00:00welcome to the a 16z podcast today we're
00:03doing one of our book episodes and we're
00:05talking about genius in the process of
00:07innovation through the life of Claude
00:08Shannon the father of information theory
00:10he was also an architect of the digital
00:12age who among other things worked with
00:14veneer Bush and befriended Alan Turing
00:16this conversation is moderated by a 16 Z
00:19board partner Steven Sinofsky with
00:21special guests Jimmy Soni and Rob
00:22Goodman authors of a new biography of
00:24Shannon just out called a mind app play
00:27Rob's voice is the first you'll here
00:29right after Stephens I want to start off
00:31by just setting some context back in I
00:33think around 1990 Scientific American
00:35said decades after this paper was
00:37published in 1948 that Shannon created
00:40quote the Magna Carta of the Information
00:42Age what did they even mean by that
00:43that's a pretty big statement Shannon's
00:46paper a mathematical theory of
00:48communication is something like a
00:49founding document it laid out the
00:52principles that make the digital
00:53transmission of information possible as
00:55an and in this paper does things like
00:56introduce the concept of the bit explain
00:58how you can quantify information explain
01:00how you can use digital codes to
01:02compress information and descend it with
01:04arbitrarily perfect accuracy so all
01:07these things that are foundational to
01:09digital communications and the present
01:11Shannon lays them out and that that's
01:12Magna Carta scale achievements kind of
01:15go back in time and go back to you know
01:18his earliest years and he was born in
01:201916 more than a hundred years ago he
01:22probably didn't have much in the way of
01:24electricity of indoor plumbing of all of
01:26those kind of things it was very early
01:29in the 20th century and
01:31industrialization in the Midwest what
01:33was he born into so he was born in Upper
01:38Michigan and his childhood is the
01:41childhood of a sort of boy tinkerer
01:43right he plays with broken radios and
01:47takes him apart and puts him back
01:48together there was a line that all the
01:51broken radios in Gaylord passed through
01:52Claude Shannon's hands he builds a
01:54makeshift elevator in the back of a barn
01:57with a friend so Gaylord is his hometown
01:59yeah how big is that town two or three
02:01thousand people I mean it was like a
02:02small village but it had it because it
02:04was close to railroads it had some
02:06commercial importance to the region but
02:09his dad is a probate judge mom is a
02:13and he is a boy who's constantly playing
02:16building things always trying to sort of
02:19figure out how to rig things up so he
02:21rigs up a barbed wire Telegraph between
02:23his house and a friend's house so he
02:25uses the barbed wire as the transmission
02:27Claude is a boy I mean he's just doing
02:29this for fun so that's sort of the rough
02:30equivalent of like hacking away at a
02:32Raspberry Pi today basically yes
02:33basically and then he's also you know
02:35he's like it has inspiration from his
02:37family his great his grandfather was a
02:39was an inventor actually he had filed a
02:42patent to improve on the washing machine
02:44and so he's inspired by that and he's a
02:46distant cousin of Thomas Edison so
02:48that's kind of in the family lore as
02:49well but he has a very normal childhood
02:52compared to other geniuses I mean we are
02:55not talking about somebody who whose
02:56parents are drilling him in the finer
02:58points of advanced mathematics at a
03:00young age they allow him to play they
03:01allow him to do his his own lives own
03:03life but also compared to many of the
03:05other scientists that emerged in that
03:07would also later become his his
03:09contemporaries he also didn't face like
03:11oppression yeah compared to all the
03:13people who made such a difference in
03:15technology in the 20th century kludge
03:16and it had just a pretty idyllic
03:18childhood and one of my favorite parts
03:19of researching this book was reading
03:21some newspaper headlines in this tiny
03:23town of Gaylord some of our favorites
03:24were meeting held to discuss artichokes
03:26and Vern Matz loses finger so those are
03:30the kinds of things that made the front
03:31page of the newspaper in Gaylord
03:32Michigan and that's the kind of
03:33childhood Shane and had one of the
03:35things that fascinates me about whenever
03:37I get to read about the inventors from
03:38that that started in that era is just
03:42how how versatile they are like it's
03:45it's rather incredible that that you
