Introducing Delphi
What if you could talk to your role models?
28 January, 2023
“My hope is someday -- when the next Aristotle is alive -- we can capture the underlying world view of that Aristotle in a computer and someday, some student...will be able to ask Aristotle a question and get an answer.”
Growing up, my parents would always tell me to figure things out on my own (I’m sure my fellow first-gen readers can relate). Both of them immigrated to the US during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, so self sufficiency was their only option, and it was a value they wanted to impart on me. I don’t blame them for it - if anything it made me stronger! But it also prevented me from ever seeking out a mentor.
Instead, I turned to books & the internet. The author or protagonist of every book, blogpost, video, or podcast became manifestations of the mentors I had always wanted. While I’ve never actually spoken to the majority of these "mentors," they have resided in my mind, guiding decisions and choices that I make on a day-to-day basis.
In Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss describes each successful person as a friend that you can revisit for any challenge, as they’ve already faced it. Whatever goal you are trying to achieve or problem you are trying to overcome, it is likely that someone at some point in history has been where you are, has navigated the associated trials and tribulations, and come out the other side with a fresh set of eyes and the benefit of hindsight. A “titan” can steer you away from common pitfalls so you don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Most of the best information out there is siloed away in the brains of such people, who are difficult to access or long gone. While the information that informs such expertise is often widely available on the internet, humans do not have the mental ability to filter through thousands of books, podcasts, and YouTube videos to find the most relevant piece of content. It’s too much information for anyone to digest, and it is not tailored to meet the nuances and circumstances of each person.
If we were to leverage this collective hive-mind of knowledge and experiences, we could create a “Waze for Life”. Imagine inputting a starting point (where you’ve been) and a destination (your goals/where you want to go), and getting the shortest, most-effective path to that destination, while avoiding “potholes” and “police officers” that many others already encountered.
Perhaps the hivemind is not enough. Wouldn’t this just be a more personalized Google? When I contrast my experience of learning through reading to that of learning through engagement with professors during office hours or Keith Rabois at OpenStore Engineering lunches, it becomes obvious that two-way dialogue 10x's your ability to grasp new ideas and grow. The best learning is accelerated by people.
This concept goes all the way back to the Greeks. Greek philosophers made money tutoring the children of aristocrats, the most popular of which being Aristotle and his disciple, Alexander the Great. Today, there’s only one known education method that can routinely raise a student’s performance by two standard deviations, and that’s 1:1 tutoring with experts.
The issue is the average household cannot afford continuous 1:1 sessions with experts. These experts, including CEOs, teachers, authors, and coaches, are "scarce" in time. They have some combination of skills, experience, and knowledge that makes their presence incredibly high in demand; thus, their time has become a luxury good exclusively available to those with the money or network to access it.
What if such experts could scale their leverage infinitely, beyond the constraints of time, so that more people could benefit from their knowledge and experiences?
There are products that save money. There are products that make money. There are many products that save time, but there are few products that create time.
Creating time would help both sides of the supply and demand curve. Creating time for people of high demand allows them to do more with less, and allows consumers to access intellectual capital that might otherwise be limited to a select few.
Delphi is a digital cloning platform that makes the knowledge and experiences in people’s minds available to everyone, enabling users to get personalized advice from those who have already achieved their version of success.
Imagine a more direct & personalized Masterclass. What if you could get startup advice from Paul Graham? Negotiation strategies from Chris Voss? Well, now you can.
Delphi creates time by allowing these people to create digital clones of themselves to scale their time & influence, so that a wider audience can access their knowledge & insights, in a more personalized way.
Our mission is to help people grow, learn, & achieve their goals by providing access to personalized mentorship & allowing the brightest minds to scale their time infinitely. We hope to enable 1-1 learning at scale, akin to that described in Neal Stephenson’s Illustrated Primer, but for all ages.
If you’re interested in creating a clone of yourself, a family member, or an employee, please book a time with me here. Twitter DMs are also open for further discussion!