’t enough, our grantee Isaak Freeman has recently published his side project: the world’s largest and most comprehensive Anki deck for learning Chinese.

• Another OSV grantee, Eugene Duvenage, aims to detect cancer through computer vision. His first trials, using paper-based slime mold chips to diagnose small-cell lung cancer, are underway:

• Finally, our grantee Ramji Lal, AKA ‘The Flower Man of India,’ continues to spread beauty. He has set up four Winter Flower Nurseries in Bathinda, sowing seeds for 1.5 million winter flowering plants of 60 different varieties. In November, all these plants will be distributed free to residents.

Infinite Loops

In September, Jim welcomed a characteristically eclectic range of guests:

• Math popularizer Ben Orlin dug into his funky theory that math is a language, complete with verbs, nouns, and grammar.

• Legendary seed investor Mike Maples, Jr. is behind some of the 21st century’s great success stories (Twitter, Twitch, etc). Check out this link for 23 specific, actionable, often counter-intuitive insights into becoming a pattern-breaking founder.

• Alex Danco, returning for his EIGHTH conversation, discussed everything from the sad death of Twitter likes to why a frictionless version of Super Mario Bros would be the most boring game ever made. Follow this link for our foolhardy attempt to distill one overriding theme from over eight hours of defiantly unplanned conversation.

• Author, consultant, and indistractable force Nir Eyal provided a masterclass on how to reclaim agency in a world that is constantly conspiring to keep us distracted.

As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 237 episodes (and counting).

In the meantime, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues to deliver doses of wisdom straight into your inbox every Sunday. *Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity.*

That’s everything for September. Plenty of goodies in store for you this month. 

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

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Not just any old house. It’s an enormous structure, teeming with caves, towers, lakes, factories, brewhouses, pools, baths, and chambers.

Within it lives a throng of people: interpreters of nature and mystery men, novices and apprentices, compilers and inoculators.

Saloman’s House is its name, and for centuries it has nobly dedicated itself to pursuing knowledge and scientific discovery for the benefit of humanity.

Of all Saloman’s many projects, perhaps the most tantalizing is that of the ‘merchants of light,’ emissaries who travel the world in search of hidden knowledge and methods, intrepidly exploring some of the earth’s greatest mysteries…

No, this isn’t my first pitch at writing a fantasy novel.

It’s the premise of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627), a masterwork seen as one of the first scientific utopian novels. 

It’s also the inspiration for the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships & Grants program.

By discovering the world’s boldest researchers, builders, and creators and unleashing them on the problems and passions that inflame their curiosity, we hope to rekindle the Saloman spirit in all its bold, ambitious, pioneering glory. 

In January, we kicked off the second year of the program, and the response has been, well, the stuff of utopia. More than 5,000 applicants have applied from 140 countries across every continent of the globe (well, apart from Antarctica. Bear with us on that one). 

You can get to know our current cohort of Fellows, each of whom will receive funding of $100,000 plus access to OSV’s network of experts, founders, and creators, by visiting our website. Trust me, it’s worth taking a look for the variety alone; there, you will see a positively Bensalem-esque range of projects, from next-generation magnets to data storage in plants. 

There’s more. Last year, we also launched a Grants program designed to support an additional five explorers with grants of $10k each.

The success of our 2023 grantees over the last few months has been positively Salomanian. For example:

• Akhil Tolani launched the music creation copilot Cassette AI in August 2023, which has since onboarded more than 50,000 active users

• Max Reisner designed and built the first version of his new-age battery management system. After graduating from Stanford earlier this year, he’s now expanding his work to commercialize his project.

• Justh recorded and launched his Hindi single, “Chor.” Defined by its mysterious but memorable lyrics, the multi-layered song topped the Viral 50 global chart on Spotify and rocketed organically to more than 20 million views on YouTube.

This year, we expanded the Grants program even further, awarding 25 grants of $10k to adventurers and tinkerers from all walks of life. 

It’s time for you to meet our 2024 merchants of light.

Applications for the 2024 Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on January 1, 2025.

You can learn more via our website.

2024 OSV Grantees

Aaryan Harshith, a Stanford undergrad from Canada, is developing single-dose, universal vaccines for Hepatitis E.

Alex Wieckowski (known as Alex & Books) shares book reviews and reading tips to over 1M followers and is building a course on better reading.

Arjun Khemani, a writer, podcaster, and high school dropout from India, is working on a documentary about the deepest theory of knowledge.

Ayman Nasur, displaced by the war in Sudan, will continue designing and manufacturing a microjet engine.

Dan Line-Bell, who is based in the US, is developing a plasma nanoengineering reactor and a neural-interfaced biomimetic eye.

Eugene Duvenage, who is based in South Africa, is developing N.E.R.D. (Native Evolutionary Response Diagnostics), which uses ants' behavior to detect cancer through computer vision.