03:47could become essentially as expert as
03:50you can become in so many different
03:52things his mom is a musician so he ends
03:55up playing the the French horn and later
03:57picks up the jazz clarinet he does
04:01reasonably well in school it turns out
04:02that part of the reason he decided to go
04:04whole hog on mathematics is because his
04:06sister was good at math and there was a
04:07little bit of sibling rivalry he finds
04:10his way to the University of Michigan
04:11and he comes at a really interesting
04:13time because the engineering school is
04:14just gone through this massive expansion
04:16I find it relevant to what's going on
04:19today with the discussion about coding
04:21and the importance of sort of
04:22transforming education to the modern era
04:24he seemed to be fortunate enough
04:26the the University of Michigan was busy
04:29transforming itself from sort of a
04:30normal as you would like liberal arts
04:32school into like hey we need to be an
04:35engineering school there's this quote
04:36from I think the Dean of engineering
04:37who's almost excited because the
04:39engineering department is about to pass
04:41the liberal arts department registration
04:43he says by God will pass them yet so
04:45it's just this sort of idea that the
04:46economy is changing around the school
04:49and the school is really investing a lot
04:51in it's it's it's capital both physical
04:53capital and human capital keep up with
04:55that what what else happened to him at
04:57Michigan that was was such an
04:59interesting part of his car he started
05:01publishing answers to these mathematical
05:04puzzles that came at the very back of
05:06academic journals by the way we actually
05:08published the puzzles in the book so for
05:10anybody who wants to try to solve what
05:11Claude Shannon was solving you're
05:12welcome to try I'm good Rob and I
05:15couldn't but imagine that you're a high
05:17college junior or senior you're like
05:20picking up these academic journals
05:22flipping to the back looking at these
05:23puzzles working out long solutions
05:25sending them in for publication what it
05:27suggested to us was this was a guy who
05:29wasn't gonna go back and run the family
05:31furniture business he was actually going
05:33to try to make it as an academic and as
05:35somebody who was going to get some
05:36advanced training and it's a pretty
05:38incredible thing when you think about a
05:40kid like Claude Shannon with not
05:42particularly no particular means from a
05:45reasonably modest family a small town
05:47going to the University of Michigan and
05:49managing you get two pieces published in
05:51these journals later later in his
05:52collegiate career that's that's a pretty
05:54extraordinary thing when you think about
05:56where he is coming from yeah I mean
05:58especially because most of the people
05:59reading those and answering them were
06:01probably on the East Coast at Harvard at
06:03MIT and then also in Michigan he was
06:05either being pulled to the mechanical
06:08world of farming or to the soon-to-be
06:11created auto industry right and he was
06:12someone who made a point of studying
06:13engineering and mathematics at the same
06:15time and I think that was relatively
06:16where double major in those two things
06:18Shannon said he just did it because he
06:20was just a few courses away from even
06:21double major so why not so he finished
06:24up at Michigan and then like did this
06:25awesome thing where he's just like hey I
06:26think I'm gonna go to MIT so again it
06:28kind of testifies a little bit to
06:30Shannon's ambition he sees this job
06:32application invitation on something
06:35inside of a postcard that's post up in
06:37the engineering building at Michigan
06:39says come to MIT and work as a graduate
06:41student with venir bush and the
06:44differential analyzer which is one of
06:46the leading computing machines of the
06:47day it's an analog computer so Shannon
06:50sends off his application so it
06:52testifies one to the fact that he had
06:54this decent publication record for an
06:56undergrad but also to the fact that the
06:58venire a bush who was one of the great
07:00sort of scientific networkers and
07:01organizers in twentieth-century America
07:03he had a real eye for talent he was the
07:06first person really well up in a
07:08scientific hierarchy to spot Claude
07:09Shannon's talent and to sort of invite
07:11him into the big leagues in a sense so
07:13Bush wrote this very famous article
07:16called as we may think right which is
07:18sort of the history of the iPhone or a
07:20tablet or a whole bunch or though and
