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0:03:29 – Optimal, minimal.
0:03:30 – At this altitude,
0:03:32 I can run flat out for a half mile
0:03:34 before my hands start shaking.
0:03:36 – Can I answer your personal question?
0:03:38 – No, we’ll just see in a brief time.
0:03:40 – What if I get the opposite?
0:03:41 – I’m a cybernetic organism,
0:03:43 living this year over a metal endoskeleton.
0:03:46 ♪ Me, Tim, Ferris, so ♪
0:03:54 – Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs.
0:03:55 This is Tim Ferris.
0:03:57 Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferris Show
0:03:59 where it is my job to sit down
0:04:02 with world-class performers from every field imaginable
0:04:04 to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books,
0:04:09 and so on that you can apply and test in your own lives.
0:04:10 This episode is a two-for-one,
0:04:12 and that’s because the podcast
0:04:14 recently hit its 10th year anniversary,
0:04:16 which is insane to think about,
0:04:18 and past one billion downloads.
0:04:22 To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best.
0:04:25 Some of my favorites from more than 700 episodes
0:04:27 over the last decade.
0:04:28 I could not be more excited
0:04:31 to give you these super combo episodes.
0:04:32 And internally, we’ve been calling these
0:04:34 the super combo episodes
0:04:36 because my goal is to encourage you
0:04:39 to yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks,
0:04:42 but to also introduce you to lesser-known people
0:04:44 I consider stars.
0:04:46 These are people who have transformed my life
0:04:49 and I feel like they can do the same for many of you.
0:04:52 Perhaps they got lost in a busy news cycle,
0:04:54 perhaps you missed an episode.
0:04:55 Just trust me on this one,
0:04:59 we went to great pains to put these pairings together.
0:05:01 And for the bios of all guests,
0:05:06 you can find that and more at tim.blog/combo.
0:05:08 And now, without further ado,
0:05:10 please enjoy and thank you for listening.
0:05:14 – First up, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
0:05:16 Austrian-born bodybuilder,
0:05:20 star of total recall, true lies, twins,
0:05:23 and the Terminator films, among many others,
0:05:26 businessman, philanthropist, best-selling author
0:05:29 of Be Useful, Seven Tools for Life,
0:05:32 and the 38th governor of California.
0:05:35 You can find Arnold on Twitter and Instagram
0:05:37 at Schwarzenegger.
0:05:39 And you can join more than half a million subscribers
0:05:44 to his newsletter, Pump Club, at arnoldspumpclub.com.
0:05:50 – I was looking at a very old photograph of, I think,
0:05:53 your first major bodybuilding competition in Stuttgart.
0:05:55 I think it was the junior of Mr. Europe.
0:05:57 And I looked at this photograph,
0:05:59 and what stuck out to me was,
0:06:03 if we had just looked at the faces, not the bodies,
0:06:05 it was so clear to me that you were going to win
0:06:08 and that you knew or believed you were going to win.
0:06:10 Your face was so confident compared
0:06:11 to every other competitor.
0:06:14 Where did that confidence come from?
0:06:18 – My confidence came from my vision,
0:06:21 because I am always a big believer that
0:06:25 if you have a very clear vision of where you want to go,
0:06:27 then the rest of it is much easier,
0:06:31 because you know always why you’re training five hours a day.
0:06:32 You always know why you’re pushing
0:06:35 and going through the pain barrier,
0:06:37 and why do you have to eat more,
0:06:38 and why do you have to struggle more,
0:06:40 why do you have to be more disciplined,
0:06:43 and all of those things become much more clear.
0:06:47 It’s not like, oh my God, I have to do another 200 sit-ups.
0:06:48 It’s more kind of like,
0:06:51 I can’t wait to do another 200 sit-ups,
0:06:54 because that would get me one step closer
0:06:57 to have the abs that I need to win at Mr. Universe.
0:06:58 And that’s my goal.
0:07:01 I see myself clearly on that stage,
0:07:02 winning the Mr. Universe.
0:07:06 I see myself very clearly of getting the trophy,
0:07:10 standing there with the trophy, raising it above my head,
0:07:13 and having hundreds of bodybuilders around me,
0:07:16 below me, on stage, looking up and idolizing me,
0:07:19 including the thousands of people that are watching the event.
0:07:20 So that was always my clear vision,
0:07:23 and that always inspired me to go all out.
0:07:26 And so when I went for competition, you have to understand,
0:07:28 I went to the junior, Mr. Europe,
0:07:30 during my time in the military.
0:07:32 And so what it took for me to go
0:07:36 and to get on that train, Bessonon Tsuk,
0:07:40 which was the people’s train, meaning kind of like,
0:07:43 it wasn’t then Schnell Tsuk at the end of the fast train.
0:07:45 It was the slow train that literally stopped
0:07:48 on every train station to let workers off
0:07:50 and to bring new workers on.
0:07:51 And that’s what the train was.
0:07:54 And so with that, you went all the way to Stuttgart,
0:07:57 because it was the cheapest way of going,
0:07:58 because I didn’t have much money.
0:08:00 – And you didn’t get hit by any customs officers,
0:08:01 or anything like that?
0:08:03 – Well, we got hit, but I mean, we got through it.
0:08:05 I didn’t have my passport,
0:08:06 because you had to give up the passport
0:08:08 when you go into the military, right?
0:08:10 You pass, I didn’t have a passport.
0:08:11 Passport we got afterwards
0:08:14 when we were finished with the military.
0:08:19 So we got through and we got to Germany, the Stuttgart.
0:08:21 And so there was this will there,
0:08:22 that no matter what it takes,
0:08:25 and even if I have to crawl to Germany,
0:08:27 that I will be there at that event,
0:08:29 because that was my shot when I saw the ads
0:08:32 about this Mr. Europe Junior competition,
0:08:36 Best Gibbauter Athlete Europas in German.
0:08:38 And that was my opportunity
0:08:42 to really go and to make my first kind of entry
0:08:45 into an international competition.
0:08:48 And I felt that I can win it.
0:08:49 And that’s what I was there for.
0:08:50 I wasn’t there to compete.
0:08:51 I was there to win.
0:08:55 And so that’s why you saw that facial expression.
0:08:57 There was a certain arrogance there.
0:08:58 There was a certain way
0:09:00 that I posed with the other competitors.
0:09:03 I always felt during the pose off
0:09:06 that I had my act together much more than the others did.
0:09:09 And then I’m going to make them feel inferior.
0:09:10 And I will win.
0:09:13 And I will look facially and physically to the judges
0:09:15 that I’m the champion.
0:09:17 – So you touched on something I really want to dig into,
0:09:20 which is the psychological warfare
0:09:22 of bodybuilding, of life in general.
0:09:24 I really feel, and this is a compliment,
0:09:26 I mean it as a compliment, a real master.
0:09:29 And if anyone who’s watched “Pumping Iron” or anything,
0:09:32 I think comes away with that as a takeaway.
0:09:33 How did you develop that?
0:09:37 And for instance, when you were I guess 17 or 18,
0:09:40 how did you get inside the heads of those people
0:09:41 at that point?
0:09:46 – I think that it came about when I trained in the gym.
0:09:50 I always felt that people are kind of
0:09:54 really vulnerable in certain areas.
0:09:56 So that someone that comes to the gym
0:09:59 and works out because he wants to have a better body,
0:10:01 that he most likely will be vulnerable.
0:10:04 And that’s during conversations that I discovered in Munich
0:10:06 when I was trainer in the gym.
0:10:08 They were vulnerable when you say something like,
0:10:09 well, you’re fat.
0:10:13 It was not like even a doubt in anyone’s mind
0:10:15 if 10 people would have looked at that guy or 100 people,
0:10:17 they all would have said that that guy is fat,
0:10:18 but he was outraged.
0:10:19 He said, what?
0:10:23 Do you really think I’m that fat that you’re mentioning it?
0:10:25 I said, well, you’re in the gym.
0:10:28 I said, I go to the doctor’s office and say, I have a cough.
0:10:30 I don’t go and beat around the bush.
0:10:32 I said, I have to tell him what the problem is.
0:10:33 And then he can give me the medication.
0:10:35 I said, there’s the same thing in the gym.
0:10:37 I said, you come here because you’re fucking fat.
0:10:41 And so that’s, so now let’s solve the problem.
0:10:43 And so there’s no beating around the bush there either.
0:10:46 And so, you know, so I could see that they were
0:10:49 kind of like shriveling up and kind of shocked.
0:10:52 So I could see the vulnerability.
0:10:55 And then I tried different lines and people.
0:10:58 And then we’ll talk about the hairline,
0:11:00 or we’ll talk about the hair color turning gray.
0:11:03 And then they would just freak out, you know,
0:11:04 about little things like that.
0:11:06 So it was natural that with all the experience
0:11:09 that I got now being a trainer and working with people
0:11:11 and all this, that I learned about people’s psychology
0:11:14 and about their weaknesses and their strength and all this.
0:11:15 How do you build people up?
0:11:18 Because my whole thing was, let’s first discover
0:11:20 and talk about the weakness.
0:11:23 And then let’s go and rebuild everything.
0:11:26 So that was the idea to give this guy six pack,
0:11:28 to make him feel great, to declare victory
0:11:30 for the next summer, that he can go to the beach
0:11:32 and that he can go and feel proud of himself
0:11:34 and feel great and all this, and then continue training.
0:11:35 So that was the idea.
0:11:37 So by the time I came to America
0:11:39 and I started, you know, competing over here,
0:11:42 it was very clear that when I said to someone,
0:11:43 let me ask you something.
0:11:46 Is it, do you have any knee injuries or something like that?
0:11:48 And then they would say, well, look at me and say,
0:11:51 no, why, no knee injury at all.
0:11:52 No, my knees feel great.
0:11:54 And I say, why are you asking?
0:11:57 I said, well, because your thighs look a little slimmer to me.
0:11:59 I mean, I thought maybe you can squat,
0:12:01 though maybe there’s some problem with leg extension.
0:12:03 But then they say, really?
0:12:06 And then I saw them all for two hours in the gym,
0:12:09 always going in front of the mirror
0:12:10 and checking out the thighs.
0:12:12 If the thighs still exist or something.
0:12:14 So, but I mean, this is, you know, people get,
0:12:16 people are vulnerable about those things.
0:12:20 So naturally, when you now have a competition,
0:12:21 you use all this.
0:12:25 And so they use, you ask people, were they sick for a while?
0:12:27 They know why they look a little leaner
0:12:30 or that, you know, did you take any salty foods lately?
0:12:31 And they say, why?
0:12:34 I said, because it looks like you have water retention.
0:12:36 I said, it doesn’t look as ripped as you were like a week ago.
0:12:41 And so, so that throws people off in an unbelievable way.
0:12:42 – Negative defensive. – And they walk away,
0:12:44 kind of like, this didn’t bother them at all.
0:12:47 But then you can see, you watch them
0:12:50 as they walk around the pump up room.
0:12:52 And then you warm up for the competition
0:12:55 and you could see them kind of thinking to themselves,
0:12:57 kind of then going to a mural
0:12:59 and checking it out secretly and all that stuff.
0:13:00 So, you know, it works.
0:13:03 I just slowly developed it because I always felt
0:13:08 that sports are not just a physical thing.
0:13:11 As a matter of fact, I felt that the mentality
0:13:13 and the mental strength in sports,
0:13:15 in the psychology in sports,
0:13:17 is much more important than the physical thing.
0:13:20 Because in reality, I mean, I see when I watch
0:13:23 the Mr. Olympia competition or Mr. Universe competition
0:13:25 or any of those things, you know,
0:13:28 they all look pretty much the same, the top five guys.
0:13:31 But what makes one emerge is, is the way he acts.
0:13:33 If he acts like a winner, if he seems smiling,
0:13:35 having a great time on station doors.
0:13:38 So I felt in that one should use the psychology.
0:13:41 One should use everything in as far as food supplements
0:13:44 is concerned, use your best, you know, posing trunks,
0:13:48 try to use the sun out there and work out in the sun.
0:13:51 So you get tanned all around, use the best posing routine.
0:13:54 Just really give me a tan of everything.
0:13:56 Then you have a shot of winning.
0:13:58 And psychology was definitely part of that.
0:14:03 – And you developed this arsenal of intimidation
0:14:05 through the bodybuilding.
0:14:07 Did you use that, for instance,
0:14:10 in movies, waiting in line to audition
0:14:11 against other people who were going into audition
0:14:12 or anything like that?
0:14:14 Did it apply to show business?
0:14:15 – I never auditioned.
0:14:16 – Okay.
0:14:20 – It was because I would never go out for the regular parts
0:14:21 because I was not a regular looking guy.
0:14:24 So my idea always was, okay,
0:14:25 everyone is going to look the same
0:14:28 and everyone is trying to be the blonde guy in California,
0:14:29 going to Hollywood interviews
0:14:32 and then looking some with athletic and cute and orders.
0:14:34 Okay, how can I carve myself out the niche
0:14:36 that is unique that only I have?
0:14:40 So I always felt like really strong about,
0:14:42 I have to get into the movie business like Rich Park,
0:14:46 did the like Steve Reeves or Paul Winto, Larry Gordon
0:14:48 and all those guys that were in the muscle movies
0:14:50 in the ’50s and ’60s,
0:14:52 that’s the way I’m going to get in there.
0:14:54 Of course, the naysayers were right there
0:14:57 and they said, well, this time has passed.
0:14:58 This was 20 years ago.
0:15:02 You look too big, you’re too monstrous, too muscular.
0:15:03 You would never get in the movies.
0:15:06 So that’s what producers said in the beginning in Hollywood.
0:15:09 And that’s also what agents said and managers.
0:15:12 They said, I doubt that you’re going to be successful in that
0:15:15 because today’s idols, I mean, this is not the ’70s Arnold.
0:15:19 Today’s idols are Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Woody Allen.
0:15:21 I mean, look at this, these are all little guys.
0:15:23 Those are the sex symbols.
0:15:25 Those are the hot stars.
0:15:28 Look at you, you weigh 250 pounds or something like that.
0:15:30 That time is over.
0:15:32 But I felt still very strongly
0:15:36 and had a very clear vision that the time would come
0:15:38 where someone would appreciate that then sure enough
0:15:41 when people saw me on talk shows,
0:15:44 they got inspired directors like Bob Rayfressen
0:15:47 and then bought the book of “Stay Hungry”
0:15:48 and had it written into a script
0:15:51 and then did the movie with me because he believed in me
0:15:53 that I had the personality and I had a certain strength
0:15:57 and a certain kind of a look that would be great on the screen
0:15:59 that the camera loves me and all that.
0:16:01 And so it worked.
0:16:02 I did “Stay Hungry.”
0:16:04 I did then “Pumping On” the documentary.
0:16:06 I did “The Streets of San Francisco”
0:16:08 and worked then with Ann Margaret
0:16:10 and with Kirk Douglas and the villain.
0:16:12 And then all of a sudden I got the contract
0:16:14 for Conan the Barbarian.
0:16:17 And bang, there we were, $20 million movie
0:16:21 which today will be equivalent of a $200 million movie
0:16:24 and Dina Dalaran is producing “Universal Studio”
0:16:26 and “International Studio” financing the movie
0:16:30 and John Milius, a first class director directing it.
0:16:33 So my whole plan worked and I was so right.
0:16:36 Even John Milius after he has done the movie, he said,
0:16:38 if we wouldn’t have had Schwarzenegger,
0:16:40 we would have had to build one
0:16:41 because of the body.
0:16:44 And when I did “Terminator,” Jim Cameron said,
0:16:46 if we wouldn’t have had Schwarzenegger
0:16:47 and we couldn’t have done the movie
0:16:50 because only because he sounded like a machine
0:16:53 was it so believable that he actually played a machine.
0:16:54 And that’s where people bought in.
0:16:56 When he says, “I’ll be back,”
0:16:58 it’s totally different than when I say,
0:16:59 “I’ll be back,” kind of thing.
0:17:02 So he was the greatest compliment.
0:17:06 That the very things that the agents and the managers
0:17:09 and the studio executive said would be a total obstacle,
0:17:13 became an asset and my career started taking off.
0:17:15 – The not auditioning is really interesting to me.
0:17:17 I knew you were very successful in real estate,
0:17:18 but correct me if I’m wrong,
0:17:20 you had become a millionaire in real estate
0:17:22 before your first movie.
0:17:22 Is that right?
0:17:25 – Not before the first movie, before my career took off.
0:17:25 – Got it.
0:17:29 – So I did not rely on my movie career to make a living
0:17:31 because that was my intention
0:17:34 because I saw over the years,
0:17:37 the people that worked out in the gym
0:17:39 and that I met in the acting classes,
0:17:40 they all were very vulnerable
0:17:42 because they didn’t have any money
0:17:46 and they had to take anything that was offered to them
0:17:48 because that was the living.
0:17:50 I didn’t want to get into that situation.
0:17:52 I felt like if I am smart with real estate
0:17:55 and take my little money that I make in bodybuilding
0:17:58 and with seminars and selling my courses
0:18:00 through the mail order and orders,
0:18:03 I could save up enough money to put down money
0:18:05 for an apartment building.
0:18:07 And I realized that in the seventies,
0:18:10 the inflation rate was very high
0:18:13 and therefore an investment like that is like unbeatable
0:18:18 because buildings that I would buy for $500,000,
0:18:20 you know, within the year were $800,000
0:18:22 and they only put them maybe a hundred down.
0:18:25 So, you know, you made 300% on your money.
0:18:26 So you couldn’t beat that.
0:18:30 So I quickly developed and traded up my buildings
0:18:33 in Baltimore, apartment buildings and office buildings
0:18:35 and Main Street down in Santa Monica and so on.
0:18:36 And the investments were very good.
0:18:39 And it was just one of those magic decade,
0:18:42 the day you couldn’t do it in that same field.
0:18:44 There’s another field in real estate where you can do that.
0:18:46 But in this particular field,
0:18:48 I don’t think you will see those kind of jumps ever again.
0:18:50 And I benefited from that
0:18:54 and I became a millionaire from my real estate investments.
0:18:58 And that was before my career took off in a show business
0:19:02 in acting, which was after Conan the Barbarian in 1982,
0:19:02 that movie came out.
0:19:05 We shot it in ’81 and in ’82 it came out.
0:19:07 So from that point on my career took off
0:19:08 because people saw, you know,
0:19:10 that the movie was successful at the box office,
0:19:13 then, you know, I signed a contract to do Conan number two.
0:19:16 And, you know, then that led to a contract, you know,
0:19:19 for Terminator one and then Commander, you know,
0:19:21 then the action genre.
0:19:23 Also, there was another fortunate thing.
0:19:26 Each of those decades offered something very fortunate
0:19:29 that was a little bit beyond my control,
0:19:30 but I benefited from that, you know,
0:19:32 so that there was the action genre
0:19:34 that all of a sudden took off in the ’80s
0:19:37 with Stallone and Fontaine and all those guys coming in
0:19:41 really was terrific and our salaries went, you know,
0:19:44 mine, I got like a million dollars for Terminator two
0:19:46 and then all of a sudden by the end of the decade
0:19:49 I made $20 million.
0:19:49 – That’s incredible.
0:19:53 And I wanted to talk about the mail order for a second
0:19:56 because that was done with Franco Colombo?
0:20:00 – No, did Franco Colombo, who for those that don’t know,
0:20:04 is a European, was a European champion in powerlifting
0:20:06 and also a boxing champion
0:20:08 and then became a bodybuilding champion.
0:20:12 And then I brought him over here with Joe Weeders’ help
0:20:14 to train with me here in America,
0:20:17 but at that point there was no money in bodybuilding.
0:20:19 That’s a key thing that everyone has to understand.
0:20:21 Unlike the day where the top bodybuilding champions
0:20:23 make millions of dollars,
0:20:26 in those days there was no money in bodybuilding.
0:20:30 And so when we didn’t have enough money,
0:20:32 we literally had to go to work.
0:20:35 And so Franco and I, since Franco’s talent was to be a
0:20:39 bricklayer and very skilled bricklayer
0:20:42 and learned that in Italy and in Germany,
0:20:46 we were able to go and start thinking about the idea
0:20:49 of putting an ad in the LA Times, creating a company
0:20:54 and calling it European bricklayers and masonry experts,
0:20:58 marble experts, building chimneys and fireplaces,
0:20:59 the European style.
0:21:03 And this was also a time where everything that was European
0:21:06 was huge in America.
0:21:09 So we benefited from that, you know, Swedish massages
0:21:11 and everything had to be kind of a foreign name,
0:21:13 or a Japanese this and this.
0:21:15 So Europe and Japan and all these places, you know,
0:21:18 were used, the names were used because for some reason
0:21:21 that the other people just thought that was better.
0:21:23 And so we used that in the ad.
0:21:27 And we put the ad in the paper and literally a week later,
0:21:32 we had the big earthquake in Los Angeles.
0:21:35 And I mean, the chimneys fell off the apartment houses
0:21:38 and all this stuff and cracked walls and all this.
0:21:40 And so Franco and I, as a matter of fact,
0:21:45 one of the friend of ours, wife, who was very smart
0:21:48 and she worked in a supermarket.
0:21:51 She did answering the phones and calling people back
0:21:54 and all this just to make sure that English doesn’t get all
0:21:57 screwed up with talking over the phone and all this.
0:21:59 And so she gave us in the addresses
0:22:01 and then we got to do the estimates.
0:22:05 And I was kind of like set up to be the math genius.
0:22:07 And that figures out the square footage
0:22:10 and that Franco will play the bad guy
0:22:12 and I played a good guy.
0:22:14 And so we will go to someone’s house
0:22:16 and then someone would say, well, look at my patio,
0:22:17 it’s all cracked.
0:22:19 Can you guys put a new patio in here?
0:22:20 And I would say yes.
0:22:22 And then I will run around with the tape measure,
0:22:24 but there would be a depth measure with centimeters.
0:22:27 And no one in those days could at all figure out
0:22:28 anything with centimeters.
0:22:30 And we will be measuring up.
0:22:32 And I say, what is this?
0:22:35 Four meters and 82 centimeters.
0:22:36 And they had no idea what we were talking about.
0:22:37 And this is so much.
0:22:40 And then we are writing up formulas and the dollars
0:22:43 and amounts and square centimeters
0:22:45 and square meters and all this stuff.
0:22:49 And then I will go to the guy and I said, it’s $5,000.
0:22:51 And the guy will be in the state of shock.
0:22:53 And he says, it’s $5,000.
0:22:55 I said, this is outrageous.
0:22:57 I said, I mean, I didn’t think that this is a,
0:22:59 well, what did you expect at the basis?
0:23:01 I thought maybe it’s like $2,000, $3,000.
0:23:03 I said, but $5,000.
0:23:05 I said, let me talk to my guy.
0:23:08 I said, because he’s really the masonry expert.
0:23:10 I said, but I can beat him down for a little bit.
0:23:12 Let me soften the meat.
0:23:14 And then I will go over to Franco
0:23:16 and we will start arguing in German.
0:23:17 You know, this is a Schweinerei.
0:23:19 It comes to me so far, I feel for long,
0:23:21 and this is my place, and we’ll be working here in America.
0:23:23 And this will be going on and on.
0:23:26 And he’ll be screaming back at me in Italian and some stuff.
0:23:28 And then I will be, then obviously, and he calmed down
0:23:32 and then we’ll go to the guy and say, okay, here it is.
0:23:37 I said, I could get him as low as $3,800.
0:23:38 I said, can you go with that?
0:23:40 And he says, thank you very much.
0:23:44 He says, you know, I really think that you’re a great man.
0:23:45 Blah, blah, blah, blah and all that stuff.
0:23:48 I said, okay, I said, give us half down right now.
0:23:50 We go right away and get the cement and get the bricks
0:23:52 and everything that we need for here.
0:23:53 And we can start working.
0:23:54 I said, the money.
0:23:55 And the guy was ecstatic.
0:23:56 He gave us the money.
0:23:58 We immediately ran to the bank, cashed the check
0:24:01 to make sure that the money’s in the bank account.
0:24:03 And then we went out and got the cement, the wool barrel
0:24:07 and all the stuff that we needed and went to work.
0:24:09 And so we worked like that for two years.
0:24:10 I mean, very successful.
0:24:12 As a matter of fact, in the end,
0:24:13 we had various different jobs
0:24:16 where we employed like 16 different bodybuilders.
0:24:19 All the laziest bastards that you can ever hire,
0:24:21 but never the, because they all were interested
0:24:24 in working outdoor and getting a tan at the same time
0:24:26 for their bodybuilding competitions.
0:24:28 They were not interested in working.
0:24:30 But anyways, we all had a good time.
0:24:33 We all made money and this is actually then,
0:24:35 I did this until I started my mail order business.
0:24:38 And then that became the new source of extra income.
0:24:39 So we could afford everything
0:24:41 and then save also some money and so on.
0:24:45 – I’ve been very fascinated to look at your film career
0:24:48 and hear the story of twins.
0:24:51 I was hoping maybe you could tell us the story
0:24:53 of twins, how twins came together
0:24:55 and how you guys structured that deal
0:24:57 because I didn’t know anything about that.
0:25:01 – Twins came together because I felt very strongly
0:25:06 that I had a side of me that is a very humorous side
0:25:11 and that if someone would be patient enough
0:25:14 and willing to work with me as a director
0:25:18 that they will be able to bring that humor out of me.
0:25:21 And that’s something that is very difficult
0:25:24 because you can be humorous in your private life
0:25:26 but cannot pull it off in a movie.
0:25:29 There’s many actors that have tried that
0:25:30 and were not successful.
0:25:35 So I felt that I should really talk to Ivan Reitman
0:25:38 because I really loved Ghostbusters.
0:25:39 And I said to myself, God,
0:25:41 it was so well directed and all this
0:25:45 and I just happened to run into him when I was in Aspen.
0:25:48 We were hanging out, there was Robin Williams
0:25:51 and some other people and we were all up there at Snowmass
0:25:53 and we were skiing and then at night
0:25:55 and before dinner we all had a great time sitting
0:25:57 but a fireplace and choking around
0:25:59 and Ivan Reitman would say to me,
0:26:03 Arnold, I listened to you and I see a side of you
0:26:05 that has never really been on screen.
0:26:09 And I said to him, I said, I would love to do a comedy
0:26:11 and I would love to bring that side out
0:26:14 if it is the innocence of me or the naivety of me
0:26:15 or the humor of me, whatever it is.
0:26:17 I said, I would like to see that on the screen.
0:26:19 I said, I think it could be good.
0:26:22 So I said to him, I want you to work with me
0:26:24 and to direct me in a movie.
0:26:25 Let’s figure out what it should be.
0:26:29 And he said, okay, I would love to do that.
0:26:32 I’m gonna go home after Christmas, after this vacation
0:26:36 and I’m gonna look into and develop a bunch of ideas
0:26:38 and then you and I get together
0:26:41 and then pick the one that we liked the best.
0:26:44 He developed immediately within a short period of time
0:26:45 a bunch of ideas.
0:26:46 I think there was five ideas
0:26:48 and the one that we both liked the most
0:26:53 was called the experiment, which then became Twins.
0:26:54 Experiment we didn’t like
0:26:56 because of my German, Austrian background.
0:26:59 So we thought that it would be better to call it Twins
0:27:02 and we developed that project, got it written.
0:27:05 I came up with the idea then of Danny DeVito
0:27:06 that it shouldn’t be just someone
0:27:11 that is acting totally opposite of the way I am
0:27:13 but you should also look physically
0:27:15 totally opposite of the way I am.
0:27:16 I even loved that idea.
0:27:18 And then we went after Danny DeVito
0:27:21 and I remember we sat in the restaurant
0:27:25 and we made a deal on a napkin and wrote down,
0:27:26 this is what we do.
0:27:28 We’re gonna make the movie for free.
0:27:30 We don’t want to get any salaries
0:27:32 and we get a big back end
0:27:34 and I eventually take this deal
0:27:36 with the agent to the studio
0:27:37 and he took it to Tom Pollack
0:27:40 who was then running the Universal Studio.
0:27:41 Tom Pollack said, this is great.
0:27:45 We can make this movie for in the $16.5 million
0:27:47 if you guys don’t take a salary
0:27:49 and you get a big back end.
0:27:53 We’re gonna give you 37% of whatever it was together.
0:27:55 Danny, Ivan and me.
0:27:57 And we worked out the percentage
0:27:59 of what our salaries are.
0:28:01 So whatever Danny got at that time
0:28:04 for a movie versus what I got for a movie
0:28:06 and versus what Ivan got for directing.
0:28:08 So we worked it out percentage-wise
0:28:09 and that’s how we ended up dividing up
0:28:11 the part amongst ourselves.
0:28:12 And let me tell you,
0:28:14 I made more money on that movie
0:28:16 than on any other movie.
0:28:18 And the gift keeps on giving.
0:28:20 It’s just wonderful.
0:28:21 And I remember Tom Pollack,
0:28:23 after the movie came out,
0:28:25 he said to me, he says,
0:28:26 oh, I can tell you, he says,
0:28:28 this is what you guys did to me.
0:28:30 And he bent over.
0:28:32 He turned around bent over and he put his pockets out
0:28:35 and he says, you fucked me and cleaned me up.
0:28:37 He said, that was very funny.
0:28:39 He says, I will never make the deal again.
0:28:43 But anyway, so the movie was a huge hit.
0:28:45 It came out just before Christmas.
0:28:47 And throughout Christmas and New Year,
0:28:51 it made every day three to $4 million,
0:28:52 which in the day’s term,
0:28:55 it will be, of course, in a double or triple.
0:28:56 But it was just huge
0:28:59 and it just went up to $129 million.
0:29:02 Domestically, and I think worldwide,
0:29:06 it was like $260 million or something like that.
0:29:08 So it was really very, very successful.
0:29:11 And like I said, it ended up costing,
0:29:13 I think around $18 million the movie.
0:29:14 – Amazing, so amazing.
0:29:16 Now, when I hear a story like that,
0:29:18 I think of the deal that George Lucas did
0:29:20 for Star Wars where the studio’s like,
0:29:21 ah, toys, whatever, sure.
0:29:23 Yeah, you can have the toys.
0:29:25 And then they probably felt very much the same way.
0:29:27 They’re like, wow, we’re not gonna make that mistake again.
0:29:30 I’ve heard you mentioned transcendental meditation
0:29:32 in passing briefly.
0:29:33 Do you meditate?
0:29:34 – I don’t meditate now,
0:29:38 but I got heavily into it in the ’70s.
0:29:40 And I remember there was a time in my life
0:29:43 where I felt like everything is just kind of coming together
0:29:46 and I did not find a way or couldn’t find a way
0:29:48 of keeping the things separate.
0:29:49 So it was always when I was thinking about it,
0:29:51 I was thinking about it at the same time,
0:29:53 my bodybuilding career,
0:29:54 I was thinking about my movie career,
0:29:56 I was thinking about the documentary pumping out
0:29:57 that we’re shooting right now.
0:30:00 And the movies stay hungry that we just finished shooting.
0:30:02 And my investment in the apartment building
0:30:05 and this is gonna, do I get the financing from the bank?
0:30:08 And all of this kind of stuff was always coming together.
0:30:10 And at the same time, I was training
0:30:14 for the Mr. Olympia competition in South Africa.
0:30:16 And I was training right here at Gold’s Gym.
0:30:18 And I remember there was all the camera equipment
0:30:21 around five hours a day in my face.
0:30:22 And then someone in the middle of squatting
0:30:25 was trying to change the battery pack
0:30:27 on my lifting belt and all that stuff.
0:30:30 So I was like, you know, eventually I felt like
0:30:31 I got to do something about it
0:30:35 because I have such great opportunities here
0:30:36 and everything is happening
0:30:38 and everything is going my way.
0:30:42 But I’m just clustering everything into one big problem
0:30:44 rather than separating it out
0:30:47 and having calm and peace and being happy.
0:30:50 And so I, but total, you know, coincident,
0:30:53 I ran into this guy that I’ve run into many times
0:30:57 in the beach, very, very pleasant man who told me
0:31:00 that he is a teacher in Transcendental Meditation.
0:31:01 And I said, well, it’s interesting you mentioned it.
0:31:04 I said, because I feel like I should do something
0:31:07 because I feel like I’m just overly worried
0:31:08 and the anxieties and all this stuff.
0:31:10 And I feel like certain pressures
0:31:12 that I’ve never felt before.
0:31:16 And he says, oh, Arnold, it’s not uncommon.
0:31:17 It’s very common.
0:31:19 A lot of people go through this.
0:31:22 This is why people use meditation,
0:31:25 Transcendental Meditation as one way
0:31:26 of dealing with the problem.
0:31:29 And he was very good in selling it
0:31:33 because he didn’t say it’s the only answer.
0:31:34 He just is one of many.
0:31:36 And he says, why don’t you try it?
0:31:39 He says, I’m a teacher there up in Westwood.
0:31:42 I would not be able to teach you since we’re friends
0:31:44 and many of you says, there will be another teacher
0:31:46 that will give you a mantra and blah, blah, blah,
0:31:47 and teach you how to do it.
0:31:49 And then I can help you after that
0:31:50 because I will be teaching of this.
0:31:51 So why don’t you come up on Thursday
0:31:53 and I will be there.
0:31:54 I will introduce you to the folks up there.
0:31:57 And so I went up there, took a class,
0:32:01 and I went home after that and I then tried it.
0:32:03 I said, I gotta give you the shot.
0:32:06 And I did 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes at night.
0:32:09 And I would say within 14 days, three weeks,
0:32:12 I got to the point where I really could disconnect my mind.
0:32:14 And as they say, to find these few seconds
0:32:17 of disconnection and to rejuvenate the mind
0:32:20 and also learn how to focus more and to calm down.
0:32:23 And that’s all they affect right away.
0:32:27 That I was much more calm about all of the challenges
0:32:28 that were facing me.
0:32:32 And I continued doing that then for a year.
0:32:35 And by that time I felt like, I think that I’ve mastered this.
0:32:38 I think that now I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore.
0:32:41 And I really felt kind of, it was one of the things
0:32:45 where in the transcendental meditation was kind of anxiety
0:32:50 and pressure meeting around the corner, tranquility.
0:32:52 You know, this is kind of what it felt.
0:32:54 So I was happy from their point.
0:32:58 And even the day, I still benefit from that
0:33:02 because I don’t merge and bring things together
0:33:04 and see everything as one big problem.
0:33:07 I take on one challenge at the time.
0:33:11 And when I go and I study my script for a movie,
0:33:14 then that day when I study my script for a movie,
0:33:16 I don’t let anything else in the fear in that
0:33:18 and I just concentrate on that.