Isaak Freeman, escaping his snowy home valley in Austria, taught himself biology and math and is now a researcher at MIT interested in brain simulations and giving mice infrared vision.

Israel Balogun, based in Nigeria, was once homeless. Now, he provides alternative learning spaces for homeless youngsters to explore and develop their talents.

John Hopcroft, based in the US, is working on turning debating and discourse into a video game with his new platform, Cosmos.

Johnathan Bi, based in the US, is creating long-form content on the great books.

Julian Gough, born in England and raised in Ireland, is an author based in Berlin. He is currently writing a non-fiction book online at theeggandtherock.com, where he explores cosmological natural selection—the idea that universes reproduce and that our universe has been fine-tuned by a Darwinian evolutionary process.

Manu Tyagi, based in India, is bridging the gap between traditional tailoring craftsmanship and modern convenience with Dui Pakhi, a platform connecting customers with expert tailors and offering convenient doorstep services.

Maria Violaris, a PhD researcher in England, is creating content about the biggest fundamental questions of physics and technology, with a focus on quantum and thermodynamics.

Max Aalto, a physicist and engineer from the USA, is developing OpenQuantum, a complete, open-source hardware and software blueprint for trapping and controlling atoms.

Mert Akin, based in the USA, is developing the world’s most sustainable and efficient lithium extraction and conversion process, which reduces operational expenses by up to 80%.

Michael Garfield, a US-based critical futurist and artist-philosopher, is working on fostering public discourse on wisdom in the age of technological superpowers, agency in the era of automation, and humanity in the Technocene.

Michael Skuhersky, a PhD researcher from MIT, is recording and simulating the complete neural circuitry of organisms, primarily C. elegans, with the goal of simulating the human brain.

Miroslav Stodic, based in Serbia, is building a new paradigm for time-series analysis through synthetic quantum field theory.

Miyoba Hamuhuma, based in Zambia, is a disability rights advocate and founder of Enlight Abilities Organisation, which empowers mothers of children with disabilities and promotes the rights of children with disabilities by advocating for inclusive education, access to livelihoods, access to quality health services, and mental health.

Olivia “Olli” Payne, based in the US, is working on Possibilia, a literary magazine publishing optimistic, realistic sci-fi.

Paulina Paiz, in Guatemala, is optimizing the analysis of retinal recordings to decode visual processing.

Rajendra Paudel, based in Nepal, is a YouTuber with over 400k subscribers. He is developing a mobile app and online resources to educate and support migrant workers in Gulf countries with financial and digital literacy.

Ramji Lal, based in India, has been a full-time social worker since 1998 and is focusing on environmental cleanliness and spreading beauty in the world by planting flowers using organic methods all across the country.

Sabrina Zhang, a Wharton student and entrepreneur, is working on Foreage, which monitors crop health using hyperspectral imaging to address climate change impacts.

Sofia Sanchez, based in Mexico, has practiced plant bioengineering at Stanford and Imperial College London and is now continuing her research into creating a plant computer.

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Before we get started, here’s a cool thing for you: The Greatest Books of All Time. I’m sure the list will be entirely noncontroversial…

Inside OSV

Speaking of books - as Jim, Liberty & Jimmy Soni chatted about last year, whether you’re a reader or an author, you really do deserve a better model than what traditional publishing has been serving for decades.

We’ve been paddling away under the surface for several months on our solution, Infinite Books, and will have some exciting announcements for you soon. If you’ve been watching closely, you may have already seen some ripples break the surface, not least the cover tease of our debut book.

P.S., if you don’t already, you should follow Infinite Books’ Twitter/X for feel-good content like this:

Elsewhere in the OSV rocket ship, tech-wizard Mykhailo Marynenko has completed his Pokemon-style evolution from fellow, to entrepreneur-in-residence, to chief technical officer. In his new role, Mykhailo will strategically oversee the development of OSV's technical capabilities, spearheading several projects, including in-house AI research and developing scalable web and data solutions.

OSVerse Updates

• In ’s words, “the ability to write—and write well—is never going out of style: for the ability to write is, at heart, the ability to think, the lifeblood of creativity and civilization as a whole.” For this reason, OSV is offering ten scholarships to the final cohort of David Perell’s Write of Passage course. Applications are now open, and close on September 9th. To apply, follow this link.

• Join us for our next OSV book club on 13 September (at noon EST), hosted by our friend Nicolás Forero. This month, we will be discussing… The Tao Te Ching! You can join the book club (for free) by heading over to Discord using this link.

• Our fellow Jack Connor’s Lingua Arterna project to preserve the world’s endangered languages has gathered serious momentum, including: (1) launching a snazzy new website, (2) raising $10k to deposit rare language data into 1000-year storage in the bottom of a mine in the Arctic Circle (!), and (3) seizing various other opportunities, including a short documentary and a BBC interview.

