What do interesting people
actually think about?
A private directory of answers from a hand-picked group of ambitious people. Every member sits for a one-hour interview. Their answers become part of the collection.
Request to joinNo. 009
What do you do first thing in the morning?
No. 011
What's your favorite personal/friend/family tradition?
No. 013
What's your favorite non-fiction book?
No. 015
Anything good you read recently?
No. 017
What's your favorite painting?
No. 019
What's your favorite movie?
No. 021
What's your favorite blog or piece of online writing?
No. 023
What's your favorite restaurant?
No. 025
Which fictional character inspired you the most?
No. 027
Which video game influenced you the most?
No. 029
What music do you listen to recently?
No. 031
What's your best purchase over $100?
No. 033
What does your diet roughly look like? Anything weird you eat?
No. 035
What's your favorite dish to cook/bake?
No. 037
What tabs do you have open?
No. 039
What software tools do you use a lot?
No. 041
What are things you don't care about?
No. 043
What's the most important for you in choosing where to live?
No. 045
What do you optimize for?
No. 047
What do you want in life?
No. 049
What do you consistently say no to?
No. 051
What's a consensus view that is right?
No. 053
What do you think most ambitious people your age do wrong?
No. 055
What's a skill or domain you studied that has nothing to do with your work but pays dividends?
No. 057
What's your favorite youtube channel?
No. 059
What's an underrated twitter account?
No. 061
Do you have advice for an ambitious young person?
No. 063
Any way that you optimize your health?
No. 065
What's the most useful thing you learned from someone much older than you?
No. 067
What is the kindest thing anyone has done for you?
No. 069
What is the most exciting scientific or technical problem to you other than the one you might be working on?
No. 071
What do you want to offer to people?
No. 073
What drives you?
No. 075
What is a narrative you are running in the story of your own life?
No. 077
What are you addicted to?
No. 079
What's your least favorite word?
No. 081
What is your most treasured object?
No. 083
What do you spend more money than the average person on?
No. 085
What intellectual gravity well (concepts, philosophies, ideas..) are you caught up in?
No. 087
What ought to be more widely known or understood?
No. 089
What should we be worried about?
No. 091
What cultural artefacts are you made of?
No. 093
How has AI changed your goals?
No. 095
What will change everything?
No. 097
What are you optimistic about?
No. 099
What is the most important human invention?
No. 101
Are you fulfilled? If not what's missing for you to be fulfilled?
No. 103
Which specific event most affected your life?
No. 105
What's been your favorite day of your life so far?
No. 107
What's the best compliment you've ever received?
No. 109
What's your favorite smell?
No. 111
What's your relationship with death? Are you scared? Do you think about it often?
No. 113
How would you make $1k legally on the internet today?
No. 115
What's something tangible you want?
No. 117
Give me a prediction for the future with a timestamp and a probability.
No. 119
What do you find sacred?
No. 121
Which vice is most misunderstood?
No. 123
What's your relationship with religion?
No. 125
What emotion do you experience unusually rarely?
No. 127
What's the most 'you' thing you do when nobody's watching?
No. 129
Is money or power the better motivator?
No. 131
What's an obscure website you wish more people knew about?
No. 133
Who was the most interesting character you met while travelling?
No. 135
What are you really terrible at?
No. 137
What have you been thinking about lately?
No. 139
What's the most expensive lesson you've learned, in any currency?
No. 141
What's the weirdest thing that's on your calendar in the next month?
No. 143
What's your favorite season-constrained thing you do?
No. 145
What's the version of yourself you perform most often, and how does it differ from the other parts of you?
No. 147
Do you exercise? What do you do and how much?
No. 149
What's a sentence from something you read that you carry around?
No. 151
What's something you used to think was important that you've now abandoned?
No. 153
What's the most useful concept you've imported from a totally unrelated domain?
No. 155
What do you regret?
No. 157
What's the lie you tell most often?
No. 159
What's a hiring or collaboration heuristic you've developed that works for you?
No. 161
What's your favorite question to ask others?
No. 163
Who should I interview next?
