a16z Podcast - Vitalik Buterin on Human Agency in the AI Era

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Sophia Dew and Binji Pande speak with Vitalik Buterin about technology, human agency, and how the internet is changing the way people think, build, and relate to the world around them. Drawing from his writings and personal reflections, Buterin discusses how his worldview has evolved over the last decade, from creating Ethereum as a teenager to thinking more deeply about the social and philosophical implications of technology today. The conversation explores the idea of “sanctuary technology,” systems that provide safety and coordination without removing individual freedom or agency. They also discuss the changing relationship between humans and AI, the risks of over-relying on automated systems, and why actively learning and thinking for yourself may become even more important as AI capabilities improve. Along the way, Buterin reflects on creativity, community, identity, and the challenge of staying intentional in a world that increasingly pushes people toward autopilot.   Resources: Follow Vitalik Buterin on X: https://x.com/VitalikButerin Follow Sophia Dew on X: https://x.com/sodofi_ Follow Binji Pande on X: https://x.com/binji_x Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

One of the challenges of the world right now is that we're definitely in a less peaceful and less safe world than 10 or 15 years ago. The vision of safety that we're competing with is basically, oh, you know, let's trust the uncle in the sky. And the uncle in the sky is going to figure everything out for us in exchange for taking away all of our privacy and all of our agency. Crypto does not have the ability to fix the dollar. Crypto has the ability to create its own thing. that does not have some of the disadvantages that the dollar has. And each individual person is free to use it or free to not use it. I think in general there is this utter where you just have to force yourself to do things manually,

at least sometimes even though you don't have to, just to make sure that your brain stays on. Learning actively is just 10 times more effective than learning passively, even for the same amount of time spent. For years, the internet promised more openness, more freedom, and more agency. But as systems become more centralized and AI becomes more capable, those questions start to look different. The Talek-Budoran has spent much of the last decade

thinking about how technology can protect individual agency instead of replacing it, not by trying to control the entire world, but by creating spaces, what he calls sanctuary technologies, where people can coordinate, create, and think freely. At the same time, AI is changing how people, learn, work, and even reason.

The challenge is not just building more powerful systems, but making sure humans remain active participants rather than passive users. Sophia Doe and Binge Pande speak with Vitalik Boudarin about technology, freedom, and the future of human agency. Today, we're actually joined by Vitalik, who is the founder of Ethereum, and also a super prominent thinker. And one of the big reasons is we just love some. of the things that Vitalik actually talks about and shares about and through a lot of the digital

artifacts that he writes. And so this is actually an opportunity for us to unpack these digital artifacts even further. Unpack his blog posts, unpack his tweets and get to just know who he is, who you are, Vitalik. Thank you for joining us at a deeper level. But before we jump into some of the things that we're going to talk about, I just wanted to plug the Discord and X chat that we have. So we have an actual chat, and one of the things that we really want to do, Benji and I wanted to experiment in a whole new way and actually get more user interaction. And we didn't want to do just a regular interview with Vitalik. We wanted to actually unpack his advice, get to know his wisdom.

And then at the end, we'll have an opportunity here directly from the audience about situations you're facing and see how Vitalik reacts to them and get his actual advice on them, which I'm so excited for. So we pulled up a few questions, a few blog posts, a few tweets live from some of Vitalik's past writings, and we actually have them here today. So I'll pull this up in a second, but I'm really excited to unpack those a bit and talk them more through with you. Yeah. Hey, Vitalik. I think we're all live now. Yeah, Vitalik's already live here. Welcome. How is it going? How is Nomad Life Finn, by the way? I know you're still fully nomadic, right?

Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, I have not gone mad. So I guess that part has not been living up to the name, but that's probably a good thing. Yeah, yes, madding is for later. Indeed. Awesome. So should we pull up?

I mean, the whole concept here is, you've written so many interesting things across, like, AI, across, like, civilizations generally, and like tech, obviously Ethereum and whatnot. So we're just kind of pulling up some of the stuff that you've written in your blogs, which, Sabia and I have had the pleasure. Like, honestly, though, in the past three days,

we've been rereading your blogs and tweets and just trying to find nuggets out of them for this. So, yeah, we got a couple of these. Yeah, a decade ago, you were at the barely early stages of actually creating Ethereum. And now it's a decade later. And I'm so curious, how has your identity changed since then? I think when I wrote that,

the thing that I was writing before, right, It was sort of a rebuttal to people who argue that, you know, if we develop technology, it's don't let us live much longer than that might actually be a bad thing because life needs to be finite to have meaning, right? And my reply basically is, well, actually, if our lives are infinite, the, like everything around us, the situations that were in the people that were around, the kind of world that we're around. Everything changes so much over the course of 10 years

that as much as it's a continuous process, it almost might as well be a death and a rebirth. And so the world is finite. And actually, you know, the world is much more finite than even any of the individual people in it, right? Because any individual aspect of it is just changing. so quickly. And that's something I really did not appreciate it at the beginning, right? You know, as a teenager sort of growing up into the world, so many things felt permanent.

