Are you working on the most important problem in your field? Why not? (with Rohit Krishnan)

How are curiosity and innovation connected? What's the most important problem in your field? And are you working on it? Why or why not? Is curiosity the best heuristic — either for an individual or for society at large — for finding valuable problems to work on? What mental models do people tend to use by default? How much is an academic degree worth these days? What are some alternatives to degrees that could count as valid credentials, i.e., as unfakeable (or very-hard-to-fake) signals of someone's level of skill in an area? Can people learn to fake any kind of signal, or are there some that are inherently unfakeable?

Rohit Krishnan is an essayist at Strange Loop Canon, where he writes about business, tech, and economics. He's been an entrepreneur and an investor and is very excited to see when crazy ideas meet the real world. Follow him on Twitter at @krishnanrohit.

Staff

• Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
• Josh Castle — Producer
• Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
• Uri Bram — Factotum
• WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
• Miles Kestran — Marketing

Music

• Broke for Free
• Josh Woodward
• Lee Rosevere
• Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
• wowamusic
• zapsplat.com

Affiliates

• Clearer Thinking
• GuidedTrack
• Mind Ease
• Positly
• UpLift