• Our fellow Will Zeng’s nonprofit Unitary Fund, which focuses on developing an open-source quantum ecosystem, successfully held a huge open hackathon encouraging people to contribute to the quantum ecosystem.

• Rue (founded by OSV fellows Isabella Teng & Varsha Raghavan), which connects event hosts with sponsors and brands, was given a short profile by Andrew Yeung, dubbed the “Gatsby of Silicon Alley” by Business Insider.

• Our partner, Alex Petkas, continues to throw heater after heater with his Cost of Glory podcast, which revives unforgettable stories of ancient heroism for modern audiences. He is currently five episodes into an eight-part series on Caesar’s Gallic Wars - you can listen to the episode or read a transcript here.

• Our Fellow, Curt Jaimungal, is cooking something spicy.

• Light up the Deutsch-signal: our grantee, Arjun Khemani, has something very cool in the pipeline 👀 👀

• Our grantee, Alex & Books, is hosting a reading party in NYC later this month - and you’re invited!

• Our grantee, Miyoba Hamuhuma, based in Zambia, is the founder of Enlight Abilities Organisation, which empowers children with disabilities in Africa, including by linking them with government social security and empowerment programs. Enlight recently visited a primary school in Chadiza District, Zambia, where they registered/issued disability cards to more than 150 kids. More (including photos) here.

Infinite Loops

We want to leverage the continuing growth of this Substack to showcase some exceptional writers in the OSV community.

Friend-of-the show Tom White is one such writer. His Substack, White Noise, is a joy—an endlessly rewarding notebook bursting with personal reflections, philosophical musings, poems, fictional prose, practical insights, and more. In August, we published his guest essay, You Better Believe It: The Reflexive Theory of Everything, which synthesizes insights and anecdotes from Babe Ruth to George Soros to explain how reality is a lot more malleable than we think:

“Belief is not just a passive reflection of inner thoughts but a powerful force that actively shapes reality. When we believe in something fervently, our actions and behaviors align with that belief, influencing those around us and creating a ripple effect that transforms our environment. Collective perception and shared beliefs can drive cultural shifts, economic booms, and societal changes. The world is not just a mirror reflecting our thoughts; it is a canvas painted by our beliefs.”

If you know an underrated writer who you think would be a great fit for this Substack, let us know in the comments!

We also published the next installment of our ongoing “Guide to” series, a product of hundreds of hours sifting through 200+ Infinite Loops conversations to distill the most actionable insights. In August, we dug into the art of communication, sharing insights from Lulu Cheng Meservey, George Mack, and more.

As always, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues to deliver doses of wisdom straight to your inbox every Sunday. Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity.

Last but not least, Jim welcomed a characteristically eclectic range of guests to Infinite Loops:

• Veteran trader and investor Ateet Ahluwalia dug into the emotional constitution required to succeed in finance and venture capital.

• Management guru Luca Dellanna explored how the ability to identify, play, and win long-term games is, quite literally, the secret to success.

• One-man-army Bilawal Sidhu provided a masterclass on how his short-form, cutting-edge tech videos have generated tens of millions of views on social media.

• Professor Julia Sonnevend dived into charm, revealing why, despite being ignored by most social scientists, it is one of our era's most politically important trends.

As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 231 episodes (and counting).

That’s everything for August. Plenty more goodies are coming in September, including the triumphant return of Alex Danco for his eighth (!) Infinite Loops appearance.

Ad Astra, Ex Libris 📚🚀

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The hottest news from July is that our merry band of 2024 Fellows is now complete.

Next-generation magnets. Build-your-own hands. Viral music sensations. Plant memory sticks. Deep-tech documentaries. Language resuscitation. This year’s cohort is mind-bogglingly diverse — a bounty of passion projects united by pragmatic optimism, pioneering spirit, and insatiable curiosity.

Actively working on something as we speak? Guiltily harboring a dormant project in your desk drawer? Nurturing the spark of inspiration but struggling to cause it to ignite? Honestly, just 90 seconds of browsing our full list of Fellows could give you the adrenaline shot required to take things stratospheric. You’ve got five months before our next application window opens. Tinker away, and come January, you might find yourself just a 10-minute application away from $100,000 and a year to dedicate to the problem that gets you out of bed every morning.

The OSV presses have been running hot. In July, we also welcomed Benjamin Reinhardt to our Advisory Council. Ben’s CV reads like a shopping list of ‘cool-sounding things’ — he has a Ph.D. in space robotics, a rare B.Sc. in history (not the usual B.A.), worked at NASA, and once founded a startup building robotics for eldercare.

