#840: Bill Gurley — Investing in The AI Era, 10 Days in China, and Important Life Lessons from Bob Dylan, Jerry Seinfeld, MrBeast, and More

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it's my job to deconstruct world class performers. I interview them to tease out the habits, routines, frameworks, et cetera, that you can apply to your own lives. My guest today is Bill Gurley. He is a general partner at Benchmark. A leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. But His venture career, his career overall spans a lot. He has invested in and served on the boards of such companies as Nextdoor, Open Table, Stitchfix, Uber, and Zillow. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Florida, and then his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He's had

0:40 Lots of other careers, but we discussed that in our first episode. We're gonna cover a lot more on this one. For more than two decades, Bill has written about technology and other subjects on his popular blog, Above the Crowd, and on his social media accounts. His new book is Running down a dream. How to thrive in a career you actually love. And we detail exactly what he means by that, including some incredible stories.

1:05 and takeaways that you can apply. You can find him on X at X.com/slash Bgirly G-U-R-L-E. And without further ado. Please enjoy a very wide ranging conversation with none other than Bill. Girly. Optimal minimal.

1:20 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I also do personal questions. Now we're just seeing it for time. cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. S

1:43 Bill, great to see you, man. Good to see you. And I thought we would start with a prop that you brought. So there's a very thick book. The tattered cover. And I think that is as good a lead in as anything. And What are you holding?

1:57 I'm holding a book called The Last Laugh by Phil Berger. The reason it's tattered is I think it may be out of print, like I bought it. Used. You know,'cause I wanted to See it and have it. What's the subtitle?

2:08 The last slap, the world of stand up comics. Why do you have this book? Are you thinking of making a career switch? No. So As part of researching My new book.

2:19 Running down a dream. My co writer and I were we spent six years, like just diving through stories'cause I had done this speech at the University of Texas and we wanted in Enhance it. You know, when we went to the printed form. And one of the stories we came across

2:34 was Jerry Seinfeld. And his Decision. to pursue a career as a comedian. And he was in New York.

2:43 He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life. Yeah, inkling. An equine. That he might want to be a stand up comic, but he didn't know what that meant. He didn't know if it was a real career. He didn't know

2:55 That you could make money. And He read this book. And it profiles Looks like fifteen different

3:02 Yeah, it's got Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Lily Townley. Robert Klein. It profiled them in a way. It was very disinhibiting to him.

3:11 Gave him permission. to go do this career that's not a typical career, right? It like when you go to college, they don't list stand up comedian as something that you can go do. The guidance counselor is generally putting that on the multiple choice. Exactly, but this book served as something that granted him permission. To go do that. And we're gonna come back to that. I will say that

3:36 I bookmarked this for future conversations and of course we're chatting outside of these recordings, but Because two years ago, almost exactly when we did our first episode, you mentioned that you're working on a book idea based on the belief that it's easier than ever. to rise up because access to mentors and information is unprecedented. So we'll come back to that. Of course, and discuss it. And the frameworks and the approaches and the stories at some length, but I wanted to start with some topical

4:02 Subject matter. AI bubble or not. And uh If so, what does that mean? Yeah, so

4:10 I think this is super interesting. My partner Peter reminded me of a book that we had seen a while ago by Carlotta Perez. It has this Very benign title, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. It was written in like two thousand two.

4:25 And Well, Perez Kinda simplifies and notices, which I just Fine. Perfect.

4:32 For trying to understand whether there's a bubble or not. Is that Every time there's been a technology wave that leads to Wealth creation, especially fast wealth creation. That will inherently invite

4:46 Speculators, carpet baggers, interlopers. They want to come take advantage of. Think of the gold rush, you know. And so People wanna make it a debate. Do you believe in AI or is it a bubble? And if you say you think it's a bubble, they say, Oh, you don't believe in AI.

5:02 Like this got you kind of thing. And if you study Perez, and I think this is absolutely correct. If the wave is real Then you're gonna have bubble like behavior. They come together as a pair.

5:14 Precisely because Any time. There's Very quick wealth. Creation.

