Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2026-02-01

Books mentioned on #490 – State of AI in 2026: LLMs, Coding, Scaling Laws, China, Agents, GPUs, AGI

3 books · With Nathan Lambert, Sebastian Raschka · Listen · Watch on YouTube

Nathan Lambert and Sebastian Raschka are machine learning researchers, engineers, and educators. Nathan is the post-training lead at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and the author of The RLHF Book.

Lex Fridman recommended Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschka and Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschka. Nathan Lambert recommended Season of the Witch by David Talbot.

Books mentioned, in the order they came up

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1. 

   Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)

   Sebastian Raschka · at 0:49 · mentioned 2 times

   Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschka is a technical programming guide that teaches readers how to construct and understand large language models.

   Recommended

   “Sebastian is the author of two books I highly recommend for beginners and experts alike. First is Build a Large Language Model from Scratch and Build a Reasoning Model from Scratch.”

   Lex Fridman #490 – State of AI in 2026: LLMs, Coding, Scaling Laws, China, Agents,… 2026-02-01 Listen at 0:49

   Where to get it

   Listen free with an Audible trialAmazon
2. 

   Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)

   Sebastian Raschka · at 0:49 · mentioned 2 times

   Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschka is a technical guide that explores the creation and implementation of advanced artificial intelligence reasoning models.

   Recommended

   “Sebastian is the author of two books I highly recommend for beginners and experts alike. First is Build a Large Language Model from Scratch and Build a Reasoning Model from Scratch.”

   Lex Fridman #490 – State of AI in 2026: LLMs, Coding, Scaling Laws, China, Agents,… 2026-02-01 Listen at 0:49

   Where to get it

   Listen free with an Audible trialAmazon
3. 

   Season of the Witch

   David Talbot · at 2:27:52

   Season of the Witch by David Talbot is a rich historical account detailing the cultural and political evolution of San Francisco from 1960 to 1985.

   Recommended

   “I need to get him a copy of Season of the Witch, which is a history of SF from 1960 to 1985, which goes through the hippie revolution... And it's just like, that is so recent, and so much turmoil and hurt, but also love in SF. And it's like, no one knows about this. It's a great book, Season”

   Nathan Lambert #490 – State of AI in 2026: LLMs, Coding, Scaling Laws, China, Agents,… 2026-02-01 Listen at 2:27:52

   Where to get it

   Listen free with an Audible trialAmazon