07:22the web and a whole bunch of other stuff
07:24all rolled into a single paper which
07:25itself is phenomenal right but he does
07:28so he ends up getting a job with with
07:30Bush I I was fascinated it you know by
07:33this description cuz it goes back to
07:35being talented in many things like Bush
07:37had this whole philosophy of engineering
07:39that was deeply and he was running he
07:41was like a Dean at MIT so he was in
07:42charge of a lot of stuff and so he was
07:44he didn't believe in like the pure
07:46theory but he also didn't believe in
07:48sort of the pure mechanical he had this
07:51bizarre view of at the time of like sort
07:53of how do you think with your hands yeah
07:55and he had a great example when he was
07:57constructing this different she'd
07:58analyzer he said he was working with a
08:00pretty not very well schooled mechanic
08:03to actually build this thing he said by
08:05the end of the process of putting this
08:07thing together this mechanic had pretty
08:09much learned the basic concept of
08:10calculus he didn't really get it on an
08:12intellectual level but he knew it with
08:13his hands he got it in his bones because
08:15Bush and the machines that he built were
08:17all about analog processes about acting
08:20out differential equations about
08:22thinking about how to make things
08:24through the act of building you know
08:25Bush said that he was never really more
08:27than a you know second-rate mathematical
08:29brain but he was a great builder and a
08:30great organizer and he was really
08:32someone who put those skills to use for
08:35for doing math for acting out math and
08:38and that was something that I think was
08:40a really key to what made him such an
08:42important figure in the field of
08:43computing I don't know that there's a
08:45figure in science at that time who was
08:47better as a mentor for Claude Shannon
08:50than venire Bush just building on this
08:53essentially these analog purpose-built
08:55machines to solve problems and it's
08:58really hard for us to wrap our heads
09:00around what was going on but it was sort
09:02of like if you want to track the
09:03trajectory of a missile then you build
09:06like a bunch of metal that operates in a
09:08certain way and you spin wheels and the
09:10answer to the Mitchells reject or he
09:11pops out the other end but if you wanted
09:13to then do some weather forecasts the
09:15machine was irrelevant
09:17you'd have to completely rebuild it from
09:18scratch so it really wasn't the most
09:19practical machine but these are room
09:21sized computers huge nickel and fearsome
09:24things of gears and shafts a problem
09:26solving that an analog computer was
09:27doing was actually replicating what the
09:29problem looked like and then figuring
09:31out the solution so it did have to be
09:32rebuilt it broke constantly it was
09:35really frustrating people had to watch
09:36it 24 hours a day because it the bad
09:39things would happen if you didn't and
09:40like debugging it involved like you know
09:42filing more off of something right like
09:43adding a tooth in a gear or kind of and
09:46what I think is actually really neat in
09:48hindsight is Bush was was attempting to
09:51push his students including Shannon to
09:54build like the general-purpose version
09:56of this machine that could like solve
09:58any differential equation and if you
10:00kind of do an analogy today that's a lot
10:02like like people saying hey let's go
10:04solve general AI when all the grad
10:07students are using machine learning to
10:08pick out kitten videos and so they
10:10understand how to use machine learning
10:11for kitten videos but the idea of like
10:13you know figure out what videos to go
10:15find and look at and classify them and
10:17understand just seems really far off it
10:20gives much more optimism that generally
10:22I might be solved because if you were
10:24Vannevar bush you were just not getting
10:26closer to your general purpose
10:27differential engine until Shannon comes
10:29along and the really interesting part
10:31about that is that when you set people
10:32on to these general problems you can't
10:34necessarily predict where the solution
10:36is going to come from or what's going to
10:37be productive so what Bush is interested
10:39in is configuring like you said a a
10:42general purpose analog computer that can
10:44reassemble itself on the fly and can use
10:45electrical relays to change the
10:48quantities of the various variables that
10:50shafts and gives representing and and
10:52Shannon takes us in a very different
10:54through his study of the electrical
10:56relays in the switching system when he