Ben first came to our attention through his research organization, Speculative Technologies, which is dedicated to unlocking new manufacturing technologies and materials. A nice dash of in-franchise continuity (who needs Deadpool & Wolverine): Ben received an O’Shaughnessy Grant last year, and earlier this year, Speculative Technologies awarded a Brains Fellowship to our aforementioned magnet maestro Michelle Wang. As part of our Advisory Council, Ben will advise on research and developments in engineering, new materials, and the broader manufacturing sector.

In other OSVerse news:

• Flipside, Chris Wilcha’s fantastic new film (executive produced by Jim and released in association with Infinite Films) is now available for streaming. You can now watch the movie described as a “hidden gem,” “poignant,” and “mesmerizing" from the comfort of your home.

• Interintellect is entering its “Hope Axis” era.

• Prophetic AI’s ‘Halo’ lucid dream device snagged an honorable mention at the San Francisco Design Week Awards. Both Interintellect and Prophetic are OSV portfolio companies.

• Nicolás Forero led a great OSV Book Club session, exploring Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense by Infinite Loops alumni Rory Sutherland (1, 2, 3). You can join our book club (for free) by heading over to Discord using this link.

Infinite Loops

You feeling lucky, punk?

If your answer was somewhere between “Yes” and “No,” then you may want to mosey over to Jim’s essay What Kind of Lucky Are You? Here’s a taster:

“I am one of the luckiest people in history.

To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical (Google tells me around 1 in 400 trillion).

But I think there’s more to luck than that.”

If you’ve ever faced failure (who hasn’t?), you’ll also appreciate July’s installment of our ongoing “Infinite Loops Guide To…” series. Our latest features curated insights on defeat from Jimmy Soni, Dr. Julie Gurner, Alex Komoroske, and more. OK, we’re biased, but this series really is worth your time—it’s a product of hundreds of hours spent sifting through 200+ conversations to distill the most actionable insights. Each post takes less than 5 minutes to read but can offer a life’s worth of advice.

And, of course, Jim’s Two Thoughts series continues, delivering doses of wisdom straight to your inbox every Sunday. Be warned: these quotes have been known to trigger insatiable curiosity. (Oh, and… what’s this?!)

Finally, Jim welcomed a whiplash-inducing range of guests on the podcast this month, including (deep breath):

• The enigmatic YouTuber The Fourth Way on the life-altering philosophies of two curiously under-studied philosophers.

• Founder and Thiel Fellow Noor Siddiqui on helping people have healthy babies.

• Storyteller supreme Nat Eliason on his wild ride through the madcap world of crypto.

• Metaverse maven Matthew Ball on… all things Metaverse (naturally).

• Personalized mentorship pioneer Audrey Wisch on reorientating education around curiosity and creativity.

As ever, for root access to your humanOS, you can dig into our back catalog of 226 episodes (and counting).

That’s a wrap for July. We’ve got lots of goodies for you in August, including the return of Gurwinder Bhogal to Infinite Loops and the launch of a new essay series spotlighting talented writers from across the OSVerse.

Ad Astra, Ex Libra 📚🚀

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OSV Book Club

Join us on 12 July (at noon EDT) for a lively discussion - hosted by Nicolás Forero - where we’ll dive into Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense by Rory Sutherland.

As a reminder, you can join our book club (for free) by heading over to Discord using this link.

Our Fourth and Fifth 2024 Fellowships

Huge congratulations to Monika Seyfried and Jason Carman, who have each received a $100,000 O’Shaughnessy Fellowship.

Monika Seyfried

Monika is a multidisciplinary interaction designer based in Poland. Her research focuses on leveraging living systems and the natural world to develop sustainable data storage technologies.

During her Fellowship, Monika will leverage the biotechnology expert community to conduct technological research into storing digital data in plants and living organisms. She will also build a scientific research venture aimed at transforming how we interact with data and addressing the significant carbon dioxide emissions caused by data storage. To learn more about Monika and her project, check out this announcement.

Jason Carman

Jason is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who has been creating films since his childhood, with one of his films winning Best Visual FX at the 2016 All-American High School Film Festival among thousands of other entrants.

Jason will use his Fellowship to continue growing his weekly documentary video series, S³, which makes the field of deep technology more accessible by spotlighting pioneering founders and companies. Since launching S³ in 2023, Carman has released over 40 episodes, accumulated over 30,000 subscribers on the show's YouTube channel, and given multiple startups their first media coverage.

As well as building S³, Jason will work on several other original film projects, including documentaries exploring controversial deep technology topics.

For more on Jason’s Fellowship, just follow this link.

Applications for the 2024 Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on January 1, 2025. You can learn more via our website.

Thoughts 💭

“The best listeners listen between the lines.”

- Nina Malkin

"Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun."

- Clifford Geertz

“All history must be mobilized if one would understand the present.”

