Patrick McKenzie on Navigating Complex Systems | Conversations with Tyler

Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on salary negotiation is read hundreds of thousands of times each year, and he has a Gmail folder brimming with success stories. This achievement is just of his many contributions, which include starting several businesses, advising Stripe and other software companies, and spearheading the launch of VaccinateCA. Lately he's been writing Bits about Money, a biweekly newsletter on the intersection of tech and finance.
Tyler sat down with Patrick to discuss signature fields on the back of credit cards, whether bank tellers or waitstaff are more trustworthy, the gremlins behind spurious credit card declines, how debt collection and maple syrup heists should change your model of the world, Twitter’s continued success as the message bus for government and civil society, crypto vs traditional money transfers, the intended desolation of bank parking lots, why he moved to Japan and how it affected his ambition, why Tether hasn't collapsed, the internet as a Great Work, how he's experiencing reverse culture shock after returning to the US, what he'll learn about next, and more.
Recorded October 26th, 2023
Transcript and links: conversationswithtyler.com/ep...
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[@bennguyen1313]

Regarding the 1h mark, there should be a list of all the things that one country does better than the rest.. a buffet of picking out the best practices from each country... stratified by the cost of implementing. I imagine there would be a lot of changes that don't require money, and would make everyone's life a little better.
Cultural changes would be difficult, so I think the best practices would be those that could be adopted by the government/companies. For example, I've heard the Australian way of doing taxes isn't a headache.

[@Gemini3K]

I missed this show. Always a delight listening to your conversations

[@kevdozer1]

Enjoyed this episode fellas, thank you!

[@spyfoxguy]

32:35 I've always assumed he was just a weeaboo but of course the truth is even nerdier.

[@nbme-answers]

1:08 why sign?

[@danwroy]

Seems like a bright guy, so it was weird to see him prefer the AI doomers, sort of confirming stereotype of the bright fella.