This week on “The Ben & Marc Show”, a16z co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen take on the biggest and most important film of the year – Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster “Oppenheimer”.

The film – based on the 2005 biography “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer'' by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin – chronicles the life of the American theoretical physicist, whose direction of the top secret Manhattan Project forever changed the course of world history.

In this one-on-one conversation based on YOUR questions from Twitter, Marc and Ben examine the historical accuracies (and inaccuracies) of Nolan’s epic work, explore in-depth the life of the enigmatic physicist himself, and tackle – from all angles – the social and philosophical aspects of communism, a theme that weighs heavily in the film, as Oppenheimer’s association with party members led to his political downfall.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Listen to Us!
- Apple Podcast: https://bit.ly/3SdsfNt
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3SclPOr

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Show Intro
01:27 - Why Oppenheimer needed a Gen X filmmaker
03:21 - Why Oppenheimer was chosen to lead
06:17 - America's past production machine
10:47 - Declassification of the Venona files
12:21 - The issue with Einstein
14:22 - The catastrophe of communism
21:36 - America's elite class and communism
26:24 - Communism as a religion
27:43 - The prevention of WWIII
33:20 - John von Neumann
38:09 - The rise of anti-communist sentiments
43:33 - Ben's grandfather and McCarthyism
49:50 - What we know now about McCarthy and the Rosenbergs
55:56 - Parallels to modern day China
01:02:26 - Communism's biggest flaws
01:09:24 - Hiroshima, Nagasaki and utilitarian ethics
01:30:30 - Race as a cause for major conflict
01:25:19 - Direct analogy between AI and nuclear technology
01:34:50 - The Bay Area as a hotbed for fringe ideas
01:46:22 - AI and two visions of the future world

#oppenheimer #film #hollywood #history #christophernolan #technology #tech

Resources:
Marc on X:   / pmarca  
Marc’s Substack: https://pmarca.substack.com/

Ben on X:   / bhorowitz  

NY Times: "The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism" by Ezra Klein: ’https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/op...

Books mentioned on this podcast (and others you’ll want to check out):
– “Red Decade” by Eugene Lyons https://amzn.to/3OEQMbZ
– “When Reason Goes on Holiday: Philosophers in Politics” by Neven Sesardic https://amzn.to/455zYRv
– "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers https://amzn.to/3OEu0RC
– ”The Great Leap Forward" by Alexander J. Field https://amzn.to/3QlCYV2
– "The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War" by Alexander J. Field https://amzn.to/3Yemsbz
– “The Man From the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann” by Ananyo Bhattacharya https://amzn.to/446SbNf
– “Stalin's War: A New History of World War II” by Sean McMeekin https://amzn.to/47c29zw
– “McCarthy” by Arthur Herman https://amzn.to/3OFKYzc

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