Steven Johnson (Author, Editorial lead at NotebookLM and Google Labs)

In this episode, I spoke to Steven Johnson - one of my favorite authors and thinkers. Steven has written 14 popular books, including “Where Good Ideas Come From” which inspired the name of this podcast and my blog, The Slow Hunch.

Steven has an unmatched ability to stitch together ideas from technology, science, and history to make stories come to life. He has had a significant impact on the way I see the world today.

In this conversation, we double clicked on Steven's journey to unlock “networked thought” through the use of tools, and the micro insights that gradually led him to NotebookLM, a tool that he is currently co-creating with the team at Google Labs.

Hope you enjoy this conversation!

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Cold Open
• 00:01:56 Intro
• 00:05:14 The origins of NotebookLM
• 00:08:36 Steven's early interest in technology
• 00:13:31 The concept of "The Slow Hunch"
• 00:15:24 The importance of capturing ideas and sparks
• 00:21:24 How the rise of the internet enabled "networked thought" 
• 00:30:20 When LLMs came into the picture
• 00:45:25 Building NotebookLM
• 00:49:32 Steven's view on "Conversational Hypertext"
• 00:52:27 How AI changes the act of knowledge curation
• 00:54:48 Closing thoughts

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

What is The Slow Hunch?

The Slow Hunch explores how big ideas form over long periods of time. Big innovations are often characterised as single “eureka” moments, when in fact they're often the culmination of many smaller ideas coalescing over a long period of time. On this podcast, USV's Nick Grossman explores how those ideas took shape, and the nonlinear paths of the people behind them.