5:21 You're gonna get a lot of people that wanna come try and take advantage of that or participate in it. So you get a flood. Of those types of people coming at it. It's odd. There's a real technology wave that Fundamentally changing the world.

5:36 And there's also massive speculation simultaneously. Yeah, they come as a pair. I recall not too long ago, maybe two weeks ago, saw short Interview. With

5:48 Your friend, Jeff Bezos. And he distinguished between financial bubbles and industrial bubbles. And I did. And I'm paraphrasing here, but two thousand eight as an example of a bad bubble. I financial bubble versus let's just say the

6:05 Early two thousands like ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand. Where a lot of very Important. technology was created then was durable after the fact and created.

6:18 New generations of entrepreneurs and a lot of economic growth. And he believes that. AI would fall into the industrial bubble category of things. But I suppose. Given that.

6:29 the dancing pair you described come together. How would you think about Investing in private companies, modern venture capital. At this point in time. And just I suppose As it's changed since you were most active.

6:45 Just a a quick comment on that industrial bubble thing. You know, one thing that is sh surprising to me is Yeah. Even though I fundamentally believe this is an important real technology wave. The big players

6:58 Even the Mac seven. Have all decided to Do things. From a deal perspective, you read about these circular deals and whatnot. Could you explain what you mean by that?

7:08 Yeah, I mean there's a lot of talk out there, but it all started when Microsoft invested in open AI, open I Agreed to buy. Services from Microsoft. Yep. Which is called a circular deal because you're giving them money they wouldn't have otherwise.

7:22 And when Dario was on stage at Dealbook last week You said Oh, I can explain this is not that hard. Amazon wanted us to spend money we didn't have, so they gave us even more money. And I'm like, Well, that's precisely why this is a questionable behavior. But it's gotten bigger, you know, NVIDIA's handing out money and then NVIDIA gave Core Weav money, but then also agreed to buy any services they have left over this stuff's Not ideal. Like if you were to say what's crisp

7:49 Accounting, you know, you wouldn't do these kind of things. And some of them say, Well, it's not material, and which I would say Well then why are you doing it? And I've asked other people to try and understand how even big Sophisticated companies might get speculative.

8:06 Using a word from the Previous. Discussion and You know, I hear things like well Loss aversion tends to go down when you're winning. Like if you're on a hot streak in a casino, you take more risk.

8:18 Things like that. But it is surprising to me. So When it comes to retail investors. I would be particularly concerned for them.

8:27 At this stage in the AI. Game. Because there is a Let's rub of SPV vehicles.

8:35 You've heard that phrase, I'm sure, S B V V. This is where Someone As an in on an investment. And they do a one off V C fund, if you will. Special purpose vehicle. Yeah, it's a single entity just a chance to invest in X. We have an allocation of however much money.

8:51 And then they can allow Sort of. Jane Doe and John Doe potentially. And there's people promoting SPVs. I in situations where they don't even actually have the underlying stock or maybe they hope to get it. I it's

9:05 The wild, wild west. And Most of the people on that edge I would put in the category of interloper, carpet bagger, these are people that have come to this thing. And I just think you got to be quite careful the investments That were made that

9:21 have already had hundred X plus returns. Were made a while ago. You know, before this thing started. That's not to say there won't be an incremental AI investment that makes money. I think there will, but your odds right now Of that being the case or really, really low.

9:38 Yeah, I would add to that and say This applies to me as much as anyone else, but your actual risk tolerance may differ, probably does differ significantly from your Perceived. risk tolerance if you haven't had a huge drawdown, right? If you haven't actually ridden a few of those waves.

9:56 And see how you respond in those circumstances. And you should be, I suppose, sceptical. Of how you view your own intestinal fortitude with some of those things, or maybe the losses you can absorb. So I recall, for instance, I've seen this many, many times, but with these types of SPVs, people get involved.

10:13 And let's just say they're not typically an angel investor. They don't have the experience of watching Sixty seventy eighty. percent of their investments go to zero or become the walking dead.

10:25 And They sign off on all of the Not necessarily waivers, but they accept, accept, accept on like the SBV terms of service, which all say you could lose all of your investment. This is incredibly risky. Yeah. But then when it does go to zero. Yeah, the financial and psychological impact.

