harnessing inferential gaps to defeat bounded rationality

co-founder of the simon institute for longterm governance. we do frontier ai diplomacy—helping china and the west exchange on ai governance so that frontier r&d is understood across geopolitical fault-lines.

in practice: we brief diplomats and international civil servants, connect them to technical experts, and contribute to official documents via trust networks across countries' missions and international organisations' secretariats. the goal is productive communication between the people building the most powerful technology in history and the people tasked with governing it—across countries that don't (yet) believe they have shared goals.

we started in biosecurity—organizing side events at the biological weapons convention, running tabletop exercises, modelling pandemic attention dynamics. when covid validated our focus on catastrophic risks, we launched the institute. when chatgpt validated our focus on ai, we went all in. now a team of 10, chf 5m+ raised, operating at the intersection of technical governance and intercultural exchange.

the path here

discovered ea in 2013 through animal rights. built ea geneva, then rebuilt ea switzerland 2016–2019. dropped out of university after getting funded to professionalize community building. ran 100+ interviews with senior policymakers on catastrophic risk decision-making. co-founded the simon institute in 2021 with max stauffer, who had been sleeping on my couch since we were both too excited about policy to stop talking.

writing & talks

building our village in the city

fractalgva is a neighborhood project in geneva's eaux-vives. the idea: create density of interesting people and serendipitously generate scenius. friends move closer, events self-organize, and the city starts to feel like a durable home base.

previously, i rebuilt ea switzerland from 2016–2019—dropped out of university to do it. the pattern is the same: find the ambitious weirdos, give them infrastructure, watch what happens.

what we run

over the years this has also produced: ea workshops, a brocher workshop, themed meetups, groups (civilization servants, the guild, chirad, co-ceos), and a few organizations.

creating, listening, dancing

i curate and weave tracks together — from acid techno to hip hop and jazz — mostly for myself to enjoy, and sometimes at friends' parties.

artists & music i love

movies & tv

games i like to play

thinking out loud

ideas that won't leave me alone. i mostly write about them on twitter, and sometimes on substack.

hot takes

opinions i hold with varying degrees of confidence. some are half-baked. all are sincerely meant.

20 books i keep coming back to

corners of the internet i keep returning to

blogs, podcasts, essays, and other things that shaped how i think.

personal lore

the rough arc, then some details.

fun facts

some background on what might have made me me

photo archive

i have no mental imagery and am trying to get better at taking photos and sharing them. this is 10y on instagram (2014–2024), which i abandoned but exported all my data from.