What is Parnassus House?

Parnassus House was founded to address an urgent need. Today there is a growing sense that our highest achievers are lacking in a certain kind of awareness and knowledge, with major players like Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and Alex Karp calling for a change in the way we educate our leadership class.

Parnassus House meets that need by educating current and rising players in foundational problems surrounding technology, politics, leadership, and governance. We read and discuss the greatest written works of past and present, clarifying the foundational problems, deepening our understanding of the human condition, and shedding light on possible paths forward.

Services

Parnassus House offers four types of service: seminars, tutoring, workshops, and consulting.

Seminars

Seminars are the closest thing we have to a “class” experience. If you sign up for a seminar, you’ll be meeting with other like-minded students who gather to study a specific text or want study a theme based curriculum. Seminars are small and function “Socratically,” driven by close reading and discussion.

Tutoring

Tutoring is a one-on-one, or small group, experience tailored to fit your needs. Based on what you hope to learn, Parnassus House tutors will help select and read texts that address the foundational problems of concern to you. That might entail a close reading of a single text, or a survey of several texts covering a single theme, like leadership, founding, or technology, over the course of several sessions.

Workshops

Parnassus House works with clients to run seminar sessions for teams. Workshops typically focus on a leadership theme, which we pursue in seminar form by focusing on a set of choice readings. Workshops may include other activities that help build communication skills and situational awareness.

Consulting

Clients can choose to consult Parnassus House on questions pertaining to life or leadership and we will supply an appropriate range of responses based on research and various philosophic perspectives. For instance, a client may want help thinking strategically about a business decision or may want philosophic clarity on a theoretical or existential problem. Our consultancy is rooted firmly in our approach to education, which is based primarily in Socratic rationalism. We believe that the Socratic stance toward self-awareness, coupled with helpful work from the traditions of depth psychology and complexity theory, provide some of the most useful approaches to leadership and life.

Founders

Parnassus House was founded by Niko Kovacevic and Paul Diduch.

Niko Kovacevic holds a BS in Mathematics from Pennsylvania State University. He has been studying and leading seminars on philosophic texts for several years, with a particular interest in ancient political philosophy and technology. He also has several years of experience as a founder, or founding member, of multiple successful companies. He currently works as a software engineer.

Paul Diduch is Teaching Associate Professor in the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics & Society at CU Boulder. His teaching interests include leadership, ancient philosophy, the history of philosophy, moral psychology, the history and philosophy of science and technology, and contemporary issues in science, ethics, and society. He holds an MA in Political Science/Political Theory from the University of Alberta and a PhD from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas, where his doctoral work focused on Plato's ethics and moral psychology.

Reach out directly to Niko (niko@parnassus.house) and Paul (paul@parnassus.house) by email with any inquiries about upcoming seminars or other services.

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