Ankit Bhatia
Co-founder, CEO
- 2x founder, 2x podcaster, $14M+ raised
- Scaled Sapien to the #1 Ethereum dApp
- EECS, UC Berkeley
About dLogos
Dialogue, decided by everyone.
Fans name the guest and the show they want to hear, in public. Every vote carries a name, so a host can see exactly who is asking.
- X · replysomeone get Vitalik on Lex already
- YouTube · commentHuberman and Naval on attention. I would pay for this.
- Reddit · r/JoeRoganWhy does nobody ask Saylor the hard questions?
- X · quote postKathryn Haun on No Priors. Who audits the models?
- Spotify · commentMagnus Carlsen on Armchair Expert, please
- Discord · #guest-ideasGet two people who disagree on AI risk in one room
- Threads · replyMarc Andreessen vs. a teacher on AI in schools
- X · replyRogan needs a real economist on. Not a pundit.
- YouTube · commentHas anyone asked Jensen what he'd do differently?
- Reddit · r/lexfridmanLex should talk to a farmer. A real one.
- X · replyDiary of a CEO, do one on loneliness in men
- Apple Podcasts · review5 stars but PLEASE have Brené Brown back
- Discord · #suggestionsSimone Biles on Modern Wisdom would be unreal
- Reddit · r/podcastsI want a 3-hour debate where nobody gets cut off
Every one of these is a vote nobody counted. We count them.
The name
Dialogue, with a d for decentralizing.
Dia is through, across, between. Logos is the word: the account a society gives of itself.
A dialogue is meaning that moves between people, not down from a podium. The d is for decentralizing.
The Logos leaves any one set of hands and goes to everyone who wants to hear it.
The lineage
Every era built a room for dialogue. This is the next one.
5th c. BCE
The agora
Citizens argued in the open, in person, for anyone who showed up.
Raphael, The School of Athens, 1509 to 1511
1440
The printing press
An argument could outlive the room it started in.
Jost Amman, woodcut, 1568
17th c.
The coffee house
Strangers debated across class for the price of a cup. London called them penny universities.
A London coffee house, about 1700
2000s
The long-form podcast
Three hours, no editor, no time limit. One person still decides who sits down.
Now
Dialogue activism
The audience calls the conversation before it airs. The room decides who is in it.
Every earlier leap changed the medium. This one changes who calls the conversation.
The conversations that keep not happening.
One had $2.6 million in pledges behind it and still never aired. The rest are waiting for someone to ask first.
Exhibit A · June 2023
The multimillion-dollar conversation that never happened
$2.6M+pledged in posts
- Joe Rogan offers $100,000 to charity if vaccine scientist Peter Hotez will debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his show.
- Within days, strangers pile on. Founders, investors, listeners. The pledges pass $2.6 million.
- The debate never happens. The pledges were only ever posts, and they scrolled away with everything else.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, public domain.
Exhibit B · Not yet
Fifty years running Davos. Three hours of follow-up questions.
- Klaus Schwab founded the World Economic Forum in 1971 and led it for more than fifty years.
- Lex Fridman's interviews often run three hours or more. Long enough for every follow-up.
- Supporters and critics both have questions. Right now, the only place to ask is a reply box.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: World Economic Forum, CC BY-SA 2.0. Lex Fridman, CC0.
Exhibit C · Not yet
Opposite ends of American politics. One long table.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tucker Carlson speak to audiences that rarely hear the other side out.
- A long sit-down would let each make their case to people who usually tune them out.
- It hasn't happened. Nobody has turned it into an ask either of them can answer.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Franmarie Metzler, U.S. House Office of Photography, public domain. Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Exhibit D · Not yet
They've argued about each other. Not yet with each other.
- Dario Amodei runs Anthropic and has argued in public that frontier AI needs guardrails.
- All-In co-host David Sacks has called Anthropic's approach fear-mongering.
- One episode would put both sides of the AI policy fight in the same room.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0. The White House, public domain.
Exhibit E · Not yet
The best-known climate activist, on podcasting's biggest stage
- Greta Thunberg started a school strike for the climate at 15. Within a year, millions had joined.
- The Joe Rogan Experience reaches one of the biggest audiences in podcasting.
- Her case, his questions, and three hours to get through them.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Kushal Das, CC BY-SA 4.0. The White House, public domain.
Who decides
Today, a few people. Here, everyone who shows up.
- Today:
A booker's inboxOn dLogos: A named crowd, on the record - Today:
An algorithm tuned for outrageOn dLogos: A public count a host can see - Today:
A comment under a clipOn dLogos: Your question on the shortlist
How it works
One fan asks. A crowd shows up. The host gets proof.
Askone fan
A fan names a guest and a show, and says why. The nomination gets its own public page.
Live
Rallythe crowd
Others add their vote, one per person, each with a name on it. A wish becomes a count.
Live
Shapethe questions
Anyone can file a question, and the crowd votes on those too. The agenda is argued before the booking.
Live
Backthe money
Boosts put a nomination in front of more fans. Pledges, charged only if the episode happens, are rolling out.
Boost livePledge rolling out
Landthe host
The host sees the count, the top questions and every name behind them.
Happening now
Right now, in public.
Who we are
We have built networks, hosted podcasts and grown communities.
Brian Lowenstein
Co-founder, COO
- 5x consumer tech founder across crowdfunding, media and blockchain
- Founded Third Brain, 30+ dialogues
- MSMS, Kellogg. BS, Northwestern
What we stand for
Our mission
To catalyze valuable conversations.
Potlucking
Every voice brings a dish. No one holds the menu; the community decides what gets served.
Intellectual humility
Curiosity over certainty. We show our sources, invite correction and change our minds in public.
Compassionate free speech
We do not pick which conversations deserve to happen. We show what people ask for, including asks we would argue with.
Accountable to a public benefit, not only to shareholders.
dLogos is legally a public benefit corporation. Its public benefit is the civic infrastructure it builds: giving people agency over which important conversations happen, what gets discussed, and where the resulting economic value flows. Financial returns sustain and scale that purpose.
Participatory agenda-setting
Audiences organize demand before a conversation is recorded, alongside the hosts and guests who state their own.
Constructive dialogue
Incentives for valuable conversations across communities and viewpoints that might otherwise stay siloed.
Public-benefit redistribution
Some of the economic value participation generates can flow to vetted organizations that produce social benefit.
Where this goes
The internet built markets for capital, labor, attention and prediction. Conversation is next.
We call it a discourse market: one network where fans, hosts, guests, causes and sponsors meet around the conversations people ask for.
- NowA petition for conversations
- NextCrowdfunding for conversations
- LaterA market for conversations
Fans bring attention, questions and a name on the record. They get the episode they asked for.
Hosts bring the mic. They get proof an episode will land, before they book it.
Guests bring time and ideas. They get a room that's already listening.
Causes bring a reason to give. They get funding tied to moments people care about.
Sponsors bring capital. They get their name on a conversation people asked for.