0:33:20 So the other thing that I’ve learned is
0:33:24 that there’s many forms of meditation in a way
0:33:28 because like when I study and I work really hard
0:33:31 where it takes the ultimate amount of concentration,
0:33:36 I can only do it for 45 minutes, maybe, maybe an hour.
0:33:39 But then I have to kind of run off and maybe play chess.
0:33:41 And I play chess for 15 minutes.
0:33:43 Then I can go back and I have all the energy in the world again
0:33:46 and jump right back and then continue on with my work
0:33:49 as if I’ve not done it at all today, right?
0:33:51 It’s like I’m fresh.
0:33:54 And so that’s another way I think of meditation.
0:33:59 And then I also figured out that I could use my workouts
0:34:03 as a form of meditation because I concentrate so much
0:34:07 on the muscle and I have my mind inside the bicep
0:34:09 when I do my curls.
0:34:11 I have my mind inside the pectoral muscles
0:34:12 when I do my bench press.
0:34:17 So I’m really inside and it’s like again a form of meditation
0:34:19 because you have no chance of thinking
0:34:22 or concentrating on anything else at that time,
0:34:25 but just that training that you do.
0:34:27 So there’s many ways of meditation
0:34:29 and I benefit from all of those.
0:34:31 And I’m today much calmer because of that
0:34:36 and much more organized and much more tranquil because of that.
0:34:37 – This whole conversation makes me want
0:34:38 to go tackle the world.
0:34:44 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors
0:34:46 and we’ll be right back to the show.
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0:35:50 And now, Ann Muraco,
0:35:53 a co-founding partner at Floodgate Venture Capital Firm,
0:35:56 a repeat member of both the Forbes Midas List
0:36:00 and the New York Times’ top 20 venture capitalists worldwide,
0:36:04 one of Forbes’ most powerful women in startups,
0:36:05 and a Stanford lecturer
0:36:09 and member of the Board of Trustees of Yale University.
0:36:12 You can find Ann on Twitter @annemaniac.
0:36:16 – Ann, welcome to the show.
0:36:17 – Thanks for having me.
0:36:20 – So there are so many places we could start.
0:36:24 I was hoping to humanize the ever-intimidating Ann Muraco,
0:36:27 which I may only partially succeed at doing.
0:36:32 But could we start with explaining
0:36:35 why your brother used to introduce you
0:36:38 or how he used to introduce you on stage?
0:36:40 – I had this brother, an older brother,
0:36:42 by exactly two years.
0:36:44 We were born on the same day.
0:36:47 And he was one of these guys who was so confident.
0:36:52 He knew that he wanted to stay in cars and airplanes
0:36:55 from the time that I could remember him existing.
0:36:58 And he was always confident with friends.
0:37:00 And he was also confident on stage.
0:37:05 And so as any good Asian child would do,
0:37:07 we played musical instruments.
0:37:09 I played the piano.
0:37:11 He played the violin.
0:37:14 And we would always have to perform.
0:37:18 And I was painfully, painfully shy.
0:37:20 And so I would get up on stage
0:37:22 and I would refuse to speak.
0:37:24 And my mother, knowing this,
0:37:27 wouldn’t let this get in the way of our performing.
0:37:29 She would send my brother up on stage
0:37:31 to help announce whatever I was playing.
0:37:35 I have this real clear memory of being in junior high
0:37:37 and having this happen.
0:37:40 My brother got up on stage and said,
0:37:42 this is Ann Mira.
0:37:46 She’s gonna be playing a Chopin Nocturne and go.
0:37:50 And I looked over and I remember thinking to myself,
0:37:52 like the mental dialogue that’s happening
0:37:57 in a teenager’s mind, this is totally ridiculous.
0:38:01 Because I’m sitting there in front of a room full of people
0:38:03 and I felt fine playing the piano,
0:38:06 but I felt petrified speaking.
0:38:09 And that’s one of like the clearest memories
0:38:11 that I have of my brother and me
0:38:14 and the difference that we had between the two of us.
0:38:18 – Why were you so shy or nervous about speaking?
0:38:21 – I’ve always been an introvert.
0:38:25 So I think it comes probably directly from that.
0:38:29 But I was also sort of, I was a strange child, I have to admit.
0:38:31 I had a lot of different interests,
0:38:33 but I loved to do things by myself.
0:38:37 I wasn’t really that interested in talking to other people.
0:38:40 Like one of the first things my mom actually
0:38:42 discovered about me when I was a little kid,
0:38:45 when I was two, I only spoke Japanese.
0:38:47 We were living in Michigan
0:38:50 and I used to be this very hostile little child.
0:38:55 And I would walk by anyone speaking in English.
0:38:59 And in Japanese, I would say, I wish you would leave.
0:39:04 So, you know, I can’t even, my poor mom, my poor mom.
0:39:10 And so she was like, oh, we really should socialize
0:39:13 and with people who speak English.
0:39:14 And we’re living in Michigan.
0:39:15 So there’s no shortage of these people.
0:39:17 – Just a hip pause.
0:39:19 Do you still speak Japanese?
0:39:22 – I do, so I speak Japanese to my parents.
0:39:24 – How do you say, I wish you would leave,
0:39:27 just for people who want to mutter that
0:39:30 to people in the park or wherever they might be as,
0:39:32 do you recall or how might you have said that as a kid?
0:39:34 Do you have any idea?
0:39:37 – I think I might have said, let me think about it.
0:39:40 (speaking in foreign language)
0:39:42 (laughing)
0:39:45 – That is aggressive.
0:39:46 That’s really aggressive.
0:39:47 – Yeah, you know, I was like,
0:39:49 you’re not welcome in this house.
0:39:51 – Oh my God.
0:39:54 – Or it was like, it was, I think probably more likely,
0:39:57 it was urusaina, which is-
0:39:58 – Right, right, right.
0:40:00 Oh wow, that’s even worse, yeah.
0:40:02 – Right, and so, but it was always-
0:40:07 – Urusaina is like something that a drunk dad says.
0:40:10 – Yeah, it’s kind of like shut up.
0:40:12 – Yeah, you’re really loud, you’re really irritating.
0:40:15 – But like a little intransigent two-year-old
0:40:20 saying that to a grown-up speaking English in her home.
0:40:22 – Okay, I don’t want to take us too far off the rails,
0:40:25 but we may come back to that, okay.
0:40:26 So we were talking about you being introverted
0:40:28 and shy and weird, yeah.
0:40:31 – And it was one of these things that I think
0:40:33 it really held me back, and I knew,
0:40:36 I knew actually it was holding me back.
0:40:38 The strange part though was,
0:40:42 my mom was recently talking to me about this
0:40:45 in a few years prior to that experience,
0:40:48 where I’m in junior high and I’m on stage.
0:40:51 I had actually done this other thing,
0:40:54 which was we had this summer school program
0:40:57 where I would go to local community college,
0:40:58 it was Foothill College,
0:41:00 and all these schools around the area
0:41:02 when they let out for summer,
0:41:04 the students would go to this community college
0:41:07 to take math classes and writing classes and whatnot.
0:41:10 So a lot of elementary school students
0:41:13 to high school students would be at Foothill College.
0:41:16 And so my mom said, you have to pick two classes.
0:41:19 And one class was a math class, obviously.
0:41:22 And she said, you could pick your second class.
0:41:26 And my brother picked a normal junior high school
0:41:29 writing class, and I was in fifth grade at the time,
0:41:34 so 10 years old, and I picked a negotiations class.
0:41:37 And it was not in the summer school program,
0:41:39 it was an adult class.
0:41:40 – Why did you pick that?
0:41:45 – I picked it because I remember the book was getting to yes.
0:41:48 And my mom looked at me and she said,
0:41:50 why did you pick this class?
0:41:52 And I said, it’s because they’re teaching you
0:41:56 how to get to yes, and I wanna know how to get to yes.
0:42:01 And I have this incredible experience
0:42:05 at this community college of having a class with,
0:42:09 I imagine they were probably 30 to 50 year old adults
0:42:11 taking this class.
0:42:15 And they were probably the most patient, wonderful people.
0:42:19 And we had this experience where you had certain supplies
0:42:22 that you were given on pieces of paper,
0:42:24 and then you had to negotiate your on Mars,
0:42:27 and you had to negotiate supply lines and whatnot
0:42:29 and create a real society.
0:42:32 And in the simulation, they’re taking seriously
0:42:37 a 10 year old kid who’s negotiating for supplies.
0:42:40 And I remember taking that experience
0:42:45 and feeling like, I was taken seriously in that environment,
0:42:47 but it was a great experience
0:42:50 because it was a small class, it was like 20 people.
0:42:54 And in that setting, I felt okay speaking up,
0:42:57 but then on stage, I didn’t still.
0:43:00 And so it was sort of these small steps that felt like
0:43:04 I was getting closer and closer to realizing,
0:43:06 oh, I need to actually be able to speak up,
0:43:10 I need to be able to say things in front of a large audience.
0:43:13 And so there was this desire to face my fears.
0:43:15 – So what was the next step after that?
0:43:20 How did you go about facing the fear of speaking on stage?
0:43:23 – I get to high school and as every high school freshman
0:43:25 is doing, they’re looking for different activities
0:43:27 to participate in.
0:43:31 And I decided to dive into speech and debate.
0:43:34 And speech and debate at this time at Palo Alto High School
0:43:37 was not a very big activity.
0:43:40 There were probably about 20 students on the team.
0:43:44 And I found that I really enjoyed it.
0:43:48 And it was a really great group of students.
0:43:50 And then not only from Palo Alto High School,
0:43:52 but from the local community.
0:43:56 And I just fell in love with the idea
0:43:59 that you could really seriously get up
0:44:02 in front of an audience and talk about
0:44:06 really important issues, even as a high school student.
0:44:09 And so I dove into that activity
0:44:12 and it was frankly terrible at it.
0:44:14 I think freshman, sophomore year,
0:44:18 I didn’t win any tournaments, didn’t even come close.
0:44:21 That was sort of the way though I decided
0:44:23 I could face that fear.
0:44:24 – What kept you going?
0:44:26 I mean, there’s the answer that,
0:44:29 or perhaps a potential answer you gave just a moment ago,
0:44:31 which is you really enjoyed it and you loved it.
0:44:33 But what did you love about it?
0:44:35 What did you enjoy so much
0:44:38 that you were able to persist through failures
0:44:40 over those first two years?
0:44:42 – The first thing is just the people.
0:44:44 I reflect actually on the people that I met
0:44:46 in speech and debate.
0:44:47 And they’re doing incredible things.
0:44:51 We have just in my year alone, not in my team,
0:44:53 but in my local community,
0:44:57 professors, you know, ones at Harvard and government,
0:45:01 ones in philosophy, University of Colorado.
0:45:06 One woman is now on the morning show on NPR.
0:45:09 We have several venture capitalists.
0:45:12 It was just a really interesting group of people
0:45:14 all in the same age group
0:45:18 who wanted to talk about really interesting things.
0:45:22 I also found that the actual activity itself,
0:45:23 it challenged me in a way
0:45:26 that I hadn’t been challenged before.
0:45:28 So I was really good at math and science.
0:45:31 And those things really came naturally to me.
0:45:34 But getting up on stage and speaking
0:45:37 was not something that was natural to me.
0:45:39 But the piece that I did love
0:45:42 that came very naturally was competition.
0:45:45 And I’ve always been this way.
0:45:48 – No, I’m just chuckling because,
0:45:51 yeah, I can, I would agree with that.
0:45:53 – Right, I love, I love competition.
0:45:58 You put in points on anything and I want more.
0:46:01 I want more than the next person.
0:46:03 And I remember the coaches that we had,
0:46:07 we didn’t have teachers at our school
0:46:09 who were able to coach.
0:46:12 And so we had to go across the street to Stanford
0:46:14 and find students who were willing to coach.
0:46:18 And these kids were 18 to 21 years old.
0:46:21 So they would pump us up by saying,
0:46:26 “Hey, if you can get someone to cry in cross-examination,
0:46:29 “I’ll buy you a slice of pizza.”
0:46:34 And so things like that were extraordinarily motivating
0:46:39 and if you feel like logic and arguments
0:46:42 could get you a step further,
0:46:43 it was just something that,
0:46:45 even though I wasn’t good at it at the time,
0:46:47 I just loved it.
0:46:50 And I felt like if I could just do one more tournament,
0:46:52 I’d become even better at it.
0:46:53 And you would see that.
0:46:55 So that’s the thing that I loved.
0:46:57 – So do you have any memory?
0:47:01 This seems like a very, very specific example
0:47:05 that you gave of the crying in the pizza.
0:47:06 Did that actually happen?
0:47:08 Did you succeed at making someone cry
0:47:10 in cross-examination for a slice of pizza?
0:47:12 Or was that just something that kids–
0:47:13 – Oh yeah.
0:47:16 – I feel like I’m not succeeding in my desire
0:47:19 to humanize me and make myself seem
0:47:21 like a less of a dragon lady, but–
0:47:22 – We’ll get there, we’ll get there.
0:47:25 But this, I wanna hear this story.
0:47:27 So let’s–
0:47:28 – Oh, there’s several stories.
0:47:31 So there were points in time where I remember
0:47:35 people would cry in that they would crumble
0:47:37 in the middle of cross-examination
0:47:39 and run out of the room crying.
0:47:42 And my coach would see that
0:47:45 and proudly bring me a slice of pizza after.
0:47:46 This happened multiple times.
0:47:48 This wasn’t a single tournament.
0:47:51 And there were moments where they had courtesy points too.
0:47:53 So it wasn’t just about winning.
0:47:56 It was also whether you were courteous during that.
0:47:59 There were rounds where I got zero courtesy points.
0:48:02 And my coaches, they would ask
0:48:04 why we got zero courtesy points
0:48:08 just to really understand if we were just being mean.
0:48:11 But a lot of times it was just because we were,
0:48:16 and I was particularly tenacious in cross-examination.
0:48:19 And even at the point where I had the person stumped,
0:48:21 I would just keep going.
0:48:23 I would keep going, keep going at it.
0:48:27 And so I remember at least four or five occasions
0:48:30 where someone cried and left the room
0:48:32 before the round was over.
0:48:35 – This was like the Cobra Kai of debating.
0:48:39 It was like the bad team from the Karate Kid.
0:48:42 – It’s my six-year-old at one point
0:48:44 right before kindergarten said,
0:48:49 “Hey, mama, I can make people cry just with my words.”
0:48:51 And I have to say, it was like a really proud moment for me.
0:48:53 And then I had to course correct
0:48:55 and talk to him about that, but.
0:49:02 – Now, for someone who is wondering what I omitted
0:49:06 from the bio that’s ahead in front of me,
0:49:09 you had two years of not doing well.
0:49:11 And then in the bio we have,
0:49:14 she placed first in the national tournament of champions
0:49:16 and second in the state of California in high school.
0:49:18 And it goes on, I’ll mention one more thing.
0:49:20 It was part of a five-person team at Yale
0:49:22 that competed in the RoboCup competition in Paris, France.
0:49:24 All right, but let’s focus on the debating.
0:49:28 So how did you go from to miss, flub with,
0:49:32 not succeeding in debating to getting good at debating?
0:49:37 – Yeah, this is where I think it’s the love of the game.
0:49:39 – Were your parents supportive
0:49:42 through all of these early trials and tribulations?
0:49:43 – No, no.
0:49:45 So you have to remember,
0:49:47 I come from very traditional Japanese parents
0:49:50 who really want me to get into a great university.
0:49:54 And my mom at one point right after sophomore year
0:49:58 looks at my record and my parents were incredibly supportive.
0:50:00 They would go and judge these tournaments
0:50:04 every single weekend, spend so much time doing it,
0:50:06 driving us all over the state.
0:50:10 And my parents pulled me aside and said,
0:50:11 this isn’t working.
0:50:16 You have a losing record in this activity that you’re doing
0:50:19 and you appear to be doubling down on your time
0:50:21 with respect to this.
0:50:23 And if you want to get into a good college,
0:50:27 you have to perform well in whatever you’re doing.
0:50:28 It’s not just about effort.
0:50:30 You have to have results.
0:50:33 And I remember my mom said to me,
0:50:37 I’ve heard fencing is a great way to get into an Ivy League
0:50:42 college and I remember looking at her and I was like,
0:50:45 how is it possible that she’s my mother?
0:50:48 She clearly does not know anything
0:50:50 about my athletic abilities
0:50:54 if she’s suggesting that I move into fencing at this moment.
0:50:59 And so I said to them, point taken, give me the summer
0:51:02 and I’m going to just work on it.
0:51:04 And this was back before the internet.
0:51:08 So working on it meant I was at Stanford Green Library
0:51:12 reading philosophy books and reading articles
0:51:15 about, I think they have 12 topics,
0:51:18 12 possible topics that they’re going to pull from
0:51:20 for the next year.
0:51:24 And I just studied those topics.
0:51:29 I lived in the library and then I emerged that year
0:51:34 to start competing and when they announced that first topic,
0:51:37 I knew that topic cold.
0:51:40 And then I could write my cases really quickly.
0:51:43 I had already done all this research.
0:51:48 And I remember going into my very, very first round
0:51:51 and had this deal with my parents.
0:51:54 If I didn’t win one of my first two tournaments
0:51:57 or at least place, then I would quit.
0:51:59 And I had this distinct impression walking
0:52:04 into my very first round of debate that fall
0:52:08 and feeling as I looked across at my opponent
0:52:13 that there was no way that they could have out prepared me.
0:52:20 And so I knew that whatever they said,
0:52:23 I would have five arguments against.
0:52:26 And it was this incredible knowledge
0:52:30 that it’s not that you can be lucky
0:52:34 and turn your luck around, you actually make your own luck.
0:52:37 And for me, that was a profound lesson
0:52:39 because I placed in that tournament
0:52:41 and I placed in the next tournament
0:52:44 and it was like that, it just never stopped after that.
0:52:47 And I had a losing record
0:52:49 all through my freshman sophomore year.
0:52:54 And it’s like I turned it around junior year very suddenly.
0:52:58 And the main difference was that I was willing to outwork
0:53:01 and outdo every competitor who walked in through that door.
0:53:05 – For people who don’t know the format,
0:53:07 and I’ll be honest, I’ve been surrounded by,
0:53:11 not surrounded by, but certainly in the same universities
0:53:13 and so on where debate teams existed,
0:53:18 but I’ve never seen a debate competition.
0:53:21 What is the format?
0:53:23 – It’s a bunch of nerdy kids dressed in suits,
0:53:25 holding briefcases.
0:53:27 And then maybe that’s changed,
0:53:29 but that’s what it was back then.
0:53:32 And then you have a resolution
0:53:35 that’s been announced nationwide.
0:53:39 And that resolution is generally,
0:53:41 it has some philosophical elements to it.
0:53:44 This is also Lincoln Douglas style of debate.
0:53:46 And you have-
0:53:47 – What does that mean?
0:53:48 If you don’t mind me.
0:53:50 – So it’s one person against one person.
0:53:54 So it’s individual and it’s value-based.
0:53:57 And so you’re really debating philosophy.
0:54:01 So an example of one debate that we did,
0:54:04 the principle of majority rule
0:54:08 ought to be valued above the principle of minority rights
0:54:13 or resolved that education is a privilege and not a right.
0:54:17 So all of these debates are really surrounding,
0:54:20 not a specific policy,
0:54:23 but it has some application in the real world.
0:54:24 And what you’re trying to debate
0:54:29 is a philosophical underpinning behind that statement.
0:54:32 And what I loved about debate was
0:54:35 you were actually forced to debate both sides.
0:54:38 So you had to have cases ready
0:54:40 for both the affirmative and the negative.
0:54:45 So pro the resolution and against the resolution.
0:54:47 And the format is the affirmative goes up
0:54:49 and talks about this resolution
0:54:53 and says all the reasons that they support it.
0:54:55 And then there’s a short cross-examination
0:54:59 where the negative then cross-examines the affirmative,
0:55:01 asks questions of the affirmative.
0:55:06 Then the negative gets up and talks about all the reasons
0:55:09 that they’re against the resolution.
0:55:11 And then it goes point by point
0:55:14 against all of the arguments that the affirmative made
0:55:17 and talks about why they’re wrong.
0:55:19 And then there’s another cross-examination
0:55:21 of the affirmative against the negative.
0:55:24 And then the affirmative gets up for a rebuttal,
0:55:26 negative gets up for a rebuttal,
0:55:28 and then the affirmative does closing arguments.
0:55:31 Well, that’s sort of shorter and shorter speeches
0:55:32 towards the end.
0:55:36 – And how is the outcome determined?
0:55:39 What are the parameters?
0:55:41 – So it really depends on the tournament.
0:55:43 – Aside from courtesy.
0:55:46 – Courtesy points, it’s all about courtesy.
0:55:48 There’s two different types of tournaments.
0:55:50 Actually, when I was debating,
0:55:53 one was where you had parent judges.
0:55:57 In that, I would say really the style of speaking,
0:56:00 your flair really would come into play,
0:56:01 your sense of humor.
0:56:05 It wasn’t really just the line-by-line arguments.
0:56:07 There was also places where you would go
0:56:10 where college students were the judges
0:56:13 or experienced coaches were the judges.
0:56:17 And that’s where really the line-by-line logic
0:56:19 becomes much more important
0:56:22 than just the style of your debate.
0:56:24 So it really depends on your audience,
0:56:26 and you had to read the audience correctly.
0:56:31 – And did they just then say, I choose A or B?
0:56:33 Or do they have to rank like the sort of Olympic style
0:56:36 one to 10 in some fashion?
0:56:39 – So you only have two debaters that you’re judging
0:56:41 and you vote for one of them.
0:56:44 And in some of the rounds, you have just a single judge.
0:56:48 And then in another, in the breakout rounds,
0:56:51 the semifinals, you might have a panel of judges.
0:56:54 They can’t confer, they’re just sort of voting
0:56:56 individually on who wins.
0:57:01 – So you may be at a point now with debate and argument
0:57:05 that you’ve reached the unconscious competency phase
0:57:07 in the sense that in skill acquisition,
0:57:09 in one framework that one could use
0:57:11 to think about skill acquisition,
0:57:13 as you go from unconscious incompetence
0:57:17 to conscious incompetence to conscious competence,
0:57:19 then unconscious competence.
0:57:21 So I don’t know if this question is gonna be a good one,
0:57:22 but I’ll try it anyway.
0:57:26 For people who want to get better at debating
0:57:29 and structuring arguments and so on,
0:57:33 are there any books or approaches or resources,
0:57:36 anything, exercises that you would suggest?
0:57:41 – Well, getting to yes, I thought was always really good.
0:57:45 I actually found the philosophical texts
0:57:48 to be extraordinarily informative.
0:57:53 So anything where you have that Socratic method in a book,
0:57:56 I found really a great way of learning
0:58:00 how people debate the greatest philosophers,
0:58:04 Aristotle and Socrates, even when you get into
0:58:07 more modern literature around justice,
0:58:11 you have people like John Rawls writing.
0:58:14 That is actually a dialogue and a real logical debate.
0:58:18 And I always found those examples to be really great
0:58:23 to read how people argue philosophical constructs.
0:58:27 Presidential debates, to be honest in politics,
0:58:30 aren’t real debates because it’s two ships passing
0:58:33 in the night and you don’t have real conflict
0:58:35 between people.
0:58:38 I’ve also found like the British parliamentary system,
0:58:40 if you’ve ever had the chance to see that on,
0:58:42 I think sometimes it’s on C-SPAN,
0:58:45 that’s actually an interesting observation
0:58:47 of a real world debate as well,
0:58:50 because they will actually engage in dialogue
0:58:54 around policy and it’s not just ad hominem attacks.
0:58:57 I find those sort of real world examples
0:59:00 much more powerful than someone going sort of point
0:59:03 by point in teaching you how to debate.
0:59:05 Because I think that how is much more around
0:59:08 how do you engage in the idea?
0:59:11 How do you read and research both sides of an argument?
0:59:15 And what do you believe on both sides?
0:59:17 And so one way to do that would actually
0:59:21 to take a fairly controversial topic
0:59:25 and then actually read a lot of literature
0:59:28 on both sides of the argument
0:59:32 and then understand where actually the conflict happens
0:59:35 or are there definitions that people don’t agree on?
0:59:38 Are there nuances that people haven’t thought about?
0:59:41 Is there real conflict or are they two ships
0:59:42 passing in the night?
0:59:45 I think you could do that with even the gun control debate
0:59:47 or you could do that with immigration
0:59:49 or you could do that with abortion
0:59:52 and really understand both sides of an argument
0:59:55 and that’s the way to engage in the process of debate,
0:59:56 I believe.
1:00:00 – If we’re reflecting back on your Cobra Kai training
1:00:05 for slices of pizza, I’d be really curious to know
1:00:10 if there are any particular approaches or questions
1:00:15 or playbooks that you find very useful
1:00:17 in a heated argument.
1:00:19 And I’ll give you some hypotheticals, right?
1:00:21 Let’s say that you are on stage at an event
1:00:23 and you are doing a Q and A with the audience
1:00:25 and you have someone who ends up being really hostile
1:00:27 or attacks you or it could be on someone on stage.
1:00:31 You’re just having a contentious debate of some type.
1:00:33 I find it fascinating to see how people,
1:00:38 even with no real logical advantage, shut down opponents
1:00:41 and I’m not saying that’s you in this case,
1:00:43 but for instance, whatever people may think
1:00:46 of our dear current president of the United States,
1:00:49 I do find it fascinating how effective he has been at saying,
1:00:50 check your facts, right?
1:00:56 And it just throws enough imbalance into the dynamic
1:00:57 where someone’s like, wait a second,
1:00:59 maybe I did miss one piece of due diligence
1:01:03 that they’re on their heels and it opens up a window
1:01:08 and creates sort of an illusion of them being stymied
1:01:09 that is really advantageous.
1:01:12 I’m like, wow, I mean, it’s kind of gross on one level,
1:01:14 but it’s also kind of brilliant.
1:01:16 And I also have a lot of lawyers in my family.
1:01:17 So one thing that they’ll do,
1:01:21 not to say they all love arguing, but a lot of them do,
1:01:24 you’ll say something and they will go,
1:01:26 so let me just get this straight.
1:01:29 So I understand you’re saying that X
1:01:30 and they’ll kind of take your argument
1:01:33 and inch it a little closer to absurdity,
1:01:36 but just subtly enough that you’ll say,
1:01:37 yeah, that’s about right.
1:01:39 And they’ll say, okay, so really what you mean is X, right?
1:01:41 And they start to edge you over
1:01:44 before they even counter with an argument
1:01:48 to make you contradict yourself or kind of seem ridiculous.
1:01:51 And then they just have to kind of finish you off.
1:01:53 I’ve never taken debate,
1:01:57 but I do find this really practical and really interesting.
1:01:59 So it’s a long-winded way of intro-ing,
1:02:01 but what are your thoughts on any of that?
1:02:05 – It’s funny, my husband has said to me in the past,
1:02:08 and this is a lesson that I continue to try to learn
1:02:11 and relearn, is that life is not a debate.
1:02:13 (both laughing)
1:02:14 – Right.
1:02:15 – And you know what he’s saying,
1:02:19 and it’s funny, he was a debater as well in college
1:02:21 and in high school.
1:02:24 And we joke that I would still have beaten him in high school
1:02:27 if we had actually gone head-to-head.
1:02:29 But I think it’s a really important point
1:02:33 that life isn’t about winning the argument.
1:02:35 And he’s also said to me in the past,
1:02:37 it’s not about being right.
1:02:40 And I think that’s so true.
1:02:45 It’s something that I’m always trying to really practice
1:02:49 in life, and I think it’s the debater in me
1:02:51 makes it really hard.
1:02:52 The things that you’re pointing out
1:02:56 are what’s important about it is that people
1:03:01 have a tendency to have an inner dialogue where they’re right.
1:03:06 And instead of really listening to the other person,
1:03:09 they’re coming up with a next argument
1:03:11 that proves that person wrong.
1:03:14 So if you go back to what I really loved about debate
1:03:17 and what I felt like I got out of it,
1:03:19 it was actually this ability to see
1:03:23 both sides of an argument, to really delve into a topic
1:03:25 and understand why the side
1:03:28 that I actually naturally believed
1:03:31 could actually be flipped on its head.
1:03:33 And that was a really important skill to develop.
1:03:37 And I think that was so much more important to develop
1:03:39 than the skill to argue for my side.
1:03:42 Because I think in the world today,
1:03:45 what we don’t see enough of is empathy
1:03:49 for people you might even disagree with.
1:03:53 And we get stuck in our version of truth
1:03:55 and what is right.
1:04:00 And we aren’t truth seekers anymore as a result.
1:04:02 We’re truth winners.
1:04:03 – That’s very true, yeah, very true.
1:04:07 – That’s a piece that really makes me sad is that,
1:04:11 when people are like, oh, this debate skill is so great to have
1:04:15 because now you can like ram people with your ideas
1:04:19 and I’ve never seen a situation where you shouted people down
1:04:21 and convinced them you were right.
1:04:25 I’ve seen situations where by developing true empathy
1:04:29 for the other side, you actually create bridges
1:04:31 and you create commonality
1:04:34 and you create situations where you can actually work together.
1:04:37 And I think that’s the piece I would take away
1:04:39 from my debate experience.
1:04:41 I would say actually making the person cry
1:04:44 and cross examination probably is not the skill
1:04:46 that I should be using in real life,
1:04:47 although maybe sometimes I do.
1:04:53 – Just when you’re teaching your son the black magic.
1:04:56 I should point out just so people don’t think
1:04:59 I’m completely sort of drinking the Kool-Aid
1:05:01 of the bloodlust of this potential sport,
1:05:04 although I do find it very, very fascinating
1:05:07 as an insight into some parts of human nature.
1:05:09 But the book you mentioned getting to yes,
1:05:11 which is part or a byproduct
1:05:14 of the Harvard Negotiation Project as I recall,
1:05:17 is not a book about proving you’re right.
1:05:19 It’s a book about getting outcomes.
1:05:20 – Yes.
1:05:24 – And there’s another book which I believe was co-authored
1:05:26 by one of the co-authors of getting to yes
1:05:28 called the Getting Past No,
1:05:32 which I also really, really like.
1:05:35 And it is about, well, both of these books,
1:05:37 any book really on negotiation
1:05:41 is about achieving a very particular outcome
1:05:45 or arriving at a desired result
1:05:46 as opposed to proving that you’re right.
1:05:49 So I just wanna underscore that
1:05:51 because there’s a very real world difference
1:05:56 as you already noted between, say, debate and negotiation.
1:06:00 The toolkits are very similar perhaps in some respects,
1:06:03 but in debate, you’re not gonna have to think about,
1:06:07 I wouldn’t imagine, something like the Batna
1:06:08 that they talk about in Getting to Yes.
1:06:11 Your best alternative to negotiated agreement.
1:06:13 Like walk away power or what your options are.
1:06:16 You don’t necessarily have to go through that thought process,
1:06:17 but when you step into the real world
1:06:19 and you’re not just trying to prove that you’re right,
1:06:22 you’re trying to get someone to concede something
1:06:24 and agree to a certain set of terms
1:06:26 or a price or whatever it might be.
1:06:29 Or amicably trying to break up with someone
1:06:31 or get together with someone or have a divorce
1:06:33 or whatever it might be,
1:06:35 you’re really trying to manifest some type of outcome
1:06:37 or damage control.
1:06:41 It’s really, really different from being a truth winner.
1:06:45 And the world-class term that I mentioned in the intro
1:06:47 that I used a little bit of foreshadowing,
1:06:52 saying that I suspected it might come up a little bit later.
1:06:57 So in doing homework for this conversation,
1:07:00 I read, and I don’t think this is a misquote,
1:07:04 but that your dad, even when I think you were gonna be
1:07:07 photocopying in the dean’s office,
1:07:10 would remind you to be world-class.
1:07:11 – Yeah.
1:07:13 – And you would ask you if you turned in a calculus assignment,
1:07:15 is that a world-class effort?
1:07:17 – Yeah.
1:07:19 – Could you talk a little bit more about this?
1:07:21 And that wasn’t my experience growing up.
1:07:24 My parents certainly encouraged me to do a good job,
1:07:27 but tell us a little bit more about your dad
1:07:31 in this particular case and how that was used.
1:07:35 – My dad grew up in Tokyo,
1:07:37 right at the tail end of World War II.
1:07:40 And so one of his earliest memories actually is
1:07:44 just planes coming across Tokyo and the fire bombs.
1:07:47 And he escaped to the countryside
1:07:50 and then came back to Tokyo for high school.
1:07:53 His father passed away when he was in college
1:07:56 and he literally tutored kids.
1:07:59 One guy was like the prime minister’s son
1:08:03 so that he could make enough cash to support his family.
1:08:05 He had three other siblings.
1:08:08 And he was one of these incredible academics.
1:08:12 And so he was at the top of his class
1:08:14 in one of the famous high schools in Tokyo,
1:08:16 went to Tokyo University,
1:08:18 was also then went to Toshiba,
1:08:23 which at the time was one of these great companies to work for.
1:08:26 And then he ran into a friend who told him,
1:08:28 he was also a friend who was one of the top
1:08:29 at his high school who said,
1:08:32 “Hey, there’s great opportunities in America.”
1:08:37 And this person had gone off to Princeton and gone his PhD
1:08:43 and was at that time working in one of the great labs in IBM
1:08:46 and was also becoming a professor.
1:08:50 And my dad decided that he also wanted to go to the US.
1:08:52 And he was the eldest son.
1:08:57 And so having a mother who’s a widow and three siblings,
1:09:00 he had to take care of them until he had saved up enough.
1:09:02 All of his siblings were married
1:09:04 and his mom had the courage to say,
1:09:06 “You know what, you can go, you can go to the US.”
1:09:10 So this is sort of the backdrop for who my dad is.
1:09:14 He comes to the United States without speaking very much English,
1:09:19 gets a PhD in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering,
1:09:23 and then is in LA ultimately as a postdoc
1:09:25 and an associate professor.
1:09:27 My mom comes to marry him
1:09:33 and they are the only family members living in the United States.
1:09:35 So really no support.
1:09:40 So my dad eventually makes his way out to NASA at Moffitt Field.
1:09:44 And my memories of him, he was very engaged on the academics,
1:09:48 but he would wake up at five in the morning and go to work
1:09:50 and he’d bring back reams of paper
1:09:52 and would continue working late into the night.
1:09:54 He loved what he did.
1:09:59 So when he turned to me on anything I ever did,
1:10:04 from the time I was a small child, I would be writing something.
1:10:07 And if the handwriting wasn’t neat enough, he would say,
1:10:10 “Hey, is this world class?”
1:10:13 And I remember thinking to myself,
1:10:17 “For a five-year-old, yeah, this is world class.”