10:41 Is Catastrophic. There's a lot of people. And I think this comes from a very good place. I think they're very well intentioned. Who look at

10:50 the world and say Rising inequality, like Why can't Everyone have access to the same things. And then companies are staying private longer. So they say we need to institutionalize

11:03 The generic public's ability to invest in private companies. I think there's two problems. One you just hinted at, which is Most Private. Company V C back even.

11:14 Go to zero. Like the majority. Which is not something people they sense that they want the lottery ticket, they want the Uber, they want the one that goes to the moon. But they don't understand that that comes along with it. They don't want to buy losing lottery tickets for twelve years. Right.

11:31 Right, exactly. And the second problem is The Information transparency in the private company. Game is just low. And

11:40 I think the institutional investors have come to understand that and kind of know what they're getting into and know how to evaluate things. But if you come at it with a public market mindset, thinking Oh, every set of financials I've been handed is audited and is correct, and that's just not the case. It's super loosey goosey. So if you were this may be a difficult question, but if you were angel investing. Right now.

12:07 How would you be thinking about Your approach. I'll tell you a funny story. When I decided to hang up. My gloves, if you will, and stop making

12:17 Institutional venture capital investments. I had a whole bunch of ideas about what I wanted to do next. And one of them was Oh I'll do a bunch of angel investing. You know, Bezos did it on the side, you know, this would be fantastic. He did pretty well with angel investing. I was explaining this to a I won't say who it is, but a a Silicon Valley CEO very Successful. And he said, What are you gonna do now? I said, I was thinking of doing angel message He goes, Why would you do that?

12:44 He said I got fifty of these things. He goes, I wish I had never done it. So there's a uh unglamorous side to it as much as there is a glamorous side. And you've participated in it. What would I say? I think if I were doing angel investments, I try and find him an intersection of people that are

13:05 Super curious. And are playing with all these AI tools but bring a perspective from a particular industry that gives them an advantage in that area. Where they could simultaneously be Maybe the smartest

13:20 User of AI. in there. Genre. So despite The

13:26 Or maybe because of because We talked about the pair. The AI bubble that you would still be looking at. AI intersected opportunities if you're angel investing.

13:36 Yeah. There's a weird reality out there right now, and it this could end if ever a bubble is popped or whatever, but the institutional investors Have zero interest in non-AI deals. Zero. It's more black and white than I could Be successful and for people who do not know the term, define the institutional investor.

13:56 People who are Paid both a salary and a piece of the return to be active investors of other people's money using other people's money. But the reason that kinda matters is if you Angel fund a deal and have any hope of it raising money in the future.

14:14 If not. AI related. There is no interest. I can't state Clearly enough out there's zero. And I could simultaneously make fun of that reality, but I could also justify that reality, but it is the reality right now.

14:32 And by the way, while I mention that I feel obligated for your audience, like I don't care what field you're in, you should be playing with this stuff. It has the potential to impact. Your role in your career. And the best way to protect against any

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17:53 How would you think about Maybe you can give a hypothetical example. Of looking for someone who has Very, very sophisticated domain expertise. And experience.

18:04 Who's now intersecting with AI and has a unique Because of the combination perspective on things to invest in as an angel investor. separate that from something that's just going to be consumed by the fundamental models and these larger companies that from a career perspective or

18:23 From an angel investment perspective, how would you pick folks you don't think are just going to end up working on something that gets replicated in short order by the bigger companies. The key is just to stay pretty far away from the edge of whatever You can

18:39 go online and see interviews with the people in Anthropic or Open AI and what they're working on. Like if it's the next thing they're gonna do. I don't think you're gonna be Protected. But as I think about Found. And angel investors, you're talking about a pretty broad array of things. At this point, as I mentioned earlier, you're not gonna back the next big model company. Besides, if you were, you need a billion dollar angel investment to go make that happen. The games change. There's so much money involved.

19:07 I think you're gonna wanna be off the beaten path anyway. When I think about these deeper verticals, I don't think It will make sense for Open AI to go. Crush every little vertical.

19:20 Waste management. Even if The model's capable of understanding that subject matter. There are workflows.

