Infinite Loops Episode 297: Tomás Pueyo — Explaining the World Through Geography, History and Data

Date: January 15, 2026

Host: Jim O'Shaughnessy

Guest: Tomás Pueyo

Overview

In this insightful episode, Jim O'Shaughnessy is joined by Tomás Pueyo, a French-Spanish writer, engineer, and entrepreneur, best known for his viral essays during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic ("The Hammer and the Dance"). The discussion ranges widely, exploring why humanity struggles with exponential growth, how geography shapes national destinies, the evolution of governance and democracy, the future of status and education in an AI-driven world, and the looming social and economic transformations brought by rapid automation. Layered with rich anecdotes and thought experiments, the conversation probes both the "hardware" (geography, resources) and "software" (culture, law, narratives) that drive societal outcomes.

Key Themes & Insights

1. Human Intuition vs. Exponential Growth

• Humans struggle to grasp exponential change: Our evolutionary psychology leaves us ill-equipped to intuitively understand compounding and nonlinear phenomena.
  • "[...] I don't think we've evolved in a world where anything grows exponentially. We have a sense of linear growth, maybe exponential growth in, for example, what fruit flies like, how they reproduce themselves, things like that, but very, very few otherwise. And so I don't think we have an intuition at all." — Tomás (01:34)
• Compounding shapes investing and society: The inability to internalize compounding affects everything from VC investment strategies to public policy.

2. The Power (and Limits) of Mathematical and Probabilistic Thinking

• Deterministic minds in a probabilistic world: Most people think deterministically but live amidst uncertainty.
  • "We are deterministic thinkers living in a probabilistic world and tragedy or hilarity often ensue." — Jim (04:04)
• Power Laws and Arbitrage in Venture Capital: VC portfolios rely on the rare, outsized successes, creating overlooked profitable companies outside VC interest (05:21).

3. The COVID-19 Essays and the Surreal Effects of Going Viral

• 'The Hammer and the Dance' Impact: Tomás describes his sudden emergence as a global voice during the pandemic, advising government leaders with little epidemiology background.
  • "I had all of three weeks of experience in the field of epidemiology. And I find myself talking with presidents of governments and advising them in their, in their epidemiological strategy, which is freaking nuts." (10:20)
• Experiencing virtual vs. real life fame: The dissonance between online influence and home life (11:34).

4. Democracy, Governance, and the Information Age

• Modern governance is outdated: The current system was built for an era of limited information flow.
  • "We're now living in a world where you could send gigabytes of information every day... but you don't need to elect people anymore if you have this information and... a coordination mechanism to aggregate all this information..." — Tomás (13:04)
• Crowdsourced decision-making models: There's potential to evolve beyond narrow representative democracy to richer, more participatory forms (17:20–21:05).

5. The Power (and Pitfalls) of Narrative in Policy and Social Change

• Changing minds through narrative: Leaders often underestimate their potential to shift public opinion using stories and emotion, especially in crisis (17:20).
  • "You can do a lot more than that. Now, I think what you say makes a lot of sense from a storytelling perspective, because you're saying, hey, I'm going to use conflict." — Tomás (18:35)
• Juries and citizen panels as bridges: Experiments show that given unfiltered information, regular citizens often make wise decisions (15:38).

6. Geography as "Hardware," Culture and Law as "Software"

• Geography shapes national destinies: The US enjoys unparalleled geographical advantages.
  • "Most people don't realize that the US geography is probably the best in the world bar none... the Mississippi river basin has more than half of the world's naturally navigable waterways... transportation is the single biggest driver of wealth." — Tomás (48:31)
• Why some geographies struggle regardless of policy: Colombia or Ethiopia, with challenging terrain or disease, face deep structural challenges (54:15).

7. War, Competition, and Innovation

• War as a driver of progress: Competition, whether military or commercial, often produces breakthroughs (27:00).
  • "[...] competition spurs development... obviously you don't want the downside of war. So the question becomes, how can you keep the upside of war, which is all this competition, without the downside?" — Tomás (27:00)
• Network States and the importance of innovation in governance: Traditional countries lack incentive for improvement due to geographic monopolies; new forms of "network states" may introduce needed competition (23:38).