10:58realizes that this can really be
10:59combined with boolean logic and this is
11:02something that the Chris Dixon wrote in
11:03his great article about Shannon in the
11:04Atlantic where he said
11:06but Shannon figured out how to map logic
11:09boolean logic on to the physical world
11:11he did this because Bush sort of set him
11:13to deal with this problem in general
11:15computing it turned out to be hugely
11:17productive because Shannon along with
11:19Turing's paper in the same year is
11:21really laying the foundations for all
11:23the digital computers that come
11:24afterwards well it sounds like also that
11:26that was another example of you know one
11:28person who was skilled in many
11:30disciplines applying the different
11:32disciplines across them I mean he he
11:35understood boolean logic he understood
11:37math and calculus and he was a tinkerer
11:39hmm and Andy had actually worked at the
11:41phone company as well so we understood
11:43switches he studies logic as an
11:45undergrad he manages to work at the
11:46phone company he gets of an IVA Bush as
11:48a mentor and he works on the
11:50differential analyzer there is a bit of
11:51this that you feel like is almost kismet
11:53and these things logic and this switch
11:55is in the analyzer had been in the ether
11:57it took Claude Shannon to fuse them
11:59together so he comes through up with
12:01this sort of breakthrough notion of you
12:03know bringing together you know logic
12:05gates boolean logic circuits and it
12:08seems as amazing as this was it wasn't
12:10quite a leap to like the computer it was
12:13recognized almost immediately as a
12:15really important piece of work it won
12:16the Nobel Prize which was different in
12:18the Nobel Prize we had to point that out
12:20in the book which is an award for
12:21engineering papers so after he's done
12:23this amazing piece of work in the area
12:25of switching and logic Bush says to him
12:27oh no y-you go write your dissertation
12:28on theoretical JX now because why not
12:31once your Claude Shannon so Claude
12:33Shannon says okay and he goes off and
12:34does it and maybe it's possible that
12:35took him out of direct contact with that
12:37field at least for a temporary amount of
12:38time and then the war happens yeah it's
12:40really interesting because at this point
12:42everyone has taken to focusing on the
12:44needs of the war the War Department and
12:45he's decidedly apolitical and doesn't
12:49appear to be particularly religious or
12:51even dogmatic and anything other than
12:53his beliefs about math and engineering
12:55sorry one other thing he's very dogmatic
12:57about jazz music aren't we all how did
13:00that play in the environment he's in
13:03where you know people had fled from from
13:05Europe because of the war what was in
13:07his mind he did he care about the
13:09repercussions of technology or did he
13:11put aside the beliefs
13:13it absolutely played a role so this is
13:15actually a very hard time in call
13:17translate it's the cusp of the American
13:20into World War two he himself admits he
13:22doesn't want to do the draft
13:23he's a frail guy he likes to keep his
13:26own you know counsel his first marriage
13:28is collapsing and he has gone from MIT
13:31to Princeton's Institute of Advanced
13:33Studies where he's on fellowship and he
13:35doesn't quite know what's gonna come
13:37next and there's a very real risk that
13:38he had Strafford and sent overseas to
13:40fight and what he has now you know over
13:43the course of his undergrad and his
13:45graduate studies acquired some
13:46impressive mentors those mentors get him
13:49a wartime contract working at Bell
13:51Laboratories it spares him from the
13:53draft more importantly it puts him
13:55working on practical applications of
13:58mathematics and technology and not just
14:00practical we're talking the most
14:01practical his first project is on fire
14:03control which basically is how do you
14:06shoot things down from the sky yeah it's
14:07like an anti air control unit for a
14:10really fast shooting anti-aircraft gun
14:11not like fire flames but there's
14:14complicated mathematics that has to go
14:16into figuring out how you do that and do
14:18it at scale and it leads him to connect
14:20with many of the the senior figures at
14:23Bell Laboratories who are so impressed
14:25by his work that they are then able to
14:27pull him into the laboratories
14:28permanently the war is a I mean it
14:31changes the lives of everyone in that
14:32generation for Claude Shannon it leads
14:35him from fire control to cryptography
14:37which is an important development in his