And as I got to age 25 and then eventually as I got to age 30, I would have looked back to myself five or ten years ago or the world five or ten years ago and I would actually have that reference point, right, of myself. being a sort of fully, you know, adults, fully conscious, fully, yeah, understanding what's going on in the world to, at least what I thought was a pretty high level. And I'd be able to notice just like the large differences between then and now, right? So maybe I could give one example, right, for the long-time crypto people, right?

So do you remember the quote that's inside the Bitcoin Genesis block? It's in 2009, January 3rd, the times on brink of second bailout for banks, right? When's the last time you thought about a bank bailout? Like, you know, it comes up sometimes, right? But it's like definitely 10 times less than it did in 2011, 2012, when it just defined how we think about crypto. The themes that we think about in terms of what's happening in the world, in terms of technology, even in terms of the way that we relate to other people. So, like, you know, you probably remember 10 or 15 years ago, like, it would be normal for people who are close friends but sometimes not talk to each other for days.

like doesn't that sound crazy? Like you would literally not talk to each other for days, right? It's like how? So you'll like get withdrawal symptoms. Doesn't like something break, right? And like, well, you know, before we had all of these always on communication devices, like that was the life that we lived in, right?

I mean, 20 years ago, I remember, it was possible to get lost in blocking around the city. Right? Like, even things is like as basic as that, right? And so much about the world has changed. And I think the other thing that happens as you grow, right, is like, you come to take on a role in the world, right? And in the first, about maybe 20 years of your life, you're sort of mostly, you know, you're a learner, you're a consumer. You're someone who's sort of playing games that other people set up for you.

And one of the big transitions that, you know, you get to as you grow up more is, you know, like, you get into more and more of a role of actually being the one that has to create and define and contribute to the games yourself, right? And, you know, these are just fundamental changes in attitude. They're fundamental changes in, you know, like how you think. fundamental changes in what you think the important problems are, what kinds of things keep you up at night. And it's, you know, if you just look back at it,

it really does look like you've almost moved to a different universe, right? And so I think this is, you know, like one of the reasons why, right? And like even if, you know, like we left a thousand years old. Like we're not going to get bored of the world, right? Like, you know, we're going to keep creating new worlds for ourselves. And, you know, like, I think that's a really fascinating.

And, like, also definitely sometimes sad, you know, sometimes, you know, you lose things that you miss. But, you know, like, also, like, if you're still a beautiful future of the world that we inhabit. Oh, that's so beautiful. No, you're so right. that's amazing. I think one of the things is like that that general piece of like as you get older, these moments like cumulatively grow into your whole self and sense of self and that like defines you is fascinating.

That's just true for everyone in the world. In your case, right, like it's like what keeps you up in night and what you push forward? Like you built Ethereum when you were 19 years old, right? Like you were fairly young. So for you was like this almost this speed run of responsibility in a way. And like just like this thing that birthed itself. And I think one of the things that's really interesting is like how your thinking around it evolves with you and how the community evolves with you and how a lot of like what this whole thing is also grows up. And I think there's definitely like interesting parallels across like everyone who's had an involvement in anything that they have brought into the world or just like a community that they are part of.

Yeah, and I think the biggest transition for me over the last 10 years was basically going from where I was at the beginning where I really felt like I was living most of my life on autopilot to like sometimes actually having this scary realization that like wait, at this moment there is no other pilot. And wait, like, there are individual situations that, like, actually require me to be a pilot and to go and, like, actually make big consequential decisions. And, you know, going back to even when I created this area, I even before, right? It's, like, I remember the process of myself dropping out of university. And actually, even that felt autopilot, right? Like, basically, yeah, what happens was that first I signed up for this, uh, co-op program where basically you're in university, but you get to alternate between a university terms and going to work for a startup.

And I decided that the startup I work for would be a crypto startup because I was already into Bitcoin. And so I signed up to take an officer working at Ripple. And then, you know, thanks to the wonders of U.S. immigration law, it turns out that for the category of peace I needed, the company needed to have existed for a year. and Rebel had only existed for nine months. And so they tried hard to find a way around it. Eventually, they gave up, right?