1:10:20 But he would always push.
1:10:26 He would always say, “Is this really the best that a five-year-old could ever do?”
1:10:28 And it was a constant message.
1:10:34 And the story you’re pointing to is one, when I was in college,
1:10:36 after living through a lifetime of this,
1:10:38 “Is this world class?” question,
1:10:44 I had a moment where I was starting my financial aid package,
1:10:47 included 10 hours of work study.
1:10:52 And I had the opportunity to work in the office of the Dean of Engineering.
1:10:54 And what was really funny to me at the time
1:10:58 is, since I’m leaving to go to my first day of work,
1:11:00 I called my parents.
1:11:04 My dad gets on the phone and he said, “Make sure you do a world class job.”
1:11:09 And I thought, my dad thought I was really doing something important in the office.
1:11:11 And in fact, I was just photocopying.
1:11:14 And I said to my dad, “I’m photocopying and I’m filing.
1:11:16 There’s no such thing as world class there.”
1:11:18 And he said, “Well, I’d still think about it.”
1:11:22 So I get to the office and I am actually just photocopying and filing.
1:11:27 And I remember standing in front of this photocopy machine with a stack of papers,
1:11:32 thinking to myself, “What is world class in this situation?”
1:11:36 And I decided it was really crisp copies
1:11:39 where you couldn’t tell that it was a photocopy.
1:11:43 And so I remember really trying to make, you know,
1:11:48 the color match and everything was straight.
1:11:51 And I spent a lot of time on the details.
1:11:54 And when I was filing things, I didn’t just handwrite it.
1:11:59 I got a label writer and I made sure it was printed out on labels.
1:12:03 And I really tried to do everything as well as I possibly could.
1:12:09 And I remember I was getting doughnuts and I would like make sure I got the fresh doughnuts
1:12:13 instead of the ones that had been standing out in the basket for a while.
1:12:17 So every step of the way, it was,
1:12:27 “What can I do to make this experience for the dean or for his executive assistant a delight moment?”
1:12:32 And it was a real lesson for me because it was a case of real ownership.
1:12:36 I felt so much ownership of the job I was doing,
1:12:41 even though from the outside, I think most people would have thought it was just sort of a grunt job.
1:12:47 And I think that’s sort of, again, when I come back to you don’t just get luck,
1:12:54 you create these opportunities for yourself to me was a real learning experience.
1:12:58 Right. I mean, you’re looking at the potential precursors of luck
1:13:03 and trying to set the conditions, even though they might not always produce luck.
1:13:06 You can increase the likelihood of it happening,
1:13:13 which I think is a perfect segue to discussion about spring breaks.
1:13:16 Don’t worry, this isn’t going anywhere tricky.
1:13:18 This relates to shadowing.
1:13:22 I’ll just, that’ll be my cue, which might bring you back.
1:13:25 So, all right, we’re to lead into this.
1:13:29 You were giving a man a tour around Yale.
1:13:30 Yeah.
1:13:34 Who is this man? Why were you giving him a tour? What happened?
1:13:35 And I actually don’t know all the detail.
1:13:39 I just, I found two lines in a past interview.
1:13:40 And I was like, you know what, I want to dig into this
1:13:43 because I don’t, there’s more to this story. I know it.
1:13:49 I’m a junior at the time at Yale and doing this office work.
1:13:54 And the Dean of Engineering was this older gentleman, Alan Bromblane.
1:13:58 And he had no idea who I was.
1:14:00 And I’d been working in this office for, I think, two years.
1:14:02 But he barely knew my name.
1:14:07 He was just like this great, he’d worked under George Bush Senior.
1:14:12 He was a legendary physicist and I really looked up to this man.
1:14:16 And so one day he pokes his head out of the office
1:14:18 and the executive assistant was out.
1:14:20 And he said, who are you?
1:14:22 And I said, I’m Ann Mira.
1:14:25 I’m your, I’m your student assistant in this office.
1:14:28 And he said, oh, I’ve heard of you.
1:14:32 I need you to go and give this friend of mine a tour
1:14:34 of the engineering facilities.
1:14:36 And he’s like, I know you’ll do a good job.
1:14:39 Sarah’s told me you’re great.
1:14:42 And so I take this gentleman
1:14:45 and I take him on a fairly thorough tour
1:14:47 of the engineering facilities.
1:14:50 And we just had a great conversation.
1:14:53 And he, it started off with, you know, where, where are you from?
1:14:56 And I said I was from Palo Alto.
1:14:59 And it turns out this guy is also from Palo Alto.
1:15:01 And we’re just sort of talking about Palo Alto
1:15:04 and the buildings that are around us
1:15:07 and my growing up back in Palo Alto.
1:15:09 And in the middle of it, he said, hey, you know,
1:15:11 what are you doing for spring break?
1:15:14 And it just so happened, I was gonna go back home
1:15:16 and visit my family.
1:15:19 And he said, well, that’s great
1:15:23 because I’m wondering if you want to come and shadow me
1:15:25 and see what I do for a living.
1:15:30 And in my complete self-centered moment
1:15:32 of being a, you know, junior,
1:15:35 I hadn’t asked this guy what he did for a living.
1:15:39 And so I said, well, what do you do for a living?
1:15:41 And he said, I’m the CEO of Hewlett Packard.
1:15:48 And I remember thinking to myself, I am such a moron.
1:15:51 And I said, I think that would be amazing
1:15:52 to be able to shadow you
1:15:55 for a couple of weeks during spring break.
1:15:57 And so this man, Lou Platt,
1:16:02 invites me to just shadow him in 1997.
1:16:07 And I am going around, he didn’t have a driver.
1:16:10 He was, this was really just the Hewlett
1:16:12 and Packard era of CEOs.
1:16:15 He drove himself around in a Ford Focus.
1:16:18 I remember this, we would go to different meetings
1:16:20 and he took me around.
1:16:22 And one of the days actually,
1:16:25 Bill Gates came to make an announcement
1:16:29 about .NET with Hewlett Packard.
1:16:33 And so it was an incredible event that happened.
1:16:36 I got to sit backstage and see everything
1:16:37 that was happening.
1:16:42 And Lou Platt that invited the photographer to come in
1:16:46 and actually take a picture of me talking to Lou.
1:16:48 And I didn’t really think about it,
1:16:52 but after the fact, I get back to my dorm
1:16:57 and Lou Platt has sent me a thank you letter
1:16:59 saying thanks for coming to visit.
1:17:02 I thought you would enjoy these photographs.
1:17:03 And there’s two photographs in there.
1:17:06 I’ve framed them in my office now.
1:17:10 One is a picture of me sitting on a seat talking to Lou.
1:17:14 And then the second picture is Bill Gates
1:17:17 sitting exactly in that spot that I was sitting in
1:17:20 talking to Lou Platt.
1:17:25 And to me like mentorship means so many different things.
1:17:27 I’ve had so many different examples of mentors,
1:17:32 but to a junior in college who literally is a nobody,
1:17:38 he was such an incredible example of mentorship.
1:17:40 He never asked for my resume.
1:17:43 He never asked for my GPA.
1:17:46 He just sort of took this girl and said,
1:17:49 you know what, you have something, I see it.
1:17:52 And I’m gonna show you something even greater.
1:17:55 And to me, that is such a gift.
1:17:59 It was so incredible because I hadn’t even thought
1:18:01 about my own personal potential ever.
1:18:04 No one had ever described anything to me.
1:18:08 And I came back from that with my mind completely blown.
1:18:11 I met Anne Livermore who was an executive
1:18:15 and I’d never seen a female executive in my entire life.
1:18:18 And here’s someone who I could look at and see
1:18:21 and I can see that people around her respect her.
1:18:23 It’s a life-changing moment.
1:18:27 And it comes from that first comment
1:18:31 from Dean Bromley who says, I’ve heard of you.
1:18:33 I heard you do a great job.
1:18:36 And that’s where the opportunities opened up.
1:18:38 – You’re the woman responsible for my fresh donuts
1:18:39 and crisp photocopies.
1:18:41 I’ve heard good things.
1:18:42 – Exactly.
1:18:43 – It’s a little things.
1:18:45 – And typed up filing labels.
1:18:47 – Now, I should note,
1:18:48 you don’t have to go too deep into this,
1:18:52 but in a way you were perfectly primed
1:18:55 for doing a good job with your photocopying
1:19:00 and labeling after spending, was it summers in Kanazawa
1:19:02 in the stationary store?
1:19:03 Am I making that up?
1:19:08 – Yeah, no, my first job was literally helping my uncle
1:19:12 and grandmother sell office supplies in Kanazawa, Japan
1:19:14 at our store, Taikido.
1:19:18 – Taikido, man Kanazawa is just such,
1:19:19 I’d never been to Kanazawa.
1:19:20 For those people who don’t know,
1:19:22 I used to live in Japan long time.
1:19:25 My first time out of the US was a year in Japan
1:19:27 as an exchange student, which is a whole separate story,
1:19:30 but never made it to Kanazawa until a few years ago.
1:19:31 It’s gorgeous.
1:19:33 And it’s not that far away from Tokyo at all,
1:19:38 but such a cute spot with so much to offer.
1:19:40 – Yeah, it’s actually incredible
1:19:43 because it’s one of the few cities in Japan
1:19:46 that was protected by historians in the US.
1:19:49 It did not get bombed in World War II
1:19:53 because of some of the historic elements of the city.
1:19:55 So it’s almost like a smaller version of Kyoto
1:19:59 and it has a historic Japanese garden called Kenrokuen.
1:20:02 – Yeah, Kenrokuen is unbelievable.
1:20:04 Unbelievable. – It’s unbelievable.
1:20:07 So it’s summers I would spend maybe like two blocks away
1:20:09 from Kenrokuen.
1:20:11 So it was an incredible set of summers.
1:20:14 But yes, I used to man the cashier register
1:20:16 at the office supply store.
1:20:19 So I know my pens and notebooks and stamps,
1:20:20 like nobody’s business.
1:20:22 – Do you have any favorite go-to?
1:20:26 Don’t worry, I’m not gonna spend too much time on this,
1:20:28 but do you have any favorite notebooks or pens
1:20:31 or items of those types that you use today?
1:20:33 – Yeah, totally.
1:20:38 So on pens, I love the Juice Up 04.
1:20:40 – How do you spell Juice Up?
1:20:41 – Juice Up.
1:20:43 – Oh, Juice Up, okay.
1:20:45 – Yeah, Juice Up 04.
1:20:46 You can get them on Amazon.
1:20:48 They’re super thin pens.
1:20:50 – 04, that’s like 0.4 millimeter or something?
1:20:52 – Yeah, yeah, okay.
1:20:56 – And then for notebooks, it’s the Nuna,
1:21:00 it’s N-U-U-N-A, some European brand,
1:21:05 but I like any notebook that has the dot matrix on it.
1:21:07 The paper quality is really great.
1:21:09 – I see, dot matrix, it’s not like graph paper,
1:21:12 there are perpendicular lines that are dotted.
1:21:13 – Yes, yes.
1:21:16 I’m very particular.
1:21:17 I could go on and on.
1:21:21 – It appeals to the Dungeons and Dragons nerd in me.
1:21:22 Anything that resembles graph paper.
1:21:25 So the Juice Up 04 and the Nuna,
1:21:26 definitely anything European sounding
1:21:29 with a repeating vowel, I’ll pay 40% more for.
1:21:30 – Maybe 100% more.
1:21:32 – Maybe 100%.
1:21:34 You mentioned that you have these photographs
1:21:35 in your office, I’m curious.
1:21:37 You’re sitting in your office right now?
1:21:38 – Yeah.
1:21:39 – All right, so what else?
1:21:40 I’m sure you have photographs of your family,
1:21:43 but outside of kind of the usual suspects,
1:21:45 what are other items that you have
1:21:47 in your office that are important to you?
1:21:52 – I have the original Lyft pink mustache
1:21:56 that used to go in the front of the cars, which I love.
1:22:01 I have also a picture and a set of laser etched metal plates
1:22:09 that students gave to me that have sort of a word graph
1:22:11 of all of the words that they thought
1:22:14 they ascribed to me.
1:22:15 – Students of what?
1:22:17 What was the context for these students interacting with you
1:22:19 and what are some of the words?
1:22:22 – Yeah, so I teach at Stanford.
1:22:26 So after my PhD, what I realized was I loved teaching
1:22:27 more than anything else.
1:22:32 And so I stayed in contact with Tina Selig
1:22:34 and Tom Byers over at Stanford
1:22:38 who run the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
1:22:40 And they’ve given me the opportunity
1:22:42 to teach a few different classes,
1:22:45 but the one that I got these metal plates
1:22:48 and the photograph from was the class
1:22:51 of 2013 Mayfield Fellows Group.
1:22:56 And they have words like thunder lizard, bad ass,
1:23:01 inspiring, mother.
1:23:07 So, you know, it’s just really fun to see
1:23:08 sort of what words they thought.
1:23:11 What were you teaching these Mayfield Fellows?
1:23:13 – We were teaching them basic concepts
1:23:17 behind leadership and entrepreneurship.
1:23:20 And it’s sort of the first exposure that they get
1:23:24 as juniors and seniors into really, you know,
1:23:29 startup ecosystem, what does venture capital do
1:23:31 within that ecosystem?
1:23:33 What are the tough choices that you have to make
1:23:37 as a leader within these types of organizations?
1:23:41 What does growth look like in these types of organizations?
1:23:44 So it’s just sort of a startup 101,
1:23:46 but what I love about it is it’s only 12 students
1:23:49 and it goes for nine months.
1:23:50 – Wow.
1:23:51 – So if you get to be involved in it,
1:23:55 you get to really know some of the students.
1:23:57 And I’ve been mentoring students
1:24:01 and sometimes teaching some of these classes since 2008.
1:24:06 And you get this whole arc of the career path
1:24:09 of young people.
1:24:10 And I really love it.
1:24:13 I think it’s just sort of, you get to see, you know,
1:24:17 students who start off as seniors,
1:24:19 and then they start their career,
1:24:21 they might go to grad school,
1:24:24 then they go back and get a job, they get married,
1:24:27 and then I think one is now about to have a kid.
1:24:30 So you just sort of see this whole arc,
1:24:34 and it’s just about 10 years, 20 years behind where I was.
1:24:37 And so I get to see this incredible progress
1:24:40 that these students make over time.
1:24:42 So it’s something that I love.
1:24:45 – Anne Mirico, mother of Thunder Lizards,
1:24:46 AKA mother of dragons.
1:24:48 We’re gonna come back to Thunder Lizard
1:24:50 because there’s a whole lot wrapped around that.
1:24:54 But I’m gonna try to keep my brain somewhat focused here.
1:24:57 Is there a reading list for that class?
1:25:01 Or do you recall anything that was on a recommended
1:25:03 or required reading list for that class?
1:25:05 – Yeah, so we actually teach a,
1:25:09 I’m starting a class today at Stanford
1:25:11 for the new spring quarter.
1:25:14 And in this class, what we’re teaching
1:25:17 is what I would call intelligent growth.
1:25:19 It’s a little bit different from the Mayfield Fellows.
1:25:22 But my hypothesis, my belief is that
1:25:26 just like fake news in politics,
1:25:30 there’s actually something that we would call fake growth.
1:25:32 – Lots of it.
1:25:34 We’ve worshiped the altar of growth
1:25:37 for about five to 10 years now.
1:25:40 And what I’ve seen is that–
1:25:43 – And this is startup growth specifically.
1:25:45 – Specifically within startups,
1:25:49 there’s so much that we see that is fake.
1:25:54 And no one has ascribed actual adjectives to growth until now.
1:25:58 And so the class that I’m teaching
1:26:01 to engineering students at Stanford
1:26:06 is around what is actually intelligent growth?
1:26:08 And so you asked about the reading for it.
1:26:11 It’s all around some of these case studies
1:26:12 that we’ve seen.
1:26:16 A great example of that to me is Qualtrics.
1:26:18 We’re gonna have Ryan Smith,
1:26:21 who is the CEO of Qualtrics come in and speak.
1:26:22 And I think he’s a great example
1:26:26 because I think he was at $50 million in revenues
1:26:30 before he raised a dime of venture capital money.
1:26:31 And so as a result,
1:26:35 he’s gonna own an incredible piece of his company
1:26:36 when it exits and it will.
1:26:39 And so I love the capital efficiency
1:26:41 with which he built his business.
1:26:45 I also think one of my companies, Lyft,
1:26:50 is a great example of having that kind of discipline early on
1:26:53 and not just wasting venture capital dollars
1:26:56 in the early days when they didn’t have product market fit.
1:26:59 So they spent two and a half years working
1:27:02 on this platform called Zimride,
1:27:05 knowing that they had to get to density in riders.
1:27:06 And Zimride was just,
1:27:11 it was a platform where you could find carpooling arrangements
1:27:15 and it was being sold to universities and companies,
1:27:16 but we couldn’t get enough density
1:27:19 to get transactions really moving fast.
1:27:23 And it was two and a half years before they launched Lyft.
1:27:25 And in the first six weeks,
1:27:28 you could start to see that there was a real traction there.
1:27:33 And it was only after they knew what they were doing with Lyft
1:27:37 that they went and raised a large round with Founders Fund
1:27:42 and then an even larger round with Andreessen Horowitz.
1:27:46 And that story of really, really hacking value
1:27:48 before you go out and hack growth
1:27:51 is something that I don’t see often enough
1:27:52 in Silicon Valley.
1:27:55 So it’s something that I’m continuing to seek.
1:27:57 And I love to see companies,
1:28:00 especially outside of Silicon Valley that do that.
1:28:02 And that’s when we come back to hunting for thunder lizards,
1:28:04 that’s what I’m looking for.
1:28:06 – When you mentioned the case studies,
1:28:09 do you have written case studies that you’re using
1:28:11 much like, I don’t know if Stanford uses these,
1:28:14 but much like the Harvard Business School case studies,
1:28:17 which are these kind of three ring binder,
1:28:20 a five to 10 page cases that are published.
1:28:21 You use those.
1:28:23 – So the ones that we focused on,
1:28:27 there’s a Harvard Business case on Floodgate
1:28:30 that you can purchase off of the Harvard Business Review
1:28:31 website.
1:28:33 – So anyone can purchase these.
1:28:34 You don’t have to be a student.
1:28:36 Keep going because the format of these case studies
1:28:37 is really interesting to me.
1:28:39 And as an undergrad senior,
1:28:42 when I took Ed Schau’s class in high-tech entrepreneurship,
1:28:44 which is how I met Mike Maples Jr.
1:28:47 who’s gonna be a recurring character shortly,
1:28:48 I remember how useful they were.
1:28:50 So that’s the only interjection.
1:28:51 Sorry to interrupt.
1:28:52 – No, exactly.
1:28:57 So we use that case study for Qualtrics.
1:28:59 There is one on Floodgate.
1:29:01 So if you go to the Harvard Business Review site,
1:29:04 you can actually just search for Floodgate or Qualtrics
1:29:05 and it’ll come up and they’re somewhere
1:29:08 between five and $15.
1:29:11 So they’re pretty easy to buy and download.
1:29:14 But I think those two in particular are quite valuable.
1:29:18 We have then also just people coming in
1:29:21 and speaking about some of the things that they’ve learned
1:29:24 and how to grow that business from zero to one
1:29:26 and then one to X.
1:29:29 And people like Michael Siebel,
1:29:32 who is now a partner at Y Combinator,
1:29:36 but also was part of JustinTV and Social Cam.
1:29:38 We have Stephanie Schatz,
1:29:43 who was the fearless leader on the sales side for Xamarin.
1:29:48 She had 18 straight quarters of beating the stretch target.
1:29:50 So you can only imagine how incredible she is
1:29:52 as a sales leader taking a company
1:29:55 from zero to $50 million in revenues.
1:29:57 So we have a lot of different types of people,
1:30:02 whether they’re CEOs or CROs or venture investors
1:30:06 coming in to talk about the kinds of trade-offs
1:30:11 they had to make and how they decipher growth
1:30:13 to make sure that they have the real kind
1:30:16 and not just kind that they’re buying.
1:30:18 – Right, just to elaborate on that
1:30:20 for people who may not be in the startup world.
1:30:24 If, for instance, you’re sitting in on an incubator
1:30:27 investor day and you see 12 companies in a row
1:30:30 that have 20% month-on-month growth
1:30:33 with very similar-looking charts,
1:30:36 there is some possibility that they have been inflating
1:30:40 or manufacturing their numbers with paid acquisition
1:30:42 to raise funding or do any number of things.
1:30:44 And it’s relatively easy to spot once you know the symptoms
1:30:47 but there are an end, then there are,
1:30:49 I suppose as Richard Feynman would say,
1:30:52 the physicist, you must be sure not to trick yourself
1:30:54 or fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
1:30:55 You can also get very caught up
1:30:58 with what you might consider vanity metrics.
1:31:01 But let me take a step back and just ask,
1:31:03 well, before I ask, people definitely take a look
1:31:05 at the case studies for both Harvard and
1:31:08 if you search Stanford GSB, which is the business school,
1:31:11 case studies, you’ll also find a website
1:31:15 with these profiles of companies and not just companies
1:31:17 but decisions they had to face generally
1:31:20 where you can determine for yourself
1:31:22 what you would do in a given situation
1:31:24 then read about what they did, whether it’s MongoDB,
1:31:26 I’m looking at this Stanford GSB site
1:31:30 in the case studies right now, Sonos and so on.
1:31:34 How did you first become exposed to, say, venture capital
1:31:36 and what did you think you were gonna do in college?
1:31:37 When you were in college, junior year,
1:31:39 what did you expect you were gonna do when you grew up?
1:31:42 I actually had multiple different paths.
1:31:45 So I started off when we were talking about my brother
1:31:49 describing this kid who knew he wanted to work with cars
1:31:52 or airplanes from the get-go.
1:31:53 And guess what he’s doing right now?
1:31:56 He’s in Germany working with race cars.
1:32:00 So, you know, and I was the complete opposite.
1:32:04 I think when I was four, I wanted to be a farmer.
1:32:05 Then somewhere along the lines,
1:32:07 I really wanted to be a doctor.
1:32:12 And I wanted to be a doctor for a fairly long period of time
1:32:17 where in freshman year summer, I took organic chemistry.
1:32:19 I was in this pre-med track.
1:32:22 I think sophomore year summer, you take the MCATs
1:32:26 if you’re pretty sure you want to go to medical school.
1:32:29 And that summer, I was with my best friend
1:32:32 who also really wanted to go to medical school.
1:32:36 And she is right now studying leukemia.
1:32:39 She’s a doctor at UCSF.
1:32:43 So she’s clearly gone down that path and doubled down on it.
1:32:46 But I remember going to study for the MCATs with her
1:32:49 and I turned to the side and I looked at her
1:32:53 and I had this sudden realization which was that,
1:32:56 and this is two days before we’re taking the MCATs.
1:33:01 I said, “Hey, Kathy, I hate hospitals.
1:33:05 I don’t like actually being around sick people.
1:33:10 I also don’t love it when people are always complaining to me.
1:33:13 And I think that might get in the way of me being a doctor.”
1:33:16 And she looked at me like I was an alien.
1:33:20 And she said, “Why are you saying this right now?
1:33:21 We’re about to take the MCATs
1:33:24 and we need to go study for it at Kaplan.”
1:33:27 But I was just constantly observing her
1:33:29 and she is just this incredible human being
1:33:31 and she continues to be.
1:33:35 But this realization of, wow, like the actual job
1:33:37 of being a doctor may not be something
1:33:41 that I actually enjoy was really a hard realization
1:33:44 when you’ve been all in for this long.
1:33:48 And so it was a realization that I really had to face.
1:33:51 And I knew my gut that I was doing it
1:33:54 because it was a really great path.
1:33:57 It was a path where I knew what the next step was.
1:33:59 I knew what next class I had to take.
1:34:00 I knew the next exam I had to take.
1:34:04 Then there was applications, then there was school,
1:34:06 and then there was residency and fellowship.
1:34:10 And it just felt like a really predictable thing to do.
1:34:13 But the actual work at the end of the day
1:34:15 was not something I was going to love or enjoy.
1:34:18 And that was really disturbing to me.
1:34:22 And so I really screeched off of that path.
1:34:24 And it was hard because I had actually taken
1:34:27 all of the requirements except for biology.
1:34:31 And the pre-med requirements did not actually overlap
1:34:33 very much with electrical engineering.
1:34:35 So I’d taken a lot of extra classes
1:34:39 to make it a possibility, but realized also it wasn’t for me.
1:34:42 And that’s where I was sort of in this state
1:34:45 of not knowing what I wanted to be.
1:34:46 – And could I pause for one second?
1:34:47 – Yeah.
1:34:50 – So what you just described illustrates
1:34:55 a degree of self-awareness, but also decision-making
1:34:57 that I think is rather uncommon in the sense
1:35:00 that I know a lot of people who have gone on
1:35:04 to become doctors or lawyers or fill in the blank
1:35:08 that has a lot of prerequisite training and schooling
1:35:12 because of, say, succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy.
1:35:15 Like, oh God, I’ve put in so much time.
1:35:16 Even though I have this intuitive feeling
1:35:20 I’m not going to like it, I really should do it.
1:35:25 And what was the conversation or the background
1:35:29 that allowed you to step off of that path?
1:35:32 And not to beat the like Asian kid drum too hard,
1:35:35 but let’s be real, right?
1:35:38 I mean, you’re also, that would be a very admirable,
1:35:42 well-respected, happy to share at a dinner party
1:35:46 with friends type of path for your parents, I would assume.
1:35:49 – So all the more uncommon that you would step off
1:35:51 of that track, how is that the case?
1:35:53 Why were you different?
1:35:57 – So I think it goes back to actually the moment in debate
1:36:01 where my mom is telling me you should do fencing
1:36:02 instead of debate.
1:36:07 There was this realization of, oh, my parents really love me,
1:36:10 but they don’t know me.
1:36:13 No one really knows me in terms of my capabilities
1:36:16 and what I feel like I can get done.
1:36:18 No one knows that better than I do.
1:36:20 It was an important lesson for me
1:36:24 because one other fact that I didn’t mention
1:36:29 is that as a kid, there was no sign that I was special,
1:36:32 except for these weird characteristics
1:36:34 where I would go learn negotiations.
1:36:39 But I failed the IQ test multiple times
1:36:41 and the school district insisted
1:36:44 I was not gifted or talented.
1:36:47 My mom had to fight for me to be part
1:36:49 of this gifted and talented program.
1:36:54 As a two year old, after I was really hostile
1:36:58 to people who spoke English, my mom stuck me in,
1:37:01 tried to put me into preschool to socialize me,
1:37:05 but I ended up biting the person who was interviewing me
1:37:11 for a preschool slot and they put me in special education.
1:37:13 I was one of those kids who got picked up
1:37:15 in a short yellow bus from our house
1:37:20 and taken to a state run program for special children.
1:37:24 And I think for a long time, my mom wasn’t really sure
1:37:28 what I was, but she just decided to be all in
1:37:31 on the fact that I was gifted and talented,
1:37:32 even if I wasn’t.
1:37:35 And she was really worried that I was one
1:37:36 of these special children.
1:37:40 And so I had sort of an environment
1:37:45 around me way before Yale where I knew what I was capable of,
1:37:51 even if the test scores showed that I wasn’t.
1:37:56 And I knew that I knew what I was capable of,
1:37:59 even if my parents didn’t see it in me.
1:38:03 And I think there’s sort of this moment in time
1:38:06 that people need to have where you realize
1:38:11 that there’s no test for human potential.
1:38:14 There’s no recognition for that.
1:38:18 It’s something that you have to find inside of yourself.
1:38:21 And I think for me, that one of those tests
1:38:26 was actually going back to, am I gonna be a great doctor?
1:38:29 And if I revisit this question that my dad had always asked me,
1:38:31 can you be world class?
1:38:33 I knew I couldn’t ’cause I looked at Kathy
1:38:35 and she was gonna be world class.
1:38:40 She loved helping people and she loved helping people
1:38:45 from that kind of caretaking perspective,
1:38:49 which is not where I was gonna be world class.
1:38:51 But I felt like there was something in me
1:38:54 where I could be great at something.
1:38:55 That just wasn’t it.
1:38:58 – And you have all of this technical training
1:38:59 by this point, you have the chemistry,
1:39:02 but you certainly also have the, let’s see here,
1:39:04 at that point, the electrical engineering probably.
1:39:09 How does finance and investing or startups,
1:39:12 I don’t know which came first, enter the picture.
1:39:14 – So having grown up in Palo Alto,
1:39:17 I was actually exposed to a lot of startups.
1:39:21 Even as a kid, I used to babysit for a serial entrepreneur
1:39:24 and he was always tinkering around in his garage.
1:39:26 And I remember thinking to myself,
1:39:29 he works for himself, which is very, very cool.
1:39:34 I also, on my debate team was Lisa Brennan Jobs,
1:39:37 who I didn’t really realize she was the daughter
1:39:40 of Steve Jobs until I was in her house.
1:39:41 We were talking about debate.
1:39:44 I was a senior at the time and I was helping her through
1:39:46 learning the ropes of speech and debate
1:39:49 and Steve Jobs sort of appeared out of nowhere.
1:39:50 And I remember thinking to myself,
1:39:53 what is Steve Jobs doing in this house?
1:39:57 And so it was just sort of, it was all around.
1:40:01 And so venture capital was something
1:40:03 that actually a friend of mine had brought up
1:40:07 when I was still struggling with this notion of what should I be?
1:40:09 And he was a real finance guy.
1:40:13 And he said, you’re really good at technology
1:40:15 and you’re now interested in business
1:40:17 because of this exposure to loop plot.
1:40:19 Have you ever thought of venture capital?
1:40:22 And I remember kind of reading about it
1:40:25 and having heard a little bit about it growing up,
1:40:27 looking into it and realizing,
1:40:30 oh, you have like all this work experience you need to have.
1:40:33 I talked to a couple of former Yaleys
1:40:34 who were a venture capitalist
1:40:39 and sort of had that in the back of my head.
1:40:43 And so I went off to work at McKinsey as a consultant
1:40:45 for three years.
1:40:47 And then in the process of trying to figure out
1:40:50 what to do next, I met a venture capitalist
1:40:53 by the name of Ted Dinter Smith.
1:40:56 And in that interview with him,
1:40:59 we spoke about not about technology,
1:41:03 not about the research I’d done or my work experience,
1:41:05 but he wanted to know what books I was reading.
1:41:09 He wanted to know about the music that I loved.
1:41:12 And in that period, I was really into
1:41:14 modern American literature.
1:41:17 So I was really into Yale doctoro.
1:41:20 There are a few books that I just absolutely loved
1:41:22 and we talked about that for a little while.
1:41:25 And then when we turned to music,
1:41:28 I’ve played piano, classical piano since I was four.
1:41:32 And he and I talked about the classical musicians
1:41:33 that I really loved.
1:41:37 And he happened to be an English lit major
1:41:39 along with being a physics major.
1:41:43 So he loved books as much as I did, maybe even more.
1:41:45 And then he was an opera nut.
1:41:49 And so we had all these things that we could talk about
1:41:52 and two hours into that conversation,
1:41:55 never having touched upon technology,
1:41:58 he then basically said, how would you like
1:42:00 to come work with me?
1:42:03 And I was living out in Palo Alto at the time.
1:42:05 This was an opportunity in Boston.
1:42:08 And I remember not even hesitating knowing
1:42:10 that I wanted to work with this person,
1:42:14 this human beings sitting across the table from me.
1:42:15 I jumped at that opportunity.
1:42:19 And it wasn’t the fact that it was in venture capital,
1:42:23 but rather I really wanted the chance to be working around
1:42:26 someone like Ted Dinter Smith at that time.
1:42:28 – Let’s talk about that interview for a second.
1:42:31 So that, I think would strike some people
1:42:34 as a very unusual interviewing style.
1:42:38 Do you think in retrospect, and maybe you know,
1:42:40 that he had already decided you were fully capable
1:42:42 of doing the job, therefore didn’t have to check that box
1:42:44 and just wanted to make sure that he could work with you
1:42:45 and spend time with you.
1:42:48 Was it that he was using that interview to sell you
1:42:51 so that when he made the offer, you would say yes.
1:42:53 What do you think was going through his mind?
1:42:55 Before, during or after, are they supposed to,
1:42:58 before and during that conversation?
1:43:04 – You know, I think Ted is a very unique human being
1:43:07 in that I used to have this perception
1:43:10 that networking was work in a room
1:43:13 and like you shake a lot of hands and hold a lot of babies
1:43:17 and you learn a few names and you move on.
1:43:22 I learned from Ted that networking is actually
1:43:24 a deep curiosity about the human being
1:43:27 who’s sitting across the table from you.
1:43:30 So I don’t think he necessarily had
1:43:32 that kind of purpose in mind,
1:43:35 but that he was just really interested
1:43:37 in what I was interested in
1:43:42 and we happened to find commonality
1:43:45 and he was trying to understand how my mind worked
1:43:47 and what I was interested in.
1:43:49 I’ve taken that as a real lesson
1:43:54 because I loved the way he would network.
1:43:58 He learned so much about people in that process
1:44:03 and that’s how he ministered to his entrepreneurs.
1:44:08 He also was capable of providing advice at the right time
1:44:11 because he really knew those people.
1:44:15 And so for me, I felt like it was a really unique interview.
1:44:18 It stood out from all the interviews I’ve ever had,
1:44:22 but I think he was learning more about me
1:44:27 than most other technical interviews could have gotten to.
1:44:29 And then, you know, his other partners,
1:44:32 I think Ezar Armini gave me sort of more of a case study
1:44:33 and could dive into that,
1:44:37 but Ted always had a deep curiosity about the human being
1:44:40 and not necessarily just the skills.
1:44:42 – What else did you learn from him
1:44:46 or in that position, in that job?
1:44:48 – I thought that Ted was also
1:44:50 an incredible first principles thinker.
1:44:54 So my second day of work at CRV was 9/11.
1:44:55 – Oh my God.
1:44:58 – And so it was, you went from kind of a bad economy
1:45:03 to a horrible black hole economy.
1:45:07 And so it was a really terrible time for Venture
1:45:12 and they had just raised this $1.4 billion fund.
1:45:15 So that’s, I mean, for Venture,
1:45:18 that’s a huge amount of money.
1:45:22 And it’s a huge accomplishment to convince so many investors
1:45:26 to invest in your venture capital firm at that amount.
1:45:29 Then Ted took the time to actually start to do analysis
1:45:32 with me on how much capital had gone
1:45:35 into venture capital at that moment.
1:45:37 And then the exits had stopped.
1:45:40 There were no more IPOs, no one was acquiring companies.
1:45:43 The economy just came to a screeching halt.