No. 009
What do you do first thing in the morning?
No. 011
What's your favorite personal/friend/family tradition?
No. 013
What's your favorite non-fiction book?
No. 015
Anything good you read recently?
No. 017
What's your favorite painting?
No. 019
What's your favorite movie?
No. 021
What's your favorite blog or piece of online writing?
No. 023
What's your favorite restaurant?
No. 025
Which fictional character inspired you the most?
No. 027
Which video game influenced you the most?
No. 029
What music do you listen to recently?
No. 031
What's your best purchase over $100?
No. 033
What does your diet roughly look like? Anything weird you eat?
No. 035
What's your favorite dish to cook/bake?
No. 037
What tabs do you have open?
No. 039
What software tools do you use a lot?
No. 041
What are things you don't care about?
No. 043
What's the most important for you in choosing where to live?
No. 045
What do you optimize for?
No. 047
What do you want in life?
No. 049
What do you consistently say no to?
No. 051
What's a consensus view that is right?
No. 053
What do you think most ambitious people your age do wrong?
No. 055
What's a skill or domain you studied that has nothing to do with your work but pays dividends?
No. 057
What's your favorite youtube channel?
No. 059
What's an underrated twitter account?
No. 061
Do you have advice for an ambitious young person?
No. 063
Any way that you optimize your health?
No. 065
What's the most useful thing you learned from someone much older than you?
No. 067
What is the kindest thing anyone has done for you?
No. 069
What is the most exciting scientific or technical problem to you other than the one you might be working on?
No. 071
What do you want to offer to people?
No. 073
What drives you?
No. 075
What is a narrative you are running in the story of your own life?
No. 077
What are you addicted to?
No. 079
What's your least favorite word?
No. 081
What is your most treasured object?
No. 083
What do you spend more money than the average person on?
No. 085
What intellectual gravity well (concepts, philosophies, ideas..) are you caught up in?
No. 087
What ought to be more widely known or understood?
No. 089
What should we be worried about?
No. 091
What cultural artefacts are you made of?
No. 093
How has AI changed your goals?
No. 095
What will change everything?
No. 097
What are you optimistic about?
No. 099
What is the most important human invention?
No. 101
Are you fulfilled? If not what's missing for you to be fulfilled?
No. 103
Which specific event most affected your life?
No. 105
What's been your favorite day of your life so far?
No. 107
What's the best compliment you've ever received?
No. 109
What's your favorite smell?
No. 111
What's your relationship with death? Are you scared? Do you think about it often?
No. 113
How would you make $1k legally on the internet today?
No. 115
What's something tangible you want?
No. 117
Give me a prediction for the future with a timestamp and a probability.
No. 119
What do you find sacred?
No. 121
Which vice is most misunderstood?
No. 123
What's your relationship with religion?
No. 125
What emotion do you experience unusually rarely?
No. 127
What's the most 'you' thing you do when nobody's watching?
No. 129
Is money or power the better motivator?
No. 131
What's an obscure website you wish more people knew about?
No. 133
Who was the most interesting character you met while travelling?
No. 135
What are you really terrible at?
No. 137
What have you been thinking about lately?
No. 139
What's the most expensive lesson you've learned, in any currency?
No. 141
What's the weirdest thing that's on your calendar in the next month?
No. 143
What's your favorite season-constrained thing you do?
No. 145
What's the version of yourself you perform most often, and how does it differ from the other parts of you?
No. 147
Do you exercise? What do you do and how much?
No. 149
What's a sentence from something you read that you carry around?
No. 151
What's something you used to think was important that you've now abandoned?
No. 153
What's the most useful concept you've imported from a totally unrelated domain?
No. 155
What do you regret?
No. 157
What's the lie you tell most often?
No. 159
What's a hiring or collaboration heuristic you've developed that works for you?
No. 161
What's your favorite question to ask others?
No. 163
Who should I interview next?
No. 010
Do you have recurring rituals?
No. 012
Do you write notes? If so, what do you write about? What's your setup? Do you write long form content?
No. 014
What's your favorite fiction book?