14:39life but I I do think that in a way
14:42without the war I'm not sure that you
14:44get to the 1948 paper to the you get to
14:46the theory of communication because he
14:49he could well have gone in a completely
14:51different direction she was at Princeton
14:53and it's it's like good grief the guys
14:54in his 20s and he's hanging out with von
14:56Neumann with Morris with with Einstein
14:59we haven't filled our favorite Einstein
15:00story Claude Shannon is at the IAS in
15:02Princeton giving a lecture on something
15:04or other and halfway through the talk
15:06Einstein Einstein walks into the room
15:09and he sits for a couple of seconds and
15:11he leans over and whispers something to
15:12someone in the back row and he walks out
15:14again and then Shannon immediately f the
15:16lectures done like runs off the top said
15:18oh my god what does einstein think about
15:19my lecture he said oh he just want to
15:21know where the men's room was or the tea
15:23and cookies the pour the tea or they've
15:24got two versions of story I'd like a
15:26men's room one better because it's just
15:27that extra level then crypto comes up
15:29and so you know in hindsight he seemed
15:34or by some higher power uniquely
15:36qualified to go after cryptography you
15:39know the field was completely different
15:40when he started it back to analog
15:42differential machines and stuff like
15:44that in fact that like he worked on one
15:46of the early real-time systems you know
15:48sig Sally and that did not look like any
15:51computer that we ever would think of
15:53what did he do to change cryptography so
15:56there's a number of things I think it's
15:58worth also being you know it's worth
16:01sort of level setting where he's at in
16:03his life so he's just finished his
16:05graduate studies his first marriage has
16:08collapsed he it was a really emotionally
16:10difficult event he moves to the West
16:12Village in New York and he starts going
16:14to Bell Labs every day Bell Labs has
16:15gone from I think 3,000 employees to
16:179,000 employees and a lot of the
16:19employees in the office are wearing
16:20military uniforms and so this is a
16:22really tense time there's a lot of work
16:25to be done there basically everybody is
16:27working as six or seven day work week
16:28just until you know until the war ends
16:30and into this mix steps Claude Shannon
16:34with his knack for math with his boyhood
16:37fascination with codes and a kind of
16:40facility for code breaking and for code
16:42making and that's what he does for for a
16:45little while he focuses on how the u.s.
16:47can better encrypt the messages that
16:49it's sending to the Brits and he focuses
16:51on kind of understanding the
16:53fundamentals of cryptography he writes a
16:55famous a now famous paper that is
16:57classified for four years I believe is
16:59called a mathematical theory of
17:00cryptography and he proves the existence
17:03of a one-time pad the existence of an
17:05unbreakable code one of the more
17:07interesting elements of this work is
17:08that it puts him in touch with Alan
17:10Turing in in what is probably honestly
17:12my favorite chapter in the book he and
17:14Alan Turing are having tea every day
17:16Alan Terry's a little older than him at
17:18yeah but Alan - Alan Turing's on a
17:19billet from the the British government
17:21to make sure that what the US is doing
17:24in terms of the messages it's sending is
17:26is secure the birds were very suspicious
17:29that the u.s. just wasn't gonna get it
17:31right and so Alan Turing's at Bell Labs
17:33and Claude Shannon's at Bell Labs and
17:35these sort of two giants of computing
17:37meet and these are guys who don't make
17:39new friends easily become friendly and
17:42have tea every day it's just an
17:43incredible story it's amazing to me that
17:45all of this is happening is
17:46what is effectively a corporate lab
17:48mm-hmm and it is it's it's actually a
17:50testament to Bell Laboratories yes that
17:52that somebody like Shannon is a invited
17:55to be there in the first place because
17:56it's not like he has a specific job
17:57title he joins the mathematical research
17:58group and they basically go around
18:00cherry-picking the problems that they
18:01would like to solve and they don't have
18:03to do anything they don't want to do
18:04well there the phone company it's true
18:07it helps to have a government monopoly
18:08government back monopoly but the truth
18:11is that he has he is this extraordinary
18:12mentor and the head of that department
18:14in Thornton Frey who realizes that there
18:18are a bunch of academic mathematicians