- Fernand Braudel

"Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information."

- Idries Shah

Explore our Two Thoughts series: doses of wisdom delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday. Warning: may trigger incurable curiosity.

Conversations 🗣️

Chris Wilcha — Flipside (Ep. 218)

The award-winning filmmaker joins us to discuss his rapturously received documentary, Flipside.

“And what I think surprised me was the people who came up after who didn't want to just talk about the film, they wanted to talk about their own failed projects. Like a guy came up and said, ‘I've been trying to write a book for years, and I stop and I start, and how did you do it?’ And there was this unexpected self-help kind of throughline that I didn't totally foresee that it really seems to awaken in people that feeling of ‘there's a thing I always wanted to do or make or a business I wanted to start,’ and I feel like that's been a really unexpected bonus of the conversations that have come around that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? The creative failure, but the fact that there's still time to try to do things and finish things and follow through.”

John A. Paulous — Avoiding Innumeracy (Ep. 219)

The professor, mathematician, and writer shares 50+ years of learning on all things mathematical!

“[S]tories, vignettes are, if possible, and often they are, a better way to impart mathematical ideas than just the equations and formulas […] But to the extent you can tell a story and give a little vignette, give a little aphorism sometimes, even that'll do, you can get a mathematical idea across without raising people's unnatural fear of mathematics.”

Ellen Fishbein — Make Art, Not Noise (Ep. 220)

The founder of the independent publisher Altamira Studio joins us to discuss the state of the publishing industry, her advice for aspiring authors, and why Shakespeare’s sonnets were the Tweets of the 16th century.

“The publishers, they used to be talent scouts, they used to go looking for undiscovered talent and try to find that and bring it to market. But now what they're doing is they're scouting out people who have already brought themselves to market by building a large social media following […] Now, the problem is that that skill set around building online distribution is not the same skill set as writing a really, really, really, really, really awesome book. Sometimes people who can do both of those things overlap, but most of the time, they don't. And also, there's a lot of really, really smart readers who don't use social media. They don't use Twitter, they don't use these platforms. They don't sign up for newsletters because again, they value their time. They don't want emails all the time. And so those people aren't being taken into consideration with these decisions.”

Mona Sobhani — A Neuroscientist’s Journey From Materialism to Beyond (Ep. 221)

What led a cognitive neuroscientist to break out of the box of materialism, and what did she discover along the way? Mona talks us through her journey.

“So a lot of these things that we in mainstream science or physicalism take for granted, we keep saying they're established, they're really not. And it is a very odd thing to watch in science because if you flip over to a quantum physics journal, it's like a different world versus when you flip over to mainstream biology because they're living in two separate worlds.”

For root access to your humanOS, dig into our back catalogue of 221 episodes (and counting).

Words ✍️

• Happiness Springs From Within | “You will always be only as good, only as happy, only as successful as you perceive yourself to be. Happiness springs from within, never from without.”

• Flipside is in Theaters! | “Sometimes, an early failure can lead directly to a project’s success. Other times, it can result in its abandonment. On rare occasions, the latter can become the former.”

• The Infinite Loops Guide To… Leadership | “I like to work behind the scenes and get people to align towards the vision. When you do that and when you successfully do that, it looks like magic.” ~ Shreyas Doshi

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“There is no innovation and creativity without failure." — Brené Brown

“He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.” — Herman Melville

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail” — Edwin Land

You get the point. If you’ve ever launched a creative project, chances are, at some point, you’ve experienced failure.

Sometimes, an early failure can lead directly to a project’s success. Other times, it can result in its abandonment. On rare occasions, the latter can become the former. Projects once discarded can be renewed and repurposed to rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes.

Chris Wilcha’s excellent new film, Flipside, is one such example. Co-executive produced by Jim and released in association with Infinite Films, it is a meditative ode to Wilcha’s creative failures that doubles as their triumphant redemption.

As he told Jim during their recent conversation, Wilcha, an award-winning filmmaker who has worked with the Coen Brothers and Judd Apatow, has abandoned many documentary projects over his career, covering subjects ranging from Deadwood co-creator David Milch to photographer Herman Leonard. Notionally framed around Wilcha’s efforts to revive Flipside Records, a dying record store he once worked at in his youth, Flipside gathers these disparate threads of abandoned projects and weaves them into a cohesive narrative that IndieWire has called Wilcha’s “masterpiece.”

Currently boasting a 96% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, Flipside has been theatrically released to a rapturous reception, being described as a “hidden gem,” “poignant,” and “mesmerizing." Just last week, the renowned critic Richard Brody described the film as “a treasure trove of music and memory” in The New Yorker.

If you live in the United States, you’re in luck. Flipside is screening in select theaters across the country in June and July. For dates, locations, and tickets, visit this website.

