by

Tim Ferriss

Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder of Asana and Facebook — Energy Management, Coaching for Endurance, No Meeting Wednesdays, Understanding the Real Risks of AI, Embracing Frictionless Work with AI, The Value of Holding Stories Loosely, and More (#686)

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Artist's rendering of Dustin Moskovitz.
Illustration via 99designs

“Imagine [AI as] the world’s greatest project manager that’s integrated into every team, and it knows all the best practices from everything, and it knows the context of the specific project you’re working on. And that means you can let go of a lot of things that cause continual partial attention disorder.”

— Dustin Moskovitz

Dustin Moskovitz (@moskov) is co-founder and CEO at Asana, a leading work-management platform for teams. Asana’s mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling all teams to work together effortlessly. Prior to Asana, he co-founded Facebook and was a key leader within the technical staff, first in the position of CTO and then later as VP of Engineering. Dustin attended Harvard University as an economics major for two years before moving to Palo Alto, California, to work full time at Facebook.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#686: Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder of Asana and Facebook — Energy Management, Coaching for Endurance, No Meeting Wednesdays, Understanding the Real Risks of AI, Embracing Frictionless Work with AI, The Value of Holding Stories Loosely, and More

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The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC (“Wealthfront Brokerage”), member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The 3.30% Base APY on cash deposits is as of January 30, 2026, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum balance. Wealthfront Brokerage sweeps cash balances to Program Banks, where it earns the variable base APY. The Direct Deposit Plus Investing Program from Wealthfront Advisers LLC and Wealthfront Brokerage LLC provides eligible clients a 0.25% APY increase above the base APY on eligible Cash Account balances (up to an overall boosted rate of 4.30% for a limited time when including the three month 0.75% APY boost for new Cash Account clients) when you direct deposit $1,000/month plus maintain a funded investing account. Wealthfront may change or end the program at any time and determine eligibility at its discretion. Terms and conditions apply. Full details for both promotions at wealthfront.com/promo-terms.

Tim Ferriss, who is not a client, receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, which creates an incentive that results in a conflict of interest. Tim expresses his own opinions and Wealthfront does not endorse, sponsor, or promote them. This ad may not reflect the experience of other Cash Account clients, and similar outcomes are not guaranteed. Investment advisory services are provided by Wealthfront Advisers LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Securities investments: not bank deposits, not bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. See full disclosures here. 

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Do you want to hear the episode Dustin said he was “very delighted” to hear? Have a listen to my most recent conversation with Jack Kornfield, in which we discussed yogic swoons, the point of consciousness, how the Buddha would deal with anxiety, the dimensions of meditation, reliably eliciting the non-self, cultivating a more joyful mind, and much more.

#684: Jack Kornfield — How to Reduce Anxiety and Polish the Lens of Consciousness

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

  • Connect with Dustin Moskovitz:

Twitter

SHOW NOTES

  • [08:17] The Back Buddy.
  • [12:38] A user’s guide to Dustin.
  • [15:49] Coaching for endurance.
  • [18:43] Making quicker decisions.
  • [20:45] Avoiding paradox of choice.
  • [23:20] Difficult but desirable delegation.
  • [25:08] The time-saving spreadsheet.
  • [29:12] No Meeting Wednesdays.
  • [33:34] Weekly architecture.
  • [35:33] Why Dustin prefers in-person meetings.
  • [36:55] The 15 Commitments to Conscious Leadership.
  • [40:55] Working with Diana Chapman.
  • [45:10] Clearing conversations.
  • [48:09] Nonviolent Communication.
  • [49:43] Feel your feelings.
  • [51:10] The Beginning of Infinity.
  • [53:50] Effective altruism.
  • [1:00:43] On being directionally vegetarian.
  • [1:02:32] Funding future pandemic preparation.
  • [1:07:33] AI risks and Yuddites.
  • [1:13:43] Most promising avenues of AI defense.
  • [1:17:19] Incentivizing AI safety compliance.
  • [1:19:12] Further AI threats.
  • [1:23:21] What the AI-amplified decade ahead might look like.
  • [1:28:59] Asana’s forthcoming AI integrations.
  • [1:37:04] Blocking personal time.
  • [1:40:41] Recommended reading.
  • [1:43:14] Dustin’s billboard.
  • [1:47:46] Parting thoughts.

MORE DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The thing that is most likely to shut off the computers is the humans. And so if you have a sufficiently powerful system that has gathered enough resources, it might decide to contain that threat just as part of achieving some other goal, which maybe we gave it in the first place.”

— Dustin Moskovitz

“This thing sounds human because it’s a language model and it’s meant to sound as human as possible. We’ve asked it to maximize that goal in itself, but it is not human. It is very alien-like under the surface. We don’t know how it works and we can’t even get it to do some simple constraints like not threaten to kill the end user in a chat script or not give the recipe for napalm if you coax it out in the right way.”

— Dustin Moskovitz

“Imagine [AI as] the world’s greatest project manager that’s integrated into every team, and it knows all the best practices from everything, and it knows the context of the specific project you’re working on. And that means you can let go of a lot of things that cause continual partial attention disorder.”

— Dustin Moskovitz

“Part of the reason we built Asana is people carry around their task list in their heads, or it’s in their email inbox, and they’re rescanning their email inbox all the time. And if you can get it into a system that you trust to show you those things at the right time or sending you reminders at the right time, you can let go of it in the active memory and get more space for presence. And I think AI can be doing this at a much higher level of abstraction for entire teams and entire companies.”

— Dustin Moskovitz

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