1:45:48 And he decided, along with the other partners in this firm,
1:45:51 to give back most of the money.
1:45:56 So they reduced their fund from $1.2 billion to $450 million.
1:46:02 And the reason why that’s so interesting and impressive
1:46:06 is that the way a venture capital firm makes money,
1:46:08 the way you have any salary
1:46:10 or the operating money that you have for the firm
1:46:15 is a direct percentage of the fund that you raise.
1:46:18 And so by shrinking the size of the fund,
1:46:21 you’re shrinking the size of the management fees
1:46:24 that you get pretty dramatically.
1:46:26 – Oh, for sure, very dramatically.
1:46:27 I mean, for people who don’t know,
1:46:29 I mean, you hear very often, it’s not always the case,
1:46:32 but in venture capital, two and 20, two and 20,
1:46:35 and that means 2% management fee
1:46:38 based on the sort of assets under management,
1:46:41 meaning that particular fund and then 20% of the upside
1:46:43 for people who don’t know.
1:46:46 – They decided to give back those management fees.
1:46:48 And to me, that was really, really impressive
1:46:52 ’cause you’re facing down a really terrible economy,
1:46:55 not only are you shrinking the size of your fund,
1:46:57 to reflect that, you’re also shrinking
1:46:59 the size of your management fees
1:47:01 and you’re taking that blow.
1:47:05 So things like that, I learned also
1:47:09 how to shepherd companies through that kind of difficult time
1:47:12 and how to be a true partner to an entrepreneur.
1:47:16 And so, I think it was a really important lesson to learn
1:47:20 because I would argue most people haven’t seen real cycles.
1:47:21 People seem to think 2008
1:47:24 was a real significant dip in the economy,
1:47:29 but anyone who lived through 2001 knows that 2008
1:47:33 was a blip compared to a real downturn
1:47:36 because we’ve had a raging bull market
1:47:38 for such a long time.
1:47:43 That memory and that knowledge of having survived 2001
1:47:48 as a crisis period is something that I hold with me.
1:47:52 Really in my war chest, I know how to get through
1:47:53 that kind of time period.
1:47:55 And I don’t think a lot of people do.
1:47:59 – Yeah, it makes me think of a lot of what I heard
1:48:02 in Silicon Valley, still here before moving to Austin,
1:48:05 which makes me think of, I’m gonna paraphrase this,
1:48:07 but it’s a quote from Sir John Templeton, I think it is,
1:48:10 which is the most expensive words in investing are,
1:48:12 “This time it’s different.”
1:48:16 And it has been quite the bull run.
1:48:18 You mentioned first principles thinking.
1:48:21 I wanna tie that into something you mentioned
1:48:24 related to your class, tough choices for leaders.
1:48:27 What are some of the toughest choices for leaders,
1:48:29 I suppose in this context?
1:48:34 CEOs or high-level execs, co-founders of companies.
1:48:36 What are some of the toughest decisions
1:48:40 that nonetheless seem to come up fairly commonly?
1:48:44 – The most difficult thing for a startup founder,
1:48:48 CEO, leader, you witness multiple phase changes
1:48:50 in a business.
1:48:53 And so if you imagine you’re going from
1:48:55 absolutely nothing to something,
1:48:58 that’s what I call the zero to one phase.
1:49:00 You’re searching for product market fit.
1:49:03 You’re trying to find the best customers.
1:49:06 You’re trying to find where your 10X advantage
1:49:08 is truly valued.
1:49:12 That’s a very different business process
1:49:17 and truth seeking than when you’re going from one to X,
1:49:21 which is now that I know what my value proposition is,
1:49:24 I’m gonna add to that, but I’m also going to pull
1:49:26 on some of these growth levers.
1:49:29 The fundamental job of a VP of marketing
1:49:33 who is in that zero to one phase,
1:49:36 changes dramatically one to X.
1:49:39 It changes dramatically for the salesperson
1:49:41 in zero to one to one to X.
1:49:44 And you go through this incredible Bermuda triangle
1:49:48 where you have to navigate that change.
1:49:53 And so what I see challenging for startup founders
1:49:58 is actually being comfortable with your fundamental job
1:50:02 shifting from every three months.
1:50:06 You would have a massive shift in what you need to focus on
1:50:08 and how you need to develop.
1:50:13 And I think a company is a multi-dimensional thing.
1:50:15 And in Silicon Valley, we spend so much time
1:50:18 thinking about product and product market fit
1:50:22 that we forget that there’s this huge emphasis
1:50:24 you might wanna place on the fact
1:50:27 that a company is also an organization.
1:50:31 A company is also a category that you’re building.
1:50:34 A company is also a business model.
1:50:35 A company is also a team.
1:50:38 And so it’s the skill set actually
1:50:41 to balance all of those things.
1:50:44 And knowing when you fundamentally need
1:50:47 to change out the talent in your team,
1:50:52 the knowing when you actually need to let go of a product
1:50:53 and knowing actually, to me,
1:50:56 this is probably the hardest piece,
1:51:01 knowing the difference between a winning strategy
1:51:04 versus a strategy not to lose.
1:51:06 – Could you elaborate on that, please?
1:51:09 – Yeah, so to me, a strategy not to lose
1:51:11 is a lot of different things.
1:51:14 It’s to not to lose to a competitor,
1:51:19 not to lose talent, a strategy not to lose out on revenue.
1:51:25 So it’s all these fears that you have of captured ground
1:51:28 or the fact that you might have someone take over
1:51:30 something that you wanna do,
1:51:33 a competitor who’s breathing down your neck
1:51:36 versus a strategy for winning is about
1:51:38 where do you double down on?
1:51:42 What do you do to capture ground, to be aggressive,
1:51:45 to play offense and not defense?
1:51:49 To me, there’s a huge difference between that strategy
1:51:54 of I’m gonna win in this market versus I’m not gonna lose.
1:51:59 And not losing often involves a lot of hedging.
1:52:03 And when you feel that urge to hedge, you need to focus.
1:52:05 And you need to be offensive.
1:52:07 – In what ways might that hedging manifest?
1:52:09 What would be examples you’ve seen
1:52:14 or hypotheticals of the symptoms of a defensive strategy
1:52:17 in the form of hedging?
1:52:20 – It might manifest itself in,
1:52:25 I am gonna go after two very different customer segments.
1:52:29 One is large enterprises, the other is small,
1:52:31 medium businesses.
1:52:33 And the reason why that’s really hedging is
1:52:36 you have two completely different ways
1:52:38 of selling to those organizations.
1:52:39 And you’re afraid to pick one
1:52:43 because maybe you have some revenue in both.
1:52:45 – Right.
1:52:50 – But in that situation, by not choosing to focus
1:52:53 on one group or the other,
1:52:56 you’re probably a short changing your team
1:52:58 ’cause you don’t have a specialized team
1:53:00 to go after that opportunity.
1:53:02 You’re short changing your business model
1:53:05 because you aren’t pricing your product correctly.
1:53:07 And you’re short changing the opportunity
1:53:09 because probably your product
1:53:12 isn’t optimized for that customer set.
1:53:15 Your customer service isn’t optimized for that product set.
1:53:18 And your team is ultimately confused
1:53:20 because you’re heading in two completely different
1:53:22 conditions and directions.
1:53:25 And so that’s one of the most common ways
1:53:28 that I see people involved in a strategy
1:53:31 of not losing instead of we’re here to win it.
1:53:34 – Yeah, all of those things you mentioned also contribute
1:53:37 to lighting money on fire, right?
1:53:40 I mean, that split focus just…
1:53:41 – The bonfire.
1:53:45 – The bonfire of funding or cash flow
1:53:46 depending on where it comes from.
1:53:48 This is really important and you know this,
1:53:51 but I wanna underscore it for people listening
1:53:55 and give a few other examples that might be worth,
1:53:56 people might enjoy exploring.
1:54:01 So this winning versus not losing distinction
1:54:03 seems really subtle,
1:54:07 but you can get in two to feel for it in a few different ways.
1:54:09 One is there’s actually a,
1:54:13 I think it’s a three part mini series podcast
1:54:15 called The Making of Oprah.
1:54:17 And it talks about the rise of Oprah.
1:54:19 I know this seems like an odd segue.
1:54:21 Oprah impresses the hell out of me in a million different ways.
1:54:22 And after you listen to this,
1:54:24 you’ll understand exactly why that’s the case.
1:54:27 But she would constantly tell her team,
1:54:30 many of whom wanted to respond to say Donahue,
1:54:33 who was the 800 pound gorilla at the time.
1:54:35 Like we need to race our own race
1:54:38 in the sense that if you’re on a thoroughbred horse
1:54:40 and you’re in a race, you need to focus on your race.
1:54:42 You can’t be looking side to side
1:54:45 at the competitors, the racers next to you.
1:54:46 You get yourself into a lot of trouble
1:54:47 or you get really injured.
1:54:51 And the second is if people wanna Google Dan Gable
1:54:56 on aggression, there’s a short video I put on my blog
1:54:57 that hits this point exactly.
1:54:59 And I’m giving examples from different disciplines
1:55:01 because it is cross-disciplinary.
1:55:03 It’s not just investing in startups.
1:55:06 Dan Gable is the most legendary wrestling coach,
1:55:07 certainly of the last, I would say,
1:55:09 100 years in the United States.
1:55:14 Also won a gold medal in the 19, I wanna say 72 Munich
1:55:16 Olympics without having a single point scored on him.
1:55:18 That just does not happen.
1:55:21 And this video will show you a lecture
1:55:23 that he’s giving one of his athletes
1:55:26 after his athlete tied.
1:55:28 And he said, “You lost to him twice before.
1:55:30 You just didn’t want to lose.”
1:55:32 He said, “You never win that way.
1:55:33 You gotta tie.”
1:55:36 And that’s exactly why you gotta tie.
1:55:40 And the difference is just so powerful.
1:55:44 It’s worth, I just thought, taking a second to underscore it
1:55:46 because I think it’s really a critical distinction
1:55:47 that you brought up.
1:55:51 – It’s sort of like, I think about it, I love to ski.
1:55:53 And I had this instructor once,
1:55:55 I was complaining about going through powder
1:55:59 and I was saying how it really hurt my thighs.
1:56:01 He’s like, “My thighs are burning.”
1:56:02 And he looks at me.
1:56:04 He said, “It’s ’cause you’re not leaning forward.”
1:56:07 And like the minute you lean forward,
1:56:09 suddenly you’re just gliding.
1:56:14 And it’s scary in that moment when you lean forward
1:56:16 because you feel like you’re gonna fall.
1:56:20 And yet it gives you so much more control.
1:56:23 It’s so much less effort counter-intuitively.
1:56:24 – Definitely.
1:56:27 – And that to me is like the perfect example of,
1:56:31 oh, like you have to actually have a little bit
1:56:35 of aggressiveness in order to have the win.
1:56:38 – I think you are well-suited in that respect.
1:56:43 How did you meet the man who so famously tries to trick,
1:56:45 not trick, that sounds too strong,
1:56:47 who so commonly will say something like,
1:56:50 “Well, I’m just a Southern boy.
1:56:53 Maybe you could slow down and explain that one more time.”
1:56:55 Which by the way, if you ever hear anything like that,
1:56:57 like really stop and pay attention
1:57:00 ’cause you’re about to be tricked or misdirected.
1:57:01 I’ve actually borrowed that
1:57:03 and I use that for Long Island a lot.
1:57:04 I’m like, “You know, I’m just a slow Long Island boy.
1:57:05 Take a second.
1:57:07 Maybe you can explain that to me again.”
1:57:09 How did you meet Mike Maples Jr.?
1:57:12 – Yeah, so this actually happened in one of the classes
1:57:14 that I was teaching at Stanford.
1:57:17 He was one of the mentors for a bunch of teams.
1:57:20 So we had all these teams who were creating business plans
1:57:23 for their own version of a startup company.
1:57:27 And we had incredible mentors to each of these teams.
1:57:31 We had, I think someone who was the former CEO of Verisign.
1:57:34 We had, I think Diane Greene
1:57:36 might have been a mentor to one of the teams.
1:57:38 – Can you explain to folks who Diane Greene is
1:57:39 for those who don’t know?
1:57:43 – Diane Greene is now the head of Google Cloud.
1:57:45 She was also the CEO of VMware.
1:57:46 – Big deal, big, big deal.
1:57:49 – So big deal, big deal.
1:57:52 And what we did was we would team up
1:57:56 some of these entrepreneurs or people in Silicon Valley
1:57:59 with a student team and Mike was one of them.
1:58:00 And for people who know Mike,
1:58:04 he’s just this charming boy from Oklahoma.
1:58:08 He calls himself sometimes a washed up enterprise VC
1:58:12 and, or washed up enterprise entrepreneur, but he’s not.
1:58:17 So he came to our class and he was mentoring this team,
1:58:19 but he was actually being too nice.
1:58:23 And so this team was having like all sorts of weird issues.
1:58:26 They were fighting and they came to my office hours
1:58:29 and one of them started to cry and.
1:58:32 – Spotting a theme here within proximity of.
1:58:35 – Right, I did not make this team member cry.
1:58:37 It was, they were making each other cry.
1:58:39 – I’m just screwing with you.
1:58:42 – And so I was just kind of, I was really,
1:58:46 I was kind of mad at Mike because part of the role
1:58:49 of the mentor is to help shepherd them
1:58:51 through this tough point.
1:58:53 And he was just kind of checked out on that front.
1:58:55 And I emailed him and he said,
1:58:57 “Oh yeah, my team’s doing great.”
1:58:59 And I said, “Well, I kind of beg to differ.”
1:59:02 They were just in my office and one of them started to cry
1:59:04 and they’re fighting and right now,
1:59:05 if they don’t pull it together,
1:59:07 they’re really going to fail the class.
1:59:09 And he just wrote me this message that said,
1:59:12 “Well, I think they’re going to get an A plus.”
1:59:16 And so I said, “Well, so far, not tracking.”
1:59:19 And so we just sort of had this friendly banter
1:59:22 and actually the team does turn it around
1:59:25 and they ended up getting an A plus in the class.
1:59:27 – And did Mike intervene
1:59:29 or did he just throw some turtle shells on a desk
1:59:31 and like divine his way to that outcome?
1:59:33 – I’m not really sure,
1:59:35 but I actually take full credit for the turnaround
1:59:37 because had I not pointed it out to Mike,
1:59:40 then the team would have just imploded.
1:59:44 So based on that interaction, a few years later,
1:59:47 I was starting to get to a point in my PhD
1:59:51 where I was thinking of starting my own company.
1:59:54 And I had started my PhD in computer security
1:59:57 exactly because I knew that it didn’t matter
1:59:59 when I graduated,
2:00:02 there would be a computer security problem out there.
2:00:06 And I wouldn’t be at risk of market timing.
2:00:08 And it was sort of a perfect opportunity
2:00:13 because just as I was going through my research,
2:00:18 it was from 2003 to 2007 at this point.
2:00:21 We had transformed from this world of
2:00:24 where security used to be a bunch of vandalism problems
2:00:27 to now there were companies involved
2:00:29 and like real money was being involved.
2:00:32 And so real crime was being created here.
2:00:33 And then towards the end,
2:00:37 there was really like nation state warfare starting to happen.
2:00:42 And so my research was really in risk management
2:00:44 of computer security.
2:00:48 And I knew that this was becoming a huge issue.
2:00:52 And so I started to think I’m gonna make a company.
2:00:57 So at that moment, I turned to some of my advisors
2:01:00 and my advisors were nice enough to say,
2:01:03 hey, if you’re thinking about starting company,
2:01:06 you’ve been in the ivory towers for literally four years.
2:01:08 So you should get out of the classroom
2:01:11 and go check out some angel investors.
2:01:15 And then Mike was one of the first people I turned to
2:01:17 and I asked him if I could see his deal flow.
2:01:20 And he was nice enough to say, sure,
2:01:21 why don’t you just come in
2:01:23 and take a look at my deal flow on Wednesdays.
2:01:25 And so we would sit next to each other
2:01:27 and look at companies and-
2:01:30 – Deal flow means the sort of top of the funnel companies
2:01:33 that he’s considering potentially investing in.
2:01:34 – Right, they would come in and pitch
2:01:37 for between 30 minutes and an hour.
2:01:39 And then at the end of that,
2:01:43 I think it was March of 2008,
2:01:46 he calls me as I’m actually going up to Tahoe to ski.
2:01:51 He calls me to say, hey, and I have this great idea.
2:01:56 I just raised my first fund, it’s $35 million.
2:02:02 And I think that you should drop out of your PhD program
2:02:04 and join me.
2:02:07 And it’s not the venture back startup
2:02:09 that you’ve been thinking about,
2:02:12 but it’s now a backed venture startup.
2:02:13 Let’s go.
2:02:14 – Oh, I like that.
2:02:17 That’s really good.
2:02:18 Now, was that an immediate yes
2:02:20 or was it a let me sleep on it?
2:02:22 – I actually thought he was crazy
2:02:27 because first of all, you know, I was literally,
2:02:30 again, I was a nobody, I’m a PhD candidate.
2:02:33 I don’t even have my degree at Stanford.
2:02:36 So there’s like all these business school students,
2:02:39 there’s great angel investors milling around.
2:02:41 The major question was like, why does this guy think
2:02:43 that I would actually be a good investor?
2:02:46 And then the second piece was,
2:02:49 there weren’t a ton of venture capital firms
2:02:51 that were being started up.
2:02:55 So even when I went back to people who were my mentors,
2:02:58 some of them said, why would you go to a no name VC?
2:03:01 Why won’t you go and be an associate
2:03:06 at Kleiner Perkins or Excel or Sequoia?
2:03:08 – Yeah.
2:03:09 – And I didn’t really have a good answer.
2:03:12 – And just to set the stage for folks who don’t know
2:03:14 maybe the recent history in Silicon Valley at the time
2:03:18 that Mike had proposed this to you,
2:03:22 sort of microcap venture capital was barely a thing.
2:03:24 There are a lot of funds of all sorts
2:03:26 of different sizes now, but at the time,
2:03:28 this was very unusual.
2:03:30 – Yeah.
2:03:35 And so it was, at this point in, when we get to 2018,
2:03:39 there’s probably 30 funds being pitched a week
2:03:41 to a limited partner who invests
2:03:42 into these venture capital firms.
2:03:45 But back then there was very, very few.
2:03:48 And so it was really a question of,
2:03:51 is this the smart thing to do?
2:03:53 And I think this is sort of where,
2:03:55 when you turn to an entrepreneur,
2:03:57 this is the feeling that they get.
2:04:01 What I sensed was there was actually a major change afoot.
2:04:04 All of the students around me at Stanford
2:04:07 didn’t need $5 million to start a company.
2:04:10 And that’s what venture capital was offering
2:04:11 to startups at that point.
2:04:14 They would say, I will buy 50% of your company
2:04:16 for $5 million.
2:04:17 – Right.
2:04:20 It was predicated on the entry costs being very high.
2:04:21 In some respects.
2:04:22 – Very, very high.
2:04:25 Like at that point, we suddenly have open source software.
2:04:29 We really have what’s starting to look like cloud computing.
2:04:31 We have all the shared resources.
2:04:35 So even though I was helping to run servers
2:04:39 in the closet at my grad school in our lab,
2:04:42 that was starting to become something that we didn’t need.
2:04:45 There was actually services that you can use
2:04:47 where you could rent services.
2:04:52 And so to me, there was a dramatic change
2:04:53 that was happening.
2:04:56 And so you had to change the financing environment.
2:04:58 So I felt like I could see something
2:05:01 that everyone else didn’t see that Mike was also seeing.
2:05:05 And he used to say, $500,000 is the new $5 million.
2:05:07 And then the second piece for me was,
2:05:10 this guy, Mike Maples,
2:05:12 had a skill set I had never seen before.
2:05:16 Maybe in like one or two other people in my entire lifetime.
2:05:20 But he was this incredible marketer.
2:05:23 And I used to believe you either built things
2:05:24 or you sold things.
2:05:29 Everything else just seemed like an extraneous skill set to have.
2:05:34 Mike was incredible at storytelling and positioning
2:05:37 and strategy, like real strategy
2:05:41 for how do you create a new category?
2:05:43 And how do you build that category?
2:05:46 And how do you create the king of that category?
2:05:49 And as an engineer,
2:05:51 I hadn’t thought about what you do
2:05:53 after you build the product.
2:05:58 And so this magic of category creation
2:06:02 to me was something that almost felt like magic.
2:06:05 And so I looked at Mike and I thought,
2:06:08 I really need to learn from this person.
2:06:12 And not only is it a great skill set that I’m learning from,
2:06:15 he is also genuinely one of the best human beings
2:06:17 that I’ve ever encountered.
2:06:19 And so it was just sort of this magical combination
2:06:23 of someone whose values really aligned with me
2:06:25 and how I wanted to build a firm
2:06:27 and the things that I wanted to do with that
2:06:29 and how I wanted to treat entrepreneurs
2:06:32 and a person who was a mad genius.
2:06:35 And so that combination to me was irresistible.
2:06:38 And so a couple of months into it, I said, sign me up.
2:06:42 – Couple of months, all right.
2:06:45 So question number one, just for people who are wondering,
2:06:47 and I know a lot of people, you seem very good
2:06:49 at avoiding the sunk cost fallacy.
2:06:53 And this is so, so, so key, this cognitive bias.
2:06:58 When you were looking at the quitting of the PhD program,
2:07:00 I don’t know how it works at Stanford,
2:07:02 but did you realize you could kind of,
2:07:03 you didn’t have to quit?
2:07:04 – I did not quit.
2:07:08 So that first year and a half of my life at Floodgate
2:07:12 was crazy because at that point,
2:07:15 I joined Floodgate and I have an 18-month-old child,
2:07:17 my daughter Abby.
2:07:20 And then I think it was four or five months into it,
2:07:23 I am pregnant with my second child.
2:07:27 I’ve promised my mother as any good Asian daughter would
2:07:30 that I will finish this PhD if it’s the last thing I do.
2:07:34 So I’m waking up at like four o’clock in the morning,
2:07:38 doing research until seven when my daughter wakes up,
2:07:40 then taking her to daycare
2:07:45 and then working from like 8.30 to 6.30 at Floodgate
2:07:48 and then coming back doing dinner
2:07:52 and then working on my PhD again, rinse and repeat.
2:07:55 And then I got pregnant with my second child
2:07:57 a few months into that
2:08:00 and then decided I was gonna defend my PhD.
2:08:04 They set the date for six weeks after I gave birth to my son.
2:08:09 So, you know, I not only did my first set of investments,
2:08:14 but also gave birth to a child, cared for another one
2:08:19 and managed to stay married and finish this PhD
2:08:23 all between 2008 and 2009.
2:08:28 And so, you know, to me like that’s like the most creative
2:08:32 and probably productive period of my life ever
2:08:34 and probably will be, but also showed me
2:08:37 that I can actually do a lot of things
2:08:39 that everyone around me was like,
2:08:41 “Why would you do all of those things at the same time?”
2:08:43 – This is gonna seem like a non-secretary kind of is,
2:08:46 but how does your mom say your name?
2:08:50 Because Ann is sort of an unusual first name.
2:08:51 – Oh, no, but that’s not my first name.
2:08:53 My first name is Reiko.
2:08:54 – Reiko.
2:08:55 – Yeah.
2:08:56 – R.E.I.
2:08:58 – So, how does my mom say, she’s like, “Reiko.”
2:09:02 – “Reiko-chan, Reiko-chan, sugoi ne.”
2:09:05 I can barely, that’s another word everybody should look up
2:09:09 and learn, S-U-G-O-I, sugoi na.
2:09:10 That just means sort of awesome, impressive,
2:09:12 a whole sort of things,
2:09:15 because I can barely manage to brush my teeth
2:09:18 and shower on a daily basis,
2:09:21 and yet you’re doing all these things simultaneously.
2:09:25 I have to pause at this point just to try
2:09:31 to fill out some of the colors of who Reiko-chan and Miriko is.
2:09:34 What have you struggled with?
2:09:36 Have you had any dark, really?
2:09:38 It doesn’t have to be dark, but difficult times,
2:09:41 dark times that you could tell us about,
2:09:43 and were you really struggled,
2:09:47 or is that not part of your sort of lexicon?
2:09:50 – No, I think we all have struggles, right?
2:09:55 So, I think even in this moment of like the PhD
2:10:00 and caring for my kids and caring for myself
2:10:02 and my husband and my family
2:10:04 and trying to do a good job at work,
2:10:06 like things slip, right?
2:10:09 And I struggle with this still today,
2:10:11 and this is where the darkness comes in,
2:10:13 is like, am I doing anything well?
2:10:15 Like, am I a good mother?
2:10:18 Today, my six-year-old is on a field trip,
2:10:19 and he asked me,
2:10:22 why is it that you never get to come on a field trip?
2:10:26 Like, those are all these moments where you wonder,
2:10:29 like, am I failing at being a parent,
2:10:31 or am I not able to get to the dishes?
2:10:35 And I had a moment where my front door neighbor
2:10:39 is actually a Japanese woman, a nosy Japanese woman,
2:10:41 and she went up to my mother,
2:10:44 and she said, you know, your family is so strange.
2:10:47 I always see the husband doing the dishes,
2:10:50 but never the wife, never the wife.
2:10:55 – That is the most nosy Japanese neighbor thing to say ever.
2:10:59 – It’s like, I spent two days like in that front window
2:11:03 doing dishes, and at some point I was like, I’ll screw this.
2:11:08 But it’s like, it is this constant battle of,
2:11:11 how do I figure out what my priority is
2:11:16 so that I have like minimum viable progress on some fronts,
2:11:19 and then the thing that really matters,
2:11:22 I’m gonna make massive progress on.
2:11:24 That’s where the darkness creeps in.
2:11:29 I think, you know, for me, my really loser moments
2:11:33 have been things like, early on, I just described to you
2:11:37 early how there were tests that always said like,
2:11:39 I wasn’t that smart.
2:11:43 There were lots of examples where I wasn’t good
2:11:45 at a lot of different things
2:11:47 that other people found very normal.
2:11:50 Like, I was horrible at standardized tests.
2:11:54 Only until I got to like senior year or junior year
2:11:56 in high school did I finally figure it out.
2:12:01 Like, there’s so many places where so many people said,
2:12:05 distinctly average, maybe not even that smart.
2:12:05 And I think for me,
2:12:10 it’s been learning to tune out the naysayers
2:12:14 and knowing that there are certainly a lot of things
2:12:16 I’m not gonna be good at,
2:12:19 but there are things that I can actually be great at.
2:12:23 A really good example that actually is my PhD.
2:12:27 I remember when I got to my PhD at Stanford
2:12:31 and I’m starting, first of all, like I took a math class
2:12:34 and there were college freshmen in this class
2:12:38 and it felt like the math teacher was speaking Greek
2:12:41 and the freshmen are flying through this material
2:12:43 because they’re like little kid geniuses.
2:12:46 And I remember thinking to myself,
2:12:50 well, clearly I should not be getting a PhD in math.
2:12:53 And thank goodness this is in operations research.
2:12:56 Then I had this second experience
2:13:00 where the new professor came in across the hall from me.
2:13:02 His name was Ramesh Johari.
2:13:06 He was my age because I had taken five years off
2:13:07 to start my PhD.
2:13:12 He was literally my age and he was incredible.
2:13:15 He could remember things about different papers
2:13:19 and theorems and how they were proved from like years past,
2:13:21 compare and contrast them.
2:13:26 He just knew things that I struggled to remember.
2:13:28 And I remember looking at him
2:13:31 and being in one of his seminars and thinking to myself,
2:13:34 that is world class as an academic.
2:13:38 I’m okay at it, but I would have moments where I was like,
2:13:40 I’m actually not even good at it.
2:13:42 And then I would go to a conference
2:13:45 and like when you compare yourself against the world
2:13:49 of PhD students, then you start to develop
2:13:50 a little bit more confidence.
2:13:53 Then you go back to Stanford and you see what world class is.
2:13:56 And I was thinking to myself, this isn’t the path.
2:13:59 And there’s a place where I actually can use
2:14:01 the skill sets that I do have
2:14:03 where I can be really good at the things that I’m doing.
2:14:06 And so if I, I’m sitting here saying,
2:14:08 I was always good at everything that I did.
2:14:09 That’s just not true.
2:14:12 There are so many moments where I realized
2:14:13 it’s like being a doctor.
2:14:17 I said, I would not be good at being a doctor.
2:14:22 I would not be great at being an academic.
2:14:26 I would not be great at a lot of different things.
2:14:29 Just knowing and having the self-awareness
2:14:31 of where I would double down
2:14:33 is I think what I was good at.
2:14:37 And so it makes this emergent life
2:14:40 where I was going from one track to another.
2:14:43 I was gonna be a doctor and then I went to McKinsey
2:14:46 and then I went to VC and then I went to get a PhD.
2:14:49 And then I went back to VC.
2:14:53 This is all self-discovery rather than a stated path
2:14:56 that I had career planned for a long time.
2:14:58 – Well, it strikes me also that,
2:15:00 and maybe I’m trying to create a narrative
2:15:01 where there isn’t one or a connection,
2:15:06 but it seems reasonable that Mike’s superpower
2:15:12 or one of his abilities to help create categories
2:15:16 and then sort of mint kings within a given category
2:15:19 is actually a different species of something
2:15:20 that you’re also good at,
2:15:25 which is kind of Jack Welchian in a sense.
2:15:26 And that is you’re looking at
2:15:28 the different paths you could take.
2:15:31 And if you can’t be, say, number one or number two
2:15:34 in that thing, it just gets rolled out.
2:15:36 And you’re asking this world-class question
2:15:37 over and over again.
2:15:40 And one way is to find something where you can dominate
2:15:43 and really be world-class and the other
2:15:47 is to create an entirely new category in a sense.
2:15:49 So it seems like you and Mike are very complimentary
2:15:53 in that way and have that shared programming.
2:15:57 I’ve heard people describe you as an investor
2:15:59 when your strengths is being technical,
2:16:02 which I suppose seems self-evident given your background,
2:16:06 but how would Mike, let’s say describe your,
2:16:08 if I asked him, what are Ann’s superpowers as an investor?
2:16:10 There are a lot of investors out there.
2:16:13 What is Ann’s super power set of superpowers?
2:16:14 What would he say?
2:16:19 – I think for me, the superpowers I have are a fewfold.
2:16:24 So one is because of the technical capabilities that I have,
2:16:29 when someone is describing particularly anything
2:16:30 that has to do with math.
2:16:32 And luckily for me right now,
2:16:35 math is having this incredible resurgence
2:16:39 in artificial intelligence and in cryptocurrency.
2:16:41 I can get that piece.
2:16:44 I can get that piece better than I would say,
2:16:48 probably 99% of the investors out there.
2:16:51 And so if I get a math paper,
2:16:53 that’s something that I love to dig into.
2:16:56 And that technical insight is something
2:16:58 that I think I’m better at
2:17:01 than most other investors out there.
2:17:06 And then from there, I can also start to piece together
2:17:11 what that company will look like around that technology.
2:17:12 And so it’s not just,
2:17:15 I’m looking for great R&D projects,
2:17:20 but ones that are ripe to be big D and little R.
2:17:21 And I think that’s a superpower,
2:17:24 especially at the very early stage.
2:17:28 So one of the companies that I invested in back in 2010,
2:17:32 Ayosti, they’ve gone over $100 million in financing
2:17:33 at this point.
2:17:36 And I found them when they were,
2:17:38 they didn’t even have a business plan.
2:17:42 They had four math papers that they sent to me.
2:17:46 And so to me, that’s something that I double down on.
2:17:48 And it’s a part of the types of investments
2:17:50 that I like to do.
2:17:52 That’s very different from the task grab.
2:17:55 It’s refinery 29 and Lyft that I’ve done
2:17:57 in the past as well.
2:18:00 I think the other superpower that is a little bit less evident
2:18:03 is more evident as I’m working with people is,
2:18:06 I feel like I have a pretty good sixth sense
2:18:10 about the people dynamics within an organization.
2:18:14 So I can tell when there’s actually infighting happening.
2:18:19 I can sense when a executive is starting to disengage.
2:18:21 And those are things that I work on
2:18:25 with a lot of the CEOs that I work with.
2:18:28 And then the last piece that I think I really love
2:18:32 to engage in is the fundamental data behind the business.
2:18:36 And so I love looking at the cohort analysis
2:18:39 and really engaging on data because that’s a piece
2:18:43 of the puzzle that I feel like I’m also good at encoding,
2:18:44 unencoding.
2:18:46 – What are you looking for now?
2:18:47 And what are Thunder Lizards?
2:18:49 We mentioned hunting Thunder Lizards earlier
2:18:51 and I promised I would come back to it.
2:18:54 So maybe we define that first
2:18:57 and perhaps you could tell us what you’re looking for
2:18:59 at the moment.
2:19:02 – So a Thunder Lizard is inspired by Godzilla.
2:19:04 It’s a term that Mike, my partner,
2:19:06 used to always tell the story,
2:19:11 which is that we are inspired by entrepreneurs
2:19:14 who are like Godzilla.
2:19:16 And so what is Godzilla like?
2:19:20 He’s born from radioactive atomic eggs.
2:19:23 So the DNA of that entrepreneur is already
2:19:26 fundamentally different.
2:19:29 And then he swims across the Pacific Ocean
2:19:31 and depending on if you’re Mike or me,
2:19:34 he lands in either the Bay Area or Tokyo
2:19:37 and starts to wreak havoc
2:19:41 and eats trains and automobiles and buildings
2:19:45 and then proceeds to crush that industry
2:19:49 and creates disruption and then build something out of that.
2:19:53 And so that idea of disruption is something
2:19:56 that I always liked that imagery
2:19:58 of the journey across the Pacific Ocean,
2:20:01 born from something fundamentally different
2:20:04 and then really starting to turn things over.
2:20:07 So when we say, okay, what are we looking for right now
2:20:11 in terms of where do we think the new Thunder Lizards
2:20:15 will exist, there’s two different areas
2:20:19 that comes back to the map that I’m really interested in.
2:20:23 One is I do think that artificial intelligence
2:20:27 is about to disrupt a lot of different types
2:20:29 of enterprise software.
2:20:32 I think that enterprise software still sucks.
2:20:37 And if we’re gonna be able to really transform the way
2:20:39 a business is actually operated,
2:20:43 we have to take the software that just basically records data
2:20:45 and spits it back out to you
2:20:47 into something that’s actually more intelligent
2:20:50 that tells you something that you didn’t know
2:20:53 that gives you superpowers.
2:20:56 And I think that we’re gonna see more and more of that
2:20:57 in the industry.