18:20who don't want to stay in academia and
18:22you don't really know what to do with
18:24them and he sort of says well if you
18:26invite them in and attach them to
18:28engineers attach them to physicists they
18:31they can help they can they can sort of
18:32amplify and help solve problems and so
18:35Claude Shannon is one of these sort of
18:36flexible problem solvers so Bell brings
18:39people I came in the second thing that
18:40Bell does it's like you know companies
18:42have newsletters today they have blogs
18:43today Bell is publishing a full academic
18:46performance of the 20th century and
18:48these are our rigorous papers
18:49distributed around the country
18:50University researchers read them and it
18:53really is a hallmark of that that era
18:55that someone like Claude Shannon who you
18:57know by day is working on cryptography
18:59on the coloration of wires for the phone
19:02for the phone service is also in a place
19:04where he can write a 77 page paper that
19:07you know developed an entire field from
19:08scratch so now we're post-war and we're
19:11back to Shannon going on to solve even
19:14bigger problems and the notok notion of
19:16communication comes up and it's it's at
19:19this point it was still rather primitive
19:20I think like the idea of like wow the
19:23signal doesn't make it from point A to
19:24point B means like increase the
19:26amplifier make it louder and if we all
19:29know from the dinner table screaming
19:30doesn't make your point get across but
19:32even the very notions of signal noise
19:34all of these haven't really been formed
19:36yet right the solution to noise the
19:38solution to a noisy Channel or
19:40distortion was just to talk louder root
19:42forcing the problem and Shannon
19:45discusses ways to get around that by
19:46talking smarter and encode but this
19:49breakthrough seems it's not like others
19:51because you know the problem goes back
19:52to the 1890s and the Telegraph and he
19:55himself had sort of been formulating it
19:57over this 10-year journey of
20:00of thinking about it yeah he actually
20:02wrote a note to Tiffany of her Bush
20:05first suggesting that he was working on
20:08this that the theory that all messages
20:11are all communications were essentially
20:12the same this is ten years before he
20:14ever publishes the paper it is kind of
20:16interesting to think of this idea like
20:18marinating in his brain as he's
20:20traveling through different parts of his
20:21life you have an important point is that
20:24he takes it takes 10 years for these
20:26things to crystallize we tend to want
20:29very quick reactions to things we think
20:32you know the moment our tweet goes up
20:34but if it if it doesn't get responded to
20:36oh god what have I done
20:37for clutchin and this was ten years
20:39often working at night and on the
20:41weekends thinking pondering writing
20:43things down scribbling and then
20:44eventually coming back and and dropping
20:46a theory that when it was announced
20:48people said it came like a bomb yeah
20:50that's actually to me it's just very
20:52refreshing to hear like there's a moment
20:54but it also took many many years
20:56sometimes history has a tendency to tell
20:57everything like it happened on Tuesday
21:00and then the paper gets published but
21:02what was the big assumption that he made
21:04in his theory of communication that that
21:06really sort of changed everybody's mind
21:08I'd say there are a few things a lot of
21:10the history of information up to Shannon
21:12was this question of abstraction how can
21:14we get away from the meaning that any
21:16message has and think about messages in
21:18a more objective way how can you measure
21:20the information content for message and
21:22Shannon's predecessors people like
21:24Nyquist and Hartley had been sort of
21:26grow up into a solution to this problem
21:27has had many others in the field but it
21:30did Shannon who really comes up with the
21:31final formulation of how do you quantify
21:33information what does it even mean to
21:35say how much information is in a book
21:36how much information is it a song how
21:38much information is in a video or so on
21:40and and what Shannon does in introducing
21:43the bit which he starts off calling the
21:45binary digit before one of his
21:47colleagues comes up with betas a good
21:49abbreviation but what Shannon does is he
21:51talks about how we can think about
21:52information as resolve uncertainty I
21:55know we can think about information
21:57probabilistically and now we can use
22:00these tools to actually calculate