19:27 There are data sets that are local to your customer. And that has stuff has to be stitched together. So I think having an understanding of A particular industry and One that's not gonna be on the next thing to do list.

19:43 At open AI. Would probably be your best bet. Got it. Is it fair to say if I'm understanding you correctly that effectively looking for something that would not be a high priority for one of these larger companies and also a proprietary data set of some type? Proprietary data sets.

19:57 The more Kind of workflows that exist. Are better'cause you can build software around those things. What is a workflow? The thing that popped in my head, I'm on the board of Zillow. Zillow's been investing for the past five years in tools.

20:12 But Help. the realtor do their day to day job. They have a tool called showing time that helps you book In person.

20:20 Tours. Houses as an example. Putting the mortgage together, getting the sign off so Like there's just all these tasks that have to be happened that can be automated.

20:31 And so Tasks that can be automated. that can be integrated with AI, the more of that stuff you can build into a system. the better off you're gonna be protecting yourself from a model that just answers. Which is why I brought it up.

20:47 Let's move on to Big topic, big country. China. You spent ten days there. Over the past summer.

20:56 What was your experience? What did you see? What made an impression? What did you do? I've been About

21:03 Six times before, so this is like My seventh trip. There's one thing that was different. My daughter is a Asian studies major. As you were. Yeah. Um and she spent the summer in Hong Kong, so we Picked her up and then we

21:17 Toured. Six cities in ten days. And My objective with this trip in the past trips it was mostly just to meet with Entrepreneurs and founders and

21:27 Mutual sharing of information, that kind of thing. This time I was more interested in just kind of Being eyes wide open and learning. And so we took two of the high speed trains, you know, just as an experience set. I got a tour of the Xiaomi factory. With their new car, the SU seven.

21:44 And Was trying to get a feel for Which Kind of most recent. Yeah.

21:52 And we you know went to Shenzhen. Yeah. Overnight City, which has gone from I think Less than a hundred thousand people in nineteen eighty two, twenty million people.

22:03 Just to see the scale and scope of the whole thing. There's a lot of Rhetoric. in the US about what is or isn't happening in China. And

22:14 I just wanted to have a better feel for it. And we're making policy decisions that are gonna Impact. The global. Footprint and God forbid You know, end up in a World War Three kind of situation.

22:26 So anyway, I just wanted a better understanding. I was aided by the fact that Dan Wonk. shared his book Breakneck with me. Right before I left. And I read it.

22:37 While I was there. Which was interesting. And then it came out and of course it It ended up on the bestseller list. But I think it's misperceived. I think China's misperceived in a lot of ways.

22:47 What are some of those misperceptions? D. People who have a rudimentary understanding Oh What is happening there.

22:58 Use this word communism to infer a lot of other things. And one of the things that's in Spurred by communism. Is Top down state run.

23:10 System. I think they think of Russia. And They assume well that'll always lead to Bad capital allocation.

23:18 No innovation. 'Cause they have this picture of in their mind of I don't know. Like Brick buildings with snow all around them and not much happening.

23:28 And The reality there is just Far, far different from that. I think Dan Wong did it. Great job of explaining how.

23:36 D. country puts out this five year plan, but then the provinces Which are They're a lot bigger than a US state, but they're the equivalent like how the country's segmented. They compete with each other.

23:50 And The effective mayor of the province, if he does well, has a chance to move up in the system, which is not A reality in the US system. But what that leads to is Just a massive amount.

24:03 of competition. What are the metrics? By which they're being judged. Do you have any idea? On a province level. Is it some equivalent of GDP? It's not the right term, but

24:15 I'm guessing probably like we could go talk to AI and get a better answer than I have right now. But yeah, I would think that's Part of it, prosperity, employment. Those kind of things. By the way. provincial competition has also led to overbuild the buildings.

