Get Vaclav Smil on Dwarkesh Podcast

Vaclav Smil has written 51 books, is Bill Gates's favorite living author, and famously refuses almost every interview request. He doesn't do podcasts. He doesn't do press tours. He lets the books speak for themselves. That's exactly why this page exists — to collectively show Smil that thousands of people want him to make an exception for Dwarkesh Patel, the 26-year-old interviewer who has become the most respected long-form voice in tech by out-preparing hosts three times his age.

This isn't a casual booking request. It's a case that needs to be made — and the case is strong:

• Dwarkesh has publicly asked his audience for guest suggestions multiple times. Smil is the white whale.
• Dwarkesh's best episodes — Dario Amodei, Terence Tao, Tyler Cowen, Gwern — work because he matches his guests' depth. Smil would be the ultimate test of that.
• Smil has two books in the last 12 months: How to Feed the World (March 2025, endorsed by Bill Gates) and Speed (Nov 2025, US paperback June 2, 2026)
• In a rare July 2025 interview with RealClearScience, Smil at 81 was as sharp and contrarian as ever — dismissing the fertility "crisis," challenging nuclear optimists, and refusing to name a "right" population for Earth

Here's the tension that makes this conversation essential: Dwarkesh's audience worships exponential curves, AI scaling laws, and techno-optimism. Smil has spent fifty years arguing that the physical world doesn't care about your growth projections — that civilization runs on steel, cement, ammonia, and fossil carbon, not software.

Nobody else can force that reckoning with the same data, the same authority, and the same magnificent stubbornness. Every vote on this page is a signal to Smil that this audience is worth his time. Make it count.