In 2022, I cold emailed @bryan_caplan about how much I liked his books. I was a college Sophomore. COVID had hit - I was stuck at home and very bored. I wasn't expecting him to respond, but he wrote back an encouraging message. That gave me enough temerity to ask him to be inaugural guest of a podcast I was thinking of starting. And he gave a total rando kid a good amount of his time. Even more generously, that summer, he allowed me to join him for lunch nearly every day, and from these daily debates with him, I learned a lot about how to ask interesting questions and evaluate different viewpoints. Grateful to call Bryan a friend and a mentor.