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First Principles

First Principles

By: First-Principles Podcast
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Summary

 First Principles is the podcast that deconstructs the complex, invisible systems shaping our modern world. Ever wonder how a social media algorithm works, how AI really thinks, or how GPS knows your exact location? Each episode, we break down one concept from its fundamental truths, giving you clarity without the technical jargon. If you're curious about the tech you use every day and want to finally understand it, this is your starting point.First-Principles Podcast Nature & Ecology Science
Episodes
  • EP60 - AlphaFold and the Origami of Life: Solving Biology’s Grandest Puzzle

    EP60 - AlphaFold and the Origami of Life: Solving Biology’s Grandest Puzzle
    May 1 2026
    For fifty years, biology faced a paradox that stumped the world’s brightest minds: how does a simple one-dimensional string of genetic code instantly fold into a complex three-dimensional machine? This episode deconstructs AlphaFold, the AI breakthrough that cracked the code, revealing how geometric deep learning and evolutionary history are rewriting the future of medicine.
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    24 mins
  • EP59 - The Universal Eye: How AI Learned to See

    EP59 - The Universal Eye: How AI Learned to See
    Apr 24 2026
    We treat it as magic when an AI looks at a photo of a refrigerator and invents a recipe, but how does a text model process light? This episode deconstructs the Vision Transformer and the shared latent space, revealing how engineers taught language models to read reality itself.
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    17 mins
  • EP58 - Racing the Light: Deconstructing High-Frequency Trading and the Physical Limit

    EP58 - Racing the Light: Deconstructing High-Frequency Trading and the Physical Limit
    Apr 17 2026
    We often imagine the stock market as a chaotic floor of shouting traders, but the real action happens in silent server farms at speeds closer to the speed of light than human reaction time. This episode dismantles the black box of High-Frequency Trading to reveal how fiber optics, microwave beams, and customized silicon are waging a war against the absolute boundaries of physics.
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    29 mins
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