Episode
David Sussillo (on foster care and neuroscience)
- Published
- Mar 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 6732
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
David Sussillo (Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind) is a technologist, neuroscientist, and professor at Stanford University. David joins the Armchair Expert to discuss growing up with two parents that were addicts, experiencing extreme poverty throughout his childhood, and the joy of finding a best friend during that time. David and Dax talk about how the immersion and rules of video games amid the chaos of his life became the precursor to his research today, ending up in a series of group foster homes for several years, and his dream of going to college functioning as a protective shield for his future self. David explains being orphaned by the living while in foster care, the elation of receiving a full ride to Carnegie Mellon to study computer science, and the deep learning neural network research he now leads at Stanford. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ Head to turbotax.com to find a store location near you and get matched with a TurboTax expert — with real-time updates in the iOS app. This episode is sponsored by AppleTV. Learn more at: https://tinyurl.com/mr2caw2c See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .