Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025
Purchase options and add-ons
How did we build large language models? How do they think, if they think? What will the world look like if we have billions of AIs that are as smart as humans, or even smarter?
In a series of in-depth interviews with leading AI researchers and company founders—including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever, MIRI cofounder Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—Dwarkesh Patel provides the first comprehensive and contemporary portrait of the technology that is transforming our world.
Drawn from his interviews on the Dwarkesh Podcast, these curated excerpts range from the technical details of how LLMs work to the possibility of an AI takeover or explosive economic growth. Patel’s conversations cut through the noise to explore the topics most compelling to those at the forefront of the field: the power of scaling, the potential for misalignment, the sheer input required for AGI, and the economic and social ramifications of superintelligence.
The book is also a standalone introduction to the technology. It includes over 170 definitions and visualizations, explanations of technical points made by guests, classic essays on the theme from other writers, and unpublished interviews with Open Philanthropy research analyst Ajeya Cotra and Anthropic cofounder Jared Kaplan.
The Scaling Era offers readers unprecedented insight into a transformative moment in the development of AI—and a vision of what comes next.
- ISBN-101953953557
- ISBN-13978-1953953551
- PublisherStripe Press
- Publication dateOctober 8, 2025
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.25 x 2 x 9.25 inches
- Print length248 pages
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Frequently bought together

Deals on related products
Customers also bought or read
- The Origins of Efficiency#1 Best SellerManufacturing Industry
Hardcover$25.30$25.30Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley
Hardcover$13.35$13.35$3.99 delivery Mon, Jun 8 - The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn#1 Best SellerInformation Theory
Hardcover$24.64$24.64Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software
Hardcover$20.50$20.50Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
Hardcover$15.02$15.02Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - The Making of Karateka: Journals 1982-1985 (Mechner Journals Series)
Paperback$16.99$16.99Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People
Hardcover$18.64$18.64Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building
Hardcover$18.97$18.97Delivery Jun 10 - 15 - An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management#1 Best SellerEngineering Project Management
Hardcover$25.96$25.96Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence#1 Best SellerSocial Aspects of Technology
Hardcover$21.45$21.45Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
Hardcover$24.01$24.01Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future#1 Best SellerPolitical Economy
Hardcover$26.09$26.09Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - What Is Intelligence?: Lessons from AI About Evolution, Computing, and Minds (Antikythera)
Paperback$22.02$22.02Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love#1 Best SellerJob Hunting & Career Guides
Hardcover$21.00$21.00Delivery Jun 9 - 12 - The Book of Elon: A Guide to Purpose and Success
Just releasedPaperback$17.70$17.70Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Focus: The ASML way - Inside the power struggle over the most complex machine on earth
Paperback$26.99$26.99Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Hardcover$16.83$16.83Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - AI Systems Performance Engineering: Optimizing Model Training and Inference Workloads with GPUs, CUDA, and PyTorch
Paperback$71.50$71.50$3.99 delivery Jun 12 - 17 - Machine Decision Is Not Final: China and the History and Future of Artificial Intelligence
Paperback$27.87$27.87Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means
Hardcover$17.13$17.13Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (The Graz Schumpeter Lectures)
Paperback$13.72$13.72Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III
Just releasedHardcover$19.95$19.95Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
Hardcover$24.00$24.00Delivery Fri, Jun 5 - The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State
Hardcover$26.84$26.84Delivery Fri, Jun 5
From the brand
Stripe Press
-
-
New & Forthcoming
-
Business & Management
-
Economics & History
-
Ideas & Innovation
-
Science & Technology
From the Publisher
Distilled conversations with top AI researchers and leaders.
“Dwarkesh has done a whole series of excellent video interviews with top AI researchers and engineers, and this book is a great distillation of those conversations to help people understand modern AI models, how they are built, where they are headed, and why they are important.”
—Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research
Quotes for the history books.
“Dwarkesh’s interviews are full of quotes that will be in history books.”
—Byrne Hobart, investor, consultant, and author of The Diff and Boom
More informative than using a newly released LLM.
“There’s only one test relevant for an artifact about AI: Would you learn more from reading it than you would from using a newly released LLM for the equivalent amount of time? The Scaling Era handily passes.”
—Patrick McKenzie, author of Bits About Money and host of Complex Systems
About the author
Dwarkesh Patel is the host of Dwarkesh Podcast, where he produces deeply researched interviews with both obscure intellectuals and the most influential figures of our time.
About the editor
Gavin Leech is the cofounder of Arb Research, a consultancy that does empirical work, conceptual work, and forecasting on spec in various fields. He has a PhD in AI.
About the publisher
Stripe Press publishes ideas for progress in science, technology, and economics. Our collection includes new ideas from emerging and established thinkers and industry leaders, as well as reimagined editions of enduring works. We curate our titles for a global audience of builders and practitioners who are shaping the future of policy and industry.
Stripe Press is based in South San Francisco, with team members across the US and in London. We are a part of the global payments infrastructure company Stripe.
Recent titles by Stripe Press:
- Boom by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber
- Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles T. Munger and Peter D. Kaufman
- Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson
Editorial Reviews
Review
—Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research
“There’s only one test relevant for an artifact about AI: Would you learn more from reading it than you would from using a newly released LLM for the equivalent amount of time? The Scaling Era handily passes.”
—Patrick McKenzie, author of Bits About Money and host of Complex Systems
“Dwarkesh’s interviews are full of quotes that will be in history books.”
—Byrne Hobart, investor, consultant, and author of The Diff and Boom
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Stripe Press
- Publication date : October 8, 2025
- Language : English
- Print length : 248 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1953953557
- ISBN-13 : 978-1953953551
- Item Weight : 1.22 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 2 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #19,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Related products with free delivery on eligible orders
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon

















