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Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power. Lex is an AI researcher at MIT and beyond.
#461 – ThePrimeagen: Programming, AI, ADHD, Productivity, Addiction, and God
Lex Fridman Podcast
5 hours 30 minutes 4 seconds
5 months ago
#461 – ThePrimeagen: Programming, AI, ADHD, Productivity, Addiction, and God
ThePrimeagen (aka Michael Paulson) is a programmer who has educated, entertained, and inspired millions of people to build software and have fun doing it.
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(10:27) - Love for programming
(20:00) - Hardest part of programming
(22:16) - Types of programming
(29:54) - Life story
(39:58) - Hardship
(41:29) - High school
(47:15) - Porn addiction
(57:01) - God
(1:12:44) - Perseverance
(1:22:40) - Netflix
(1:35:08) - Groovy
(1:40:13) - Printf() debugging
(1:46:35) - Falcor
(1:56:05) - Breaking production
(1:58:49) - Pieter Levels
(2:03:19) - Netflix, Twitch, and YouTube infrastructure
(2:15:22) - ThePrimeagen origin story
(2:30:37) - Learning programming languages
(2:39:40) - Best programming languages in 2025
(2:44:35) - Python
(2:45:15) - HTML & CSS
(2:46:05) - Bash
(2:46:45) - FFmpeg
(2:53:28) - Performance
(2:56:00) - Rust
(3:00:48) - Epic projects
(3:14:12) - Asserts
(3:23:26) - ADHD
(3:31:34) - Productivity
(3:35:58) - Programming setup
(4:11:28) - Coffee
(4:18:32) - Programming with AI
(5:01:16) - Advice for young programmers
(5:12:48) - Reddit questions
(5:20:20) - God
Conversations about science, technology, history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power. Lex is an AI researcher at MIT and beyond.