2:21:00 And so as an example, like baseline examples,
2:21:05 why do we spend millions of dollars on Oracle or NetSuite
2:21:09 when the CFO still has to make a budget for next year?
2:21:12 Why doesn’t that financial planning
2:21:16 just automatically, automatically generate itself
2:21:18 based on all the history that it knows,
2:21:21 plus all the data from the external world?
2:21:22 So I think things like that,
2:21:25 we’re gonna start to see happen more and more.
2:21:27 I also think fundamentally,
2:21:29 the scientific method may also be dead.
2:21:33 Like we used to have the scientific method
2:21:35 is developed in a time where we didn’t have enough data
2:21:39 and data was actually the fundamental bottleneck
2:21:41 in scientific research.
2:21:43 Well, that’s just not the case anymore.
2:21:47 And so why is it that we form a hypothesis,
2:21:50 then look at the data and then come to a conclusion,
2:21:52 we should have all of the data,
2:21:57 then have an analysis that leads us to a hypothesis
2:22:01 or a belief system that we fundamentally test further.
2:22:05 So I think these massive changes are coming.
2:22:08 And you see it even in cryptocurrency,
2:22:11 there’s also really philosophical interesting debates
2:22:13 happening around, well, you have this massive pull
2:22:17 towards centralization, whether it’s in AI and ML,
2:22:19 where you have to have all of that data in one place
2:22:20 in order to really train.
2:22:22 ML being machine learning.
2:22:23 Machine learning.
2:22:25 Or in cloud computing, you’re also putting it up
2:22:30 into the data, into more data centers.
2:22:33 In cryptocurrency, we believe that there’s gonna be
2:22:36 more decentralized software.
2:22:39 And so how do you reconcile those two types of systems?
2:22:44 I think there’s lots of really interesting themes
2:22:47 that are just at the start of being discovered.
2:22:50 I’m really excited about what’s gonna happen
2:22:53 with autonomous vehicles and the technology
2:22:56 that’s gonna be required to make that a reality.
2:23:00 And so all of those areas I think are just fascinating.
2:23:05 And so it feels like the period of real intellectual abundance
2:23:09 and that we’re headed into a period
2:23:11 of real great creative energy.
2:23:16 End of time where a lot of your philosophical training
2:23:19 and reading will be put into practice
2:23:20 in the real world, right?
2:23:23 Where we have people can look up the trolley scenario.
2:23:25 It’s typically thought of as a thought exercise,
2:23:30 but if you’re programming, not to take us too off
2:23:32 on a tangent, but if you’re programming
2:23:36 for autonomous vehicles and there’s some type
2:23:37 of act of God, a hail storm,
2:23:40 a huge boulder falls in the middle of the street
2:23:42 and the car has to swerve left and hit two school kids
2:23:46 or swerve right and hit five geriatrics.
2:23:48 And how does it make the decision?
2:23:52 What is the logic embedded into that machine?
2:23:57 It takes a lot of these philosophy 101 thought exercises
2:23:59 and translates them very directly
2:24:01 into the real world with real consequences.
2:24:04 It is a fascinating time.
2:24:06 It’s also like how much do you wanna know, right?
2:24:09 So in deep learning, it’s actually very difficult
2:24:13 to know what’s happened inside of this black box.
2:24:16 And so there’s more of a demand for let’s know
2:24:19 what’s actually happening inside of this black box,
2:24:21 especially if lives are at risk
2:24:23 or billions of dollars are at risk
2:24:26 and we need to be able to audit these algorithms.
2:24:29 I think there’s real interest in new technologies
2:24:31 now that we can actually audit
2:24:33 and know what’s going on inside the box
2:24:36 so that if the trolley example happens,
2:24:39 we actually know how the machines will make their decisions.
2:24:42 And so I think there’s a lot of work to be done,
2:24:44 a lot of opportunity,
2:24:47 but also a lot of thought that needs to go into
2:24:50 how we want to regulate all of this.
2:24:52 – Tricky, tricky, tricky.
2:24:55 Yeah, well, it’s gonna be going to be exciting.
2:24:57 Interested to see how all these things coalesce, right?
2:24:59 Also you’re looking at these gigantic companies,
2:25:02 the Facebook’s, Google’s, the fangs, right?
2:25:04 That are more and more so converging
2:25:09 onto the same territory to see how that resolves
2:25:14 if it does in some fashion is also really, really exciting
2:25:16 to me or how something like Y Combinator,
2:25:18 just to do a little bit of inside baseball,
2:25:21 can say we are interested in this type of company
2:25:24 or this particular aspect of engineering
2:25:29 or fill in the blank and kind of steer the attention
2:25:31 of thousands or tens of thousands
2:25:35 of would-be entrepreneurs into a particular sector, right?
2:25:38 Or a type of project is also just really interesting
2:25:41 to think about from the ramifications
2:25:42 five years down the line.
2:25:44 But anyway, maybe–
2:25:48 – I think we have so many incredible societal problems
2:25:50 that need to be solved.
2:25:55 And I believe that the private sector
2:25:58 is most capable of solving these problems,
2:26:01 whether it’s energy or health
2:26:04 or the fact that we have so much trash.
2:26:05 How do we solve that?
2:26:08 How do we get clean water to people?
2:26:11 It’s not just about the next social network
2:26:14 and how do we deliver better advertising to people?
2:26:18 But the beauty of this type of entrepreneurship
2:26:21 is that there are huge societal problems
2:26:23 that still need to be solved
2:26:28 that I think is a really exciting opportunity also
2:26:30 to build great businesses around.
2:26:34 And so I think that’s also what gets me up in the morning
2:26:37 and makes me believe that what we’re doing is important work.
2:26:39 – Yeah, it is important work.
2:26:41 I don’t think that sort of collective interest
2:26:45 and self-interest have to be misaligned, right?
2:26:47 They’re not mutually exclusive.
2:26:50 You can solve and there’s a long history
2:26:53 of solving public problems with private sector
2:26:55 technologies and companies.
2:26:56 And let me just ask,
2:26:59 I know we’ve gone a little bit longer than expected,
2:27:00 which I should have expected.
2:27:04 Let me ask you just a few more questions
2:27:06 and then we’ll wrap up with where people can find you
2:27:09 and learn more about what you’re up to.
2:27:11 Besides getting to yes,
2:27:16 are there any books that you’ve given a lot as gifts
2:27:18 or reread a lot yourself?
2:27:20 – For me, right now,
2:27:25 there’s a couple of books that I think are super interesting.
2:27:28 So my mentor, Ted Dentress Smith,
2:27:32 just wrote a book called “What School Could Be?”
2:27:35 And this goes back to sort of education
2:27:40 as a critical societal question.
2:27:42 How do we fix education?
2:27:46 And what he did was he went on a 50-state tour
2:27:49 to look at schools and discover
2:27:52 that the answers are actually already there.
2:27:55 And our incredible school teachers throughout our country
2:27:58 are already finding solutions to teaching our kids
2:28:01 the most important skills they need to have.
2:28:05 And I think reading that book has not only given me hope,
2:28:08 but also a desire to see real change
2:28:11 in the public school education system.
2:28:13 But I think that’s a really important problem
2:28:15 for all of us to actually engage in.
2:28:18 So that’s one book that I would really push on
2:28:19 to other people.
2:28:22 The other one that is completely on the opposite end
2:28:25 of the spectrum, but it is a fiction book,
2:28:30 it is by Khalid Hosseini, who also wrote “Kite Runner.”
2:28:34 He wrote this book called “A Thousand Splendid Sons,”
2:28:37 probably one of the most beautiful books that I’ve read
2:28:40 in a long time in terms of fiction writing.
2:28:42 And I would encourage people to read it
2:28:46 because it gives you a sense of Afghanistan’s
2:28:49 incredible history and the role women have played
2:28:50 within that history.
2:28:53 And I just loved that book because it just was eyeopening
2:28:55 to me in a very different way.
2:28:57 So two very different types of books,
2:29:00 none of them like straightforward business books,
2:29:02 but ones that I think are meaningful
2:29:03 for our society to read today.
2:29:07 – What school could be in “A Thousand Splendid Sons?”
2:29:08 – Yeah.
2:29:13 – Is there any purchase of $100 or less?
2:29:14 That’s kind of arbitrary, right?
2:29:15 But just not a Bugatti or something
2:29:18 that has most positively impacted your life
2:29:21 or positively impacted your life in recent memory.
2:29:25 – $100 or less?
2:29:26 – Yeah, it could be.
2:29:28 I mean, look, if it’s like a foldable kayak
2:29:30 that you got for $400, that’s fine too,
2:29:31 but it could be anything.
2:29:32 It could be $2, it could be free.
2:29:36 It could be any recent addition to your life that is–
2:29:37 – Oh my gosh, so.
2:29:40 It’s actually a foldable chair.
2:29:43 So I go to my daughter’s soccer tournaments a lot
2:29:46 and there’s this incredible foldable chair.
2:29:46 I don’t know what it’s called.
2:29:48 You can get it on Amazon,
2:29:53 but it has this flip over sunshade that goes over your head.
2:29:59 And for any parent who has been at a swim tournament
2:30:01 or anything, this is life-changing
2:30:04 because oftentimes I’m just baking in the hot sun
2:30:06 and you can be anywhere
2:30:08 and you have your own personal tent
2:30:11 that folds over your head.
2:30:13 It’s saved me on multiple weekends.
2:30:15 My husband bought two of them.
2:30:16 I love it.
2:30:18 – Can you send me a link to that
2:30:21 and I’ll put it in the show notes if you can track it down.
2:30:23 So for people wondering, I’ll put that in the show notes
2:30:25 at tim.blog/podcast
2:30:28 and you can find this miraculous foldable chair.
2:30:32 If you could have a giant billboard
2:30:34 anywhere with anything on it.
2:30:35 So metaphorically speaking,
2:30:38 getting a word, a quote, a message, a question, anything
2:30:40 out to millions or billions of people
2:30:42 can’t be an advertisement.
2:30:46 What might you put on that billboard?
2:30:47 – Wow, hmm.
2:30:52 I wonder if it’s like not losing does not equal winning.
2:30:56 It’s sort of one of my themes these days.
2:30:58 – I like that, yeah.
2:31:01 – And I think actually finding your world-class life
2:31:05 is probably the other one that I would think about.
2:31:06 – We’ll give you two.
2:31:08 – Find your world-class life.
2:31:10 And I think the reason for that is to me,
2:31:12 everyone is capable of that.
2:31:14 And I think oftentimes we forget it.
2:31:17 And for every person, it’s different.
2:31:19 That’s the beauty of humanity.
2:31:20 So.
2:31:24 – What do the characters for nickel mean?
2:31:25 – Oh my gosh.
2:31:29 So it means it’s a small round bell.
2:31:32 And the reason for my parents naming me that was
2:31:35 they were originally gonna name me something more like,
2:31:38 you know, really beautiful child
2:31:40 or you know, genius child.
2:31:43 And my mom took one look at me when I was born.
2:31:46 She’s like, no, none of those.
2:31:52 She said, your face was so perfectly round
2:31:54 when you were born.
2:31:58 It reminded me of this like perfectly round bell.
2:32:04 And I’m like, mom, like all these other friends that I have
2:32:07 especially Chinese friends, they’re like super intelligent
2:32:12 world-class dominating dictator for life CEO child, you know?
2:32:17 And I’m like, small bell child.
2:32:23 – Neko-chan, and where can people find you online?
2:32:27 Say hello, learn more about what you were up to.
2:32:32 – I think professionally, the best place is to see my Twitter
2:32:33 which is animaniac.
2:32:35 – A-N-N.
2:32:38 – N-N-I-M-A-N-I-A-C.
2:32:44 Or on Instagram, it’s A-M-I-U-R-A.
2:32:46 You’ll see more of my life there.
2:32:47 – A-miura.
2:32:48 – Yes.
2:32:51 – Three bays, is that what that means?
2:32:52 Miura, something like that.
2:32:54 Maybe. – Yeah.
2:32:59 – So Twitter, animaniac, Instagram, A-miura, M-I-U-R-A.
2:33:02 And best website?
2:33:05 – Floodgate, it’s floodgate.com.
2:33:06 – Floodgate.com.
2:33:08 Why floodgate?
2:33:09 What is a floodgate?
2:33:11 Or why is it called a floodgate?
2:33:16 – Yeah, ’cause we think we’re at the forefront of like
2:33:19 the headwaters of innovation.
2:33:24 And it sounded, I don’t know, kind of big and audacious.
2:33:26 (laughing)
2:33:27 – Good enough reason.
2:33:32 Audacious, audacious.
2:33:34 Yes, audacious, aggressive.
2:33:37 But still, the mother of dragons,
2:33:39 there is a nurturing mother like-
2:33:40 – There is.
2:33:42 – Den mother, quality to animiura.
2:33:44 – I call myself like a mama bear, you know?
2:33:47 I’ll, I’m very protective,
2:33:51 but also I’m gonna push my kids and people around me
2:33:53 to be the best they can be.
2:33:56 – Just don’t get in between the mother and the cub.
2:33:58 Good guideline.
2:34:00 And I will say for anybody who is wondering,
2:34:04 what would it be like to just go sort of mano a mano with?
2:34:07 And I would say, you know, you’re one of the few people,
2:34:09 I would put Sam Harris in this category,
2:34:13 where if you are willing to engage in like a public debate
2:34:15 with either of you, you just have to make sure
2:34:17 that you have practice defending
2:34:18 against having your face ripped off
2:34:23 in like the most logical, complementary way possible.
2:34:25 I’m just very impressed by you.
2:34:28 And then I’ve really wanted to have you
2:34:29 on the show for a long time.
2:34:31 And I’m thrilled. – Thank you.
2:34:35 – That you were willing to carve out a few hours
2:34:38 to spend chatting and it’s always fun chatting.
2:34:39 We still have to- – It’s always fun.
2:34:42 Tim, you’ve been there from the very get go.
2:34:45 You were the person behind my very first investment
2:34:46 and task rabbit.
2:34:49 So I have a lot to thank you for as well.
2:34:51 – Well, the adventure shall continue.
2:34:55 And I will certainly, I’m not as involved
2:34:56 as I used to be in the tech scene,
2:34:58 but I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.
2:35:01 Is there anything else that you’d like to say or suggest
2:35:06 or mention any parting words before we wrap up?
2:35:08 – No, I hope that your audience enjoyed this.
2:35:10 And if they got anything out of it,
2:35:13 that they, if they wanna contact me,
2:35:16 I’m always open to more conversations.
2:35:19 And I hope that some of my story shows
2:35:21 that even if people tell you,
2:35:23 you can’t do something that you can.
2:35:25 – Can indeed.
2:35:29 Just gotta spend the summer reading up on those 12 topics.
2:35:29 – That’s right.
2:35:32 – You can’t always out talent everyone,
2:35:34 but if you out prepare them,
2:35:36 you might as well have out talented them.
2:35:39 – Maybe the billboard sign is effort matters.
2:35:40 – Effort matters. – ‘Cause it really does.
2:35:41 – It does.
2:35:43 – Well, Anne, thank you so much again.
2:35:45 This has been such a treat and a gift.
2:35:49 And I look forward to hearing what people have to say
2:35:54 on the interwebs and perhaps we’ll do a round two in person
2:35:56 during one of, what was the name of the,
2:35:58 was it the Tim Ferriss wine hour?
2:35:59 What was the, what was it you were doing?
2:36:03 – Yeah, at the offices.
2:36:06 – They call it Ferris time.
2:36:09 That’s what Mike calls it, Ferris time.
2:36:13 – Which was the little wine, a pair of teeth,
2:36:14 just smooth out the edges.
2:36:16 That’ll, we could describe that.
2:36:18 – He just grabs, he just grabs a glass.
2:36:19 He’s like, I think it’s Ferris hour.
2:36:22 (laughing)
2:36:24 – I’ll take it, I will take it.
2:36:27 And Anne, I will talk to you soon.
2:36:28 See you soon, I hope.
2:36:32 And to everybody listening,
2:36:34 you can find links to everything we discussed,
2:36:37 the books, the fold out share,
2:36:41 and much more getting to yes and so on in the show notes
2:36:43 as you can with all episodes
2:36:45 at timeduplog/podcast.
2:36:48 And until next time, thank you for listening.
2:36:50 – Hey guys, this is Tim again.
2:36:52 Just one more thing before you take off
2:36:55 and that is Five Bullet Friday.
2:36:57 Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday
2:37:00 that provides a little fun before the weekend?
2:37:02 Between one and a half and two million people subscribed
2:37:05 to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter
2:37:07 called Five Bullet Friday.
2:37:09 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.
2:37:13 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday
2:37:15 to share the coolest things I’ve found or discovered
2:37:18 or have started exploring over that week.
2:37:20 It’s kind of like my diary of cool things.
2:37:21 It often includes articles I’m reading,
2:37:25 books I’m reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos,
2:37:28 all sorts of tech tricks and so on
2:37:29 that get sent to me by my friends,
2:37:32 including a lot of podcast guests.
2:37:35 And these strange esoteric things end up in my field
2:37:39 and then I test them and then I share them with you.
2:37:42 So if that sounds fun, again, it’s very short,
2:37:45 a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off
2:37:47 for the weekend, something to think about.
2:37:48 If you’d like to try it out,
2:37:50 just go to tim.vlog/friday.
2:37:54 Type that into your browser, tim.vlog/friday.
2:37:56 Drop in your email and you’ll get the very next one.
2:37:57 Thanks for listening.
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0:05:10 better sleep starts now. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands
0:05:34 start shaking. Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another
0:05:38 episode of the Tim Ferriss Show where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers
0:05:43 from every field imaginable to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that
0:05:49 you can apply and test in your own lives. This episode is a two for one and that’s because the
0:05:55 podcast recently hit its 10th year anniversary, which is insane to think about, and past 1 billion
0:06:01 downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best, some of my favorites
0:06:07 from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited to give you these super
0:06:13 combo episodes and internally we’ve been calling these the super combo episodes because my goal
0:06:18 is to encourage you to yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks, but to also introduce
0:06:24 you to lesser known people I consider stars. These are people who have transformed my life
0:06:30 and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps they got lost in a busy news cycle,
0:06:35 perhaps you missed an episode. Just trust me on this one, we went to great pains to put these
0:06:44 pairings together. And for the bios of all guests, you can find that and more at tim.log/combo.
0:06:48 And now, without further ado, please enjoy and thank you for listening.
0:06:57 First up, Derek Sivers, former musician, programmer, Ted Speaker, and Circus Clown,
0:07:04 who sold his first company, CD Baby, for $22 million and gave all the money to charity,
0:07:09 and author of books on philosophy and entrepreneurship, including How to Live,
0:07:19 Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want, and Useful Not True. You can find Derek on Twitter @Sivers.
0:07:27 I was 18 years old and all I wanted in my whole life was to be a professional musician. I mean,
0:07:32 ideally a rock star, yeah, but if I was just making my living doing music, that was the goal.
0:07:37 So I’m 18 years old, I’m living in Boston, I’m going to Berkeley College of Music,
0:07:44 and I’m in this band where the bass player one day in rehearsal says, “Hey man, my agent just
0:07:52 offered me a gig that’s like $75 to play at a pig show in Vermont.” He rolls his eyes and he’s like,
0:07:59 “I’m not gonna do it, do you want the gig?” I’m like, “Fuck yeah, a paying gig? Oh my god, yes.”
0:08:06 So I took the gig to go up to Burlington, Vermont, and I think it was like a $58 round trip
0:08:10 bus ticket. And I get to this pig show in Vermont, I strap my acoustic guitar on,
0:08:16 and I walk around a pig show playing music, and did that for like three hours, got on the bus home,
0:08:22 and the next day the booking agent called me up and said, “Hey, so yeah, you did a really good
0:08:26 job at the pig show, we got good reports there. Wondering if you can come play at an art opening
0:08:31 in Western Massachusetts. I’ll pay you $75 again.” “Yeah, sure, so same thing.” I took, you know,
0:08:36 like a $60 bus out to Western Massachusetts, got $75 bucks for playing at an art opening,
0:08:42 and the agent was there and he was impressed, and so he said, “Hey look, I’ve got this circus,
0:08:46 and the previous musician just quit, so we really need somebody new, and I really like what you’re
0:08:52 doing, so there’s about three gigs a week I can pay you $75 a gig. They’re usually Friday, Saturday,
0:08:58 Sunday. Do you want the gig?” I said, “Hell yeah, I’m a professional musician now, this is amazing.”
0:09:02 So I said yes to everything, which is going to come up later, you know, with the hell yeah or no
0:09:06 thing, but I think it’s really smart to switch strategies. But when you’re earlier in your career,
0:09:11 I think the best strategy is you just say yes to everything, every piddly little gig. You just
0:09:17 never know what are the lottery tickets, so this one ended up being a real lottery ticket for me,
0:09:22 because as soon as I joined the circus, again I’m 18, I had no stage experience,
0:09:29 and after a few gigs they said, “Hey, so the previous musician used to go out and open the show
0:09:32 with this big theme song and get everybody up and dancing. Could you do that?” And I said, “Yeah,
0:09:37 sure.” And another gig or two later they said, “Hey, the previous musician used to close the show
0:09:40 also with that theme song. Could you do that?” I said, “Yeah, sure.” And then it was,
0:09:46 “The previous musician used to go out in between every act and like get the audience to applaud and
0:09:51 thank them and introduce the next act. Do you think you could do that?” I said, “Yeah, sure.”
0:09:56 And I was really bad at it at first, but I got good eventually. I became like the ringleader
0:10:00 emcee of this whole circus, and I was 18 years old, so if you were to go to the circus,
0:10:07 it would have looked like my show. And I did that for 10 years from the age of 18 to 28.
0:10:12 I did over a thousand shows, and eventually, by the way, got paid more than 75 bucks. Eventually,
0:10:17 I was getting like 300 bucks a show, and it became my full-time living, and I even bought a house
0:10:21 with the money I made playing with the circus. And then that led to all kinds of other things.
0:10:29 And so just so many huge opportunities and 10 years of stage experience came from that one
0:10:34 piddly little pig show that I said yes to this little thing. So, yeah, the only reason I stopped
0:10:39 doing the circus is when CD Baby started taking over my life, and I had to start turning down
0:10:45 circus gigs. But yeah, that was my life for 10 years. What did you learn that made you better?
0:10:53 What were the lessons learned that made the biggest difference in your performance as this emcee?
0:10:57 What were the biggest mistakes that you made early on that you corrected? Either one’s fine.
0:11:00 Yeah, it’s kind of the same answer is that at first, I was too
0:11:08 self-conscious because I thought it was about me. Like, I was going up on stage thinking that the
0:11:15 audience was somehow judging me, Derek Sivers, as if I mattered, you know? So, I would get self-conscious
0:11:24 what they thought of me. And eventually, and I think it took maybe like 10 or 20 gigs. The
0:11:29 circus was run by a husband and wife team, and Tarleton was the name of the wife. She was the one
0:11:34 really kind of out on the gigs and leading the circus. The husband was more the booking agent.
0:11:41 And she’s the one that like single-handedly gave me my confidence that I have today. Like,
0:11:45 sometimes when people ask me why am I so confident, it’s like that’s because of Tarleton.
0:11:50 That’s a longer story we get into. But anyway, Tarleton is the one that she just kept pushing
0:11:54 me from backstage. It’s like, come on, you’re up there acting like David Letterman. Like,
0:11:59 don’t do this whole kind of, ah, yeah, I’m so cool. All right, everybody, here’s the next
0:12:04 act. Like, I think I was trying to be cool because I thought that people were judging me,
0:12:09 right? And she said, these people came here for a show. Go give them what they came here for.
0:12:15 And so one time I decided to go out there and just be over the top ridiculous. I went on stage
0:12:18 and I said, ladies and gentlemen, what you’re about to see is one of the most amazing things,
0:12:21 you know, we have an elephant that is going to be coming from backstage. And I did this whole like
0:12:27 thing in the fast talking voice and real like pizzazz to it. And the audience loved it. And I
0:12:33 came backstage and she said, there you go. That’s what people come to the circus for. So
0:12:39 now that I’ve been on stage, you know, thousands of times, this really sunk in that you get on
0:12:44 stage to give the audience what they came there for. Or even things like this, this interview
0:12:49 we’re doing, this isn’t necessarily for you or me, we could just hang up the phone and talk,
0:12:54 we don’t need to, is, but we’re doing this for the listeners. So we’re going to give them
0:12:59 something that’s useful to them. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about you. This is about them.
0:13:05 So that was the biggest lesson learned. Luckily, I learned that early on when I was 18, 19 and yeah.
0:13:12 Seems like most of my friends who are what most people would consider successful in various
0:13:22 respects can trace their confidence back to either or both end a specific woman and a specific coach
0:13:28 or mentor of some type. It always comes down to one or both of those.
0:13:32 Oh, Tim, you know, I’ve never told you about Kimo Williams.
0:13:35 It’s a great name and I want to learn more. No, I don’t know anything about.
0:13:39 This is so up your alley. I can’t believe I’ve never told you this. Okay.
0:13:43 Thanks for prodding me. I mean, he prompted me with that because you’re right.
0:13:50 It was a gorgeous woman, Tarleton, and it was a music teacher, Kimo Williams, that he, but see,
0:13:55 he changed my life a year or two before I met her. Okay, so imagine this. I’m 17 years old now.
0:14:00 I’m living in suburban Chicago and I decided to go to Berkeley College of Music because I want to
0:14:07 be a famous musician. And just like two or three months before I’m supposed to go, I see an ad in
0:14:12 the local Chicago Tribune for music type setting. And I’m wondering like how much sheet music I’m
0:14:16 going to have to be writing. So I call up this classified ad in the paper and I say,
0:14:19 “Can I ask you some questions about music type setting?” And he said, “Sure, well, why do you
0:14:23 want to know?” And I said, “Because I’m about to go off to Berkeley College of Music in a couple
0:14:28 months.” And he said, “Oh, really?” He said, “I used to teach at Berkeley College of Music.” I said,
0:14:34 “You did? Do you think you can give me some tips?” He said, “Yeah, here’s my address. Come to my studio
0:14:39 at 9 a.m. Thursday morning. See you then.” So, and he lived like way downtown Chicago in an area
0:14:47 I’ve never been to. And I’m going to do a little foreshadowing of the story right now because
0:14:52 when I got married years later to the woman I met when I was sitting in Times Square with you,
0:14:58 he was one of only three people I invited to the wedding. It was Tarleton from the circus,
0:15:02 Kimo Williams, my music teacher, and my first girlfriend Camille. Those were my only three
0:15:09 guests to my wedding. And Kimo Williams told the story to my family. He said, “You know, I tell people
0:15:14 all the time. I get all these kids that want to be famous.” And I said, “Yep, show up at my studio
0:15:19 at 9 a.m.” And he said, “Nobody ever does. Nobody has their shit together to show up when I tell them
0:15:24 to.” And he said, “So, I’d honestly forgotten that there was this kid that called from a classified
0:15:30 ad.” That was his way of saying no. No, it was just his fertile. He was like, “Yeah, all right,
0:15:36 kid. Sure. Here’s a seven-foot hurdle. Let’s hear you do.” Exactly. So, he said, “So, you know,
0:15:40 my doorbell rings some Thursday morning at 8.59 a.m. and I open the door and there’s some
0:15:47 long-haired teenager sitting there.” And so now flipping back to first person point of view is,
0:15:54 yeah, Kimo Williams is this large black man from Hawaii that was a musician that attended Berkeley
0:16:00 School of Music and then stayed there to teach for a while. And so what he taught me in four lessons
0:16:06 got me to graduate Berkeley College of Music in half the time it would take. And here was his
0:16:11 thing. He said, “The reason I wanted you to study with me for a bit,” he said, “I know you only
0:16:16 have like eight weeks before you go to school.” He said, “I think you can graduate Berkeley School
0:16:21 of Music in two years instead of four.” He said, “The standard pace is for chumps.”
0:16:24 I shouldn’t get a t-shirt made.
0:16:29 This is like totally Tim Ferriss stuff, right? This is like, I can’t believe we hadn’t talked
0:16:34 about this before, that he’s the one at the age of like 17, 18, got me into this mentality.
0:16:41 He said, “We’re the standard paces for chumps.” That’s, the school has to organize its curricula
0:16:48 around the lowest common denominator so that almost nobody is left out. So they have to slow
0:16:51 down so that everybody can catch up. But he said, “You’re smarter than that,” or anybody can be
0:16:57 smarter than that if they want to be. So you can go as fast as you want. And here’s how. And so he sat
0:17:00 me down at the piano. He said, “Okay, what do you know about music theory?” I said, “Well, I don’t know.
0:17:04 Let’s find out.” And he, you know, he just asked me a few of these music questions like, “Okay,
0:17:08 what, how does a major scale go?” Right? Okay, show me the tritone. Do you know what a tritone is?
0:17:11 “Okay, play me a tritone in the C major scale.” I’m like, “Uh, uh, uh, okay, B and F.” He said,
0:17:16 “Okay, how can you take that? And what other chord can you make from B and F?” He said, “Okay,
0:17:19 that’s called the substitute chord. Now what is a resolution?” We were like, and he was just like,
0:17:23 boom, boom, boom, at this kind of pace. He was doing all this music theory stuff with me. It was
0:17:27 so intense. And I was like, I had all this adrenaline, like a video game. I was like, “This is amazing.
0:17:33 Okay, keep going.” I said, “Okay, do that. And this.” And that was like a two hour lesson that went at
0:17:37 that kind of pace. And then he dumped a bunch of homework on me. He said, “Okay, now go home tonight
0:17:43 and take this big book of jazz standards. Find me all the two five substitutions or two five
0:17:47 closures and I’ll substitute chords for that and then come back next Thursday and we’ll do this again.”
0:17:53 So we did that for like four Thursdays in a row. And sure enough, what he taught me in four
0:18:00 two hour sessions was basically like two years of Berkeley College of Music. He compressed it
0:18:07 into four lessons. Wow. So that when I showed up to my first day of Berkeley, I tested out of the
0:18:14 first few years just thanks to him. And then he even taught me a strategy. He offhand mentioned,
0:18:19 he said, you know, I think they might still have a rule in place where those other required courses,
0:18:23 you know, that you have to take to graduate. He said, “I think you could pretty much just buy
0:18:28 the books for those and then contact the department head and just take the final exam to get credit.”
0:18:33 So I did that too. So I, when I got there, all those required classes like, you know,
0:18:38 Bach counterpoint classes, I wasn’t so interested in it. So I bought the book,
0:18:42 did all the homework, approached the department head said, “Can I take the final exam for this?”
0:18:46 And he said, looked at me weird and said, “Okay, took the final exam and got credit without ever
0:18:50 having to attend the class.” And yeah, that’s how I graduated Berkeley College of Music in two years.
0:18:56 And on a related note, could you talk about, and we’ve talked about this a bit, but I never tire
0:19:05 of it, relaxing for the same result. Because I think this is such a huge observation that
0:19:11 it’s incredibly important for type A personalities or at least for me, because I have a tendency
0:19:16 to almost want to burn the candle at both ends to prove to myself that I’m putting forth
0:19:21 the maximum effort I’m leaving as little as possible to chance with certain things, you know,
0:19:26 and, but tell everybody about the bike, about the bicycle experience.
0:19:30 Yeah, this was kind of profound. Now, granted, I didn’t learn this until
0:19:36 later, but yeah, I’d been very, very, very type A my whole life. Even before I met Kemal Williams,
0:19:42 you know, I mean, age of 14, it just, my friends called me the robot because they would never see
0:19:48 me sleep or eat or relax or hang out. I just was like so focused on being the best musician I could
0:19:53 be that I would just practice every waking minute. If I’d begrudgingly go to a party, you know,
0:19:57 I’d bring my guitar with me and I’d be sitting in the corner practicing my scales and arpeggios
0:20:01 while everybody was hanging out, getting high, you know. So yeah, I’ve always been very type A,
0:20:06 and so a friend of mine got me into cycling when I was living in LA and I lived right on the beach
0:20:13 in Santa Monica where there’s this great bike path in the sand that goes for, I think it’s 25 miles
0:20:20 in the sand, something like that. The exact number doesn’t matter, but what I would do is I would go
0:20:25 on to the bike path and I would get like head down and push it as hard as I could. I would go
0:20:30 all the way to one end of the bike path and back and then back home and I’d set my little
0:20:34 timer when doing this. Huffing and puffing, red faced. Yeah, just red face huffing it, but like
0:20:40 just pushing it as hard as I can. Every single thrust of the leg just, of course, you know,
0:20:45 that made me quite fun if somebody was in my way on the bike path. Sure, that guy’s got places to
0:20:50 go. But I noticed it was always 43 minutes. I mean, you know, if you know Santa Monica, California,
0:20:55 you know, the weather is about exactly the same all year round. So unless it was a surprisingly
0:21:01 windy day, it was always 43 minutes is what it took me to go as fast as I could on that bike path.
0:21:10 But I noticed that over time, I was starting to feel less psyched about going out on the bike path
0:21:15 because just mentally, when I would think of it, it would feel like pain and hard work.
0:21:21 It sounds like pain and hard work. Yeah, I mean, it was, but you know, I guess at first that was
0:21:25 okay. And after a while, I just felt like, I don’t know, running a bike, why don’t I just hang out.
0:21:31 So then I say, you know, that’s not cool for me to start to associate negative stuff with going
0:21:35 on the bike ride. Why don’t I just chill for once? Like, I’m just going to go on the same bike ride.
0:21:41 But just, you know, I’m not going to be a complete snail, but I’ll go at like half of my normal pace.
0:21:46 So yeah, I got on my bike and it was just pleasant. I just went on the same bike ride.
0:21:52 I was more like standing up. And I just noticed that I was, I was looking around more and I looked
0:21:56 out in the ocean. I noticed that day there were these dolphins jumping in the ocean. And I went
0:22:02 down to Marina Del Rey to my turnaround point. And oh no, actually it was when the the breakers at
0:22:08 Marina Del Rey, there was a penguin that was flying above me. I was like, no way. I looked up,
0:22:17 I was like, hey, a penguin. And he’s shit in my mouth. Was it a penguin or a pelican? Oh, sorry,
0:22:23 pelican. Flying penguin above my head. That would be more amazing. I was like, what did you take
0:22:28 before your ride? So you get to see it a pelican pelican shit in your mouth. That’s incredible
0:22:35 accuracy. Was that from like, how far away was it? 20 feet up. Wow. Because I don’t know if he was
0:22:41 accurate or I was, you know, I had such a nice time. It was just purely pleasant. There was no red
0:22:47 face. There was no huffing and puffing. I was just cycling. It was nice. And when I got back to my
0:22:57 usual stopping place, I looked at my watch and it said 45 minutes. And I was like, no way. How the
0:23:02 hell could that have been 45 minutes as compared to my usual 43? It’s like, there’s no way. But yeah,
0:23:10 it was right 45 minutes. And that was like a profound lesson that I think changed the way I’ve
0:23:17 approached my life ever since is because I realized that I guess, you know, what percentage of that
0:23:21 huffing and puffing then we could do the math or whatever would a 93 point something present of
0:23:28 my huffing and puffing and all that red face and all that stress was only for an extra two minutes.
