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A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience

In this interview I speak to Victor Vescovo - one of only two people ever to have stood at Earth’s highest peak, descended to its deepest trench, and looked back at the planet from space. A…

Dr. Vikas Shah MBE DL 32 min read

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Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“By measuring skulls from 400 years ago, you'll find that our ancestors had straight teeth, prognathic faces, and very wide jaws. Compare these to modern skulls, which show very slender, narrow faces and small jaws. It's all there, plainly evident, yet it seems as though nobody is really talking about this or acknowledging the rapid changes that have occurred over just a couple of hundred years.”
— James Nestor Author of "Breath" & Investigative Journalist on Respiratory Science
“Wealth is just an indicator of how well (or not) things are going. Whatever I'm doing, there are indicators… do people like what I'm doing? Do they think I'm crazy? Am I making a lot of money? These are just indicators. Wealth is not and end in itself, it's just one of many indicator as to how you're doing.”
— Thor Björgólfsson Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player
“Aging is a side-effect of being a machine with moving parts. All such machines, whether living or not, inherently create entropy in their structure. Living organisms have immensely sophisticated systems for exporting that entropy, but those systems are generally not 100% comprehensive, so aging still happens.”
— Aubrey de Grey Biogerontologist researching aging reversal and life extension therapies

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The Wisdom Series

Ten essays. Distilled from 600+ conversations.

Insights, themes and patterns from years of long-form interviews — organised around the questions that matter most.

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  1. 01 Business & Economics A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 360 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 234 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy Incorruptible: Eric Ries on Why Good Companies Go Bad — and How to Build Ones That Don’t 167 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology A Conversation with Victor Vescovo: On Exploration, Risk and the Limits of Human Experience 133 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine Inside the GLP-1 Revolution: A Conversation with Professor Jens Juul Holst, Co-Discoverer of GLP-1 73 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

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