Date: November 1st, 2026 1:01 PM Author: json statham
Dario Amodei first attracted attention as a teenage physics student at Caltech. His professor, Tom Tombrello, considered him a “national treasure.” As a freshman, Amodei published research on telescope design and won an academic prize. Tombrello subsequently arranged a research internship at Schlumberger, where Amodei outperformed experienced postdoctoral researchers.
Tombrello began personally recruiting powerful technology figures on his behalf. In a 2010 interview, Tombrello described how he “put him up for bids.”
He contacted Elon Musk, comparing Amodei to Richard Feynman. Musk immediately approached Amodei about joining SpaceX and helping colonize Mars.
Tombrello also contacted Google co-founder Larry Page, who reportedly responded within an hour and assigned Sebastian Thrun the task of “capturing Dario.”
Tombrello later joked that he should have put Amodei up for auction on eBay.
Date: November 1st, 2026 1:05 PM Author: The Penis
Wow. Dude sounds smart as hell. Didn’t realize he had tech bros recruiting him so early, I knew he was unusually strong academically and was winning prizes his whole life
This is all the more reason we should take Anthropic seriously when they say they intend to build superintelligence as quickly as possible. This is a man with nothing to lose.