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OSV Book Club

Come join us on 31 May for a deep dive into Ariel and Will Durant’s seminal The Lessons of History (yes, we included this book in the Infinite Loops Canon).

To join our book club (for free), head on over to our Discord using this link.

Our Second and Third 2024 Fellowship

Justh

In April, we awarded an O’Shaughnessy Fellowship to Justh, a singer-songwriter who creates original Hindi songs and who has experienced a spectacular rise to fame in recent months.

Justh, who received a $10,000 O'Shaughnessy Grant in 2023, independently released his song Chor in December 2023 (OSV is an executive producer). Defined by Justh's mysterious but memorable lyrics, the multi-layered song has rocketed to 20 million YouTube views and over 19 million Spotify listens (!!).

In February this year, "Chor" reached the summit of Spotify's "Viral 50 – Global" playlist and was featured on Instagram by Spotify India. Justh has appeared on multiple Indian news channels in connection with the song's success, while several Indian celebrities have performed their own versions on Instagram.

Following the success of Chor, Justh received several significant financial offers from Indian music labels. Wishing to retain artistic control over his future, he rejected these offers and will continue to produce music independently, with OSV's support.

Curt Jaimungal

Congratulations to our third 2024 fellow, Curt Jaimungal!

Curt will continue to build his podcast, Theories of Everything, which fuses rigorous scientific analysis with profound philosophical inquiry. He will also advance AI, consciousness, and theoretical physics research by expanding Theories of Everything into an interdisciplinary research platform and educational hub. This platform will foster collaboration within and between disciplines by producing specialized video series, initiating collaborative research projects with experts and institutions, and hosting events and conferences.

Curt, who holds a degree in mathematical physics from the University of Toronto, launched Theories of Everything in 2020. The podcast explores the frontiers of conventional knowledge by engaging with theories across quantum mechanics, consciousness, artificial intelligence, and cosmology. It demystifies complex scientific ideas while maintaining a high degree of technical rigor. Past guests include Noam Chomsky, Bryan Johnson, and Scott Aaronson.

Like Justh, we sense that Curt is just getting started…

Applications for the 2024 Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on January 1, 2025. You can learn more via our website.

Thoughts 💭

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living."

- Gail Sheehy

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."

- Madeleine L'Engle

"Don't promise twice what you can do at once."

- Cato the Younger

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

- Shunryu Suzuki

"There is no magic. There is only knowledge, more or less hidden."

- Gene Wolfe

Explore our Two Thoughts series: doses of wisdom delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday. Warning: may trigger incurable curiosity.

Conversations 🗣️

Arjun Khemani — The Hunt for Better Problems (Ep. 213)

The 17-year-old writer and podcaster argues that education should be voluntary, it’s moral to be selfish and ultimacy is pessimistic.

“I think every utopia is a dystopia, right? An ultimate anything, however good, is sort of pessimistic because then it's, you're not imagining that things could be even better, that you could explore more. That the universe, for all we know practically is infinite right now. And there's so much that we could explore and transform and build out in the universe and terraform the entire universe and make it habitable for us. Because this Earth does not… it definitely is special, but it's not our life support system. We humans live in places on Earth that we wouldn't be able to without knowledge creation, without technology.”

Jimmy Soni — The Courage of Creative Risk (Ep. 214)

Friend-of-the-show Jimmy Soni joins us for a deep dive into the publishing industry.

“[E]very single person you think is successful, also believes they are the imposter. That is totally, it's a fact of life. When you go and really peer into the lives of the people who are the greats and the people who thought they've... You think they've got it all figured out, maybe not now, but at some point in their lives they thought they were gigantic imposters, and some of them still do, and they still do it anyway.”

Grant Mitchell — The Potential of AI Drug Repurposing (Ep. 215)

The Every Cure co-founder explains how the organisation is using AI to “unlock the full potential of existing medicines”

“I think there's one idea is this notion that you are they. And what I mean by that is when David and I first started thinking about Castleman disease and whether we could solve it or not, whether we could cure his own rare disease, we first said, “well, surely they must be working on this?” And we did a little research and we said, "Oh my God, there's really no one out there. So, where are they?” And then we looked at it, "Could we be they?" And there's no reason, whatever problem you're thinking about, whatever it is, that you can't be they. Don't assume that they's out there in a little factory tinkering, working on all the problems and just the way you think they should be. They're not. You can be they.”

Porter Braswell — Building the Future of Leadership (Ep. 216)

The 2045 Studio founder joins us to discuss how he is harnessing community to empower professionals of color to succeed, how to establish trust within a community, and what he learned from Magic Johnson’s mentorship.

