Insights from Podcasts pt. 2
This is the second part of a series of articles where I share things I found interesting while listening to podcasts (some are from books or videos).
These are not always direct quotes but my paraphrasing to some extent. I tried to include the timestamps of the episode where I could.
Ed Thorp on Tim Ferriss Podcast (Ed Thorp on How to Think for Yourself, How to Be Inner-Directed, and The Dangers of Investing Fads)
A lot of people, when it involves them, they can’t see clearly, they aren’t sure what action to take. When it involves one of their friends or acquaintances, they can generally see a lot better.
Balaji Srinivasan on SuperTeam Podcast — The future of developer Experience
Mediocre talent across all fields (engineers, writers, lawyers) will rebel against AI with all they have. This is being overlooked.
Tim Urban on Lex Fridman Podcast — 59:47
Lex — People are used to their ideas being attacked in a certain way, and if you avoid that path, then you can actually discuss ideas. Challenging ideas indirectly may be better, so as not to trigger the primitive/tribal mind.
Russell Brand on Joe Rogan — 01:16:47
Joe — We need to let people do what makes them happy. But you gotta leave people alone, and so many want to control other people because they don’t have control over their own life. Which leads to tribalism.
Renowned Chef in Spain (not sure of source)
I always think that if you don’t have creativity you’re kind of dead. You have to think like a child. You go to a square and see all the children there, and they’re always making new things and they’re always happy.
Robert Greene on Diary of a CEO — Robert Greene: How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become
22:13
I think it’s okay to think of yourself as an actor, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
38:17
An artist has to have a dark side. All those dark emotions inspire you, create your best work. So don’t run away from your shadow side and narcissism, use it in a healthy way.
Sam Altman on Lex Fridman #367
1:38:14
We as a society are confused if we want to work more or less, and whether we like our jobs. If we can move more of the world to better jobs, and move ‘job’ to a broader concept not something you have to do to be able to eat, rather something you do as a creative expression and a way to find fulfillment and happiness. That would be a much better future.
2:18:28
I got mostly what I wanted by ignoring advice. Listening to advice from other people should be approached with great caution. I tell people not to listen to too much advice.
Mannie Fresh on Taleb Kwali Podcast — Talib Kweli & Mannie Fresh Talk Cash Money, Juvenile, Lil Wayne, Scott Storch | People’s Party Full — 47:07
All the early Cash Money hits were 8–16 sounds, between keyboard and drum machine. The SP 1200 had 8 sounds, so you had to figure out how to make something great with that, which is a real challenge, that made you better. Nowadays there’s unlimited options. My advice is to pick a kit and make it work.
Lil Wayne couldn’t curse initially, his parents didn’t want him to grow up too fast, as he was younger than the other members. So it made him great because he had to be super creative, as he had to be just as good as the others who could talk about whatever. Wayne would do rewrites and work much harder than the others. He would try to outdo the other artists verses in a song.
Noah Kagan — Asking a Billionaire How to Make 1M — 21:28
Any amount of money you have, you just kind of adapt to it.
So you can be happy at any level, as long as you’re making progress on a daily basis.
Rory Sutherland on Diary of a CEO — The Marketing Secrets Apple & Tesla Always Use: Rory Sutherland | E165–46:00
Sometimes friction around a product can create value. If there are more steps involved, it becomes more like a ritual, and harder to forget (e.g. crushing up a pill and mixing with something may be more effective for remembering than outright swallowing).
Another example is travel websites, which will deliberately delay results because it makes you value them more, and so you’re more likely to book.
Gymshark CEO on Chris Williamson — Gymshark CEO Explains His Strategy For Global Success — Ben Francis — 43:42
I don’t know my net worth. I don’t want to know. It’s all just numbers on a screen. Also, most of my wealth is in GymShark, which fluctuates daily. If I tie my self-worth to that, then my mood would fluctuate more than the weather.
