Ryan Schiller — Yale student and creator of Librex, an anonymous discussion feed for college communities. A former competitive chess and poker player who taught himself to code to build the app.
The gist
Ryan Schiller tells Lex Fridman how a professor's fear of broaching a controversial topic inspired him to build Librex, an anonymous, community-verified discussion app for Ivy League campuses. He recounts teaching himself Swift with no programming background, hand-delivering posters at Dartmouth to onboard a new campus, and his philosophy on anonymity, moderation, free speech, and refusing to sell user data. The conversation ranges across campus safe spaces, the Epstein-Minsky controversy at MIT, the Bitcoin and poker communities, and startup advice about ignoring experts. Schiller also shares a harrowing personal story of nearly dying from myocarditis, which shaped his sense of mortality and purpose.
Big reveals
- A Yale professor told Ryan he stopped teaching his Middle East expertise after a student reported him and he feared for his job.
- Schiller cites a Gallup poll that 61% of college students nationally are afraid to speak their minds due to campus culture.
- He traveled to Dartmouth knowing no one, slept on a stranger's floor, printed 2,000 posters, and signed up most of the campus overnight.
- Librex was rejected by Y Combinator in the final rounds partly because Ryan refused to sell user data.
- At 18 Schiller nearly died of myocarditis after a virus attacked his heart, given a 25-35% chance of dying.
- Lex challenges incoming MIT users to have the difficult, suppressed conversations about Jeffrey Epstein, Marvin Minsky, and academic funding.
- Ryan's core advice: as a young founder, listen to as few people as possible because experts can't know your social milieu.
Things worth remembering
- Ryan built his first login page by Googling 'how to make a login page in Swift' and copying the first result.
- He accidentally structured his database as a heap with no knowledge of databases, baffling his CS friends.
- Librex enforces one verified .edu account per person, so users trust they're talking to real humans, not bots.
- Librex has a 'forget me' button that deletes your email from the database in two clicks.
- Schiller reached ~2000 USCF in chess by age 13 and later got into poker via a post-mortem with poker champion Bill Chen.
- He started playing poker at 14 using Bitcoin freeroll tournaments to get around age restrictions.
- Schiller argues the education system's hidden purpose is to lead you to a point where you must rebel and create your own path.
- An MIT mailing-list thread about Minsky and Epstein was quickly shut down, with Richard Stallman pushed out over it.
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Librex
Ryan Schiller
“librex is an anonymous discussion feed for college campuses it's a place where people can have important and unfettered discussions” — Ryan Schiller 00:01:34Find it on Amazon
The War of Art
Steven Pressfield
“i really like the book the the war of art um which is a book about creative resistance and the creative struggle” — Ryan Schiller 02:09:19Find it on Amazon
Good Will Hunting
Gus Van Sant (inferred)
“what is it the goodwill hunting and went to see about a girl oh yeah that's a good movie i love that movie” — Ryan Schiller 02:04:39Find it on Amazon
The Beginner's Guide
Davey Wreden
“it's the beginner's guide which is what i it was made by the same guy davey rendon who made the stanley parable” — Ryan Schiller 02:12:56Find it on Amazon