No. 016
What's your favorite poem?
No. 018
What's your favorite documentary?
No. 020
What's your favorite podcast?
No. 022
What's your favorite coffee place?
No. 024
What's the last rabbithole you were into?
No. 026
Which historical character inspired you the most?
No. 028
What's your favorite board game?
No. 030
What's your best purchase under $100?
No. 032
What's a strong belief you have?
No. 034
What do you monitor in your body or environment? How?
No. 036
What is something weird or unusual you built or did early on in life?
No. 038
What physical tools do you use a lot?
No. 040
What's a decision you made in the last year that most people in your position wouldn't have made?
No. 042
What are you certain about?
No. 044
What does your friend group look like? When did you meet them?
No. 046
What's something you deliberately stopped optimizing for or never optimized for?
No. 048
What's a rule you follow?
No. 050
What's something you think is widely underpriced (in time, money, or attention)?
No. 052
What's a consensus view that is wrong?
No. 054
What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?
No. 056
When you need to learn something new fast, what's your actual process?
No. 058
What do you want to do more of?
No. 060
Who's an overrated public personality with influence in your circles?
No. 062
Who do you pay attention to that few people in your world pay attention to?
No. 064
What's your favorite source of information?
No. 066
What's the most useful thing you learned from someone much younger than you?
No. 068
What or who has most impacted your taste in ideas?
No. 070
What do you want from people?
No. 072
What are you afraid of?
No. 074
How do you have fun?
No. 076
What are you exploring more deeply at this point in your life?
No. 078
What's your favorite word?
No. 080
What word is in your current vocabulary zeitgeist?
No. 082
What job other than your own would you like to attempt?
No. 084
When is your debt to society paid?
No. 086
What are the extremes of your specific human experience?
No. 088
What do you consider the most interesting recent news?
No. 090
What is your favorite explanation?
No. 092
How has AI changed your habits?
No. 094
How many cold emails have you sent?
No. 096
What have you changed your mind about? Why?
No. 098
What is your dangerous idea?
No. 100
Who would you bet all your money on who has not already been successful?
No. 102
Who had the most positive impact on your life?
No. 104
What were the best two seconds of this year so far?
No. 106
What's your favorite part of the day?
No. 108
What are you proud of that you rarely have the occasion to talk about?
No. 110
How would you summarize your life up until now in one sentence?
No. 112
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
No. 114
Teach me something about your favorite topic in the world
No. 116
What's the most fun future you can imagine?
No. 118
What do you want more of in the world?
No. 120
Which virtue is most overrated?
No. 122
If you could make one value universal, which one, and why that one?
No. 124
What emotion do you experience unusually often?
No. 126
What do people systematically misunderstand about you?
No. 128
What's something you're embarrassed to love?
No. 130
What game show do you think you could win?
No. 132
What's something that brought you joy recently?
No. 134
What's your favorite childhood memory?
No. 136
If you wanted people to know only one fact about you, what would it be?
No. 138
What is the most adventurous thing you have ever done?
No. 140
What's a problem you think about regularly that you have no professional reason to think about?
No. 142
What's a favor you love being asked for?
No. 144
What's a bet you're currently making that you wouldn't advise anyone else to make?
No. 146
Do you have a meditation practice? If yes what does it look like?
No. 148
What does your average day schedule roughly look like?
No. 150
What aesthetic choice in your life reveals the most about you?
No. 152
What's a framework/lens through which you often look at things?
No. 154
Who in your life sees you most accurately?
No. 156
What's the most niche community you belong to?
No. 158
Best gift you've received?
No. 160
What's the most underrated skill right now?
No. 162
What question did I not ask that I should have asked you specifically?
No. 164
Send me any link you want that I can add to this interview
No. 010
Do you have recurring rituals?
No. 012
Do you write notes? If so, what do you write about? What's your setup? Do you write long form content?
No. 014
What's your favorite fiction book?
No. 016
What's your favorite poem?
No. 018
What's your favorite documentary?
No. 020
What's your favorite podcast?
No. 022
What's your favorite coffee place?
