March 2025 #podcast-review Tyler Cowen ([wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen)) is a popular economist in silicon valley circles, administrator for [Mercatus / Emergent Ventures](https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures), and has hosted a podcast from quite some time: [Conversations with Tyler | Listen to Tyler Cowen's Official Podcast](https://conversationswithtyler.com/). He covers a lot of ground in this engaging podcast with Dwarkesh Patel: [https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/tyler-cowen-4](https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/tyler-cowen-4) From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY2nbAVZB-k  Some takeaways 1. Kids on either side of performance/aptitude benchmarks bell curves are improving but it appears that the middle is stuck, lowering the averages. 2. Beatles versus Rolling Stones. While the Rolling Stones are still around, the Beatles are more successful from a sales perspective but definitely not from touring revenue. 3. Write for AI. They will trawl all content and will shape how they (and others) will see us. 4. There is a strong tendancy of the worst in society to rise to the top. https://fee.org/resources/the-road-to-serfdom-chapter-10-why-the-worst-get-on-top/ 5. Time versus money scarcity 6. [Tyler Cowen, the man who wants to know everything](https://www.economist.com/1843/2025/02/28/tyler-cowen-the-man-who-wants-to-know-everything) 7. [We Need a New Science of Progress](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/we-need-new-science-progress/594946/)