Episode
724 - Ryan Norbauer (Retro-futurist)
- Published
- May 19, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 6691
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/tangentially-speaking-with-christopher-ryan-1017483/episodes/724-ryan-norbauer-retro-futurist/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/tangentially-speaking-with-christopher-ryan-1017483/724-ryan-norbauer-retro-futurist.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Ryan is an aspiring underachiever. He’s worked for NASA, planned and conducted his own scientific research at the CDC, and served as a foreign affairs analyst/speechwriter in the British Parliament; he’s founded four companies and he’s published peer-reviewed scholarship in fancy-pants journals across two separate academic disciplines. All this misguided, insecure early-life ambition mostly just taught him how disappointing and anticlimactic status-driven accomplishments can be. (His words.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrisryan.substack.com/subscribe