0:23:31 It was basically for nothing. I mean, you know, of course, we’re not talking about me competing
0:23:36 in something where the huffing and puffing might have been worth it. But for life, I think of all
0:23:42 of this optimization and getting the maximum dollar out of everything and the maximum out of every
0:23:47 second to the maximum amount of every minute. And I think I just take this approach now of going
0:23:52 like, or you could just take the lesson, take most of that lesson and apply it and be effective
0:23:57 and be happy. You don’t need to stress about any of this stuff. And so honestly, that’s been
0:24:02 my approach ever since I do things, but I stop before anything gets stressful.
0:24:09 One of the essays that you’re best known for is hell yeah or no. And this has been extremely
0:24:18 important for me to consistently reread or listen to. How did it come about? And what is the gist
0:24:27 of that? There was a music conference in Australia that I had told my friend I would
0:24:33 go with her to. It wasn’t even like the conference themselves were really expecting me. It was my
0:24:39 friend Arielle Hyatt is one of the best publicists I know. And she was speaking at that conference
0:24:46 and asked if I would come with her as like a co-presenter in her mentor session or something.
0:24:51 So I had said yes like six months before. Yeah, sure. Australia. I’m living in New York City.
0:24:56 I’m like, yeah, sure. And then once it came close, and it was like time to book the ticket, I was like,
0:25:01 I don’t really want to go to Australia right now. I’m busy with other stuff.
0:25:10 And it was actually my friend Amber Rubarth, who’s a brilliant musician. I was on the phone with her
0:25:15 and kind of lamenting about this. And she’s the one that pointed out. She said, it sounds like,
0:25:21 you know, from where you’re at, your decision is not between yes and no. You need to figure out
0:25:27 whether you’re feeling like, fuck yeah, or no. And I said, yeah, that’s really what it comes down
0:25:35 to, right? Because the idea is, if you’re feeling anything less than like, oh, hell yeah, I would
0:25:41 love to do that. Oh my God, that would be amazing. If you’re feeling anything less than that, then
0:25:49 just say no. Because most of us say yes to too much stuff. And then we let these little mediocre
0:25:58 things fill our lives. And so the problem is, when that occasional big, oh my God, hell yeah,
0:26:02 thing comes along, you don’t have enough time to give it the attention that you should because
0:26:08 you’ve said yes to too much other little half ass kind of stuff, right? So once I started applying
0:26:14 this, my life just opened up because it just meant I just said no, no, no, no, no, to almost
0:26:20 everything. But then when the occasional thing came up, that I was really like, you know what,
0:26:26 that would be awesome. Then suddenly, I had all the time in the world. And you know, people say
0:26:30 this, I’m sure, you know, every time people contact you, every time people contact me,
0:26:35 they say, you know, look, I know you must be incredibly busy. And I always think like, no,
0:26:42 I’m not because because I’m in control of my time, I’m on top of it. Busy to me seems to imply
0:26:48 like out of control. You know, like, oh my God, I’m so busy. I don’t have any time for this yet.
0:26:52 To me, that sounds like a person who’s got no control of their life.
0:27:00 Yeah, no, no control and unclear priorities. Yes. So you asked how it’s applying in my life that
0:27:06 still just on the little tiny day to day level, even personal things, God, even people you meet,
0:27:13 even, you know, as I’m dating, you have to do the hell yeah, or no approach, or people ask you
0:27:19 to go to events, or God, even, you know, even people asking to do a phone call or anything,
0:27:23 I think, you know, am I really excited about that? And, you know, almost every time the
0:27:28 answers no. So I say no to almost everything. And then, yeah, occasionally, something will come up,
0:27:34 even a little surprise will be dropped in my lab, like this thing that happened just two months ago
0:27:38 called the the now now now project, which we don’t even really need to talk about the details don’t
0:27:43 matter so much. But it was just something that popped up that seemed really interesting and
0:27:49 people really wanted. And luckily, because I say no to almost everything, I had the time in my life
0:27:54 to make it flourish. So for the last like six weeks, all I did full time, like 12 hours a day,
0:27:58 was suddenly work on this brand new thing that showed up because I could, you know, so that’s to
0:28:06 me the the lovely result of taking the hell yeah or no approach to life. So I am reading a section
0:28:13 of this blog post that I wrote about you and your the best email you ever wrote with the Japanese
0:28:18 boxing specialist and so on. And one of the paragraphs that I put here for those people
0:28:23 interested, it’s just the most successful email I ever wrote, but it’s everywhere online. And
0:28:30 it reads stranger still at its largest Derek spent roughly four hours on CD baby every six months,
0:28:37 he had systematized everything to run without him. And feel free to correct that if it needs to be
0:28:44 corrected, but assuming that’s roughly true. What were some of the most important decisions or
0:28:51 realizations that made that possible? I love the timing for when I read four hour workweek because
0:28:59 it was actually just after I had done this like complete delegation of everything that it was
0:29:06 feeling the pain from everything having to go through me. It was my business right 100% no
0:29:11 investors no nothing it was me and so I hired people to help me it was all me me me. So four years
0:29:18 into it, it was growing it was really taking off I had 20 employees but still almost everything
0:29:23 went through me. And it made my day kind of miserable because I’m a real like introverted
0:29:28 focused kind of person I love to just sit down for 12 hours and do one thing without distraction.
0:29:38 You’re an INTJ Myers-Briggs. Yeah, I’m 100% INTJ. Yeah. So I hated going to the office and being
0:29:45 distracted every five minutes with my employees asking me questions. So that’s what I just felt
0:29:51 such pain about this like I hate this that I really literally meant I booked a flight to
0:29:58 Kauai I believe and I was going to move to Kauai and not give my employees my phone number
0:30:03 and literally move I don’t mean like take a vacation I mean like I am now going to be running
0:30:07 I’m going to be the owner of CD Baby on a little island in Hawaii and you guys just figure out your
0:30:13 own damn problems because I was just I was just having so much psychic pain about this but then
0:30:20 luckily with lovely coincidence that night that I booked the flight to Hawaii I watched the movie
0:30:27 Vanilla Sky and in Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise is like the owner of this big publishing company
0:30:33 but he gets all caught up with these crazy women and gets too overwhelmed with his life and focusing
0:30:39 on his own happiness and or unhappiness and all that and pretty soon his company is just
0:30:45 wrestled away from him and I thought oh I don’t want that to happen like I don’t want to just
0:30:51 plug my ears close my eyes run away and have my company taken away from me I need to deal with
0:30:58 my problems instead of running from them so I canceled the trip to Hawaii and went into work
0:31:04 the next day and decided to fix this thing so then next time somebody asked me a question
0:31:10 I gathered everybody around I said okay everybody Tracy just asked me you know Derek what do we
0:31:14 do when a guy on the phone says he wants a refund you know I said okay everybody stop working everybody
0:31:20 gather around okay Tracy asked what we do if somebody wants a refund here’s not only what we
0:31:24 do but here’s why here’s my philosophy whenever anybody wants a refund we should always give it
0:31:30 to them and I would just explain not just the what to do but the why it was constantly communicating
0:31:34 the philosophy to get to the core of it and I think you mentioned this in back in four hour
0:31:41 work week there’s almost nothing that really has to be you like you can almost get kind of AI
0:31:48 and figure out how your brain works how your decision making process works and just teach it
0:31:53 to other people so that other people can do it and yeah that’s what I did for every single thing
0:31:58 that ever came my way I would gather everybody around explain the philosophy behind it why
0:32:02 we do things this way why I’m about to say what I’m about to say and now here’s what I think we
0:32:07 should do do you understand why now please write it down but it was also important that I taught it
0:32:13 multiple people not just one and had them write it down and then the cool thing is I wasn’t doing
0:32:18 the hiring anymore the company I had taught other people how to do the hiring so soon my employees
0:32:22 were doing the hiring and then they were teaching new people how to do this thing from the the book
0:32:28 and so that really started four years into the company it was six months of difficult work to
0:32:34 really make myself unnecessary but then my girlfriend at the time decided to go to film school
0:32:39 in LA so decided to follow her down there so I moved down to LA to be with her which was a
0:32:44 nice symbolic way to let the company know like you’re on your own I’m still the owner and in fact
0:32:50 so there’s one little caveat to the thing we said that I was working on CD baby for four hours a year
0:32:57 or whatever you said yeah four or six months is that that’s how much time I spent doing this stuff
0:33:03 I didn’t want to be doing right the monotony the bureaucracy stuff that I had reduced down to almost
0:33:09 nothing like a few minutes a week but what I was doing from 7 a.m. to midnight every single day was
0:33:14 programming like the future of CD baby and that’s just the stuff that I loved doing so it was about
0:33:18 making my life the way I wanted it to be working on the stuff that I wanted to be working on
0:33:25 and not doing the stuff I didn’t if you could have one billboard anywhere with anything on it
0:33:30 what would it say my real answer if I was taking that literally is that I would remove all the
0:33:35 billboards in the world and ensure that they were never replaced you know if you ever driven through
0:33:41 India you know yeah it’s so sad well I haven’t driven but oh right on my way to the Calcutta ER
0:33:48 where I spent a week I was god briefly looking at the windows you know even in these small towns
0:33:54 in Kerala like there’s almost no space that is left without advertising so I really admire those
0:34:01 places like I think Vermont and uh South Paulo Brazil that ban billboards but I know that that
0:34:06 wasn’t really what you’re asking so so my better answer is I think I would make a billboard that
0:34:14 would say it won’t make you happy and I would place it outside any big shopping mall or car dealer
0:34:20 so ideally actually I think you know what would be a fun project is to buy and train thousands of
0:34:26 parrots to say it won’t make you happy it won’t make you happy and then you let them loose in
0:34:31 the shopping malls and super stores around the world that’s my life mission anybody with me let’s
0:34:37 do it what advice would you give your 30 year old self and place us if you would for where you were
0:34:44 at 30 and what you’re doing at 30 well let’s see I had just started CD baby at 30 but I think
0:34:49 the biggest advice I would give to my younger self or more like knowledge learned like hey
0:34:56 younger self you should know this now is that women like sex do you know that until I was 40
0:35:00 hopefully if I didn’t get that I think through you know like teenage movies or whatever we’re
0:35:05 kind of taught the opposite that’s like you know men always want sex and women don’t I don’t know
0:35:09 why the the media portrays it like that but later I found out that’s not true but I think the the
0:35:16 more interesting answer is that my advice to my 30 year old self would be don’t be a donkey
0:35:22 and what does that mean well I meet a lot of 30 year olds that are trying to pursue
0:35:29 many different directions at once but not making progress in any right and then or or they get
0:35:33 frustrated that the world wants them to pick one thing because they want to do them all and I get
0:35:37 a lot of this frustration like but I want to do this and that and this and that why do I have to
0:35:44 choose I don’t know what to choose but the problem is if you’re thinking short term then you’re acting
0:35:50 as if you don’t do them all this week that they won’t happen but I think the solution is to think
0:35:57 long term to realize that you can do one of these things for a few years and then do another one
0:36:02 for a few years and then another so what I mean about don’t be a donkey is you’ve probably heard
0:36:09 the fable about I think it’s Buridan’s donkey it’s a a fable about a donkey that is standing halfway
0:36:15 in between a pile of hay and a bucket of water and he just keeps looking left to the hay
0:36:23 or right to the water trying to decide hay or water hay or water he’s unable to decide
0:36:28 so he eventually falls over and dies of both hunger and thirst so the point is that a donkey can’t
0:36:33 think of the future if he did he’d clearly realize that he could just go first drink the water and
0:36:41 then go eat the hay so my advice to my 30 year old self is don’t be a donkey you can do everything
0:36:48 you want to do you just need foresight and patience right so say like for somebody listening if
0:36:54 you’re 30 years old now and say you have like five different things you want to pursue well then
0:36:58 you can do each one of those for 10 years and you’ll have them all done by the time you’re 80
0:37:04 you’re probably going to live to be 80 so it’s ridiculous to I mean it sounds ridiculous to
0:37:09 plan to the age of 80 when you’re 30 right but it’s a fact that’s probably coming so you might
0:37:15 as well take advantage of it it’s like use the future that way you can fully focus on one direction
0:37:21 at a time without feeling conflicted or distracted because you know that you’ll get to the others
0:37:27 in the future and I think you’d also just to build on that I agree I think most people and this is
0:37:33 not something I’ve thought up on my own but they overestimate what they can achieve in a day or a
0:37:37 week so they have 20 items on their to-do list but they underestimate what they could achieve
0:37:45 in a year or even two years and yeah but you’re the way that for instance if you look at a lot of
0:37:50 what I’ve done much of which ended up being the result of accidental discoveries but you had the
0:37:56 book career but then you had the angel investing start around 2007 2008 and I treated that as a
0:38:01 two-year self-imposed MBA and it was like okay I want to try this and really focus on it for two
0:38:07 years and I’m not going to expect to have any financial return but just as an MBA I’m going to
0:38:13 sink this amount of cost into it which was identical to Stanford graduate school business at the time
0:38:19 and assume that the network and relationships and lessons I would learn would be worth that two years
0:38:27 and just viewing them as two-year experiments which I did with the TV also which did not
0:38:31 turn out as ideally as I would have liked although I’m very proud of you know that’s inference
0:38:37 experiment podcast same thing right it wasn’t a three-year commitment but it was also not a
0:38:42 one-day or one-week commitment it was like okay I’m gonna do this for at least six episodes maybe
0:38:48 it takes me six months and then I’ll correct course at that point but yeah you do I think a lot
0:38:55 of 30 year olds feel pressured or younger or older for that matter to pursue many many things
0:39:01 in parallel when if you were just to tweak that slightly and make them serial the results would
0:39:06 be much better yeah that’s a really hard lesson to learn we can even say it right now it’s really
0:39:14 tough I even find that now yeah cost and challenge just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and
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0:40:32 and now Kevin Kelly founding executive editor of Wired Magazine former editor and publisher of
0:40:38 the whole earth review and best-selling author of books on technology and culture including
0:40:46 excellent advice for living the inevitable what technology wants and vanishing asia his three
0:40:54 volume photo book set capturing west central and east asia you can find kevin on twitter and instagram
0:41:04 at kevin the number two kelly and on his website kk.org Kevin thank you so much for being on the show
0:41:10 that’s my honor and i am endlessly fascinated by all of the varied projects that you constantly have
0:41:16 going on but that leads me to the first question which is when you meet someone who is not familiar
0:41:21 with your background and they ask you the age old what do you do question how do you even begin to
0:41:28 answer that what is your stock answer to that these days my stock answer is is that i package ideas
0:41:38 into books and magazines and websites and i make ideas interesting and pretty well i like the
0:41:43 pretty that’s well well we’ll come back to the aesthetic aspect i think that’s a really neglected
0:41:48 piece of the entire puzzle you do have of course a background a lot of people are familiar with
0:41:55 your background with wired but perhaps you could give folks a bit of background on yourself and
0:42:00 is it true that you dropped out of of college after one year yeah i’m a college dropout and
0:42:06 actually my one regret in life is that one year oh no kidding no kidding yeah i wish i had just
0:42:12 even skipped that but i do understand how college can be useful to people and i’ve
0:42:18 but for me it was just not the right thing and i went to asia instead and i like to tell myself
0:42:27 that i gave my own self a phd in east asian studies by traveling around and photographing
0:42:33 very remote remote parts of asia at a time when it was in the transition from the ancient world
0:42:40 to the modern world and i did many other things as well and for me it was a very formative time
0:42:46 because i did enough things that when i finally got my first real job at the age of 35
0:42:53 wow which which job was that i worked for a non-profit at ten dollars an hour which was the
0:42:57 whole earth catalog which would have been like kind of a lifelong dream if i said if i’m going to
0:43:03 have a job that’s the job i want it took me a long time to kind of get it but in between that i did
0:43:09 many things including starting businesses and selling businesses and doing other kinds of things
0:43:16 more adventures and i highly recommend it you know i got involved in starting wired and
0:43:21 running wired for a while and i hired a lot of people who were coming right out of college
0:43:25 they were internets and they would do the intern thing and then they were good and we would hire
0:43:30 them which meant that basically you know after 10 years whatever it was they were this was their
0:43:38 first and only job and i kept telling them why are you here what are you doing you should be
0:43:44 slowing around wasting time trying something crazy why are you working a real job i don’t
0:43:53 understand it and i just really i really recommend slack i’m a believer in in this thing of kind of
0:43:59 doing something that’s not productive you know productivist or your middle ages
0:44:06 when you’re young you want to be prolific and make and do things but you don’t want to measure them
0:44:12 in terms of productivity you want to measure them in terms of extreme performance you want
0:44:19 to measure them in kind of extreme satisfaction it’s it’s a time to kind of try stuff and and i
0:44:25 think explore the extremes exactly explore the possibilities and there are so many possibilities
0:44:31 and there’s more every day and it’s called premature organization you you really want to use this time
0:44:37 to continue to do things and by the way premature optimization is a problem of success too it’s
0:44:40 not just the problem of the young it’s the problem of the successful more than even of the young but
0:44:45 we’ll get to that yeah that might turn into a therapy session for me at this precise moment
0:44:51 in time in fact but when you are exploring that slack i would imagine many people feel pressured
0:44:57 whether it’s internal pressure or societal familial pressure to get a real job to support
0:45:01 themselves and a lot of the decisions are made out of fear they they worry about being out on
0:45:08 the streets or it’s a nebulous terror or anxiety how did you support yourself for instance while you
0:45:13 were traveling through asia when you left school i totally understand this anxiety and fear and
0:45:19 stuff but here’s the thing i think one of the many kind of life skills that you want to actually
0:45:26 learn at a fairly young age is the skill of being like ultra thrifty minimal kind of this little
0:45:33 wisp at this traveling through time in the sense of learning how little you actually need to live
0:45:39 not just in kind of um survival mode but kind of you know in a contented mode and i learned that
0:45:45 pretty early by backpacking and doing other things and especially in asia was i could be very happy
0:45:50 with very very little and go onto websites and stuff and look at sort of like the minimum amount of
0:45:56 stuff the food say that you need to to live you know your basic protein and carbohydrates and
0:46:01 and vitamins and and how much actually if you were bought them in bulk how much it would cost i mean
0:46:08 you build your own house live in a shelter a tiny house you don’t need very much and i think
0:46:12 trying that out you know building your house on the pond like the row there’s a hero of mine in
0:46:19 high school is not just a simple exercise it’s a profound exercise because it allows you to get
0:46:25 over the anxiety even if you aren’t living like that you know that if the worst came to worse
0:46:32 you could keep going at a very low rate and be content and so that gives you the sort of confidence
0:46:38 to take a risk because you say what’s the worst that could happen well the worst that happened is
0:46:43 that i’d have a backpack and a sleeping bag and i’d be eating oatmeal and whatever you know and
0:46:48 that’d be fine and i think if you do that once or twice you don’t necessarily have to live like
0:46:55 that but but knowing that you can be content is tremendously empowering that’s basically what
0:47:00 i did it was you know living in asia where the people around me had less than i did and they
0:47:06 were pretty content you realize oh my gosh i don’t really need very much to be happy
0:47:12 and did you save up money beforehand with odd jobs or did you do odd jobs while on the road
0:47:18 a bit of both i did odd jobs before i left i was traveling in asia at a time when the
0:47:27 price differential was so great that it actually made sense for me to fly back on a charter flight
0:47:34 to the us and work for four or five months and i worked basically odd jobs i worked from working
0:47:42 in a warehouse packaging athletic shoes working in a kind of technical sense of a that’s a really
0:47:48 just hard to describe but it was kind of a in a photography related job where we were reducing
0:47:54 printed circuit boards down to little sizes to be shipped off to be printed and driving cars to
0:48:02 whatever else i could find and that at that time made more money i could live off of i could live
0:48:09 probably two years from those couple months of work so i didn’t really work while i was traveling
0:48:17 until i got to iran in the late 70s and there there was a very high paying job which was teaching
0:48:24 english to the iranian pilots who worked for the shah but i had sworn they were never going to teach
0:48:30 english so i actually got a job in bella hot helicopter who was teaching english is to the
0:48:35 pilots but my job was running a little newsletter for the american community there and i worked
0:48:41 there until i was thrown out by the coup that was another story why did that now just a couple
0:48:46 of comments so number one for those people listening who are saying to themselves already
0:48:51 perhaps creating reasons why they can’t do what you did now due to different economic climate
0:48:56 or whatnot it is entirely possible to replicate what you did you just have to choose your locations
0:49:02 wisely yeah for that type of differential absolutely and i should also just mention to people that
0:49:07 part of the reason i’m so attracted to stoic philosophy whether that be senica or marcus
0:49:14 aurelius is exactly because of the practice of poverty not because you want to be poor but so
0:49:20 that you recognize not only that you can subsist but then you can potentially be content or or
0:49:25 even in some cases be more content with a bare minimum so for people who are more interested
0:49:28 in that i highly recommend a lot of the stoic writings and you can search for those on my
0:49:33 blog and elsewhere but let me just add to that there’s actually a new age version of that that
0:49:38 was sort of popular and a generation ago and the search term there is volunteer simplicity
0:49:45 volunteer simplicity right and so the idea is poverty is is terrible when it’s mandatory when
0:49:51 you have no choice but volunteer version of that is very very powerful and i think attaching names
0:49:57 sometimes to things it makes it more legitimate but but imagine yourself practicing voluntary
0:50:02 simplicity and that i think is part of that stoic philosophy but there’s a whole kind of a movement
0:50:07 a lot of the hippie dropouts were kind of practicing a similar thing and there was you know the whole
0:50:15 best practices that resolved around that you can make up your own but i think it’s to me an essential
0:50:21 skill that life skill that people should acquire and when you go backpacking and stuff like that
0:50:27 that’s part of it that’s the beginnings of trying to understand what it is that you need to live as a
0:50:32 you know as a being and you can fill that out in any way you want but that’s a good way to experiment
0:50:36 now you have become certainly a world-class
0:50:43 packager of ideas but also at synthesizing and expressing these ideas i love your writing if
0:50:49 i’ve consumed vast quantities of it in fact i’m here right now on on long island where i grew up
0:50:55 and i used to sneak into my parents shed to read old editions of the whole earth catalog
0:51:02 for inspiration it was the i suppose the equivalent of my internet at the time and from that all the
0:51:07 way to 1000 true fans which of course you know i sort of shout from the rooftops for people to read
0:51:13 how did you develop that skill of writing and communicating a lot of people associate that
0:51:20 with schooling but it doesn’t appear to be the source for you yeah so in high school i i would
0:51:26 call myself a very late bloomer i i don’t recall myself having a lot of ideas there were a lot of
0:51:30 other people and kids in my high school that i was very impressed with because they seem to
0:51:37 know what they thought and were very glib and particulate and i wasn’t i was a little bit more
0:51:43 visual on that sense i i um tried to decide whether to go to art school or to mit because i was really
0:51:49 interested in science so i set off to asia as a photographer so it was you know basically no words
0:51:57 at all it was just images and as i was traveling and seeing these amazing things i mean again i want
0:52:03 to emphasize that this was sort of a for me i grew up in new jersey i’d never left new jersey we never
0:52:11 took vacations it’s hard to describe how parochial new jersey was back in you know the 1960s i never
0:52:17 had eight chinese food and never had i mean i never saw chinese it was like it was a different world
0:52:22 and then i was thrown into asia and it was like oh my gosh everything i knew was wrong
0:52:33 and so that education was extremely extremely powerful and i think that that gave me something
0:52:39 to say and i started writing letters home and i trying to describe what i was seeing and so
0:52:45 i had a reason to try to communicate and that was the beginning of it but even then i don’t think
0:52:54 i really had much to say it wasn’t really until the internet came along and i had a chance to go
0:53:01 on to one of the first online communities in the early 80s and for some reason the early 80s that
0:53:09 is that is definitely yeah it was early days yeah in 1981 and so these were private it wasn’t the
0:53:12 kind of wide open internet these were a little experimental the fact it was a new jersey institute
0:53:20 of technology in ructors that had this experimental online community that i got invited on and we
0:53:25 can talk about how that happened but that was it was just like a friend and i found that there was
0:53:31 something about the direct attempt to just communicate with someone else in real time you
0:53:37 know just just sending them a message or something that crystallized my thinking is how did it
0:53:41 crystallize your thinking just not interrupt but was it the immediate feedback loop it was the idea
0:53:48 that they have since teachers have since done a lot of studies where they had kids write an essay
0:53:53 on something an assignment and then they would also be instructed to write some email to a friend
0:53:59 or something and then they would grade both of the compositions and they would find that inevitably
0:54:05 the email that the kids were writing was much better writing because when you’re trying to
0:54:11 write a composition there’s all these you know we have all these attitudes or expectations or there’s
0:54:16 there’s this kind of a writerly sense there’s there’s there’s all this other garbage and luggage
0:54:21 and baggage on top of that but when we’re just trying to send an email we’re just we’re directly
0:54:26 trying to communicate something we’re not fooling around we’re not trying to be it make it literary
0:54:30 literary and all that we’re just direct stuff and so the writing there was always much more
0:54:34 directed concrete because that’s the that’s the usual thing that happens when you’re trying to
0:54:38 write is you’re not concrete enough but when you’re emails like all concrete and so it was
0:54:45 getting out of the whole kind of writerly stuff and just pure concrete communication that really
0:54:50 made it for me and what I discovered which is what many writers discover is that I write in
0:54:57 order to think yeah it was like I think I have an idea but when I began to write it I realized I
0:55:03 have no idea and I don’t actually know what I think until I try to write it so writing is a
0:55:09 way for me to define out what I think it’s like I don’t have any ideas that’s true but when I write
0:55:17 I get the ideas and that was the revelation and so by being forced to communicate online and there
0:55:21 was none of this expectation it was just like okay this is random email I can do that I don’t
0:55:25 have to write necessarily I don’t have to write something nice I’m just gonna write you know 140
0:55:30 characters I can do that but while I was doing that I had an idea that I didn’t have before
0:55:36 and so it was like oh my gosh this is a idea generation machine it’s by writing it’s not
0:55:39 that I have these ideas I’m gonna write them down oh no I don’t even have them until I write
0:55:44 I’m so glad you brought that up because I was just recently a few things related to that I was
0:55:49 reading an interview with Kurt Vonnegut who’s one of my favorite authors for people who aren’t
0:55:55 familiar check out Cats Cradle perhaps as a starting point hilarious guy and he at various
0:56:00 points in his career taught writing to make ends meet and he would number one not look for good
0:56:05 writers he would look for people who are passionate about specific things so that’s that’s something
0:56:10 I want to reiterate to people who don’t feel right early is that go out and have the experiences
0:56:15 and find the subjects the things that excite you and as long as you’re true to your voice which
0:56:20 is related to the email point I threw out my first two drafts of I’d say a third of the four hour
0:56:28 work week because they were either two pompous and Ivy League sounding way way way too much I mean
0:56:32 horrible or two slapstick because I felt like I had to go to the other extreme and then I sat down
0:56:38 and I wrote as if I were composing an email to a friend after two glasses of wine and that’s how I
0:56:44 found my voice so to speak as a side note why and I think this might be related but why did you
0:56:49 promise yourself not to teach English I’m so curious because that’s a that that can be very
0:56:53 lucrative it’s readily available when you are traveling why did you commit to yourself not to
0:56:58 teach English yeah it’s a good question because there’s lots of opportunities all around the world
0:57:04 and by the way I recommend it as a way for people to travel cheaply if you want to support yourself
0:57:12 because it is a very desirable skill we call it for the moment I think the reason why was I felt
0:57:18 that I do feel like I was a very good teacher and I also felt that it was maybe a little easy
0:57:24 but I think the main reason was that I was having trouble imagining myself enjoying it you know
0:57:32 and I just felt that I would rather try to find something else now I think I did one time in
0:57:40 Taiwan which as you know has a whole cram school system I think a friend I substituted for a friend
0:57:48 once and I think that maybe confirmed to me like my idea that while it was there was sort of like
0:57:53 you know all I have to do is just talk I mean there’s really not much skill involved at all
0:57:58 it was fun but I didn’t feel like I was I don’t know I didn’t feel like I was maybe adding value
0:58:04 or something so I came away thinking you know I guess I could do this for money but I’m not gonna
0:58:09 be happy I think it’s just the personality thing I don’t think of myself as a teacher I don’t do
0:58:16 many workshops or classes so I think a different person might thoroughly enjoy it and I know they
0:58:23 do and they have a great time doing it for me it was just not for me got it no big deal I think
0:58:29 this is an important thing is is that you know it takes a long time to kind of figure out what
0:58:35 you’re good for and part of where I’m at right now and where I got eventually was really trying to
0:58:40 spend time on doing things that only I could do and even when I could do something well but
0:58:46 someone else could do it I would try and let that go that that’s a discipline that I’m still working
0:58:51 on which is not just things that I’m good at but things that only I’m good at so that was something
0:58:56 I was sort of trying to start early on which is like you know a lot of other people can do this
0:59:04 and they’re happy doing it so I don’t want to go somewhere where it requires more of me
0:59:09 to do and then I’ll be happier and they’ll be happier I am currently having and I seem to have
0:59:18 these periodically a crisis of meaning phase and I’m wrestling with this exact issue trying to
0:59:26 figure out what to abandon what to say no to to refine my focus so I can really focus on the
0:59:32 intersection of my unique capability or capabilities whatever that is and a need of some type how did
0:59:38 you figure that out and maybe we could approach it from a different direction what do you feel
0:59:44 is your skill set or your your unique skill and how did you figure that out well let me tell
0:59:49 you the story of how this realization actually came to me in a kind of a very concrete way which
0:59:57 while I was editing Wired Magazine and so part of what Wired Magazine is about is is that we would
1:00:02 come up with ideas and make assignments to writers now some of the articles in Wired would come from
1:00:07 the writers themselves they would protest to say I have an idea but a lot of the the articles would
1:00:12 be assigned from editors we’d have editorial meetings where we kind of imagine this great
1:00:18 article and then we’d go and try and find someone to to write it and in that conversation of trying
1:00:24 to persuade writers to write an idea that I had they would go through a kind of a very typical
1:00:30 sequence where you know I would have this great idea this is a great idea and and then I would
1:00:34 try to persuade like one writer two writer three writers and they just you know they didn’t think
1:00:38 it was a very good idea they didn’t like it they didn’t want to do whatever it was and then I’d
1:00:42 kind of forget about it but then like you know six months later we’d come back and say oh that was
1:00:47 such a great idea I really think we should do that and then I would go again for another round of
1:00:51 trying to persuade people and then again no takers and then I kind of forget about that must have been
1:00:56 a bad idea but then like six months later a year later it might come back you know that’s still a
1:01:04 great idea nobody has done that and then I would realize oh my gosh I need to do that you know it’s
1:01:08 like I’m the only one who can see this I’ve tried to give it away I have tried really hard to give
1:01:13 it away I’ve tried to kill it it just keeps like coming back coming back and it’s like okay and then
1:01:19 I would do it and there’ll be one of my best pieces and so it was this idea of like so so I became
1:01:24 really an important proponent of trying to give things away first tell everybody what you’re doing
1:01:30 basically you try to give these ideas away and people are happy because they love great ideas
1:01:36 and you do it it’s a great idea you should do it and so I try to give everything away first
1:01:41 and then I try to kill everything it’s like no that’s a bad idea and then it’s the ones that
1:01:47 keep coming back that I can’t kill and they can’t give away that think hmm maybe that’s the one I’m
1:01:51 supposed to do yeah interesting because no one else is going to do it I mean I’ve been actively
1:01:55 trying to get and then of course there’s someone else is doing it you should see someone else
1:02:00 competing or trying to do it it’s like oh yeah you go ahead do it I’m not going to race against you
1:02:07 yeah that’s crazy because there’s two of us you know you do it and so that generosity is actually
1:02:13 part of this your vetting process exactly and so that’s when I kind of realized it but that
1:02:19 doesn’t answer the question of well how do you find out what it is and all I can say is you know
1:02:22 and I don’t want to be flipped but all I can say is it’s going to take all your life to figure that
1:02:28 out right that is fact here’s what it is figuring out is what your life is about
1:02:33 I mean that’s what life is for right life is to figure it out and then so every
1:02:40 part of your life every day is actually this attempt to figure this out and you’ll have
1:02:45 different answers as you go along and sometimes there may be directions in that but that’s basically
1:02:51 what it is and you are very transparent about confessing this but I have to tell you that
1:02:56 even from hanging around a lot of very accomplished people a lot of successful people that we would
1:03:03 be on the covers of magazines they also go through exactly the same questioning I mean no matter
1:03:08 how big of a billion dollar company they have they they come up to the same thing well you know
1:03:12 what’s my role in all this why am I here what am I useful what am I doing that nobody else can
1:03:18 it’s a continuous in fact as we’ll come back to being successful makes that even more difficult
1:03:25 why is that because of the what I call the creator’s dilemma which is very much the same
1:03:32 thing as the innovator’s dilemma which is that it’s a true dilemma in fact in the sense that
1:03:38 there’s no right answer but the question is is sort of is it better to optimize your strengths
1:03:46 or to invest into the unknown into places that where you’re weak and any or places you have
1:03:52 an explored yeah any accountant in any business will tell you that it did it absolutely makes more
1:03:58 sense to take your dollar you’ll get a higher return by investing into what you’re good at
1:04:04 already whatever it is and this is the pursuit of excellence this is the Tom Peters and the whole
1:04:11 entire movement which is you move uphill you you keep optimizing what you know and that
1:04:20 by far is the sanest the most reasonable the the smartest thing to do but when you have a very
1:04:27 fast changing landscape like we live in right now you get stuck on a local optima you get you get
1:04:35 stuck and the problem is that the only way you can get to a higher more bit place is you actually
1:04:41 have to go down you actually have to head into a place where you are less optimal you have no
1:04:47 expertise there’s very low margins there’s low profits you look foolish there’ll be failures
1:04:56 and if you’ve been following the line of success that is very very difficult to do
1:05:00 it’s very difficult for an organization it’s almost literally almost impossible for an organization
1:05:06 who’s been excellent and successful to do it really is so which presents a lot of opportunity
1:05:14 for the startups the reason why startups start is because they’re operating in an environment
1:05:20 that no sane big corporation would want to be in it’s it’s a market it’s low margins low
1:05:26 profitability unproven high failure I mean it’s like who wants to operate there nobody
1:05:32 their only reason why startups operate is they have no choice right yeah it’s the the gift
1:05:39 of few options right right exactly so so in terms of success binding I think you have to be unsuccessful
1:05:47 who is successful wants to be unsuccessful it’s very very hard to to let go of that success
1:05:52 and so that’s one of the things that works against someone really continuing on this
1:05:56 life journey of finding out what they’re really good at because because here’s the thing is that
1:06:01 successful companies and successful people generally try to solve problems with money
