Lex Fridman Podcast
#440 – Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life
Tue, 20 Aug 2024
Pieter Levels (aka levelsio on X) is a self-taught developer and entrepreneur who has designed, programmed, launched over 40 startups, many of which are highly successful. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep440-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/pieter-levels-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Pieter's X: https://x.com/levelsio Pieter's Techno Optimist Shop: https://levelsio.com/ Indie Maker Handbook: https://readmake.com/ Nomad List: https://nomadlist.com Remote OK: https://remoteok.com Hoodmaps: https://hoodmaps.com SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex Motific: Generative ai deployment. Go to https://motific.ai AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drinks. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex MasterClass: Online classes from world-class experts. Go to https://masterclass.com/lexpod BetterHelp: Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://betterhelp.com/lex Eight Sleep: Temp-controlled smart mattress. Go to https://eightsleep.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (11:38) - Startup philosophy (19:09) - Low points (22:37) - 12 startups in 12 months (29:29) - Traveling and depression (42:08) - Indie hacking (46:11) - Photo AI (1:22:28) - How to learn AI (1:31:04) - Robots (1:39:21) - Hoodmaps (2:03:26) - Learning new programming languages (2:12:58) - Monetize your website (2:19:34) - Fighting SPAM (2:23:07) - Automation (2:34:33) - When to sell startup (2:37:26) - Coding solo (2:43:28) - Ship fast (2:52:13) - Best IDE for programming (3:01:43) - Andrej Karpathy (3:11:09) - Productivity (3:24:56) - Minimalism (3:33:41) - Emails (3:40:54) - Coffee (3:48:40) - E/acc (3:50:56) - Advice for young people PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips
Full Episode
The following is a conversation with Peter Levels, also known on X as LevelsIO. He is a self-taught developer and entrepreneur who designed, programmed, shipped, and ran over 40 startups, many of which are hugely successful. In most cases, he did it all by himself while living the digital nomad life in over 40 countries and over 150 cities.
programming on a laptop while chilling on a couch, using vanilla HTML, jQuery, PHP, and SQLite. He builds and ships quickly and improves on the fly, all in the open, documenting his work, both his successes and failures, with the raw honesty of a true indie hacker.
Peter is an inspiration to a huge number of developers and entrepreneurs who love creating cool things in the world that are hopefully useful for people. This was an honor and a pleasure for me. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast.
We got Shopify for e-commerce, Motific for LLM and RAG deployment, AG1 for health, Masterclass for learning, BetterHelp for the mind, and 8sleep for naps. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, there's a bunch of ways to get in touch with me by giving feedback, sending in questions that I can answer and all other kinds of ways. If you go to lexfreeman.com slash contact. And now onto the full ad reads.
As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great-looking online store.
I recently tweeted about my belief, as it stands now, that Kamala Harris is not a communist and that Donald Trump is not a fascist. And there's some other nuance in that tweet. And the response I got... the attacks I got from both sides that are very intense, that disagree, were fascinating.
So one of the things I have on my to-do list is to do a lengthy video and a lengthy podcast on communism and fascism and other economic and political systems. You know, there needs to be a good, solid criticism and explanation of capitalism, for example. It's an economic system. It's a way for humans to work together that has, I believe, benefited the world way more than it has hurt the world.
But to articulate that and to still mend the criticisms and the perspectives that criticize capitalism is also really important. And so the same applies for communism, for fascism, for all kinds of ideologies that ruled the world for a time and all the kinds of ways that they've broken down and to do so seriously, objectively, calmly, walking through the fire without the misuse of those words.
thinking clearly, not as a partisan, but as an independent thinker, as a human being, I think that's something that I would like to work on more and more. even amidst this insane political season. Anyway, I mention all that because, you know, when I think about Shopify, I think about capitalism.
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Lukas (2024-10-04 08:20:19):
Seeing tangible results from physical effort seems uniquely satisfying. Does mental work offer the same level of fulfillment and therapeutic effect?