““So part of the conversation with him [Ed: Magic Johnson] was […] ‘Listen, never let somebody put down what it means to be an athlete. Being an athlete, you are the perfect individual to do anything in this world. You understand communication, you understand what it means to be a team player. You understand execution, you're competitive, you can multitask, you stick it through, you go through journeys. You are somebody that you would want to be in the trenches with. That's who you want on your team. That's somebody you want to be working alongside you. That's what an athlete brings to the table. So don't let somebody take that away from you.’ And I needed to hear that from him. Because he's one of the best of all time in basketball, one of the greatest business people as well. And he has only that because he can leverage both.”

Bridget Phetasy — Comedy is Dead, Long Live Comedy (Ep. 217)

“PHETASY IS a movement disguised as a company. We just want to make you laugh while the world burns.”

“I think that this is your role as someone who's doing comedy. It's not to punch up or punch down or speak truth to power. That's all part of it, but really it's like to kind of explore whatever hidden paradigms and the things we're taking for granted, the obvious water that we're swimming in, to point that out. It's not just to take down power. It's also to just observe reality and how absurd it is. Life is absurd. No matter what generation of humanity you've lived through, it is always and forever absurd.”

For root access to your humanOS, dig into our back catalogue of 217 episodes (and counting).

Words ✍️

• The Infinite Loops Guide to… Happiness | “Physical, observable things are true. Everything else is just a perspective that you can choose to take.” (Derek Sivers)

• Manners as an Edge: The Selfish Case for Being a Good Reply Guy | “In an era of rude and brutish behavior, having good manners provides you with an asymmetric advantage over those who don't.”

• Anatomy of a Scenius | (i) The Canon | “Firstly, scenius, whatever it is, appears to be a real phenomenon. From competitive Rubix cube playing to the atomic bomb¹, tightly knit social groups bound around a common set of interests and talents have time and again been responsible for unprecedented social, technical, and cultural advancements.”

• The Infinite Loops Guide to… Creativity | “[Y]ou'll be a better artist if you just embrace the steal.” (Eric Jorgenson)

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News & Updates 🗞️

OSV Book Club

Come join us at the OSV book club! On the agenda this month are two books featured on the Infinite Loops Canon - Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi masterpiece The Lathe of Heaven (April 26th at 5 pm ET) and the inimitable Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (April 27th at 11.30 am ET).

To join (for free), head on over to our Discord using this link.

Open-sourcing the Quantum Revolution | Interintellect Salon with William Zeng

“Quantum Computing holds the promise to revolutionize the world­ someday. However, the challenge of controlling matter at the quantum scale is formidable and requires a collective effort. What if anyone had open access to top-tier quantum software and hardware tools, similar to how anyone with Internet access can build an app?”

On Monday, May 6th, O’Shaughnessy Fellow William Zeng will join quantum researcher Asier Piñeiro Orioli for an Interintellect Salon dedicated to William’s efforts to fund and develop open-source quantum software and hardware.

William has been at the frontier of quantum computing research for over a decade, including being named to Forbes 30 under 30 in the Science category in 2018. He is using his Fellowship to study how emerging quantum technologies can explore foundational questions in quantum mechanics and to continue developing the quantum ecosystem to benefit the most people.

Join William and Asier for a deep dive into William’s Fellowship experience, the role of open-source in quantum computing, the state of the quantum ecosystem and more!

For more info and to book tickets, just follow this link.

OSV Quarterly

The second issue of our OSV Quarterly magazine launched last week and is available (for free) here. Featured articles include a deep dive into the future of work, a masterclass from Jim on transforming ideas into execution, a guest essay from friend-of-the-show Luke Burgis, and much more!

The Future of Work | The Great Reshuffle Ep. 3

Our Great Reshuffle YouTube series is dedicated to providing YOU with the information you need to capitalize on the unlimited opportunities presented by our rapidly changing world. In our latest episode, Jim covers how changing work patterns will transform cities, the tools required to thrive in the new working landscape, the importance of fostering an “owner mentality,” the rise of the passion path, and more—all in under 20 minutes! Check out the full video here.

Our First 2024 Fellowship

In March, we awarded our first 2024 fellowship to Jack Connor, a linguist, programmer, and author who will use his $100,000 fellowship grant to save dying languages by using AI. To learn more about Jack and his project, just follow this link.

Fellowship applications remain OPEN until and including April 30th 2024. Wherever you are, whatever you do, if you have a game-changing idea, a simple application can be the only thing standing between you and your dream future. Apply here.

Thoughts 💭

“History is always the interpretation of the present.”

- George Herbert Mead

"Man is never truly himself except when he is actively creating something."

- Dorothy L. Sayers

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”

- Stephen McCranie

"A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books."

- Andrei Tarkovsky

"It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to."

- Fannie Hurst

Explore our Two Thoughts series: doses of wisdom delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday. Warning: may trigger incurable curiosity.

