Jason Liu (Website, X, Github, Newsletter) is a technologist, consultant, teacher, and friend.

He spent the first part of his career as a machine learning engineer, mostly at Stitchfix, only to run into a wall: a hand injury that prevented him from being able to write any software for over a year. Fortunately, he's not so one-dimensional, and spent time reclaiming somatic experience in learning to free-dive, train Jiu-Jitsu, and return to the pottery practice he developed in art school, all while reckoning with big questions of ambition, purpose, and self-fulfillment. Since then, he's built a consulting practice helping modern AI companies better implement RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), avoid system design mistakes, hire elite talent, and build for an LLM-centric world. He maintains a large structured output library called Instructor with about 1m downloads per month, writes prolifically (which he does entirely via voice input with LLM editing, as we discuss), tweets semi-manically (he's grown to 30K followers on X with the simplest strategy I've ever heard anyone articulate—tweeting 30K times), and teaches courses on RAG and online consulting. Finally, my man can yap. He was a perfect first guest because he has no shortage of ideas but comes at nearly everything with a beginner's mindset.

Timestamps

(0:00): Intro to Dialectic
(2:55): Brick laying vs. capital allocating
(6:04): Acid Story: Trying so hard to be a somebody
(9:20): Planning, judgement, elasticity, and abundance
(11:28): Ambition and Trusting your future self
(14:20): Fear; Confidence is the memory of success
(18:46): Compounding psychology of risk taking
(21:30): Do you get what you deserve?
(22:32): Playing life on hard mode
(27:22): Agency, Taking Accountability, and becoming essential
(35:58): Consulting and Independent Contracting
(39:52): Ambition and “Manhattan Project” Appeal
(42:30): What are you motivated by?
(44:36): Challenge runs and side quests
(46:39): How to be prolific
(53:46): Mastery, complex games, and creative fingerprints
(57:47): Programming, animation, and style vs. cohesion
(1:07:56): Jason only writes with his voice--with some LLM help
(1:12:47): Flooding the airwaves with content
(1:14:10): Twitter growth: simple math
(1:19:49): Using the “sawdust”
(1:23:30): ELI5 RAG (Retrieval augmented generation)
(1:27:39): A final rant against couches

References

Losing My Hands by Jason
Advice to Young People, The Lies I Tell Myself by Jason
A Critique on Couches by Jason
Things you're allowed to do by Milan Cvitkovic
Duolingo founder Luis Von Ahn on engagement vs. education

Episode	Podcast	Published	Duration	Status

Episode	Podcast	Published	Duration	Status

1: Jason Liu - The Freedom in Being Nobody

Description

Transcript not available

Transcript not available