I invited my friends Anson Yu and HudZah to chat today, as young people thriving amid these ~unprecedented times~. Our conversation is very much about agency: how it’s nurtured by family and by community; how it’s shaped by stories, books, and films; and how AI can instill it or take it away.

Anson and HudZah are both graduating seniors at the University of Waterloo. Anson studied systems design and HudZah math. They’re both involved in organizing Socratica, which recently rallied 2500 young people around the world to fill a hockey stadium for a giant demo day. They also have a million other projects under their belt. But to highlight two, Anson spent six months on a road trip filming Unstuck, a feature-length climate documentary with a friend, and HudZah is perhaps best known for using Claude to build a nuclear fusor in his kitchen. Now, they’re cofounding an AI-for-hardware company together.

I recorded this conversation to learn from them, and I think you will too.

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