Conversations 🗣️

Devon Eriksen — Theft of Fire

How to create compelling science-fiction

“I'm saying believe in your artistic vision, in your vision, your complete whole vision of a thing that's not written by a committee that you think will be good and worthwhile, and try that because you're the only one who can do it. Nobody else can create what you see in your head. Either you're going to do it or it's not going to get done.”

Cedric Chin — Accelerating Business Expertise

Practical excellence

“And once you're good at something, it's easy to say, ‘Yeah, it's just a tiny mistake.’ You have to remember that greatness comes from looking at and examining, ‘Could I have done better here? Is there a tiny thing that I can change? And if I change my belief about this, what else does it affect?’”

Alex Komoroske — Complex Adaptivity All The Way Down

A masterclass in complex adaptive systems

“So many people, I think, are driven by this insecurity of, ‘People will know I'm dumb or will know I don't know what I'm doing.’ And there's something so liberating in saying, ‘Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing.’ I don't think any of us do really. We're just doing the best we can and we're trying to learn from it and take actions that over time, we get smarter and we understand and we develop an intuition about what kinds of ripple effects will likely come out of a certain thing.”

Brendan McCord — AI and the Philosophy of Technology

Philosophy for the Information Age

“What are the questions that Plato and Aristotle dealt with 2,500 years ago? How did they treat those questions? What answers did they stumble upon, and what errors did they identify? This thread of constant question-asking for things that don't really admit of hypothesis testing fundamentally — questions that we're still going to be debating 10 years from now, a hundred years from now, probably a thousand — That's the realm of philosophy.”

Visakan Veerasamy — Expanding Our Possibility-Space

Spontaneously combining curiosity

“I think one of my stranger beliefs is that a lot of what people think are the problems with the present day are problems with language. Just the words that we use and the way that we read or don't read. Again, this goes back to possibility space again. It's like we are constrained by our lack of imagination, and our imagination is constrained by our language. And if you're only using the same few words, then we only think the same few thoughts. And then we don't see different possibilities.”

Anna Gát — We Digress

A conversation about… well… pretty much everything!

“[T]he outside world is more interesting than you are and you should spend the majority of your time exploring it, and making life beautiful for other people is more important than making it beautiful for yourself. You should devote yourself to it and hope that others will make yours beautiful too.”

Eddy Elfenbein — On Crossing Wall Street

Hard-earned investing lessons from an OG finance blogger & fintwit legend

“There's no such thing as the market. There's just people. The stocks don't know you own them. And even if they did know, they still wouldn't care.”

For root access to your humanOS, dig into our back catalogue of 212 episodes (and counting).

Words ✍️

• Are You Ready for the Great Reshuffle? | “Faced with such seismic change, legacy institutions are choosing to stick their head in the sand. Even as the old models collapse, the knee-jerk deference to the default way of doing things is a powerful impulse. With their reticence comes YOUR opportunity. The gatekeepers are losing their grip. As time, space, and geography collapse, the vast expanse of the internet is becoming a playground in which anyone, anywhere, can unleash their potential.”

• Abracadabra! What Being a Professional Magician Taught Me About HumanOS | “In retrospect, I can see that this childhood obsession with magic was likely the catalyst for my lifelong fascination with human perception and how it could be fooled by misdirection and brazen showmanship.”

• Batman Was Wrong | “We’ve all seen heroism in the workplace. It’s the kind of adrenaline-pumping, fire-fighting, chest-thumping, muscle-flexing chaotic energy we unleash when, facing a tyranny of tiny problems, we spray half-arsed solutions from the hip like we’re Tony Montana.”

• Reopen Your Eyes | “Like much of what it explores, this extraordinary book is difficult to categorize. By fusing symbols, images, and language, author/illustrator Nick Sousanis liberates us from “Flatland,” the linear constraints of our language and perception.”

• The Complex Adaptivity of Infinite Loops | “Even a cursory glance over our episodes shows that, like any complex system worth its salt, an order has emerged from the chaos. Over the years, several groups of implicitly linked episodes have materialized — as if by design.”

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A quick reminder that O’Shaughnessy Ventures and Interintellect are co-hosting a Future of Publishing event at the beautiful Pratt Mansion in NYC this Saturday (April 13th).

We’re bringing together established publishers, online writers, new publishing houses, journalists, technologists, authors and more to rethink and reimagine how ideas are spread in our changing world.

We’ve accumulated a truly outstanding lineup of speakers, including Coleman Hughes, Tara Isabella Burton, Tamara Winter, Sahil Lavingia, Shadi Hamid, Kyla Scanlon and many more.

If you’ll be in New York this weekend, we’d love to see you there! In case you can’t make it, the event will also be livestreamed for Interintellect members. To buy in-person tickets and for more information on live-streaming, scheduling, speakers, and more, just follow this link.

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