Side note: In April 2023, Gymshark was valued at $1.45 billion by investors, with Ben Francis, the company’s co-founder and CEO, owning over 70% of it.
Derek Sivers on Tim Ferris — Derek Sivers — Finding Paths Less Traveled, Taking Giant Leaps, and Picking the Right “Game of Life” — 1:05:08
There’s maximizing and then there’s satisficing. Maxmizers try to make the best possible choice by analyzing all the data, and have been found to feel worse about the decisions they make. Satisficers don’t make the absolute best possible choice, but they feel better about the choices they make. A lot of who I am is because I’m satisficing, and if I seem like I make weird choices in life it’s probably because I’m satisficing.
Rory Suther on Ali Abdaal — How To Influence People: Marketing Secrets Behind The World’s Biggest Brands — Rory Sutherland — 1:20:40
If you think adoption of things is linear, you will often give up far too soon. The question isn’t how fast are we growing, it’s how sticky is this product. It’s very important we realize this.
Ray Dalio on Chris Williamson — Billionaire Investor Predicts The Next Economic Cycle — Ray Dalio — 58:54
The idea of success being the amount of money and status you have is really screwed up. Beyond a certain point, money isn’t correlated with happiness. Having community is the highest correlation with happiness (and longevity as well). Money has limited marginal ability, with more you can’t do a whole lot more, a bigger house and car doesn’t mean that much. Most of the good things in life do not get materially better with more money. So money can become an obsession, which is not healthy.
Lee Kuan Yew — Lee Kuan Yew in His Own Words
Life is not just eating, drinking, television, and cinema…the human mind must be creative, must be self-generating; it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself.
Robert Greene — podcast excerpt from A Self-fulfilling Prophecy | Robert Greene on Self Destructive Pattern — 9:18
You create self-fulfilling dynamics by how you look at yourself and your attitude. If you feel you don’t deserve things, you sort of push people away.
I had a chapter in my book called ‘Think like a king to be treated like one’. There was a story of Christopher Columbus who came from poverty, but imagined he was royalty, and so people treated him like that. And so he was able to convince the king of Portugal to give him ships even though he was a mediocre admiral.
My First Million Podcast — The $20 Pill Billionaires are Taking to Live Forever (#458) — 30:14
For Connor McGregor, the reason his performance declined was because in training he was 100% committed, but outside he was 75%, but that was the difference. Little losses throughout the day (snacking, sleeping poorly) were adding up, and his mind became weaker, and doubt started to creep in (from Connor’s perspective).
Lee Kuan Yew — Lee Kuan Yew on the meaning of life — 9:36
Your job is to make the best out of the cards you were handed. What can you do well, what can you not do well, etc… If you ask to make my living as an artist, I’ll starve. I just can’t draw. But if you ask me to do a math question, or argue a point, I’ll get by.
Don’t try and do something you were not favored by nature to do.
David Heinemeier Hanson — 3 Secrets to Learn Anything — David Heinemeier Hansson | MetaLearn Podcast — 4:45
You advance much quicker if you’re around people who are better than you.
I never wanted to be a big fish in a small pond. Whenever the pond felt small I jumped to a bigger one.
When I started with race cars, as soon as I get good for a certain track, I advanced to a better one.
Nothing I’ve ever learned I wanted to be the best in the world at. That requires a maniacal obsession and is nearly impossible. I was more interested in the top 5 or 10%, which is more achievable.
Essentially, I don’t have to be the best, but I should be looking out for the best. And I should forget my ego, and forget what I already know cause it’s irrelevant; let me focus on why they are better and what I can learn.
Sadia Khan on Chris Williamson — Modern Wisdom #634
28:46
People try to think their way out of anxiety and overthinking. The reality is that the anxiety is in your body, so changing your body state rather than your mental state is more effective.
32:12
When you love and trust yourself, you go after what you truly desire. But a lot of people in relationships instead play games, and will try to ‘even out the score’.
