Book excerpt: Dario Amodei's professor called him a 'national treasure' and Musk offered him a SpaceX job
sahilypatel · x · 2026-10-25
A book excerpt shared by sahilypatel recounts Dario Amodei's early years: at Caltech, his first-year physics professor Tom Tombrello was so impressed by his intellect that he called him a "national treasure" and personally emailed Elon Musk and Larry Page urging them to hire him, writing "This is the smartest guy ever." Musk made Amodei an offer to join SpaceX, but Amodei instead transferred to Stanford and didn't take it. He later became CEO of Anthropic.
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