Entrepreneurship, apps, and the future of education (Part 1)

You are what you think (Part 2)

TechCrunch | Legendary scientist, inventor, futurist, and all-around tech icon Ray Kurzweil is at the ongoing South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, where today he headlined one of the event’s most highly anticipated keynote sessions. So we were very, very excited to be able to meet Kurzweil yesterday afternoon for an interview with TechCrunch TV.

I don’t know about you, but when I get the opportunity to sit down and chat with someone like Ray Kurzweil in his hotel suite, I basically stay and continue to ask questions until he or she kicks me out. We ended up with such a wide-ranging talk that we’re breaking it down into two segments. In this first half of our interview, watch Kurzweil discuss why we need more young entrepreneurs, how today’s consumer app landscape proves his Law of Accelerating Returns, how education is stuck in the 19th century, why privacy isn’t as big of a problem as we think, and lots more.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for part two of our interview, where we get Kurzweil’s insights on why it’s important for entrepreneurs to get some sleep once in a while, what neuroscience research he’s particularly obsessed with these days, and his favorite web applications, among many other things.

Kurzweil, of course, is the technology icon known among many other things for his Law of Accelerating Returns, which maintains that society is moving at exponentially increasing speed toward the “technological Singularity,” which is a time when human beings and artificially intelligent machines will sync up to push innovation forward at an unprecedentedly fast rate. We were delighted to have the opportunity to sit down with Kurzweil in Austin, Texas this week while he was attending South By Southwest Interactive — his first time at the conference.

There are so very many things to possibly discuss with Kurzweil, and I urge you to read his books and check out other interviews with him for a more complete look at the man and his ideas. We decided to use our brief time with Ray to get his insights on entrepreneurship and the current web/startup ecosystem — the world that TechCrunch and its readers live and breathe.

In the above video, Kurzweil discusses why sleep is so important (but it’s OK to party and program all night once in a while), why facts are better off on Wikipedia than being drilled into students’ brains, the neuroscience research he’s fascinated by right now, and how you are what you think.

Related:
TechCrunch | “Ray Kurzweil talks entrepreneurship, apps, and the future of education”
TechCrunch | “Ray Kurzweil: You are what you think”