1:06:07 you buy solutions and we all know that money doesn’t it’s not the full answer for innovation
1:06:10 you know basically if you could purchase innovations all the big companies would just
1:06:15 purchase them okay it’s it’s the fact that that these innovations often have to be found out
1:06:20 without money through other means again that’s the advantage to the startup and it’s a disadvantage
1:06:25 to the successful companies because they got money and they just want to buy solutions but
1:06:31 most of these solutions you can’t buy you have to kind of engineer in this very difficult environment
1:06:37 of low margins low success low profits that no one really wants to be in but the startups are
1:06:43 forced to be in that’s also an advantage I would think for beginners or novices compared to experts
1:06:52 they have less vested identity less inertia to have to reverse and that’s back to my suggestion
1:06:56 the meaning of why slack and fooling around when you’re young is so important because
1:07:04 a lot of these innovations and things are found not by trying to solve a problem that
1:07:10 can be monetized yeah it’s in exploring this area without money I mean money is so overrated
1:07:15 it really could you elaborate on that because I feel like this is a sermon I need to receive
1:07:18 on some level there’s several things to say about it one is you know obviously if you’re
1:07:24 struggling to pay bills and mortgages and stuff that there’s a certain amount that’s needed but
1:07:30 but here’s the thing is that accumulating enough money to do things is really a byproduct of other
1:07:37 things it’s a kind of a a lubricant in a certain sense rather than you know a goal and great wealth
1:07:43 or extreme wealth is definitely overrated I’ve had meals with a dozen billionaires and
1:07:48 they’re no different I mean their lives lifestyles are no different you don’t want to have a
1:07:52 billion dollars me put that way you really don’t there’s nothing that you can really
1:07:57 do with it that you can’t do with a lot of less money it was set then aside but even just wealth
1:08:07 itself in this world where there is more and more abundance even the money for say middle class is
1:08:13 less significant in a certain sense in the sense that maybe there’s status which is really not needed
1:08:18 but the things that you want to do the things that will make you content the things that
1:08:25 will satisfy you the things that will bring you meaning can usually got better than having money
1:08:30 I mean if you have a lot of time or a lot of money it’s always better to have a lot of time to do
1:08:34 something and so if you have a choice between having a lot of friends or a lot of money you
1:08:41 definitely wouldn’t have a lot of friends and so I think there’s a way even which technological
1:08:46 progress that we’re having is actually diminishing the role of money and I want to be
1:08:52 clear that I’m talking about money beyond the amount that you need to survive but even that
1:08:56 reflects back what we were saying earlier which is probably less than you think it is
1:09:02 to survive and so in a certain sense most people see money as a means to get these other things
1:09:10 but there are other routes to these other things right that are deeper and more constant and more
1:09:17 durable and more powerful so money is this sort of very small one-dimensional thing that if you
1:09:23 kind of focus on that it kind of comes and goes and if you whatever it is that you’re trying to
1:09:30 attain you go to it more directly through other means you will probably wind up with a more
1:09:37 powerful experience or whatever it is that you’re after and it’ll be deeper more renewable
1:09:44 than coming at it with money and so travel is one of the great examples which is many many
1:09:50 people who are working very hard trying to save their money to retire someday to travel well
1:09:57 I decided to flip it around and travel when I was really young when I had zero money and I had
1:10:04 experiences that basically even a billion dollars couldn’t have bought and it’s not an uncommon site
1:10:09 let me tell you for young kind of travelers who have very little money to be hanging out
1:10:14 doing something and then there will be some very wealthy people on their one-week organized tour
1:10:20 looking at these young travelers just saying I wish I had more time yeah you see it you see it
1:10:25 every well I see it almost every time I go traveling and it reminds me of conversations
1:10:30 I’ve had with Rolf Potts and also his book Vagabonding which I just absolutely love and it was
1:10:36 it was that book and Walden that I took with me traveling when I had my own two year or so walk
1:10:43 about and he points out in the beginning of Vagabonding that many people subscribe to the belief
1:10:49 along the lines of Charlie Sheen’s in the movie Wall Street and he’s asked what he’s going to
1:10:54 do when he makes his millions and he says I’m going to get a motorcycle and ride across China
1:11:01 and Rolf of course points out that you could you could clean toilets in the US and save enough money
1:11:08 to ride a motorcycle across China exactly and let me ask you this is this is maybe tangentially
1:11:14 related but you mentioned earlier that you know your your middle age your middle ages middle ages
1:11:20 maybe sounds odd but in your middle age that’s when you optimize and I find that horrifying on
1:11:28 some level because I am so tired I just turned 37 last week and I’m really tired of certain types
1:11:35 of optimizing and the incremental slogging of making trains run slightly more efficiently on time
1:11:40 even though like you said from a strictly financial standpoint the advice that I would
1:11:45 receive from many people and have received when I’ve asked for advice is here are one or two
1:11:52 core areas you should focus on to optimize for income and on the flip side I’m tempted to approach
1:11:59 a kind of not scorched earth but burned bridges approach where I somehow use creative destruction
1:12:05 to force me into another direction to have these new experiences that I crave so much
1:12:09 and you just for people who aren’t aware I want to give I remember going to the first ever quantified
1:12:16 self-meetup you’re part of the long now foundation you’ve experimented in so many different arenas
1:12:21 and have looked so far into the future and thought on such grand a scale you know I aspire to do more
1:12:26 of that what would be your advice to someone and I know I have dozens of friends in the same position
1:12:32 they’re say in their earlier mid-30s in my particular peer group and they want to explore but
1:12:38 they’re feeling pressured to optimize this thing that they’ve suddenly found their footing with
1:12:41 whatever it is that maybe they’re a venture capitalist maybe they’re in a startup they feel
1:12:47 they should start a new startup and they want to step out of that slipstream what would be
1:12:53 your advice to those people first of all I have to commend your honesty for this and I will repeat
1:13:00 that that it is very very difficult to do I mean they’re I think that realization comes to people
1:13:04 middle-aged and they realize oh my gosh you know I’m kind of on a there’s a little bit of a routine
1:13:08 here and I’m not really happy with that I think that kind of scorched earth they’re kind of like
1:13:13 you know just we’ll just set fire to it and we’ll walk away I actually have I think we probably
1:13:18 have a mutual friend I won’t use his name because I don’t know how public this is but but one of his
1:13:24 solutions was the most radical one I’ve ever heard the force himself was that he gave up
1:13:30 you a citizenship oh wow that’ll do it it was like he was like saying I just feel so you know
1:13:35 and and it was like oh my gosh that is so radical and he was telling me about what is involved in
1:13:39 that and it wasn’t for tax purposes because actually before you can do it the US actually
1:13:47 requires that you square up on all taxes right it was like but that was so radical and I don’t
1:13:53 recommend that he’s going fine but I’m just saying that’s that’s unnecessary but I think
1:14:00 the advice is I’m probably taking a page from yourself I don’t think it’s necessary to I think
1:14:04 you can experiment your way through this I mean you can do this incrementally you can take small
1:14:10 steps and do something and then evaluate it test how it’s going whether you’re getting what you want
1:14:16 out of it whether it’s working and then you continue that direction and that’s sort of the
1:14:21 pattern of people who kind of you have second careers or reinvent themselves you hear that a
1:14:28 lot and you can do that in a disciplined Tim Ferriss way I don’t think that it requires you
1:14:34 to kind of walk out and leave a burning pile behind I think it’s something that you’re going to
1:14:41 I’m a big believer in doing things deliberately and I think that you begin by looking at those
1:14:47 areas that you get satisfaction out of and those areas where I often find that people kind of retreat
1:14:51 back to kind of the things that they did as kids and really really miss you know whether it’s art
1:14:56 or other things and the truth is that you’re not really going to be able to escape all the other
1:15:00 things you have going and that’s a good thing because that is part of you and part of what you
1:15:06 do well so you’ll probably just you know bend in a certain direction and I think the one bit of
1:15:11 advice is that you can’t you know it’s not going to happen overnight it’s going to be it took you
1:15:16 37 years to get where you are it may take you another 30 years to get where you want to go
1:15:22 and I don’t think you should feel impatient maybe that’s the word I’m saying is that I don’t think
1:15:27 you should imagine that you’ll have another hat on with a new label you know next year
1:15:34 just to maybe redirect that and this may or may not be accurate but in the process of researching
1:15:39 for this conversation which is sort of an odd exercise isn’t in and of itself given how much
1:15:46 time we’ve spent together but I came across in Wikipedia mention of your experience in Jerusalem
1:15:54 and deciding to live as though you only had six months left and I want to touch on that but
1:15:59 one of the questions that came to my mind when I turned 37 last week is if I knew I were going to
1:16:05 die at age 40 what would I do to have the greatest impact on the greatest number of people and so
1:16:12 that I find that constraint helpful and I worry that if I aim at not being impatient in that way
1:16:19 that I won’t because I could get hit by a bus that I won’t do what I’m capable of doing maybe you
1:16:25 could talk about and I had no idea I’m not sure if you would self describe yourself as a devout
1:16:30 Christian but that’s that’s certainly written here maybe you could talk a little bit about that
1:16:36 experience yeah one thing I would of course warn people is that not everything on wikipedia is
1:16:41 correct no that’s why I’m bringing it up right but but it is but it is it’s true that I got this
1:16:45 assignment in Jerusalem which by the way if you want to hear the full version of it listen to
1:16:51 one of the very first this American lives which I on ira glass and I told the story for the very
1:16:58 first time and it’s a story about how I got this assignment to live as if I was going to die in six
1:17:03 months even though I was like perfectly healthy and I knew that it was a very improbable but I
1:17:08 decided to take the assignment seriously and that’s that’s what I did and my answer kind of surprised
1:17:15 me because I thought that I would kind of have this sort of mad high-risk fling you know do all
1:17:20 these things but actually what I wanted to do was to visit my brothers and sisters go back
1:17:25 to my parents help out but then my mom was not well at the time but that lasted for three months
1:17:30 before I decided I need to do something big so I actually rode my bicycle across the US from
1:17:36 San Francisco to New York where I was going to New Jersey where I was going to basically die and I
1:17:44 kept a journal of that and that question was something that I keep asking myself now I actually
1:17:50 have a countdown clock that Matt Groening at Futurama was inspired and they did a little
1:17:57 episode of Futurama about and what it did was I took the actual old tables for the estimated age
1:18:03 of my death for someone born when I was born and I worked back the number of days and I have I have
1:18:13 that showing on my computer how many days and I tell you nothing concentrates your time like knowing
1:18:20 how many days you have left now of course I’m likely again to live more than that I mean good
1:18:27 health etc but nonetheless there is something that really you know I have six thousand something
1:18:33 days it’s not very many days to do all the things I want to do and so I think your exercise is really
1:18:37 fantastic and commendable and there’s two questions what would you do if you had six months to live
1:18:43 and what would you do if you had a billion dollars and interestingly it’s the conversions of those
1:18:48 two questions because it turns out that you probably don’t need a billion dollars to do
1:18:52 whatever it is you have you’re going to do in six months right and so I think you’re asking
1:18:58 the right question and and the way I answer it is you want to keep asking yourself that question
1:19:04 every every six months and really try to answer it and I try to you know do that on a kind of a
1:19:11 day by day basis I learned something from my friend Stuart Brand who organized his
1:19:16 remaining days around five-year increments he says any great idea that’s significant that’s
1:19:21 worth doing for him will last about five years from the time he thinks of it to the time he stopped
1:19:27 thinking about it and if you think of it in terms of five-year projects you can count those off on
1:19:33 you know a couple of hands for even if you’re young and so the sense of mortality of understanding
1:19:39 that it’s not just old people who don’t have her many you know you’re 20 years old you don’t have
1:19:46 that many five-year projects to do and so I think it is that’s maybe part of the the philosophy of
1:19:52 thinking about our time and whether even if you believe in the extension of life longevity living
1:19:58 to 120 you still have to think in these terms of what are you gonna do if you because you don’t
1:20:03 know if you’ll live to be 120 what are you gonna do if you have a year and what would you do with
1:20:11 a billion dollars and what’s the intersection of those two does religion play a large part in your
1:20:17 life right now in a certain sense not in a kind of a ritualistic sense I just wrote a book called
1:20:23 what technology wants excellent book I highly recommend it there was it was a theory of technology
1:20:29 and I was trying to put technology in the context of the cosmos so I think what religion gives me
1:20:37 is permission to think about cosmic questions I’m right in the middle of finishing a Kickstarter
1:20:45 funded graphic novel that’s about angels and robots and the intention there was to fictionalize the
1:20:51 idea that robots would some days have souls but these souls would be coming from angels and so
1:20:56 that there was this intersection of these two kind of impossible worlds of conscious robots
1:21:02 who were ensouled by angels and and the reason why this was sort of interesting was that the idea
1:21:08 was that the angels that ensoul us have been trained they’ve been given moral guidance but if you
1:21:15 don’t give the spirit some kind of moral guidance then they can work havoc and so was this idea that
1:21:22 when we make robots we’re actually going to have to train them to be ethical we just can’t make a
1:21:29 free being and not train it so it was a way to rehearse and think about some of the consequences
1:21:36 of technology today so I think my religion gives me permission to ask those questions without
1:21:41 embarrassment to say what is the general direction of the arc of evolution what is it
1:21:48 pointed somewhere how does technology fit into the greater cosmos what does it mean
1:21:58 what drives it why is there more of it is this a good thing so I think having a kind of I consider
1:22:06 this kind of an other view so I have a other view that I’m sympathetic to other world views
1:22:10 I don’t necessarily have to believe all the other world views but I get the idea that
1:22:17 if you have another world view that can be very helpful in seeing other world views
1:22:21 so people have a world view even though they don’t know it but I have a world view and I know
1:22:30 that I have a world view I mean really everybody has a religious or a spiritual orientation even
1:22:36 if they’re atheists they still have one and so there are some assumptions that are at the basis
1:22:44 of it and I like to question assumptions including my own assumptions two things I can’t resist asking
1:22:48 and we can spend as much or as little time on this as you’d like but recently grappling with a lot of
1:22:53 these issues that I’ve been grappling with some of which are existential some which are related to
1:23:01 death limited time on the planet I’ve become deeply fascinated by indigenous use of plant medicine
1:23:09 and I’ve had some very transformative experiences that are difficult to put into words because
1:23:18 they make you sound like a complete crazy person but yeah yeah yeah there’s a somethingness that is
1:23:23 very difficult to communicate without sounding like you should be institutionalized what do you
1:23:29 think the role for people who aspire to do the greatest good in the world what is the role of
1:23:36 that type of direct experience and is it possible to benefit from that type of for lack of a better
1:23:41 descriptor spiritual experience without a religious framework around it yeah yeah no it’s a really
1:23:47 good question so my little personal story there of course as I was basically I was basically
1:23:51 hippie I worked for the hippie catalog and the Horth catalog which was about hippies living
1:23:58 in San Francisco and all my friends were drug taking hippies but I for some reason never did I
1:24:05 just had no appetite or inclination at all for ever taking any drugs or smoking pot or anything
1:24:13 and when I was 50 years old I decided that I would like to take LSD sacramentally on my 50th
1:24:21 birthday and I did and I arranged with I had a guide and I had appropriate setting and I had some
1:24:29 acid that came from a source that was extremely reliable and it was a sacrament and it was a
1:24:36 very profound sacrament and I think yeah you can use drugs or racially and for entertainment and I
1:24:40 think that can go somewhere but I think there’s another powerful use for it which is kind of what
1:24:48 you’re talking about it which is to elevate one outside of yourself to lose yourself to be in
1:24:54 contact with other things beyond your ego and I think it can be done and I think unfortunately
1:25:00 because of the illegal status that we’ve had for a long time the rituals and the practice around
1:25:04 that have not had chance to be developed or communicated actually trying to find this information
1:25:11 was extremely hard. There’s one book that I did find eventually from a guy who was doing LSD
1:25:18 experiments while they were still legal and was able to accumulate enough wisdom about it
1:25:24 that that would be the one place I would point people to but I think it is important that the
1:25:31 context and expectations and the the setting they call it that revolves around it is very important
1:25:38 and I do believe that these can be extremely profound and powerful experiences for good
1:25:44 they can remain long after and you know most people who understand this and don’t abuse it
1:25:51 understand that in fact the experience was not in the pill it was not in the chemical it was a real
1:25:57 experience and so unfortunately there is so much other stuff circulating around the use of these
1:26:03 drugs and the misuse of them that that kind of information is often very very difficult to find
1:26:11 but I do think maybe we’re seeing a moment now in the US where the second prohibition is being
1:26:20 undone and at least POT will become legal and maybe we can return to revitalizing you know the
1:26:27 traditions and the necessary settings around that and expectation that not just POT or LSD but
1:26:36 even other synthetic drugs can be extremely powerful in removing the ordinary guards that we
1:26:41 have and we have an ego for on purpose we have all these things to keep us you know sane in a
1:26:47 day-to-day functional functional exactly standpoint yeah right so if you remove it completely you
1:26:53 can become dysfunctional but if you remove it deliberately and with great care you can be
1:26:57 opened up you know I think there’s an expertise there I think there’s a lot of other things that
1:27:02 if we have the freedom and the wisdom to not abuse it I think it can be extremely powerful
1:27:07 do you recall the title of the book or how people might search for it yes so this is a one of the
1:27:15 many resources that I recommend in my book cool tools and cool tools is a big catalog of possibilities
1:27:21 it has about 1500 different items a lot of them are kind of like hand tools you know pliers and
1:27:27 the great cordless drill but it’s much better than that and I include things like what if you
1:27:32 wanted to have psychedelic experience it was transformative what do you do and I would recommend
1:27:37 this book or I mean there’s lots of other things in it but the I don’t actually have the book right
1:27:46 in front of me I should I think it’s called I don’t remember it’s okay I will uh I show notes
1:27:52 we will list it as the right one and there’s also a little tiny book that came from England
1:27:58 it was a cartoon guide that gave kind of a street an unjudgmental view of all the different
1:28:04 drugs there were and what each one kind of did and didn’t in what the plus and minuses are without
1:28:09 you know recommending or forbidding them they’re just saying this this is what it is that information
1:28:13 also believe it or not is really in short supply it’s like you know what do you do with this and
1:28:18 how does it work and tell me the facts I don’t need to hear a lecture either way like well this
1:28:22 is great or this is terrible but just tell me what’s going on as you know I mean that kind
1:28:27 of information sometimes is extremely in short supply it’s very difficult to find information
1:28:36 that isn’t politicized yeah inaccurate or like you said so shrouded in either fear or irrational
1:28:42 optimism that it’s almost intelligible and certainly generally useless we’ll put those
1:28:46 books in the show notes for people I want to come back to one thing you said far far earlier and that
1:28:52 was related to the pieces that you tried to give away that eventually wouldn’t die and came back
1:29:01 were there any common threads any patterns in those pieces that you can pick out as being sort of a
1:29:09 uniquely Kevin Kelly theme if for like yeah yeah one of the things that I discovered in my six months
1:29:14 of trying to live as if I was going to die in six months because as I was coming closer to that
1:29:22 day which happened to be Halloween October 31st it was I kept cutting off my future I mean I may
1:29:26 be like you I kind of tend to live in the future much more than the past I’m always imagining I’m
1:29:30 saving this for someday when I’m going to do this I’m kind of looking forward I’m going to do this
1:29:36 here and so I was very much in the future and then something that future was being cut down day by
1:29:42 day I was like and I was thinking like why am I taking pictures I’m enough to take in photographs
1:29:46 because if I’m not going to be here in another two months or something so so there was all these
1:29:52 things that I’m kind of cutting out and as I was cutting them out I had this realization which was
1:29:58 the thing I took away from this thing which was that I was becoming less human that to be fully
1:30:05 human we have to have a future we have to look forward to the future that is part of us is
1:30:12 looking into the future and so after I came out of the and I kind of embraced that and I’m saying
1:30:18 well you know that future forward facing that’s what I do that’s what that’s what I want to do
1:30:23 and that’s what I write about and in thinking about the future one of the things that is very hard
1:30:27 because the paradox about the future is that there are lots of impossible things that happen all the
1:30:33 time and if someone from the 100 years from now would come back and tell us things there’s a lot
1:30:36 of stuff we’re just not going to believe this is like that’s just that’s crazy just like if we
1:30:41 went back 100 years and told them what was going on now they would say you know that’s just not
1:30:46 going to happen I mean we could even go back 20 years I could go back 20 years and say we’re
1:30:51 going to have like you know google street views of all the cities of the world and we’re going to have
1:30:56 you know encyclopedias for free this edited by anybody you know it’s like they would say you
1:31:01 know there’s no way and I would tell them you know most of us for free they were saying there’s no
1:31:08 economic model in the world they would allow for that and there isn’t but here it is so the dilemma
1:31:15 is is that any true forecast about the future is going to be dismissed any future that is believable
1:31:22 now is going to be wrong and so you’re stuck in this thing of if people believe it is wrong if they
1:31:26 don’t believe it you know where does it get you you’re dismissed and so there is this very fine
1:31:34 line between saying something that is right on the edge of plausibility and at the same time right
1:31:41 on the edge of having a chance of being true and what I discovered that was helpful in trying to
1:31:49 get away from the kind of assumptions that binos to just kind of extrapolate was to think
1:31:56 laterally was to go sideways one thing just take whatever was everybody new and say well
1:32:01 what if that wasn’t true what would be a good example of that or an example like everyone says
1:32:05 okay morse law will continue well what if morse law didn’t continue what would that mean what would
1:32:12 happen and you can maybe I could say for the audience but I’ll just even to remind me morse law is
1:32:19 what is it every 18 months the the size and cost of technology will decrease by 50 something along
1:32:23 those lines let’s say even worse or no there’s speed involved as well right morse law does say
1:32:29 that but let’s say something right now we live in a world where every year the technology is
1:32:34 better and cheaper what if that wasn’t true right got it what if every year starting like you know
1:32:39 a couple years from now stuff was better bit more expensive that’s that’s a completely different world
1:32:45 right I mean everyone assumes right things are going to get better and cheaper well what if
1:32:50 that wasn’t true so you can take kind of assumption again that’s something that no one’s really
1:32:55 examining like well one of the things I’ll write about is the fact that we’re going to have a
1:33:03 population implosion globally that the global population will drastically reduce in 100 years
1:33:08 now we’ll have less population far far far less than we have right now and so all right I have to
1:33:13 bite at that what because I’ve thought a lot about this and the what they call the malthusian
1:33:18 dilemmas is that going to be do you think pandemic related nuclear weapon related all of the above
1:33:26 none of those none of those no ai coming in the the rise of the machines no okay it’s just pure
1:33:32 demographics so if you look at the current trends in fertility rates in all the developed countries
1:33:40 everywhere except for the us they’re already either below replacement level so replacement
1:33:46 level means that you’re just sustaining the population population just replaces itself
1:33:49 if it’s below it means that there’s getting less and less so japan
1:33:54 all these you know europe they’re all below replacement the us is an exception because
1:34:00 only because of immigration got it where people come in otherwise we would be there and this would
1:34:05 not be any news to anybody but the real news if people would point to the developing world but
1:34:11 mexico is now aging faster than the us china is aging faster because of their one child policy
1:34:17 of course japan is this completely they’re way underwater completely so even the one exception
1:34:23 is sub-saharan africa and there’s really kind of debate right now about how fast or whether
1:34:29 they’re slowing down but generally around the world south america the rest of asia the rate and
1:34:36 fertility continues to drop and here’s the thing is that a demographic transition that is happening
1:34:42 everywhere where people become urban and so every forecast shows the urbanity the
1:34:48 certification of the population continuing and i can’t think of any counter-force
1:34:56 to stop this huge migration at the scale that we’re seeing into the city and as that happens
1:35:03 the birth rates drop down and even in places like singapore or other places where they have
1:35:13 taken very very active countermeasures of cash for having kids and wow daycare forever bonuses
1:35:19 none of these work in terms of actually trying to raise fertility levels so you have to understand
1:35:26 that to go above replacement level the average woman has to have 2.1 kids well that means
1:35:31 there have to be tons and tons of women who have three or four kids right to make up for those
1:35:37 how many people do you know with that many kids you know living in cities and they’re just
1:35:43 very not there’s not enough of them so and this is a projection some of these are un productions
1:35:48 they have three three they have a low high and and a medium and the low one is not good news
1:35:55 because there’s not a large cultural counter-force for women to have three a lot you know a very
1:36:01 high percentage of the population to have three or four kids in a modern world and that’s why
1:36:08 the the population continues to decrease every year what type of this is perhaps a tangent but
1:36:14 one of the big debates in my head right now is to marry or not to marry to have kids or not to
1:36:20 have kids i never thought those would even be questions in my mind and yet here i am and and
1:36:26 now they are what are your thoughts on having children what type of people this is very broad
1:36:30 but should have children or shouldn’t have children whichever way of answering is easier
1:36:35 or how to even think about that question i think people who are privileged of which you are should
1:36:43 have children because you can bestow so many privileges and opportunities to your children
1:36:48 and if the world is to be populated why not populate it with children who have as many
1:36:53 opportunities as possible i also say from my own experience of growing up one of many kids and
1:36:58 having well i have three kids one of my other regrets in life is not having a fourth but we
1:37:03 were just we started a little bit too late and we were unable to have a fourth but all my kids
1:37:09 wished we had a fourth two and i would say that it’s a gift to your kids to have more than one
1:37:17 and i know that from hanging out in china where so many kids grew up only children and this really
1:37:24 really missed that there is a total gift of the siblings and brothers to each other that is
1:37:30 really very profound and there is also i know from my friends who have had lots of kids
1:37:38 that there is a certain amount of teaching from the the older to the younger and that’s a lot of
1:37:43 what they learn and that the curve of the amount of energy that you have to expend actually after
1:37:50 three doesn’t really matter in terms of the parents got it i have one friend who has nine kids they
1:37:57 have another friend who has seven wow and basically how do they do that well the older kids were
1:38:01 helping to parent the younger kids that’s the only way that really works but that is actually
1:38:05 basically they have you know they have five parents instead of having two parents right it’s very
1:38:09 traditional in a way i mean traditional meaning reaching back thousands or tens of thousands of
1:38:17 years it is of course in the old days may have 12th born but they rarely had 12 kids survive
1:38:23 right it’s like the 1800s kind of unheard i hang out with the amish a lot and they still
1:38:28 have these very large families and they all survive so they have kind of in some sense is
1:38:34 sort of an unnatural expansion and one of my predictions again going back to kind of like
1:38:38 the assumptions one of my predictions is that you know in america in a hundred years from now
1:38:43 whatever it is it’ll be um the complete countryside is run by the amish the amish take over the entire
1:38:47 census slide because they never sell land they have like eight kids and then there are all
1:38:50 these people living in the cities and it’s like everybody’s happy you know you’re really they
1:38:55 drive out to the amish lands this is fantastic they’re very happy you know doing their thing
1:38:59 and running the farms and so i’ve been predicting for years that the amish would come and start
1:39:03 buying upstate new york and that’s exactly what they’re doing right now why do you spend so much
1:39:07 time with the amish this is news to me but very interesting and how long has that been going on
1:39:12 and does your beard have anything is there any relation to the amish i had the beard before my
1:39:18 interest in the amish i can show you some pictures when i was 19 years old so those who don’t know i
1:39:22 have an amish beard which means i have a beard without a mustache the reason why the amish don’t
1:39:27 have mustaches is that it was at the time that they were kind of adopting their dress code the
1:39:33 mustache was all military men had mustaches and so they were anti-military they refused to serve
1:39:39 in the armies they don’t even vote so is their kind of rejection of the military by sharing
1:39:44 off their mustache i hang out with the amish because their adoption of technologies is like
1:39:50 seemed to us totally crazy because first of all they’re not luddites they’re complete hackers
1:39:55 they love hacking technology they have something called amish electricity which is basically
1:40:00 pneumatics a lot of these farms have a big diesel they don’t have electricity but they have a big
1:40:08 diesel generator in the barn that pumps up this compressor that sends high pressure air tubes
1:40:12 down tubing into their barn into the homes and so they have converted like their sewing machine
1:40:19 washing machine and stuff to pneumatic okay seems like a bit of a side step of the word of god
1:40:25 exactly so they’ll have like they’ll have horse drawn buggies and horse drawns farm
1:40:30 improvements and the horses will be pulling this diesel-generated combine and you’re thinking
1:40:37 what are they doing okay right but but in fact if you look at our own lives and i’ve done this
1:40:41 many times i can ask you tim or you can ask me there’ll be some weird thing like we don’t have
1:40:46 tv in our house but i’ve got internet it’s like well what is that about right right so we all
1:40:52 have these things but here’s the difference is the amish do it collectively they’re very selective
1:40:58 they’re selecting their technology collectively as a group and secondly they have to articulate
1:41:02 because they’re doing collectively you have to articulate what their criteria is a lot of us
1:41:10 are adopting we try this we try that we don’t have any kind of like logic or reason or theory or
1:41:16 framework for why we’re doing stuff it’s just one parade of stuff but the amish have a very
1:41:21 particular criteria and their criteria is there are two things that they’re looking for the main
1:41:25 thing they want to do and the main reason why they have all these restrictions like horse and buggy
1:41:31 and all the stuff is that they want to have these communities very strong communities and so they
1:41:37 notice that if you have a car that you’ll drive out and shop somewhere out of the community or you
1:41:41 go to church somewhere out of the community or whatever it is but if you have a horse and buggy
1:41:46 you can go only 15 miles and so everything has to happen your entire life you have to support the
1:41:51 community you have a community within 15 miles you have to visit the sick and you have to shop
1:41:57 locally so you’re shopping with your neighbors so when a new technology comes along they say
1:42:02 will this strengthen our local community or send us out and then the second thing that they’re
1:42:09 looking at is with families so the goal of the typical amish man or woman is to have every
1:42:15 single meal with their children for every meal their lives until they leave home they have breakfast
1:42:20 they have lunch and they have dinner so breakfast and lunch is they go to the one-room schoolhouse
1:42:25 and they peddle back for lunch their parents have with them and that means that the business
1:42:29 is ideally in their backyard they have a lot of like shops and stuff if they’re not a farmer
1:42:33 and they have a backyard shop which is actually has to be kind of clean-ish because it is in their
1:42:38 backyard right it’s like not might well it is in their backyard so they really are you know they
1:42:41 really want to make sure that they’re they have metal working shops and stuff which they really
1:42:46 try to keep non-toxic and work because it’s in their backyard and so that means that they can come
1:42:50 home for lunch they have breakfast lunch so they’re on the premises and they have every single meal
1:42:57 with their children until they leave and so they say well will this technology allow us to do that
1:43:02 will it help us do that or will it work against that and then like right now they’re they’ve been
1:43:06 deciding whether to accept cell phones or not even though they don’t have landline phones
1:43:10 so they’re basically they’re going to well some of them are going to accept cell phones
1:43:16 and they do that by there’s always some amish early adopter who’s trying things and they say okay Ivan
1:43:22 Bishop says you can try this we’re watching you we’re going to see what effect this has on your
1:43:27 family on your community you have to be ready to give it up anytime we say that it’s not working
1:43:34 and they do this in a kind of a paris by paris so it’s very decentralized and so they try out
1:43:38 always trying out their technologies and they’re always looking to see
1:43:42 does this strengthen the families is just strengthening the communities if not we don’t
1:43:48 want it and what if you i have two questions i guess the first is since you’re normally as i
1:43:53 understand it based on the west coast and northern california how do you get out to the amish or is
1:43:58 there a separate community closer by and then secondly what if you incorporated into your own
1:44:06 life or your your own family that originated from the amish yeah so i don’t get to see them as often
1:44:14 as i want but actually is when i go east i have some contacts that i will exercise and i would try
1:44:18 to get like to stay overnight and go to church in a buggy or something and this is pennsylvania
1:44:24 but well actually pennsylvania is the heart of it but actually there are more communities in Ohio
1:44:30 where my brother lives oh look at iowa there’s a lot more happening in new york so the pennsylvania
1:44:35 are the kind of ground zero ground zero but in fact there are bigger more extensive communities
1:44:41 outside of pennsylvania i didn’t realize that yeah the amish and diaspora it is so i’m saying
1:44:45 they literally are just buying up the farmland they’re they’re expanding they’re constantly
1:44:50 expanding they have a very small attrition rate very large families they all are buying farms
1:44:56 and stuff for their for their children and they never sell and so they also don’t even move into
1:45:02 areas as a they have a minimum number of families that we need to move in at once but what did i
1:45:08 learn from then well one of the things that we had particularly when we had younger kids was kind
1:45:14 of technological sabbaticals or Sabbaths i should say and i’ve now seen other families who aren’t
1:45:24 even religious adopt that same thing which is once a week you take a break from either you can
1:45:28 define it however you want it to screen or the keyboard or connectivity or something
1:45:34 and you step back and you do that not because it’s like terrible or poison but because it’s
1:45:38 so good you know there’s lots of people who are kind of like they’re going to drop out from twitter
1:45:42 they’re kind of like oh this is like a toxin like any detox or something i think that’s
1:45:47 entirely the wrong way to think about it is you want to take breaks and it’s not because they’re
1:45:52 toxic but because they’re so good it’s like you want to step back so that you can re-enter it
1:45:59 and with a renewed perspective with a renewed appreciation with having spent time looking
1:46:05 in a different way and i think that kind of rhythm of having sabbaths and then yearly sabbaticals
1:46:11 vacations or whatever retreats and then every seven years or whatever as you take a true sabbatical
1:46:18 i think that kind of rhythmic disconnection or Sabbath i think is very powerful something
1:46:25 that works very well and what’s something that we had in our family i take Saturdays off as it
1:46:30 turns out is my screenless day i really try to make that a weekly occurrence and it’s incredible
1:46:36 the effect that has this sort of galvanizing effect of just a mere 24 hours not even that
1:46:42 if you just consider the waking hours every seven years a vacation or sabbatical of how long
1:46:47 in your case or your family’s case yeah partly because my wife actually is granted a sabbatical
1:46:51 from the company she works for which is Genetech which is one of the two companies that actually
1:46:59 have a official sabbatical for older researchers at least and it’s very meager it’s six weeks
1:47:05 of course you know a six-week sabbatical is basically a european annual vacation