No. 024
What's the last rabbithole you were into?
No. 026
Which historical character inspired you the most?
No. 028
What's your favorite board game?
No. 030
What's your best purchase under $100?
No. 032
What's a strong belief you have?
No. 034
What do you monitor in your body or environment? How?
No. 036
What is something weird or unusual you built or did early on in life?
No. 038
What physical tools do you use a lot?
No. 040
What's a decision you made in the last year that most people in your position wouldn't have made?
No. 042
What are you certain about?
No. 044
What does your friend group look like? When did you meet them?
No. 046
What's something you deliberately stopped optimizing for or never optimized for?
No. 048
What's a rule you follow?
No. 050
What's something you think is widely underpriced (in time, money, or attention)?
No. 052
What's a consensus view that is wrong?
No. 054
What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?
No. 056
When you need to learn something new fast, what's your actual process?
No. 058
What do you want to do more of?
No. 060
Who's an overrated public personality with influence in your circles?
No. 062
Who do you pay attention to that few people in your world pay attention to?
No. 064
What's your favorite source of information?
No. 066
What's the most useful thing you learned from someone much younger than you?
No. 068
What or who has most impacted your taste in ideas?
No. 070
What do you want from people?
No. 072
What are you afraid of?
No. 074
How do you have fun?
No. 076
What are you exploring more deeply at this point in your life?
No. 078
What's your favorite word?
No. 080
What word is in your current vocabulary zeitgeist?
No. 082
What job other than your own would you like to attempt?
No. 084
When is your debt to society paid?
No. 086
What are the extremes of your specific human experience?
No. 088
What do you consider the most interesting recent news?
No. 090
What is your favorite explanation?
No. 092
How has AI changed your habits?
No. 094
How many cold emails have you sent?
No. 096
What have you changed your mind about? Why?
No. 098
What is your dangerous idea?
No. 100
Who would you bet all your money on who has not already been successful?
No. 102
Who had the most positive impact on your life?
No. 104
What were the best two seconds of this year so far?
No. 106
What's your favorite part of the day?
No. 108
What are you proud of that you rarely have the occasion to talk about?
No. 110
How would you summarize your life up until now in one sentence?
No. 112
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
No. 114
Teach me something about your favorite topic in the world
No. 116
What's the most fun future you can imagine?
No. 118
What do you want more of in the world?
No. 120
Which virtue is most overrated?
No. 122
If you could make one value universal, which one, and why that one?
No. 124
What emotion do you experience unusually often?
No. 126
What do people systematically misunderstand about you?
No. 128
What's something you're embarrassed to love?
No. 130
What game show do you think you could win?
No. 132
What's something that brought you joy recently?
No. 134
What's your favorite childhood memory?
No. 136
If you wanted people to know only one fact about you, what would it be?
No. 138
What is the most adventurous thing you have ever done?
No. 140
What's a problem you think about regularly that you have no professional reason to think about?
No. 142
What's a favor you love being asked for?
No. 144
What's a bet you're currently making that you wouldn't advise anyone else to make?
No. 146
Do you have a meditation practice? If yes what does it look like?
No. 148
What does your average day schedule roughly look like?
No. 150
What aesthetic choice in your life reveals the most about you?
No. 152
What's a framework/lens through which you often look at things?
No. 154
Who in your life sees you most accurately?
No. 156
What's the most niche community you belong to?
No. 158
Best gift you've received?
No. 160
What's the most underrated skill right now?
No. 162
What question did I not ask that I should have asked you specifically?
No. 164
Send me any link you want that I can add to this interview
Random answer from the archive
What's a bet you're currently making that you wouldn't advise anyone else to make?
I quit a senior role to spend a year just reading and walking. No project, no plan. Everyone thinks I'm having a crisis. I think I'm finally not having one.
01
The interview
150 questions about how you live, what you believe, what you read, who you admire, what you're afraid of.
02
The directory
Every answer from every member. Browse by question or by person. Find someone whose bookshelf looks like yours.
03
Introductions
See someone interesting? Ask for an intro. No Slack group, no events, no content calendar.