Robert Greene on Brad Carr — Robert Greene on The Laws of Human Nature, Mastery, and Strategy
27:57
The Oracle of Delphi was supposed to be the wisest person in ancient Greece. Above the oracle was inscribed “Know Yourself”. It’s the start of all wisdom.
Your tendency as a child will be to know what you like to do. You have a feel for it. As you get older, you listen to other people and you lose a sense of who you are. Society pressures you, and your true tastes and talents can get drowned out.
20:25
The frustration that comes with creating or trying to do something hard is actually a good thing.
When I’m writing and get really frustrated, it’s almost mechanical that in the next day or two days later, it all comes together.
If you go through that enough, you know that frustration is a good thing. And once you know that, it’s very liberating, because you’re able to wait for the breakthrough moment that will come.
Chad Stahelski (Director of the John Wick movies) on Joe Rogan
We did John Wick as a goof, we thought we’d never direct again, Keanu was like let’s make an action movie for us, thinking no one is ever going to see it.
So we went into a room, got a whiteboard and told everyone to write down 10 things you hate about action movies, and 10 things you love from your favorite action movies.
So it’s like, what’s all the fun stuff that you want to see in action movies? None of the structures in the script we had fit for it, so we looked to Odysseus or the Iliad, the Odyssey, and like this guy just wants to grieve and get home, and we’re going to throw as many rocks at him as we can on the way, and just have Keanu do an endurance race.
Nicholas Cole on Ali Abdaal — 5 Ways To Make $1 Million As A Writer — Nicolas Cole
1:01:44
When it comes to ghostwriting, I’m saying start for free, prove you can do it, and then the opportunities will waterfall. People don’t do it because they are afraid they will get taken advantage of, or they are doing something wrong. When really, if you offer something for free, you’re removing all the friction, because it makes the decision easier.
37:06
Do you want to play the ‘competition and work-ethic’ game or the ‘creativity’ game? If you want to compete in a single-word category, you’re essentially playing the ‘competition and work ethic game’. If you combine that single word category with another word, you create a new category, and now you’re not playing a competition game. Now you can play a creativity game.
People have hesitations and fears about doing that, because deep down they really just want to fit in. And you have to overcome that feeling in order to play the creation game.
16:24
I realized that a huge part of monetizing your writing is that you need to write things that people want answers to. You need to start with what the reader needs, what questions do they want answered, and can you provide that. As soon as I realized that, everything changed. No longer was I writing what I wanted to write about, and then having to go hustle it. Instead I was starting with the reader and what they want.
Your niche is not about you, it’s about your reader/listener/customer. That’s the hardest thing to wrap your head around.
Founders #219 — Tony Bourdain
1:02:22
Tony said in an email that the greatest sin is aspiring to mediocrity. Most shows those days were not authentic, Tony realized. It was clear he had a vision for his show, which reflected who he was.
1:13:00
Nassim Taleb commenting on Ed Thorpe: true success is exiting some rat race to modulate one’s activities for peace of mind. Contrast that with Bourdain.
1:21:20
Tony demanded excellence. He never settled for shit. He just wanted the show to be the greatest thing ever. He didn’t give compliments.
Founders #222 — Ed Thorpe
21:24
I always got irritated by petty, rigid mediocrities. Later I would understand the stupidity of butting heads with mediocre people. I would learn to avoid them when I could, and finesse them when I couldn’t.
33:27
Me and my wife agreed to give our children all the education they wanted, teach them to think for themselves instead of simply accepting wisdom from experts and authority, and encourage them to choose their own calling in life.
1:10:53
Whatever you’re interested in, carry it to an irrational extreme (as described in a Steve Jobs biography). Ed’s hedge fund, setup in 1969, took hedging risk to an extreme never before tried, leveraging data and math, and pioneered the ‘quant’ field of investing.