And then I, yeah, so instead I had an off term. And so my off term, well, I was also a Bitcoin magazine writer. And so I figured I would go around the world and just visit a couple of Bitcoin communities. Then I got into programming, and I realized that, like, there's like actually a lot of communities I need to see things I need to do. So I'm going to go and extend my off term to three off terms. And then a few months later, Ethereum started.

And actually, yeah, at the very beginning, the original form of Ethereum was a project that was a proposal to the developers of this project called MasterCoin for how they could meet their protocol more general purpose. And I sent it to them and they basically said like, hey, you know, well, it'll take a long time before we get to this. and I just realized, okay, I'm not going to wait so long, but I'll just do the thing myself, right? And then I started doing it, and even then, I still thought, okay, I'm only going to do this for a few months, then it'll be done, and then I'll go back to university, right? And then only in January, when I saw just how big the crowds were,

just how much of a huge amount of interest Ethereum had gotten, did I realize, like, wait, this is my new thing, I'm not going back, am I? And, you know, I kept autopiloting for, I think, a very long time, right? And in a lot of ways, like, the autopilot really comes at every level, right? I think the level of ideology is also a big one, right? Like, when I was younger, I would be kind of going off of these ideas from that other people wrote, 20 years ago, ideas like how

cryptography could protect freedom on the internet, for example. That's a very big one. Also, the importance of decentralized network, things like BitTorrent, the importance of open source software. Ideas that seemed appealing to me, but ideas that I was sort of gulping down from other people. And there was a moment in kind of the early to mid-2020s when I realized that so many of the scripts that, you know,

we were running on were just, outdated and I needed to like actually step up and like sort of be in the position that the 1990s cypherpunks were in when they started like originally wrote those words that I was passively gulping down when I was a teenager and actually really understand from first principles and like the place of crypto in the world the future of technology the challenges that we have and develop a philosophy from there. No, 100%. I think this is an open question that's been very interesting these days as well.

Yeah. And you even mentioned like the change from being on autopilot when you're maybe younger to now just being a lot more active. And I feel like it's almost the more challenging the world gets, the more our own want to just operate on autopilot. And I think that's one of the craziest things of this transition from childhood to adult is you start to realize, wait, there's not this magic person who's going to come save you. It's up to us to not be operating on autopilot and actually take agency and actually

act. And so I know this is like really prevalent now. I'm here in San Francisco. That's like one of the reasons that I get to do a little bit of the recording in person. And these conversations around like autopilot around hey, technology is moving really fast around do I just let it shape me and kind of like let it go or where it's going or how do I actually get involved? And you give really practical advice around the future of technology, especially around the future of AI, around the future of Ethereum. And what I love about your writing is you coin specific terms. And one of them is sanctuary technology. I have this quote here that you have around Ethereum should conceptualize ourselves as being part of an ecosystem building sanctuary technologies. I love this word,

sanctuary. And I would love to just unpack a bit more deeper. Why sanctuary? Why not open source? Why not decentralized? Sanctuary is, you know, stands for this place that protects you, protects you from danger. What ultimately was the reason that you picked this word to describe the technology that we're building? I think one of the challenges of the world right now is that We're definitely in a less peaceful and less safe world than we were in 10 or 15 years ago, right? And, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, you were worried about, you know, like, banks getting bailouts and potentially, you know, like, dollars inflating, right? And, you know, like 15 years later, it's like, well, on the one hand, the risk that the dollar is going to go crazy is, like, actually way more credible than it was. And on the other hand, there's like much worse things happening to people and even happening to like people that we know than that then just having your currency inflated.

Right. And you know, we're seeing all of these threats pop up in the cyber world, in the physical world, in terms of the social media landscape, for example, right? and the way that that has transformed into a sort of mimetic battlefield. And it's the kind of environment where, you know, it's not just about sort of, you know, roaming through the forest and making sure you're collecting all of the candy you can, right? It's like an environment where, like, before you did collect candy, you really need to make sure that you're sick, right? And the second part of all of this that I think is important is that there is a vision of safety that we're competing with, right? And the vision of safety that we're competing with is basically, oh, you know, let's trust the uncle in the sky and the uncle in the sky is going to figure everything out for us in exchange for, you know, taking away all of our privacy and all of our agency, right? And, you know, whether the uncle in the sky is, you know, like,

Palantir or some super intelligence AI company or some equivalent in, you know, like the foreign country of your choice, it's like there is this vision of safety that's, very disempowering. And I think the core idea of even the earlier version of all of this, which was Diak, right, is that we want to. to be safe and at the same time we want to be empowered. And, you know, we want something

that continues to keep us in control and continues to keep us at the center in a way where we have agency. And that's I think one of the things that, like, the word sanctuary does

a good job of capturing. Yeah. Could I agree more? One thing that I think that's interesting is like, as more and more and more of our life goes online to more and more we crave spaces of comfort. And sanctuary to me almost sounds like a place of comfort as I spend more and more of my time in this world. So I love that word. I think it's awesome choice.