8. Status, Education, and the Great AI Disruption

• Education as signaling vs. substance: Much of higher education merely signals conformity and diligence, with little relevant skill development.
  • "The case is so overwhelming that most of education, not all, but most of education, is signaling you're not learning." — Tomás (38:04)
• Growing meritocracy through online platforms: Influencer culture, entrepreneurship, and AI-driven education could disrupt traditional avenues of status (44:19).
• The coming AI-driven job disruptions: Automation is poised to outpace job creation by orders of magnitude, with job destruction happening on the scale of years, not generations.
  • "The speed of destruction I think is going to be dramatically faster, dramatically faster. And it's not going to be fast enough for people to recycle and find another job." — Tomás (87:06)

9. Revisiting Universal Basic Income and Social Safety Nets

• "Retirement is UBI for the elderly": The best empirical test for UBI is retirement, and most people are satisfied with it.
  • "Retirement is UBI that starts at 65. Right. And do people love retirement? They fucking love it." — Tomás (91:22)
• UBI experiments are flawed due to scale: Scaling UBI to larger groups with higher unemployment may stress financial and social systems beyond precedent (92:36).

10. The Future of Influence and Leadership

• Media skills will define tomorrow's politicians: Future leaders will likely rise from social media, mastering both communication and crowdsourcing policies (73:45).
  • "I believe the future of politicians in the Western world is people who are going to be so, so good at media that they're going to create their own channels... and they're going to use that to have the power to take on politics." — Tomás (71:19)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We see lines when we zoom in, and we need to zoom out and see history for us to understand these exponential curves." — Tomás (01:34)
• "Venture capitalists are counting on power laws... they want that $20 million to at least be able to grow to $200 million." — Jim (05:21)
• "I found myself talking with presidents of governments... which is freaking nuts. I think it tells you a lot of the world and the type of the level of knowledge that is available to governments..." — Tomás (10:20)
• "One of the things we found is there are arbitrage opportunities... because your moat kind of is other VCs can't invest in that company..." — Jim (05:59)
• "Modern democracy is actually extremely narrow. We need a mechanism to aggregate all this information from so many places so that we can have better decisions." — Tomás (13:04)
• "Europe is not rich because it's European, it's rich because of the combination of just enough fragmentation to compete, and enough proximity to force constant advancement." — Tomás (27:14)
• "The narrative of socialism is beautiful... It just doesn't work." — Tomás (33:32)
• "Retirement is UBI for the elderly... the narrative around it makes people happy." — Tomás (91:22)
• "Future politicians will be those who master both communication and crowdsourcing of policy." — Tomás (75:48)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Exponential Growth and Human Intuition: 00:00–04:16
• Venture Capital, Power Laws, Arbitrage: 04:16–06:16
• Podcast Markets as Underserved Niches: 06:16–08:05
• Going Viral During COVID-19: 09:36–13:04
• Modern Governance and Next-Gen Democracy: 13:04–21:05
• Media, Technology, and Societal Change: 21:05–26:41
• Geography, Competition, and the Fate of Nations: 48:31–54:15
• Education, Status, and the AI Revolution: 36:00–46:07
• AI Disruption, UBI, and Social Safety Nets: 87:06–92:36
• The Future of Politics and Influence: 71:19–81:34
• Retirement as a Natural Test Case for UBI: 91:22–93:13
• Emperor for a Day: Tomás’s Two "Incepted" Ideas: 96:46–98:15

Tomás Pueyo’s "Emperor for a Day" Takeaways

• Idea 1: Regulation is just a tool—overuse hinders progress; unleashing technology and thoughtful capitalism is crucial for growth and happiness.
• Idea 2: Current representative democracy is primitive; we should innovate mechanisms that allow everyone to input information and participate meaningfully in decision-making.

Final Thoughts

This episode richly weaves history, economics, psychology, and technological foresight. Tomás Pueyo and Jim O'Shaughnessy unpack the deep structural—and often invisible—forces that determine nations’ destinies; ponder how digital technologies are reshaping governance, work, and status; and stress the urgency of adapting our political and economic systems for an age of rapid, compounding change.

For those seeking new frameworks to "upgrade their HumanOS" and make sense of our messy, probabilistic world, this conversation is a goldmine.