Simply put, my guest Alex is trying to fix the internet and social media. He believes that the consumption of too much “junk information” is the at the root of most of the problems we face in society. When so much of the information available to us is “junk” is causes inefficiencies. It is harder to make good decisions because you can’t extract useful information and/or you end up spending an inordinate amount of time and effort with a low return. His solution is Otherweb (https://otherweb.com/), a new platform he created that allows its readers to read news and commentary, listen to podcasts and search the web – without paywalls, clickbait, ads, autoplaying videos, affiliate links, or any other junk.

If that sounds like a monumental and idealistic task, I agree with you. If it sounds like, even if Alex did succeed, there is a massive risk of censorship, corruption, and abuse of power, I agree with you. In fact, Alex agrees with you too. That was part of what made this discussion so fascinating. Alex is an engineer who understands that to build new systems you need to make assumptions and take risks; BUT there are steps you can take to mitigate those risks. There are constraints you can put in place to protect yourself and the company from losing itself or straying from its mission. This gets right to the heart of accepting the imperfections of the human mind and having the humility and the foresight to account for those imperfections up front.

I truly enjoyed this conversation as much as any other one I’ve had since doing this podcast. To talk through Alex’s perspective, approach, and assumptions was really thought provoking; and the topics it opened up for us to discuss (e.g., nature of ideas, pessimism about the trajectory of humanity, morality, philosopher kings, and a lot more) were super interesting as well. Neither Alex or I can be sure if he will succeed in his mission (or even if it is the right mission to pursue), but that is life. This is a beautiful example of how you can be thoughtful, humble, cautious, and logical–while still taking bold actions to try to make the world a better place. 

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Terry McMullen Podcast Host

I spent much of my career trying to consult companies on how to better achieve their goals. I was a Finance major, a Harvard Business School graduate, and a business strategist. I've always been curious and I've always loved trying to solve problems. It was a really good fit for a while, but then life happened.

Within the span of a couple of years I had a son, my sister tragically passed away, and my wife became severely ill with Multiple Sclerosis. All of a sudden everything I thought I knew about life didn't seem to make sense anymore. I needed to raise my son and teach him how to be a good person but I realized I didn't even know what it meant to be a good person, let alone know how to teach him to be one. I also realized that I wasn't capable of being the person my wife needed me to be to help care for her. Simply put, I wasn't good enough.