Long Now Executive Director Alexander Rose and former Evernote CEO Phil Libin recently spoke with the design agency Dialogue about the layers of civilization, the future of products, and the Clock of the Long Now.
The interview is wide-ranging, covering everything from the early tech, design and science fiction influences in Rose and Libin’s childhoods to how Long Now’s pace layers theory helps reconcile the tension between long-term planning and Silicon Valley’s fast-paced approach to entrepreneurship and product innovation.
The interview also provides a look at a little-known chapter in Long Now’s history, namely, how Alexander Rose left a career in video games and virtual world design after hearing about The Clock Project:
Stewart told me about The Clock Project. Back then the project was just a conversation between Danny Hillis, Brian Eno, and Stewart, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head when I heard about it. By strange luck, there was a Board meeting a week after where I met Danny for the first time. It was then that he told me he had a funder for the first prototype of the Clock and asked if I wanted to help build it. I immediately said, “Yes, this is what I want to do. I don’t want to work on video games anymore.”
Read Dialogue’s interview with Alexander Rose and Phil Libin in full (LINK).
Watch Stewart Brand and Long Now board member Paul Saffo discuss the Pace Layers of Civilization in a 02015 Conversation at The Interval (LINK).
