About this episode
I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence, and how a few individuals with high agency saved 1000s of lives. Enjoy! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Timestamps (00:00:00) – Why hackers on Discord had to save thousands of lives (00:17:26) – How politics crippled vaccine distribution (00:38:19) – Fundraising for VaccinateCA (00:51:09) – Why tech needs to understand how government works (00:58:58) – What is crypto good for? (01:13:07) – How the US government leverages big tech to violate rights (01:24:36) – Can the US have nice things like Japan? (01:26:41) – Financial plumbing & money laundering: a how-not-to guide (01:37:42) – Maximizing your value: why some people negotiate better (01:42:14) – Are young people too busy playing Factorio to found startups? (01:57:30) – The need for a post-mortem Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe