23: Tamara Winter - Tacit Trust & Caring Curiosity

Speaker A: Welcome to Dialectic, episode 23 with Tamara Winter. Tamara, or Tammy as almost everyone calls her, is commissioning editor of Stripe Press, Stripe's publishing arm, where she and the team seek to identify the ideas that matter most for Stripe's audience and publish them by way of a small amount of books every year. Before she joined Stripe, Tammy worked at the Charter Cities Institute and at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, which is chaired by Tyler Cowen. While we certainly talk about Stripe Press and the incredible books and ideas that come out of it, this conversation is ultimately a holistic look at what makes Tammy so special.

Anyone who's ever met Tammy has experienced the radical warmth that her presence brings to every single room, and that's something that I think is rooted in her orientation towards living a relational life. She simply loves and is deeply interested in other people. We start the conversation as I force Tammy to reluctantly discuss what shapes her taste. We go deep on what Tammy calls load-bearing infrastructure, or many of the hidden forces that maintain a healthy and trustful society, from small social things like small talk to much more serious and significant things that maintain safe societies.

We also talk about Tammy's unique career path, what she's learned from writing and journaling, and the advice she has for reading, particularly her case for biographies. Tammy is somebody who simply fills you with energy, but she is also wise. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend. It means a lot. And with that, here's Tamara Winter. Tammy Winter. Hi. It's good to be with you. Speaker B: It's good to be here. Speaker A: I think the theme that will bound most of the conversation is something that feels really, um, representative of you, which is this notion that there is one part of the world that is legible and codified and very explicit and well understood and articulated.