Paul Scherer wants to create an AI that brings us closer to each other. @paulscherer and @eigenhq are building a "mutual friend" for the world. Critically, the mutual part is more important than the friend part. Imagine the best "connector" you know -- the person who is emotionally intelligent, thoughtful, and always bringing people together. What if they could be friends with a million people, rather than a few hundred? And what if they were entirely focused on creating more belonging in the world? Modern social media--due to hyper-personalization and broken incentives--makes us feel more and more estranged from the people we care about. AI chatbots focus on engagement and can be anti-social. Paul and Eigen are aiming for a pro-social AI friend who is more concerned with helping deepen and widen your relationships than getting you to talk to it for longer. We discuss what all this might look like, the challenges of "growing" a new person that isn't a bad actor, and what it feels like to be a prodigious 22-year-old who Peter Fenton compared to the founders of last generation's great social media companies--all before he’s publicly launched a product. Timestamps: 1:13 - Intro to Paul 3:28 - Start: 'Momo', Presence, Friendship, and Time 11:10 - How the Internet Connects Us and Isolates Us, and Conflating Social and Media 25:12 - A Future Where We Talk to AIs 33:55 - Paul and Eigen are Building a Mutual Friend to Help Us Connect with Other Humans 48:01 - Why Do We Need a Mutual Friend? And Making a Friend We Can Trust 1:16:53 - Belonging, Building the team at Eigen, and Inventor as Outlaw 1:25:38 - Managing the Psychology of Being a Promising Young Founder 1:36:53 - Maintaining a High Bar, Fighting Entropy, and Influences 1:53:50 - Self-belief, Authenticity, Seeing the Water 2:10:30 - Courage, and a Final Question from a Mutual Friend 2:16:27 - Eigen Office Tour with Paul @DialecticPod 47: Paul Scherer - A Friend That Brings Us Closer - is out now on all platforms.