Talk:Lex Fridman

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Lex Fridman article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2: 20 days

The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to articles about living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles, which has been designated as a contentious topic.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page.

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography: Science and Academia

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group (assessed as Low-importance).

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Podcasting Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Podcasting, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of notable podcasts and podcast-related information on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PodcastingWikipedia:WikiProject PodcastingTemplate:WikiProject Podcastingpodcasting
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Computer science Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computer science, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Computer science related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Computer scienceWikipedia:WikiProject Computer scienceTemplate:WikiProject Computer scienceComputer science

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Things you can help WikiProject Computer science with:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests :
- Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet
Cleanup :
- Computer science articles needing attention
- Computer science articles needing expert attention
Copyedit :
- Computing
Expand :
- Computer science
Infobox :
- Computer science articles without infoboxes
Maintain :
- Timeline of computing 2020–present
Photo :
- Find pictures for the biographies of computer scientists (see List of computer scientists)
- Computing articles needing images
Stubs :
- Computer science stubs
Unreferenced :
- WikiProject Computer science/Unreferenced BLPs
Project-related :
- Tag all relevant articles in Category:Computer science and sub-categories with {{WikiProject Computer science}}

YouTube Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject YouTube, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of YouTube and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.YouTubeWikipedia:WikiProject YouTubeTemplate:WikiProject YouTubeYouTube

Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject YouTube To-do:

A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects.

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : see list.
Assess : Apply the assessment scale on Unknown-importance YouTube articles + Unassessed YouTube articles
Cleanup : See cleanup listing
Maintain : This WikiProject
Stubs : Category:Stub-Class YouTube articles
Other :
- Substitute {{WikiProject YouTube/Invite Members}} on user talk pages
- Check out edit requests on Talk:List of YouTubers

Internet culture Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of internet culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Internet cultureWikipedia:WikiProject Internet cultureTemplate:WikiProject Internet cultureInternet culture

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Internet culture To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : View all requested internet culture articles
Expand : Pick an article from here or here
Photo : Category:Internet culture articles needing images
Stubs : All stubs are located here
Other : Category:Internet self-classification codes (!?); Try to get YouTube to FA; Tag all articles you find with {{WikiProject Internet culture}}
- See also Category:Internet culture articles needing attention

His birth name is Alexey Fedotov, Russian: Алексей Федотов and he was born in Buston, Tajikistan

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I get that people may pick an artist name. But considering Alexey is a Russian propagandist that pretends to be an American born in Ukraine, maybe wikipedia should not present Alexey's spy cover as objective truth. I am changing his name and birthplace back to what it was it said on wikipedia back in 2023. Why should wikipedia help a Russian intel asset keep his cover? Especially when either he himself, or someone working for Russia changed the wikipedia article to say he was born in Kiyv and removing his birth name. I will let someone else fix the partial truths about how it misrepresents his academic career and is overall a glaze-fest to make it look like this guy got famous through his own merit, rather than being planted. --2A02:A46A:194C:0:D97A:276:C925:2993 (talk) 16:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Enough already. There is no evidence in any source that Alexei Fedetov is his birth name. Zenomonoz (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not vandalize this page. 2A02:A46A:194C:0:E1CB:6288:72F8:196B (talk) 17:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Other than him noting on his own twitter that he was born “Alexei” 174.231.134.162 (talk) 00:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They redid the vandalization and now protected the page, so their vandalization remains. If you have a source, say a birth certificate, that lists his birth name as something other than Alexei Fedetov, please provide that source. If not, I think we can all agree that 'Lex' is not his real name. And the only real name, which EVERY OTHER SOURCE lists, is Alexei Fedetov. I have never ever seen any source claim his true Russian name is something other than Alexei Fedetov. 2A02:A46A:194C:0:E1CB:6288:72F8:196B (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a tweet from Lex Fridman saying that his birth name is Alexei and that his mom's maiden name is Fedotov.