Actually, there's one more aspect of it that I forgot to mention, right, which is that a sanctuary is not totalizing, right? A sanctuary is not the universe, right? a sanctuary is not a vision of safety that says that we're going to make you safe by transforming the entire world into something safer. And I think that itself is something that's sort of both more realistic and even more respectful of people's freedom than some of the other alternatives, right? And that's, I think, an approach that's just also fundamentally more native to the kind of work that crypto does, right? Where, you know, crypto does not have.

Like, crypto does not have the ability to fix the dollar. Crypto has the ability to create its own thing that does not have some of the disadvantages that the dollar has. And, you know, each individual person is free to use it or free to not use it. And so I think that's also one of the other nuances that, you know, you really want to capture. Ah, I love that. That's so beautiful. And I know we're kind of running out of time here, which is kind of a shame because we had so many beautiful quotes that we wanted to get through.

Like, I know I kindly peaked, but you had one that just was like, we, the humans are the brightest star, which I thought was just such a pretty quote as well. And I just like love the way that you shaped that. But before we close out, one of the big goals that we wanted to do is you clearly have so many nuggets of wisdom

that was so evident in your writing. But we wanted to give the audience an opportunity to also share about situations that they're facing and get a bit of your advice into what they're actually up to. So Vinci and I were collecting and polling people on Twitter about actual situations that they've been in. And we have a few. Vinji, want to share maybe one of the things that people have been saying,

and Vitalik would love to hear what you think. Yeah, I'm trying to get a good one. Okay, so like, I think one thing that's interesting, since we kind of talked about growing up and stuff, okay, someone said, I started using Claude for almost everything I write at work six months ago. My output is way up, but last week I had to give a verbal update in a meeting, and I noticed I couldn't think on my feet the way I used to. I'm wondering if I'm getting more productive or getting worse of thinking.

I guess the question he's kind of asking is like, how do you not let your brain erode away when you kind of start relying on these different systems to kind of accentuate it? Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, like almost since I was a kid, I've definitely forced myself to do more things by hands than I have to. Right.

Like I was the kid who in chemistry class would try to do the tests without a calculator. And, you know, that was crazy hard. And, you know, I had to memorize walk tables. And, you know, at the same time, it helped. Also, the same thing for navigating in cities, right? Like, this is why, like, I just fundamentally think, you know, like, walking is so much healthier than being in a car. Like, it's not even just the exercise, right? It's like, if you're in a car, you experience a city as a collection of teleport points, right?

And if you're walking, you have to, like, actually think about where you're going. And, like, the whole thing actually fits together. And, like, wow, like, it's like a grid and you can, like, move from one place to another place. And it follows a loss of geometry, right? And I think in general there is this pattern where you just have to force yourself to do things manually, at least sometimes, at least to some extent, even though you don't have to. Like even at the very least, just to make sure that your brain stays on. And like that's probably something that will only have to increase more as time goes on. like learning actively is just 10 times more effective than learning passively

even for the same amount of time spent. Yeah. Do you think that ultimately comes like an agency thing? Like you kind of have to start pushing yourself to have the agency to want to learn because it's so easy to defer to not wanting to learn, right? So easy for me to be like, I'll just create a chatbot. Then like do the work to think about something. Yeah, yeah, you definitely do.

Yeah, no, it seems like a lot of the themes from today's conversation was all around human agency. and how we as humans, one, should have agency and not be an autopilot, actually take agency over our lives. And then, two, how the technology that we build can continue to enable human agency. And this is not just something that we end up giving our brains off to some model to then do the work for us, but that we continue to be active in the driver's seat and active in shaping what we create. I know we are at time, which is kind of a bummer because I feel like if we had more time, there's so much more that we could continue unpacking and talking about.

But Vitalik, really grateful for you to join us today and join us for the first time here on MTS. And it was so lovely to learn a bit more about how your brain works, to how you're thinking about the future. And just a little bit call to action for all of us folks who want to get involved, see the world changing so fast, and want to make sure that we're active stewards in shaping how it evolves. So, Vitalik, thank you so much to be joining us. Yes, thank you, too, Benji. Thank you, Sophia. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, and share it with your friends and family.

For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify. Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our substack at A16Z.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see A16Z.com forward slash disclosures.