22:02information in a really objective way
22:03and once we do that once we can actually
22:05do hard science with our messages that
22:08enormous Lee simplifies the problems of
22:10compression and accurate communication
22:13first step getting past that semantic
22:16level and getting to the objective
22:18quality of information I think that's
22:21key in the whole paper you know we do
22:24look back and go like the bit came out
22:26of the paper at the time was that like
22:29viewed as sort of a key innovation or
22:31when people had the elevator
22:32conversation about the paper what was
22:34the elevator conversation that he had
22:36set some outer limits for what engineers
22:39would would try to do that the paper was
22:42a model of clarity and consistency I'm
22:51and that he had done it all without
22:53anyone knowing that he had no
22:55collaborators of any of any kind and
22:58that it was published in two sections
23:00within the Bell technical journal the
23:02Bell systems technical journal what we
23:05take from the paper only starts to
23:07matter in the 80s and so at the time
23:10this was still a discussion very much in
23:12theory but the power and force of his
23:15theory was it was immediately seen one
23:18of my the things I loved that I didn't
23:19know was that the two first two papers
23:20were called a mathematical theory of
23:22communication and then when he went to
23:24write his own book he changed it to the
23:27mathematical theory of communication
23:29what actually transpired in the interim
23:33there when he must have gotten some
23:34pretty good feedback on it you know this
23:36isn't just a theory it is the theory
23:37that he had stumbled on the big one the
23:40other thing is the I think also the
23:42intervention of Warren Weaver who comes
23:43on as Shannon's a co-author for the book
23:45who is sort of a science popularizer and
23:48he's also someone who's very like Bush
23:51he probably doesn't describe himself as
23:53having a first-rate scientific mind but
23:55he's someone who loves literature he
23:56collects translations of Alice in
23:57Wonderland he supposedly can identify a
24:00wine varietals by tasting so he's a sort
24:02of Renaissance man and he comes on
24:04encouraging Shannon take this to press
24:06and writing a section of the book that's
24:09sort of a laypersons explanation of what
24:12information theory is people think that
24:14we were in some ways as a Co Ridge
24:15native theory and he was always in a
24:17hurry to downplay that and to say no I
24:18just was the popularizer one of the
24:20things interesting too is that you know
24:22he's 32 when he writes the paper in 1948
24:26all along people like Weaver played an
24:28important role in helping him like
24:30basically finish his work he was very
24:33careful about the people that he let
24:35into his orbit so part of that is this
24:36he was a natural introvert and he you
24:38know kind of kept his own he sort of
24:40kept to himself but his friends were
24:43just brilliant people in 1948 after the
24:46paper is published probably the most
24:48significant person in Shannon's life
24:49enters his life that is Eddie Moore who
24:52is actually her title is computer she is
24:55a computer at Bell Labs and what that
24:57meant was that she was helping engineers
24:58do math she herself was a Phi Beta Kappa
25:01graduate of what isn't what was in
25:03Douglas Women's College what does not
25:04Rutgers she's got a lot of talent she
25:06publishes herself she's a musician and
25:08Shannon Shia though he is like starts
25:11talking to her they start dating and
25:12they're their match right away people
25:15just understand that when they're
25:17together there's a different kind of
25:18connection and they connect
25:20interpersonally but they also connect
25:21mathematically she does help him
25:23complete his work Shannon was the kind
25:25of person who would see solutions in his
25:27head and so he would think about
25:28problems and then see the end state and
25:30he wasn't actually that interested in
25:32like explaining to other people how he
25:34got to that end state and I guess when
25:36you're a smartest College Shannon you're
25:37kind of allowed to get away with that
25:38but Betty Shannon understood that in
25:40order for Claude Shannon to have the
25:42kind of impact he was going to have the
25:43work would need to get finished so she
25:45would actually sit with him a lot of his
25:46earliest papers are in her handwriting
25:48and she would she would do the math you
25:51do the intervening math she would
25:52challenge him she would include
25:55historical references letter or literary