1:47:13 right right left for an american right it’s three years it’s that’s a big thing so yes
1:47:18 so we’re do something different so this year we’re taking one and we’re going to camp in
1:47:23 national parks for one month of it and then the other two weeks will go to asia but we haven’t
1:47:27 been to a lot of the national parks i’m going to do a different kind of project than i haven’t
1:47:32 done before and we’ll do some kind of car camping we haven’t really done a big road trip like that
1:47:37 so it’s all new for us what is the longest in the last few years that you’ve gone without checking
1:47:47 email oh probably two weeks and in china how do you manage that well but it was very easy it was
1:47:54 like i just i was unable to pick it up because china was blocking google that makes it makes it
1:48:00 makes it more challenging and i was in some remote places and so even the connection was hard but
1:48:05 it was like they weren’t playing while letting me get it i’m not a mobile person my first smartphone
1:48:14 was the iphone 5 and i still not using it properly i use it for phone calls yeah i don’t i don’t use
1:48:20 my iphone as an input device either i just trust trust me nuts but i can’t i can’t type when i travel
1:48:25 i like to leave everything i’m i spent a lot of my time sitting in front of a computer i’m kind of
1:48:31 like the zen you know walk walk sit sit don’t wobble so like i’m here i’m like really online
1:48:38 and then when i leave this studio i don’t want to be connected at all and i won’t be and i’m not
1:48:43 checking email i’m not checking this other stuff and i can go days typically i’ll go days without
1:48:50 checking even in the us if i’m traveling and then if i’m overseas i will go probably three or four
1:48:55 days before i get email that’s pretty typical let me shift gears just a little bit i’m looking at
1:49:01 longnow.org i recommend everybody take a look at it the long now foundation and humans are
1:49:06 generally i would say pretty bad at thinking long term certainly when it comes to habit change
1:49:11 very very high failure rate with long term incentives you’re going to get diabetes in 20
1:49:17 years for instance as opposed to you’ll have more sex if you have a six pack when it comes to diet
1:49:21 but the long now foundation i just want to read a few things on this website for people so the
1:49:27 long now foundation was established in 1996 written as zero one nine nine six to creatively
1:49:31 foster long term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years then you
1:49:35 have the 10,000 year clock which is a monument scale multi-millennial all mechanical clock is an
1:49:40 icon to long term thinking the rosetta project building an archive of all documented human
1:49:46 languages long bets featured bet is here warren buffet protege partners lc a public arena for
1:49:51 enjoyable competitive predictions of interest to society with philanthropic money at stake and then
1:49:56 revive and restore which is bringing extinct species back to life so there is a lot here
1:50:03 can you explain to people i’ve greatly enjoyed many of the seminars and speeches of the long
1:50:09 now foundation i’m a supporter i suppose i’ve even spoken there on stage and love the email
1:50:15 synopsis that steward sends out what is the function of the long now foundation when what
1:50:23 is the value the long now foundation is kind of reactive it’s it’s reacting to the very inherent
1:50:28 short term bias that our society particularly this technological society particularly say the
1:50:34 silicon valley exhibits which is often a focus on the next quarter the next two quarters the next
1:50:40 year results needing to be immediate you know instant satisfaction if something’s not on
1:50:47 Netflix streaming we don’t even wait for the dvd it’s just fairly kind of very fast paced short
1:50:52 term thinking and also somewhat blinded by the fact that we don’t have a lot of sense of history
1:50:59 either that we’re kind of ignorant about what’s happened in the past and so the term the long
1:51:04 now came from brian you know who noticed that we have a very short now which is like the next
1:51:10 five minutes the last five minutes and so the long now is a way to is an attempt to kind of expand
1:51:17 that so that we as a society and as individuals would try to think about things at a generational
1:51:23 or civilizational scale so like how about like working on something that might take
1:51:29 longer than your own lifetime to accomplish so you start something now that maybe make it so that
1:51:34 it might take like the cathedrals of old and what if we were trying to make something that you know
1:51:43 might need 25 years to accomplish how can we do that so we’re trying to encourage people to think
1:51:50 in that perspective to take that perspective and then to maybe move in that direction we’re not
1:51:55 necessarily saying we have to have like the asimov’s foundation where we have to have like a
1:52:01 master plan for the next 100 years and we’re going to plan out the future no we’re agnostic about what
1:52:08 it is that people make or do we’re just saying that it would benefit thinking about the long
1:52:15 term and i’ve often heard some people who advise to counseling to individuals about kind of thinking
1:52:20 about the long term in their own life even though you might want to act kind of locally and be
1:52:26 spontaneous but you do want to kind of keep in mind the fact that you know you’ll be around for a while
1:52:33 whether it’s putting some savings away or working on a skill that might take some time more than
1:52:39 six months or a year to acquire or you know whatever it is that you can have both perspectives
1:52:44 and so we’re not attempting to get rid of the need for people to survive the need for companies to
1:52:52 have a profit this year we’re saying there can be additional perspectives in addition to that
1:52:58 where we commit to like a program of science research where it’s pure science and the results
1:53:03 of the say in mathematics is one of the most profound things that we can invest in even though
1:53:09 most of the things in the beginning seem to be non-utilitarian they don’t have any purpose but
1:53:15 we know from our own history that you know in 20 years they’ll pay off in some way or other
1:53:24 and so being able to kind of construct a society so that we can allow the rewards of long-term
1:53:31 investment long-term thinking long-term perspective that would make us a better civilization
1:53:39 a month to perhaps jump into some rapid fire questions and they don’t have to even be rapid
1:53:45 or the question just some fire questions the questions will be rapid the answers can be as
1:53:51 shorter as long as you’d like what book or books do you gift or have gifted the most to other people
1:54:01 outside of your own books there is a short graphic novel by daniel pink called junco
1:54:08 and it’s career counsel advice it’s aimed at young people it’s a graphic novel it’s a cartoon
1:54:12 basically and it’s aimed at young people as trying to teach them how to be become indispensable
1:54:20 and i’ve given that away to young people because it’s for me the best summary of again it’s not like
1:54:25 how to become successful it’s how to become indispensable to that’s right it’s uh adventures
1:54:30 of johnny bunko or something like that yeah yeah that’s right that’s right i have that on my bookshelf
1:54:35 back in san francisco in fact yeah if you know a young person who is just starting out hand them
1:54:40 that book it’s very easy for them to read again it’s a graphic novel it’s non-threatening it’s fun
1:54:48 and it’ll give us like five great principles for starting out and helping them kind of orient
1:54:54 themselves as they start working in in the working life for someone who’s facing a lot
1:54:59 of the same questions let’s just say so you have graduates asking the what should i do why am i here
1:55:05 what am i good at if we fast forward to say for the sake of argument mid 30s right people in middle
1:55:10 age hitting that particular point are there any books that you would recommend they read well
1:55:16 there is a book that i’m recommending by cowell newport it’s called so good that can’t ignore you
1:55:24 this changed my mind because i’d kind of bought into the kind of new age california dogma follow
1:55:29 your bliss you know money will follow and he makes a really good argument and convinced me that’s
1:55:38 actually not very good advice that what you really want to do is to master something and to use your
1:55:44 mastering of something as a way to get to your passion so if you start with just passion it’s
1:55:50 sort of paralyzing because and i know this from my own kids they’re 15 they really don’t know
1:55:56 what they’re passionate about i mean some people are lucky enough to know a lot of people aren’t
1:56:00 so this is a book for people who don’t kind of really know what they’re really excellent at
1:56:06 don’t really know what they’re passionate about and his premise is that you master something
1:56:12 almost anything at all just something you master and you use that mastery to kind of move you into
1:56:17 a place where you can begin to have passion and that you kind of keep recycling that the way you
1:56:21 find your passion is through mastery rather than the other way around which is people think that
1:56:26 they’re going to get their mastery through passion and i kind of believe that former you know the
1:56:31 passion would lead to mastery but after thinking about it looking at his examples and his argument
1:56:38 i’m pretty sure that for at least for most people you can get to your passion through mastery
1:56:44 and that would also give you a currency or a lever to use in getting to that point
1:56:49 excellent do you have a favorite fiction book yes i don’t know fantastic this i usually don’t
1:56:57 get one answer this is great yeah shantaram ah shantaram it might take me a way to explain this
1:57:02 as author of one book because it’s very autobiographical the premise of the book and the
1:57:08 author’s life seems so completely incredulous and kind of almost hollywoodish but what
1:57:14 you get from it where it’s set it’s set in india it’s in the slum of india and you get a
1:57:28 incredibly vivid immersive deep and in some ways uplifting view of india and the underworld in
1:57:35 india and at that part of asia and the the main protagonist is this very interesting zen criminal
1:57:43 he’s sort of a coyote trickster blend of someone who is you know he does bad things but at the same
1:57:52 time he’s sorry about it and he has a kind of a cosmic perspective it’s very very unusual but
1:57:57 it’s a long book and i actually recommend if people are going to try it is that you actually
1:58:03 to get the audible version listen to it it runs like you know on and on but to be one of those
1:58:07 books you the you wish will never end and i’ll just tell you the beginning of it which is that
1:58:14 and this is the true part which is that the guy the author became a bank robber in new zealand
1:58:20 he was hooked on drugs started robbing banks was eventually caught and escaped from prison
1:58:24 and made his way to the slums of india where because he had a medical kit he was treated as
1:58:32 a doctor got involved and hooked on drugs in india got involved with the mafia was put in prison
1:58:38 tortured left abandoned nobody knew was even in there started writing a book wrote this book
1:58:44 they ripped it up destroyed it he was recruited found a guru in afghan he was recruited in the
1:58:50 mobile gene was fighting there his entire company was wiped out i mean that’s just the beginning
1:58:56 that’s like the first day it’s really interesting that you would bring up shantram for those people
1:59:03 who haven’t heard of josh waytskin i also had him on this podcast josh was the basis for searching
1:59:09 for bobby fischer the book in the movie world-class chess player also a very deep soulful guy and this
1:59:13 is one of his favorite books as well oh yeah you would you would love josh sometime i’ll have to
1:59:19 put you guys in touch but any favorite documentaries well now you’re you’ve asked the wrong question
1:59:26 because i have a site called true films where for the past 10 years i have reviewed the best
1:59:31 documentaries i actually have a book called true films which is the 200 best documentaries that you
1:59:37 should see before oh my god no kidding wow you have no idea how timely this is so it’s two uh t r u e
1:59:44 films yeah true films okay and so i there are a couple films that i would say have sort of universal
1:59:47 appreciation like you know they may have like a rating of like a hundred on rotten tomatoes or
1:59:53 something so the one documentary that i think everybody that i know have seen it has loved it
1:59:59 is uh man on wire such a good movie right so it’s just it’s just transcendent it’s just a beautiful
2:00:05 movie it’s based on fact that this guy basically he’s going to walk to twin towers i mean he the
2:00:10 moment was he was like 14 year old kid in france was at a dentist’s office looking at the magazine
2:00:15 and saw that they were had plans to build this twin tower in new york and he saw those two twin
2:00:22 towers and he said i need to walk between them he didn’t know how to type walk the towers had not
2:00:28 been built he was already planning this thing and he was filming himself the whole way yeah so amazing
2:00:35 okay and so he doesn’t and how he does is amazing so another great documentary that i love because
2:00:41 it’s very unusual among documentaries and that it films the villain side of the whole thing as well
2:00:46 which is king of kong i haven’t this has been recommended to me that i still have not seen
2:00:54 this movie king of kong is about a guy who becomes the video game arcade game king of kong he becomes
2:01:01 the champion but he is basically competing against this cabal of people who are trying to
2:01:07 subvert him and are doing all kinds of really terrible things to stop which was all on film
2:01:12 yeah and so here’s this really kind of midwest really lovable guy and you’re rooting for him
2:01:18 the whole time while these really sleazy guys are trying to take him down it’s just fantastic
2:01:24 i have to watch that so that’s the second one the third one is one that’s not so well known
2:01:33 it’s called state of mind and it’s about the spectacles in north korea which these two filmmakers
2:01:37 had access to and they followed several different young athletes who were practicing for this
2:01:42 spectacle and in these spectacles of course what it is is people are pixels you know they have these
2:01:47 like huge stadium size things and they’re like a little robot so they’re cogs in this machine
2:01:52 which is like perfect so you can imagine like a picture that’s made up of pixels but every
2:01:56 pixel is actually there’s a little boy or girl holding up a card colored cards in sequence
2:02:02 so these things move which means that you know there’s not a pixel missing so i mean that nobody’s
2:02:06 sick is like you know this you’re not allowed to be sick you can’t make a mistake at all
2:02:16 and it’s getting inside of north korea which turns out to be a nationwide cult and i think that in
2:02:20 50 years when they’re gone nobody will believe that that was even possible and this documentary
2:02:25 will be here it’s like no no no they really was a nationwide cult and they really did believe this
2:02:30 it really is amazing just to see what’s going on there all right well i know what i’m doing for
2:02:35 the next few days next few evenings i could go on unfortunately because i have a lot of them but go
2:02:42 to the truth i only review ones that are great so i don’t do awesome i just say these are fantastic
2:02:46 oh man all right i’ve been looking for this i cannot believe that i’m only learning this now
2:02:51 i’m kind of embarrassed about that when you think of the word or hear the word successful who’s the
2:02:58 first person who comes to mind jesus all right why would you say that well there aren’t that many
2:03:05 people who’ve left their mark on as many people in the world as he has i think what he was up to
2:03:15 what he was doing is you know vastly been twisted misunderstood whatever word you want but nonetheless
2:03:21 what’s remarkable is and here’s the guy who didn’t write anything so i think success is
2:03:27 also overrated all right i’d love for you to elaborate on that greatness is overrated a lot
2:03:32 of you know i mentioned big numbers which is but it’s more of the impact that you had on people’s
2:03:40 lives but i think we tend to have an image of success that’s somewhat been skewed by you know our
2:03:45 current media it’s like our sense of beauty women it’s sort of like in terms of all possibilities
2:03:50 it’s in a very small narrow defined it’s all kind of ritualistic in a certain sense and i think our
2:03:57 idea of success is often today it means you know somebody who has a lot of money or who has a lot
2:04:03 of fame or who has some of these other trappings which we have assigned but i think can be successful
2:04:10 in by being true to and kind of being the most you that you could possibly be and i think that’s
2:04:16 what i think of as one of the things that jesus whether you take him as just a historical character
2:04:22 or anything beyond was about he certainly wasn’t imitating anybody me put that way the great
2:04:27 temptation that people have is they want to be someone else which is basically they want to be
2:04:31 in someone else’s movie you know they want to be the best rock star and there’s so many of those
2:04:37 already that you can only one up imitating somebody in that in that slot and i think to me the success
2:04:44 is like you make your own slot you have a new slot that didn’t exist before and i think you know
2:04:47 that’s of course what jesus and many others were doing but it was they were kind of making a new
2:04:54 slot and that’s really hard to do but i think that’s what i chalk up as success is you made
2:05:00 a new slot what is your new slot yeah you knew you knew that was coming who says i’m successful
2:05:08 well i’m not i’m trying to not make any assumptions here yeah or what would be your slot my slot would
2:05:15 be kevin kelly i mean that’s the whole thing it’s not going to be like a career or you would really
2:05:20 ideally be something that was you had no no imitators i mean you would be who you are and
2:05:26 that’s that is success actually in some senses is you didn’t imitate anybody no one else imitated
2:05:31 you afterwards right so you know in a certain sense you have if you become an adjective that’s
2:05:37 a good sign right so i think success is actually you kind of make your own path if they’re calling
2:05:42 you a successful entrepreneur then to me that’s not the best kind of success because you’re being
2:05:48 confined to the category right right you’re in a category if you could change one thing about
2:05:56 yourself what would it be i could sing ah you would like to sing yeah i seemed to be unable to
2:06:02 carry a tune i can’t remember i mean my wife can hear something once and she can just sing it back
2:06:07 i could hear the same song i have heard the same song and i couldn’t tell you three notes of it i’m
2:06:13 sure because i’m a tim ferris fan i’m sure i could train myself to eat that i know i could but i i
2:06:18 guess i haven’t and it would be something that i have to really work at and i haven’t but i have
2:06:25 trouble carrying a tune staying in tune remembering a tune i love music and i appreciate it but in
2:06:31 terms of actually singing and i don’t play an instrument so maybe i would say it feels a little
2:06:35 easier for me there would be something nice have you taken lessons or attempted to take lessons
2:06:42 no i got it what’s this so just in the spirit of trade i’ve recently started exploring hand drumming
2:06:49 with gembeys and different types of drums if anyone out there can get me a pan art hang i would
2:06:53 really love to hear from you those of you that will mean nothing to most people are hearing this
2:06:59 the research that has piqued my curiosity most recently and of course you don’t want to run out
2:07:05 and just start swallowing these things but there’s a common anti epilepsy drug called valproate
2:07:13 which apparently has some implications for opening a window for achieving perfect pitch in mature
2:07:17 adults very fascinating stuff so if i do any experiments with that i will i will certainly
2:07:22 report back well and now that you’ve talked about it not the drug part but i did remember i did take
2:07:27 one class you mentioned the drums it took a one class at an adult summer camp which i highly
2:07:33 recommend if your kids go to camp you should go with them and there was a steel drum oh cool
2:07:38 course and i love that so like you i think if i did take up an instrument it would be drums of
2:07:43 some sort because that i seem to respond to and that did pretty good for the intro course on
2:07:51 steel drumming i find percussion to be so primal it just satisfies some type of need that probably
2:07:57 predates yes verbal communication even yeah certainly written notes right is your inner cave
2:08:02 man just responding are there any particular let’s just say in the first two hours of your day any
2:08:10 particular morning rituals or habits you have that when performed consistently you find produce
2:08:17 better days for you and i’m leaving better days undefined on purpose but i love studying mornings
2:08:22 and or what people do when they wake up what time do you wake up are there any particular
2:08:28 habits or rituals that you find contribute to better days yeah yeah i’m a very good sleeper i
2:08:35 don’t sleep a lot these days i get up at seven thirty and i have some rituals but i i don’t
2:08:40 vary them enough maybe to to know whether they are i’m not a morning person okay to begin with
2:08:44 you’re not a morning person well i mean well the fact that you don’t vary them is perfect so
2:08:49 well i know but that means an artist is only optimized in any way or i can’t tell which is
2:08:55 better but for better or worse one of the first things i do is i read the paper version of the
2:09:02 new york times it’s a kind of like a i sort of what i call a guilty pleasure i don’t know whether
2:09:08 that makes me better at anything else i do but um i don’t drink coffee or anything this is sort of
2:09:14 it’s a ritual and when i’m not here i don’t read it so i was like i don’t miss it it’s kind of
2:09:19 right curious but like if i’m here it’s like i gotta do it i don’t know it’s kind of weird
2:09:23 is that immediately after waking you read the paper or is there anything just about just about
2:09:29 i kind of in my pajamas i walk out to the front gate and i pick it up and i read it i mean and
2:09:36 i don’t read all of it i just kind of go through and i usually don’t even read the news part i read
2:09:42 the slower stuff i don’t make sure why now that you’re asking and that’s it that’s the entire
2:09:47 ritual i don’t have the same thing for breakfast or anything like that it’s just that morning hit
2:09:53 do you do anything throughout your day regularly maybe it’s before bed or anything else that most
2:10:01 other people probably don’t do that’s a good question no really okay i have no special sauce
2:10:08 but you’re very consistent you don’t your days seem to be yeah they don’t vary very wildly so
2:10:12 that in and of itself might be something that a lot of people don’t okay let’s pick up two different
2:10:19 while i’m here in this studio i have a lot of control over my time so what i do during the day
2:10:25 is is greatly varied i’ll i do a lots of things for short amounts of times and you know go into my
2:10:30 workshop i’ll read actually read books it down and read books during the middle of the day i’ll go
2:10:35 i’ll do a hike and bring my camera out almost every day maybe that is something that most people
2:10:40 don’t do is probably they probably aren’t taking pictures with a camera every day more reading books
2:10:44 in the middle of the day for that matter right exactly well maybe that’s true i guess how do you
2:10:49 choose your books ah that’s a paradox of choice problem for a lot of for a lot of people it is
2:10:53 just like what are you gonna listen to next in music i think the music becomes free and everybody
2:10:57 has all the music in the world but deciding where you’re going to listen to becomes the thing you’ll
2:11:01 pay for this has been my prediction about amazon is that we’re soon going to have like any book
2:11:08 you want for free amazon prime digital version of it you can have it whenever you want but you’ll
2:11:13 pay for us for the recommendations and um that’s a good point that’s a great point i have a network
2:11:19 of friends and i listen to lots of podcasts so i get it from all over the place and like probably
2:11:25 you are at this point i long ago decided that in terms of the greater scheme of things the cost of
2:11:31 books really cheap and if i wanted a book i would buy it right and the result is i am right now
2:11:40 speaking in a two-story high library of books that i have and i don’t do the same with digital books
2:11:44 because i finally figured out that oh you know if i purchase a digital book before i’m reading it
2:11:48 it’s not going anywhere it’s just sitting there so i shouldn’t really purchase a digital book until
2:11:53 like five seconds before i’m going to read it i have exactly the opposite habit because right
2:11:58 because it’s like what is this there the whole point of kindle is that you don’t have to have it
2:12:03 until like you need it so on the digital books i don’t buy anything until like i’m seconds away
2:12:10 from reading it then i’ll get it but the paper books i was near to the point of actually digitizing
2:12:17 and getting rid of all my paper books i was that close about five years ago but then i had an epiphany
2:12:23 i went to the private library and i realized that books were never as cheap as they are today
2:12:28 and they never will be as cheap and that there’s some power about having these things in paper
2:12:37 always available no batteries you know never obsolete and that if you made a library now
2:12:40 you would never be able to make some of these libraries in 50 years and so i decided to
2:12:47 keep and to kind of cultivate this paper library that’s something that was going to be very powerful
2:12:52 in the future i like that or at least i can use it as a justification for keeping a lot of paper
2:13:00 books around exactly i get tips from books from podcasts from blogs from friends from amazon
2:13:05 recommendations anywhere and whenever i hear someone recommend a book i’ll go and check
2:13:11 it out and then i’m fairly free in buying it but which means that i read a lot of really mediocre
2:13:18 books what but that’s part of my job right that’s in cool tools the book that we were just talking
2:13:24 about which is this catalog of possibilities that i self-published that has oh i don’t know 1500 you
2:13:28 know maybe there’s a couple hundred books that i recommended but i probably read thousands and
2:13:34 thousands and thousands of books in order to select those so i see part of my job reading
2:13:40 through and i read a lot of how-to books most of the books i’m reading is nonfiction and a lot of it
2:13:46 is even instructional stuff on you know how to build a stone wall how to do origami how to send
2:13:51 a satellite a micro satellite into space whatever it is it doesn’t matter i’ll look at it and i’ve
2:13:57 seen tens of thousands if not fifty thousand how-to books over my lifetime i can spot a really good
2:14:02 one but still i’ll read through the other ones so that someone else doesn’t have to and i can
2:14:07 recommend saying this is the best book on building a tiny house if you want to build a tiny house
2:14:11 now do you when you read these books on origami or stone vault you follow through
2:14:16 and attempt these projects or are you evaluating it purely based on your
2:14:22 amassed experience of reading lots of these types of instructional books no actually so
2:14:26 maybe one of the other things that i don’t do every day but one of the things i do in general
2:14:32 that maybe everyone else is not doing is that i have like a thousand hobbies i dabble in things
2:14:40 so i have built stone walls more than one i have done origami i have made beer i have made wine i have
2:14:46 you know whatever it is i i’ve tried to do these things in my life and i continued to try and do
2:14:51 them i have homeschooled ways so i have and so as much as possible this is what my you know i was
2:14:57 talking before about my day it’s irregular in a sense that i’m here and i have things but i’m
2:15:03 doing new things and i’m reading new things all the time so i’m in my outside i’m you know i’ll
2:15:12 make a go card or we’ll do something that i haven’t done before and that’s the basis for helping
2:15:16 decide about these books i don’t have to be an expert in them but i can know enough to tell
2:15:22 whether or not the information they’re telling me is useful what odd project over the last year
2:15:28 has been the most fun let’s start there for you yeah well just the last couple of months i finally
2:15:35 built myself a real workshop i wish i could show it to you because the cool things i did it was you
2:15:42 know if you go into like u-line or somewhere this container businesses they have these racks of bins
2:15:49 so i have filled an entire wall of hundreds and hundreds of bins so i can organize stuff and i’m
2:15:54 a big fan of adam savage he has a principle for his workshops called first order access which
2:15:59 basically means that you don’t want to store things behind anything everything has to be at
2:16:03 the first level so you can look and see it it has to be within reach and sense you have to be able
2:16:08 to see everything that you have and it’s accessible you don’t want things hidden behind other things
2:16:15 right so that’s part of what i was doing with this workshop is this kind of first order access
2:16:21 and it’s tremendously powerful i mean i just the few days or the weeks i’ve had working in it it’s
2:16:27 just transforms everything it’s like i had the same problem with my books for many many years i had
2:16:32 books like multiple different bookshelves in the house i had them in boxes i had them this and that
2:16:38 and moving everything to one location into a library where there was two stories i could
2:16:44 see all my books just transformed them and made it really useful because i could find them just
2:16:49 really go and reach for them and the same thing with i’m finding bringing it to my tools which
2:16:57 is that you want to have things plugged in ready to go labeled organized first order access and it
2:17:01 can make simple jobs really simple instead of like the you know the hours of looking for something
2:17:06 right gathering all the tools getting all the tools like cooking it’s just like cooking exactly
2:17:11 yeah it’s having like a manual random access memory right you have your me some plus right in
2:17:16 front of you yeah you have or you know the tools are yeah that’s very cool if there were one object
2:17:23 manual project building something that you think every human should have the experience of doing
2:17:29 what would that be it’s very easy you need to build your own house much older and it’s not that hard
2:17:34 to do believe me i actually i built my own house and your house is amazing i know not not this house
2:17:39 i mean i actually built one from cutting down the logs cutting down the trees in upstate new york
2:17:44 wow and doing the stone herds and you know i mean unfortunately i don’t recommend this we
2:17:50 made like two by fours from trees you don’t want to do that because it’s a pain because you know
2:17:54 standard standard lumber is very it’s very good if your things are off a little quarter of an inch
2:18:00 as they are with rough um sawing lumber it’s just it’s a mess but nonetheless a large portion of
2:18:06 the people in the world have made their own homes adobe rammed earth bamboo whatever it is and like
2:18:10 going back to what we originally started off with um even if you don’t wind up living in it
2:18:18 it’s empowering to know that you can do it and if you do wind up living in it i have a friend lord
2:18:24 conne who built this magnificent place in belinus that he built with salvage material from scratch
2:18:30 over the many years it gives you the power to alter it so i believe that that your house should
2:18:35 be an extension of you that that really definitely it’s another projection it’s another way of and
2:18:40 also going back to what we’re talking about it’s another way to discover who you are and discover
2:18:46 what you’re good at and because a well-designed house should really reflect you and and what i’ve
2:18:50 discovered a lot of people design houses and they have this kind of imaginary fantasy idea about
2:18:55 themselves and what they’re going to do well you know whatever it is they’re going to have a swimming
2:18:59 pool well you know it’s like they’re never going to use a swimming pool whatever it is i mean very
2:19:03 few people actually have a very good sense of who they are and what they’re going to use something
2:19:11 for but if you really study yourself and really are honest and design something that space can help
2:19:17 you become successful in the sense of making a slot for you making your own slot and it’s another
2:19:24 it’s both a kind of byproduct of who you are and also can help you because you are it works both
2:19:29 ways i like that right you’re not just finding yourself you’re creating yourself exactly and
2:19:34 that so this is a larger philosophical question but this is something i talk about a lot in a very
2:19:40 high dimensional space which means like space of many pending possibilities the act of finding and
2:19:46 the act of creating are identical there is no difference between discovering something and
2:19:53 inventing something we could say that philosophically you know benjamin franklin invented electricity
2:20:01 we could say that christopher columbus invented america we could say that discovery and invention
2:20:07 are the same so that discovering yourself and inventing yourself is really the same things
2:20:13 will bring about that process you have to do both at once i really enjoy that last question
2:20:22 if you could give your let’s say you can pick the age either 15 or 20 year old self one or a few
2:20:28 pieces of advice what would they be you don’t have to do everything yourself you can hire people
2:20:37 to do stuff i wish i had known that when i was younger i wish that i had when i was 20 working
2:20:42 for hall of catalog i wish i’d known that i could have hired a programmer to do something i could
2:20:48 have hired someone it took me a long time to understand that and then recently i’ve been really
2:20:54 big on it hiring people through elance you know because i came from a little bit of kind of a
2:21:00 do-it-yourself i mean i made a nature museum when i was 12 at a chemistry lab they built myself
2:21:05 you know building the stuff and i could buy in the glassware but i had a whole chemistry lab i had
2:21:10 nature museums i did all the stuff and i did it myself and then of course and moving into the
2:21:15 whole earth catalog which was a kind of a do-it-yourself thing i really was um you know i just talked
2:21:22 about building my own house well now i will hire professionals to work and it just took me a long
2:21:28 time to realize that there’s something about being able to pay a professional to do what they do
2:21:35 really well it’s not like a weakness it’s like it helps them i’m happy they’re happy we’re all happy
2:21:40 and i can do a lot more now there’s certainly a pleasure in doing things yourself and dabbling
2:21:44 in but there’s also this other thing which i didn’t realize which is there’s there’s this
2:21:54 a leverage that you get by hiring people who are really good paying them fairly working with them
2:21:59 to amplify what it is that you want to do and i wish i knew that when i was younger
2:22:04 that’s a fantastic answer and you have if i remember correctly an assistant and a researcher
2:22:10 is that is that still true yes one and the same person oh they are the same okay yeah so i thought
2:22:14 that at one point you had believed that you needed those people to be two separate people but you
2:22:19 right here’s what i was saying was that it’s very unusual to find one person who can do both of
2:22:25 those tasks both of those tasks are often not found the same person because there’s you know the
2:22:34 hunting the researching the kind of there’s a hunter aspect to research that is often found in a
2:22:40 certain personality and then they’re kind of the the admin is more nurturing kind of making sure
2:22:47 of things gardening a little bit so it’s often rare to find someone who can do both but it’s
2:22:53 possible was it luck that you happened upon this particular individual that you work with now or
2:23:00 did you have a method i found that the place where i found that over the 14 years i’ve had two
2:23:07 the place where i found that they’re more likely than not to have a combination was librarians
2:23:14 i love it that’s fantastic so we put out notices on the librarian mailing lists and stuff that is
2:23:19 fantastic i said last question this will be the last question is there any other thoughts or advice
2:23:25 you’d like to leave with the listeners and then where would you like people to find more from you
2:23:31 your writing anywhere else i would say congratulations to the people who are listening to the podcast i
2:23:37 think podcasts are this fantastic new medium i’m spending a lot of time there i think it’s just
2:23:43 really great we’re in the early days of where this would go i’m really impressed by the power
2:23:49 of this medium to teach and to inform sometimes to entertain again i’m thankful to you tim for
2:23:53 having me on and having a chance to gab here but the people who are listening i think keep going
2:23:58 listen to more podcasts try to go wide i know tim mentions them here and there take a chance
2:24:04 listen to some more so that’s one thing i would say and as far as finding out more about me
2:24:12 i lucked out with a very easy mail and website it’s my initials kkk.org i have a very public
2:24:18 email for the past 25 years you can find it very easily on my website if you want to email directly
2:24:26 i have not outsourced that unlike other people that i know and my writings and books and whatnot
2:24:35 are at www.kk.org cooltools is a book that i really believe that each of you out there should have
2:24:43 it’s on paper it’s sort of the best of the website cooltools which has been going on for 11 years now
2:24:50 where we review every day one great tool there are only positive reviews wide waste of time on
2:24:56 anything but the best and tools in the broadest sense of the word of things that are useful
2:25:03 whether it’s elance or a book on how to do psychedelics or a book on how to build a workshop
2:25:08 or how to build a house or how to hitchhike around the world i and others recommend the best here
2:25:15 with some great context and it’s printed on paper or available on amazon not so easily found in
2:25:20 bookstores because it’s because it’s huge i mean it’s like it’s like five pounds waste it’s really
2:25:24 really big and if you don’t fly like 500 things in there you didn’t know about that you wish you knew
2:25:30 about like last year i’ll give you your money back so enjoy that so that’s that cool tools or cool
2:25:35 tools in amazon excellent well kevin this has been a blast it always is every time we chat i feel
2:25:40 like we should chat more so hopefully we’ll get a chance to spend some more time together soon
2:25:47 back in norcal or somewhere else in china or in china it’s been a long time i could get back
2:25:53 i’m ready i’m heading back to japan again and i know that you have lots of roots in in asia but um
2:26:00 i go there to renew my sense of the future because they are bulldozing the past as fast as it can
2:26:05 and we’re headed racing into the future and so i want to see what asia has in store for us because
2:26:13 mathematically we don’t count anymore you know what three billion three billion asians and you
2:26:20 know 300 million americans what can you say yes it’s right so study up folks yep specialization
2:26:25 is for insects i think that was a timeline so i like enjoy your time on this planet and look
2:26:31 broadly like kevin said kevin thank you so much i will talk to you soon and uh have a wonderful
2:26:37 day i will talk to you soon thanks for having me too okay bye bye hey guys this is tim again just
2:26:42 one more thing before you take off and that is five bullet friday would you enjoy getting a
2:26:47 short email from me every friday that provides a little fun before the weekend between one and a
2:26:52 half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter my super short newsletter called five
2:26:59 bullet friday easy to sign up easy to cancel it is basically a half page that i send out every
2:27:04 friday to share the coolest things i found or discovered or have started exploring over that
2:27:09 week it’s kind of like my diary of cool things it often includes articles i’m reading books i’m reading
2:27:16 albums perhaps gadgets gizmos all sorts of tech tricks and so on they get sent to me by my friends
2:27:22 including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field
2:27:28 and then i test them and then i share them with you so if that sounds fun again it’s very short
2:27:33 a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend something to think about
2:27:40 if you’d like to try it out just go to tim.blog/friday type that into your browser tim.blog/friday
2:27:45 drop in your email and you’ll get the very next one thanks for listening this episode is brought
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2:31:19 how many ingredients 75 and you would be hard-pressed to find a more nutrient dense formula on the
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2:31:39 now i do my best always to eat nutrient dense meals that is the basic basic basic basic requirement
2:31:43 right that is why things are called supplements of course that’s what i focus on but it is not
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