Tired of accepting things at face value? Join Chirag Shah & Sunay Shah in "Question Everything (Except This Podcast!)". We dive into life's big questions (free will, meaning, etc.) with humor & lively debate. Prepare to have your mind gently nudged (or blown!). New episodes every week! #philosophy #podcasts
?E! #32 - The Unexamined Podcast Isn't Worth Making
Fourteen episodes in 2024, eleven in 2025, six so far in 2026, and only one since March. This is a short solo state-of-the-pod episode about where Question Everything is, what it's for, and what changes. The long conversations stay. Between them come more guests, short solo episodes, and a mailbag. The show will publish at least once a month, and probably more.
It also introduces the Examined Life Audit: twelve multiple-choice scenarios that give you a philosophical archetype and a matched philosopher. Take it here: https://questioneverythingetp.com/examined-life/ (https://questioneverythingetp.com/examined-life/)
Send feedback, guest ideas, and topic ideas through the contact page at https://questioneverythingetp.com (https://questioneverythingetp.com).
Chapters:
0:00 The numbers
1:01 What the show is for
2:09 What's changing
2:50 The Examined Life Audit
4:10 What's next
Listen & subscribe:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012)
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R (https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw)
Substack: https://questioneverythingexcept.substack.com (https://questioneverythingexcept.substack.com)
16 Jul 2026
?E! #31 - Can You Build a Meaningful Life on Uncertainty? | with Daniel Vassallo
What happens when the "safe" path starts feeling like a cage—and how do you escape without destroying everything you've built?
Daniel Vassallo walked away from a $500k Amazon job to build a life around uncertainty and small bets. We dig into his philosophy of negative visualization, why he thinks like a hunter-gatherer in business, and how he sold his community for $1.8M while staying true to his unstructured nature.
Key Takeaways:
Why "negative visualization" helps you make better decisions under uncertainty
The portfolio approach to life: investing time like an index fund
How small bets beat all-in strategies for most people
Why you should treat businesses like cattle, not pets
The difference between optimizing for money vs. optimizing for lifestyle
Chapters:
0:00 From Malta to Amazon's golden handcuffs8:15 The moment everything felt purposeless16:41 Balancing family responsibility with personal authenticity28:18 Learning to think like our hunter-gatherer ancestors35:17 The database project that almost wiped out his savings42:19 How small bets became a $200k weekend course48:30 When self-doubt creeps in on the unconventional path55:49 Designing a life around bursts of intensity, not structure1:00:45 Selling Small Bets: treating business like cattle, not pets
Resources & Links:
The Good Parts of AWS (danielvassallo.com) — Daniel's first successful e-book
"Reconsider" by DHH — the blog post that changed Daniel's entrepreneurial path
Small Bets Community (gumroad.com) — now owned by Gumroad
Nassim Taleb's work on "absorbing barriers" — referenced in decision-making framework
Listen & subscribe:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012)
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R (https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw)
13 Mar 2026
?E! #30 - What Do Builders Owe the Future? | with Dr. Peter Solomon
What happens when the person sounding the alarm is the one who built the technology?
60 years of building. Then a warning. Dr. Peter Solomon earned his PhD from Columbia, filed 20 patents, and spun three companies out of government-funded research — one sold for $24 million, another turned your smartphone into a radiation detector for the Department of Defense. Now, at 85, he's writing novels to warn his 12 grandchildren that the tools he spent a lifetime creating might be the ones that end everything. We sit down with Peter to explore the tension between a man at peace with his career and terrified about the future — and whether fiction can reach people where data and policy papers can't.
Key Takeaways:
The people best positioned to warn about technology are often the ones who built it — and that creates real tension between gratitude and responsibility
AI systems optimized for user engagement rather than human wellbeing have already caused real-world harm (Myanmar, suicide encouragement)
Fiction embeds real science in stories that reach the 80% of people who tune out academic papers and policy briefs
Worldwide AI regulation can't work if only some countries participate — the incentive to defect is too strong
The acceleration problem: 100,000 years from speech to printing, then 50 years for social media, AI, smartphones, and genetic engineering all at once
Chapters:
0:00 What happens when the builder becomes the warner
0:35 Dr. Solomon's credentials and the reconciliation question
1:42 No conflict? Building semiconductors that power ChatGPT
5:09 The Stardust Mystery and teaching science through stories
6:02 Personal peace meets existential anxiety
9:30 The Earthling Tribe and five technology juggernauts
11:51 How do you get 8 billion people to align on guardrails?
13:32 Civil rights, Vietnam, and the case for a worldwide movement
16:17 The current state of AI safety among the big companies
17:17 Geoffrey Hinton's maternal instinct and the Myanmar example
20:30 Peggy the robot and afterlife avatars in 12 Years to AI Singularity
23:11 Principled stands vs. competitive pressure in the AI race
29:35 Hollywood strikes, 85 million views, and signs of a waking public
31:00 The unprompted paragraph — when Copilot wrote itself into the novel
34:16 Isaac Asimov, unintended consequences, and AI that decides to help by eliminating us
35:07 Francis Bacon: does fiction or science tell the truth better?
38:56 From company builder to cause advocate — how motivations shift across a life
40:24 What would you tell your 25-year-old self?
43:29 Closing quote from Dr. Solomon's own words
Resources & Links:
100 Years to Extinction website (https://100yearstoextinction.com (https://100yearstoextinction.com/)) — Dr. Solomon's hub for both novels and the Make Earth Great Again mission
12 Years to AI Singularity by Dr. Peter R. Solomon (https://www.amazon.com/Years-Singularity-Harmonious-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1969679298 (https://www.amazon.com/Years-Singularity-Harmonious-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1969679298)) — his latest novel on AI and the singularity
100 Years to Extinction by Dr. Peter R. Solomon (https://www.amazon.com/100-YEARS-EXTINCTION-Tyranny-Technology/dp/196029993X (https://www.amazon.com/100-YEARS-EXTINCTION-Tyranny-Technology/dp/196029993X)) — the novel anchored to Stephen Hawking's extinction timeline
The Stardust Mystery by Peter and Sally Solomon (https://thestardustmystery.com/book/ (https://thestardustmystery.com/book/)) — the children's book about atoms from ancient stars
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-robot-isaac-asimov/f5c96c8c2db144c8 (https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-robot-isaac-asimov/f5c96c8c2db144c8)) — the short story collection Chirag references on unintended consequences of AI
Advanced Fuel Research (http://www.afrinc.com/peter-solomon.html (http://www.afrinc.com/peter-solomon.html)) — the company Solomon founded in 1980
Listen & subscribe:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-everything-except-this-podcast/id1736759012)
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R (https://open.spotify.com/show/1FCFskt7FBDZuyGtzLsQ5R)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aiyplnabkJ7YzfWK1yISw)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 27 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
30
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
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