Elan Lee (co-creator of the Exploding Kittens board game) on Tim Ferriss
I learned a few lessons from my co-creator and mentor. One is that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. Another is you got a violin, I got a barn, let’s put on a show — in other words don’t overthink things, just go.
You can think about something for 5 hours, or test it for 5 minutes, and you’ll get the same benefit.
David Deutsch (physicist, author of Beginning of Infinity) on Naval — 27:37
There is a difference between games. Some have an effectively infinite depth, and some don’t. In which case you can say it’s addictive (like chess). But so what? People are not just creative abstractly, they are solving problems. And if the problems don’t lead to satisfactory new problems, then they turn to something else. The thing only stays interesting when solving a problem leads to a better problem.
Nassim Taleb — Bed of Procustes (book)
The good life — the vita beata — is like reading a Russian novel: It takes two hundred pages of struggling with the characters before one can start enjoying things.
Then the agitation starts to make sense.
Founders #140 — Bill Gates
Paul Allen was encouraging Bill Gates to start a company. Gates was confused about his future, he spent many hours sitting in his room being a philosophical depressed guy, trying to figure out what he’s doing with his life. It seemed obvious that he should start a software company though as that’s what he spent most of his time doing.
Founders #205 — James Dyson
10:17
The theme of his autobiography is that you don’t have to be an expert, in fact experts are often unhelpful. You need to have enthusiasm, curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and determination. And those are the things that will solve all the world’s problems.
25:12
Learning by failure is a remarkably good way of learning. Failure is to be welcomed rather than avoided or feared. It’s part of learning, it should not be feared by anyone.
37:18
Your product should look weird and be different for the sake of it. A camel is a horse not designed by committee.
41:52
It is our downfall as a society that we look down on manufacturing and industrial or handmade production, and look favorably to money that is made easily. Considering industry and manufacturing produced most of the wealth, and have had massive impact and value on our society.
52:42
James rethinks things from scratch, from the wheelbarrow, to the vacuum, and even university. ‘What do you think something should be’ is fundamentally what he’s asking himself.
1:13:33
Treat your career as an adventure. When Dyson was turning a good profit after 2 years, and we could keep our home, we were relieved, and at the same time we knew it was the most exciting adventure of our lives.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. Build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
1:25:52
Children love making things, yet all too often this innate curiosity and experimentation expressed through our hands is stamped out by the educational system that sees no virtue in such natural creativity. Because of this attitude, design and technology aren’t covered well. The result, aside from a woeful lack of engineers, is a commonly held view that engineers and technicians are somehow lower down the professional and social pecking order than bankers, YouTube influencers, and brand managers.
1:28:23
Things that teachers and examiners might well disapprove might just lead some young people towards some of the greatest designs of all time. Education should be about problem-solving, rather than memorizing simply to pass exams.
1:40:44
Above all, how can we avoid being duffers? It comes from working away single mindedly at solving a problem. However many setbacks befall us. And retaining an open mind. There is nothing wrong with being persistently dissatisfied or afraid. We should follow our interests and instinct, mistrusting experts, knowing that life is one long journey of learning, often from mistakes.
Nassim Taleb — Bed of Procrustes (book)
In real life exams, someone gives you an answer and you have to find the best corresponding questions.
John Vervake on Tim Ferriss
15:30
Asking people how often they get into the flow state is a good predictor for their sense of well being.
37:52
The no free lunch theorem, there is no problem solving method that will universally solve all your problems. Every bias is a heuristic that’s misfiring, and every heuristic is just a bias that happens to be working in a lot of contexts. Which is why often the way you frame the problem is what causes you to not be able to resolve it.
49:00
Intuition is a result of implicit learning (based on Hogarth). For example, you don’t know how you know, but you know how close you should stand to someone at a funeral.
My First Million #424
A lot of tech entrepreneurs first start selling what you want people to do (to-do list, productivity app, family sharing app), and eventually they start selling what people want to do (gambling, hooking up, etc..).