25:57references in papers and she never got
26:00any credit for this and hopefully you
26:03know our work starts to restore that a
26:04bit but but Betty Shannon is one half of
26:06what I think of as like one of the great
26:08creative partnerships of the 20th
26:09century yeah I think that's I mean I
26:11think that that's just a fantastic point
26:12is certainly part of the times we
26:14learned we know the same thing about
26:16Pierre Marie Curie and the same thing
26:19about Einstein and maleva and and so on
26:21amazing foundation gets laid and this
26:24career he won many awards that he'd ever
26:26seemed to seek out in his later years he
26:29ended up meeting like many of the
26:31progeny of the computing era at one
26:34point he ends up meeting Steve Jobs how
26:38so this is a story that was relayed to
26:40us by by Claude Shannon's daughter and
26:43it's a it's an extraordinary moment
26:45they're both Steve Jobs and Claude are
26:47the recipients of honorary degrees from
26:50the University of Pennsylvania and after
26:52the when is this I believe it's the
26:541980s after the ceremony's over the
26:56peoples were milling about the quad and
26:58if you can imagine Claude Shannon at
27:01this point by the 80s because his work
27:03has started to actually be implemented I
27:06mean he's won a national medal he's a
27:07revered figure so there's a crowd around
27:10him people want to shake his hand people
27:11want to be around him and Steve Jobs is
27:14well known but not as well-known as he
27:16is now and so Steve Jobs actually has to
27:20he goes into this throng of people and
27:22elbows his way into this audience with
27:24Claude Shannon and he has to he has to
27:26try to meet Claude not the other way
27:27around so he gets up to him any shakes
27:29his hand and he says you know dr.
27:30Shannon is a real it's a real honor to
27:32meet you you know my my name is Steve
27:34Jobs I work at Apple Computer and
27:35Shannon looks at him and says that's
27:38great Steve it's nice to meet you what
27:39do you do at Apple and it's it's
27:41incredible moment Steve Jobs actually
27:44he assembles an apple - and sends it to
27:47Claude so they have one of the only
27:48Apple twos I guess that was assembled by
27:50Steve Jobs himself and it's a real point
27:52of pride later for them it's a kind of
27:54funny moment in computing history that
27:56these two giants met but I really wanted
27:58to pull a couple of quotes about him
28:00from the book because I I found them
28:02just so telling and also to help us to
28:04reflect on our own culture you know one
28:07person said he never argued his ideas if
28:09people didn't believe in them he just
28:11ignored those people so that has that
28:14that sort of Silicon Valley feel to it
28:17right he as Jimmy was saying that
28:19Shannon was the sort of person who was
28:20really occupied with doing interesting
28:22things whether it was tinkering his
28:25workshop or thinking through interesting
28:26math problems and if you weren't gonna
28:28support that he would very politely
28:30excuse himself and he'd go back to his
28:31office and work on whatever he was
28:33working on or he'd start day you and
28:34cycling down the hallway to get away
28:36yeah I love the unicycling only because
28:37that seems to have roots in PC era as
28:40well Claude Shannon to my mind one of
28:43the most interesting things about him is
28:44he just spends his entire life pursuing
28:47the problems that interest him most and
28:49then the moment that he's taken them as
28:52to take them he goes on and chases a
28:54different problem so it's interesting
28:56right because he could have continued to
28:58trade on information theory for decades
29:01he had the opportunity to be a
29:02scientific celebrity he was in he was
29:04profiled in Vogue magazine I mean he had
29:06a dapper suit and everything the
29:07cigarette the whole deal and he just he
29:10sort of walks off the stage but pursues
29:12artificial intelligence then pursues
29:14robotics goes and builds a chess-playing
29:16machine builds an artificially
29:18intelligent mouse that can navigate a
29:20maze i what I find inspiring about him
29:22is this is someone who had lucrative
29:25prestigious options and almost always
29:28went for the problem that interested in
29:30most well I really want to thank you so
29:33much for for joining us
29:34and so this was Jimmy Soni and Rob
29:36Goodman co-authors of a mind at play
29:38how Claude Shannon invented the
29:39Information Age thank you very much for
29:41being here thanks this is great yeah
29:42thank you for having us
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