Tim Ferriss

NEW podcast episode is up! "Lucky #888 — My Tour of Designing Luck in China, Japan, and Korea" For episode #888, I couldn’t resist going down a rabbit hole about the number eight. Join me for a nerdy tour of China, Japan, and Korea, including a million-dollar license plate, disappearing hotel floors, a casino room designed around one gambler’s birthday, and much, much more. Please enjoy!

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! open.spotify.com/episode/1d9… podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

Show notes: tim.blog/2026/11/05/lucky-88…

“It was like meeting Miles Davis when he was 28,” @nickkokonas said of his first meeting with Grant Achatz. Everyone wanted to open a restaurant with Grant after tasting his food, and Nick was no different. “What type of restaurant do you want to open?” Grant asked him. Nick replied, “I don’t know. I build businesses. I don’t know the first thing about restaurants.” And that is what made Nick different. He was the only suitor in years to get a call back, precisely because he said, “I don’t know.” A year to the day after that meeting, Alinea opened. Eighteen months later, Gourmet magazine called Alinea, with its 29 chefs for a maximum of 82 guests per night, the #1 restaurant in the U.S. Twelve months later, Grant was diagnosed with stage 4B tongue cancer. There is no stage 4C, nor stage 5; 4B is the worst-case scenario. Grant was told he might lose 70% of his tongue, and he informed Nick that he would rather die. Because his ability to taste was compromised, there was a time when Grant cooked entirely from memory, not unlike Beethoven, who composed his final full symphony, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, completely deaf. The food never faltered. Grant’s comeback from the brink of death was worthy of a dedicated book, which it got, titled “Life, on the Line.” He returned to cooking with a vengeance. Nothing went unquestioned or untested, even the obvious. In fact, especially the obvious: Obvious: Menus are handed out before the meal. Alinea: Menus are provided after the meal. Obvious: Big dining rooms. Alinea: Residential-scale dining rooms. Obvious: Receptionist behind a counter or podium. Alinea: No one inside the main door. Motion sensors open a second door at the end of the first hall, after which staff greet you by name. Obvious: Diners go to the bathroom at will. Alinea: Diners ask for permission to go to the bathroom. This isn’t to be pompous. If a guest goes to the bathroom, a message goes to the kitchen, such as “Table 29—up,” at which point the chefs scrap your dish and start again. Each dish is timed to be perfect when it arrives at your table, not five minutes later. Obvious: Straight, short staircases. Alinea: Deliberately long, winding staircases. Obvious: Flowers on tables. Alinea: No flowers on tables. The centerpieces are all interactive, often edible. Some of these innovations preceded the cancer, but the dogma busting was amplified with Grant’s new lease on life. From ingredients to service, menus to business model, all sacred cows were put on the chopping block.

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” — ​Kurt Vonnegut

What would it take to convince you that an AI—or any man-made system—is genuinely conscious? Is there an experiment you could design whose results would change your mind? Do you think our biology is critical to consciousness, and that it cannot be replicated by hardware/software? If so, why?