The environmentalists say we’re doomed if we don’t drastically reduce consumption. The technologists say that human ingenuity can solve just about any problem. A debate that’s been around for decades has become a shouting match. Is anyone right?
Category: Uncategorized
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#39 Tyler Cowen: Thinking About Thinking
There are only a handful of websites that I read religiously. One of those is MarginalRevolution.com, started by my next guest, Tyler Cowen.
Other than hosting one of the most popular economic blogs in the world, Tyler is also an economics professor at George Mason University, a regular New York Times columnist, and the author of over a dozen books, including Average is Over, and The Complacent Class.
With such a prolific guest, it’s no wonder that we cover a lot of ground. In this episode, we discuss:
- How the future of labor will look drastically different than it does today, and what we can do to future-proof our livelihood
- The pros and cons of virtual reality and the impact it could have on society
- The fate of newspapers and how information will be more and more “bundled” according to our tastes and preferences
- Race relations in the world, and how in many ways we’ve taken discouraging steps backwards
- How we’re losing touch with the physical world, and some of the symptoms that indicate that we could be in for a rough ride
- What Tyler suggests doing to improve decision making and how important (and rare) that skill will be in the coming years
- Tyler’s advice to parents about how to foster resilience, tenacity and internal drive in their children
- Tyler’s “quake books” and the reading process he’s developed over the years that keeps him sharp
- Why giving books as gifts can be dangerous
- The one skill every person should possess before Googling anything
- What playing competitive chess as a child taught Tyler about how he thinks and views the world today
And much more, including Tyler’s thoughts on minimum wage, bitcoin, and his favorite television programs.
If you want to upgrade your thinking so you’re prepared for the brave new world that’s rapidly developing before our eyes, you won’t want to miss this fascinating episode.
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Tim Ferriss, The Random Show – Summer Edition (#18)
Kevin is back w/ Tim-Tim Ferriss for this latest installment of The Random Show.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.kevinrose.com/subscribe
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296: Blogging for Multiple Income Streams – How a Part-Time Blog Became a Diverse Revenue Engine
“I feel like this is the most important project I’ve ever worked on,” Mike said about his blog YoungArchitect.com.
Mike Riscica runs a blog, podcast, and has built a thriving community for young professionals in the architecture field.
The idea for the blog came from a pain point in Mike’s life, and for many others – passing the Architect Registration Examination (ARE).
After failing to pass the exam 4 times (before passing) and seeing his peers struggling, Mike started blogging about his challenges.
“[My story] resonated with people in a pretty serious way,” he said, and he started seeing traction within the community.
He started monetizing his blog from day one with affiliate products and continued to add more revenue streams to scale up his business with courses, speaking gigs, books, videos, and more as his traffic grew.
Today his blog in a full-time business. He’s had the opportunity to travel the country with his dog doing speaking gigs, has helped hundreds of students pass their ARE, and has some interesting plans for the future.
Tune in to hear how Mike grew his blog, how it rings the cash register in at least half a dozen different ways, and the strategies you may be able to lift for your own project.
Full Show Notes: Blogging for Multiple Income Streams – How a Part-Time Blog Became a Diverse Revenue Engine
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345. How to Be Happy
The U.N.’s World Happiness Report — created to curtail our unhealthy obsession with G.D.P. — is dominated every year by the Nordic countries. We head to Denmark to learn the secrets of this happiness epidemic (and to see if we should steal them).
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295: A Local Service Business that Scales – From Zero to $60k a Month in Revenue
“I tell people I work on my cleaning business about an hour a day because 5 minutes doesn’t seem believable,” Chris Schwab said.
Chris is the founder of ThinkMaids.com, a residential house cleaning service in the Washington DC area he started on the side while still a university student.
Less than two years later, the business is doing $60k a month worth of cleaning work, all without Chris ever lifting a mop or dusting a shelf himself.
In this episode, Chris shares some of the unique tactics he used to start and grow his cleaning business, and then remove himself from the day-to-day operations.
Tune in to hear how Chris came up with the idea for his cleaning business, how he found his first customers and cleaners, and how he manages the entire business remotely.
Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: A Local Service Business that Scales – From Zero to $60k a Month in Revenue
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344. Who Decides How Much a Life Is Worth?
After every mass shooting or terrorist attack, victims and survivors receive a huge outpouring of support — including a massive pool of compensation money. How should that money be allocated? We speak with the man who’s done that job after many tragedies, including 9/11. The hard part, it turns out, isn’t attaching a dollar figure to each victim; the hard part is acknowledging that dollars can’t heal the pain.
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#38 Ali Almossawi: Thinking in Algorithms
My guest for this short episode of The Knowledge Project is a man who wears many hats.
Ali Almossawi is a San Francisco-based author of books on critical thinking and computer science education, and the creator of An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. He is also a principal engineer at Apple and was formerly employed as a data visualization engineer by Mozilla.
His books have been read by 3 million readers, translated into 20 languages, and have sold over a quarter million copies in print.
This interview is only 20 minutes along, but there was a lot I wanted to cover, so we move pretty fast. Specifically, we cover:
- The unique format Ali chooses when writing a book to help people understand the concepts more deeply
- The place for empathy in algorithmic thinking and how we can be more empathetic in our daily interactions with each other
- Ali’s note taking process and how he tracks the ideas and topics he’d like to explore
- Ali’s daily routine and the “algorithms” he uses to make the most of his day
- The single habit that has the most profound impact on Ali’s day to day
- The cost/benefit of sharing on social media and the impact it has on society as a whole
And more.
If you’ve ever wanted to improve the way you process information, think more clearly and make better decisions, you won’t want to miss this interview.
Go Premium: Members get early access, ad-free episodes, hand-edited transcripts, searchable transcripts, member-only episodes, and more. Sign up at: https://fs.blog/membership/
Every Sunday our newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/
Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish
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A Conversation With PepsiCo C.E.O. Indra Nooyi (Ep. 316 Update)
One of the world’s biggest and best-known companies just announced that its C.E.O. would be stepping down in the fall. We interviewed her as part of our series “The Secret Life of a C.E.O.,” and we thought you might like to hear that episode again, or for the first time if you missed it back then.
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294: How to Start an Online Store with No Ideas and No Inventory (and still sell $300k in your first year)
Rene Delgado started an online drop shipping store with no ideas and no inventory and went from $0-300k in his first year in business.
It was the search for an extra stream of income that led Rene Delgado to consider e-commerce; selling physical products online.
“Drop shipping” is a form of e-commerce where your suppliers ship products directly to customers on your behalf.
Your role is to drive traffic to your storefront, forward the purchase order details to your supplier when a visitor makes a purchase, collecting the retail price and buying the goods at wholesale.
Rene went through a very specific product research process and ended up starting BounceHouseStore.com, where he sells bounce houses and other products related to bounce houses.
He’s already started scaling his business on the success of his bounce house store. Rene has now outsourced the day-to-day operations of this store and started a new drop shipping store that has already turned over double what his bounce house did in its first year.
There’s no luck here. “It’s hard work,” Rene said. That and some careful planning and execution.
Tune in to hear why Rene was attracted to drop shipping, the criteria he used to find the bounce house niche, and how he generated $300k of sales in his first year in business.
Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Start an Online Store with No Ideas and No Inventory (and still sell $300k in your first year)