https://x.com/lexfridman/status/1871502609451778181 AlekseyFyodorovich (talk) 11:32, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He’s born in Russia, raised in America. Calling him Russian-American is fine as long as you note the name he was born with. 174.231.134.162 (talk) 00:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason this page no longer lists Lex Fridman's (alleged) legal name? Like, it isn't in the infobox at the top, and it isn't in the lead sentence. Here is an archive link of this page from January 29, 2022. Is there a reason that information was removed? See also the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Here is a tweet where he says that his mother's maiden name is Fedotov. I can see an argument for there being no proof of his legal name being Alexei Fedotov, but would appreciate clarification! Finalgirlfall (talk) 21:02, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Finalgirlfall, as you mentioned "there being no proof of his legal name being Alexei Fedotov" is exactly why. For starters, his father is a professor at Drexel and has the last name Fridman. Why are editors assuming his legal last must be his mother's maiden name? Unless there is a WP:RS that explicitly clarifies that his last name is Alexei Fedetov, there is no justification for including the name on the page.

I can string together a theory of why this rumour started. It appears some journalists put in an information request for the name "Alexi Fedetov", perhaps to cover all bases (just in case he uses his mother's name). But that's all speculative, and it's irrelevant anyway. We go by WP:COMMONNAME on Wikipedia. Zenomonoz (talk) 11:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the editors are already sick of this exchange. But He said the following on a facebook post to his verified page "My full first name at birth is Alexei, but from the very beginning everyone always called me Lex (Leks) or Lyoha or Lyosha or Leshenka 🤣 5." [1] Evil genius fin (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this is better. It may be acceptable to include this in the infobox under the "born" specifier. Zenomonoz (talk) 02:25, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have done so. Zenomonoz (talk) 02:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lex Fridman's sponsors and funding

I would like to add a section discussing who funds Lex Fridman. I think the public should know if that information is in the shadows or, if not, where his money comes from. Lex talks a lot about being balanced and trying to be unbiased but the public needs to be able to ascertain that by seeing who funds him and his podcast. 2601:18F:881:9870:2C91:DD39:E75A:2D77 (talk) 14:19, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To add to the above, I'm having a difficult time finding this information anywhere and I find that concerning. 2601:18F:881:9870:2C91:DD39:E75A:2D77 (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He has links at the bottom of each show but I doubt that is sufficient to find his podcasts. If it was, other podcasts would be doing the same while in fact most have sponsor interruptions that are annoying but information about where the podcast might have conflicts of interest. 2601:18F:881:9870:2C91:DD39:E75A:2D77 (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless this is covered in secondary media sources, there is really no way this will be included on Wikipedia. Zenomonoz (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reception Section

The Reception Sections is almost entirely negative. Are there really no positive sources on his podcast or were these all hand picked to leave the reader with a poor impression? MasterBlasterofBarterTown (talk) 15:36, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I highly doubt that there is any nefarious plan to ignore positive sources, since neutrality is one of the core tenants of Wikipedia. If positive sources are not included, this likely means either they do not exist or were missed. If it is the latter, then by all means post some here so they can be discussed. Primefac (talk) 15:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are positive comments in there. Zenomonoz (talk) 00:32, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have added two quotes from pre-existing sources to rectify your complaint. Elghent (talk) 01:44, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 3 April 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Inaccuracy of Lex Fridman's current status/association with MIT:

``` since 2022 has worked as a research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).[6] As of February 2024, Fridman lives in Texas but is still paid by MIT and is on campus "regularly".[7](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/14/business/lex-fridman-mit-science-ambassador-podcast/) ```

You can contact the MIT department staff itself to confirm this yourself. He is in a *NON*-paid role, and *NOT* "regularly" on campus as of 2025. The article cited as a reference is not historically accurate according to the institute themselves, and is highly problematic to use for historical context.

This is a side note, as I have read the change logs for this document, I am sure this will face resistance as it seems a lot of the prior edits pertained to grooming this page(Like the efforts to oppose citing "non-peer-reviewed"), please do not do this here, this website is for historical accuracy, not to curtail a persons perception of academic grandiosity. 73.71.111.20 (talk) 23:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed "and is on campus regularly" as that statement seemed to be the Boston Globe quoting Fridman, which was not clear(they start the article by saying "occasionally" in their own voice) and how often he physically visits MIT is not really something that needs to be in the lead, or I would argue, anywhere else in this article. But as far as him no longer being in a paid role, we need a WP:reliable source for that. Calling up MIT would be WP:original research and not something we could include in the article. Mr. Squidroot (talk) 03:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]