Max Karoubi is a Professor Emmeritus at the University of Paris 7, working in K-theory and algebraic topology. In this interview, Max shares warm memories about Grothendieck and the Bourbaki group, discusses math studies in Northern Africa and highly recommends doing research in collaborations. 

Max' webpage: https://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~max.karoubi/

Photo: from Max' webpage

0:00 ​ teaser

0:43 ​ getting into math in Northern Africa

5:33 ​ getting a family helped to do math

9:12 ​ PhD under Cartan and Grothendieck

13:05 ​ Grothendieck: naive genius 

16:53 ​ Karoubi as a name for math terminology

19:18 ​ new foundations of hermitian K-theory

22:20 ​ why write math in french

26:33 ​ founding European Congress of Mathematics

29:30 ​ collaborators are the best

34:35 ​ the importance of teaching

38:53 ​ why french people are arrogant

42:26 ​ RIP good jobmarket times

44:33 ​ how we can help math in developing countries 

46:44 ​ traveling to USSR in 1961

48:58 ​ please don’t boycott ICM!

51:35 ​ you cannot do math alone

55:58 ​ wish for young mathematicians