24:33 But it's not always positive. You know, bridges That aren't used. There's a ghost cities. Ghost cities, yes. But You end up with hyper competition. So I think the thing that a lot of people in Silicon Valley Love about

24:49 Capitalism is this notion of the invisible hand. And competition that leads to innovation and best practice and The winners rise up and they're better for it. That is happening there. And if you read about the solar industry or the EV industry or

25:05 Now the robotics industry they have hundreds of different companies competing. In these fields. And it's brutal comp. Yeah. And

25:14 As a result of that, they're ending up with Very innovative companies, which once again I think people wouldn't prescribe to being possible. And a communist. World. And remarkable

25:28 Execution from a industrial standpoint. So the price point Of the products. That will be sold around the globe. Or well below anything that could be done in How do you go about getting a tour of

25:43 Xiaomi factory. I would think that they would be Very closed about that. I don't know if you saw this going around the internet yesterday, but They shipped a car to this YouTuber. Oh yeah, I saw it. Which is brilliant.

25:57 And that's the S G seven. That's the factory I went to. As I mentioned, I'd been there before, so I met Le June. Who's the founder of Xiaomi in two thousand five. When he was chairman of Joyo. Which was a

26:10 E commerce company that Amazon bought. So he's been around a while. He has Evolved into The best thing I

26:18 It say is like he's the Steve Jobs of China right now. When he quit doing Joyo and he had this other company as well, he declared Ten years ago he's gonna build smartphone. Just out of the blue, I'm gonna build a smartphone. He didn't have any smartphone experience, but Jia Mi's now the third Largest manufacturer of handsets in the globe.

26:38 And about Four or five years ago. Yeah. About the exact same time Apple. And they were interested in building a car.

26:46 He said I'm gonna build a car. Well, not only did you say I'm gonna build a car, but that was a response to sanctions, right? It was an emergency. I listened to One of why I listen to the translation of, even though my Chinese is decent, but it's not As good as it once was. His I think it was twenty twenty four. That's it.

27:05 company wide address. Where he talked about Sanctions coming in saying what if we couldn't make Phones. What would we do?

27:13 But that talk is Unbelievable and it it's translated on YouTube. And I would encourage people to watch from about minute thirty to about a minute fifteen or an hour fifteen. Which is where he talks about His process.

27:27 For designing the car. Yeah, I don't know if you saw that part. I did. But It's crazy. He says put a note on any car in his parking lot that he had never drove.

27:37 And he would ask each employee To give'em three positives, three negatives, and loan them the car. Said he drove two hundred of his employees' cars. Like When you hear that kind of stuff, you're like Wow.

27:49 I wonder if anyone at Apple did that. I mean it's just such a kind of Bottomed up like just ground truth way to start. The process but Even still, even if you did that, like A bunch of people could do that.

28:02 How do you have the wherewithal to build a factory? They never built a factory before. I've been in other car factories here in the US. It was But no, I'm not. Anyway, back to your question. I I knew late June from from way back.

28:18 What does the process look like? Are there a bunch of clearances and you have to get the okay from the provincial? I don't think we went to the whole factory, but no, it wasn't that. It wasn't I mean, they're a public company. I think they're interested in being well understood. Which I think Hence at why they enable this. I think they had to send a car to this guy. The YouTuber. Yeah.

28:39 And by the way, d the president Ford Went over there. The bad. Six months before I did. Went on the same tour.

28:47 So they let him go there. And he had an S U seven ship. to Michigan and he drove it for several weeks and he's talked about how incredible it is. Well, he also, if I'm remembering correctly, has talked about EV production and battery dominance, or at least component dominance.

29:06 From China. And the sort of Risks inherent. in that and I d I don't want to bleed too far into geopolitics, but it's hard not. to

29:14 pull it into the conversation. So this is a question from X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. One of many questions, but I'll ask, what are your top handful of critiques, say, of the Chinese tech ecosystem or C C P after going on a tour there. What would you say they're not doing well or things that complicate? their ability to compete.

29:36 I think been well publicized is When An entrepreneur has risen to a level Of

29:44 Success. And then Uses that as a platform. The government seems uninterested in that. So the Jack Moth Jack Moth. Yeah, exactly. And there's a saying

29:55 That I think I heard while I was over there, don't be the tallest tree. Yeah, this is uh don't be the tallest tree. Yeah, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down in Japan. They have a totally different system, obviously. The other entrepreneur outside of Le June is the Bite Dance CEO. And bite dance is

30:15 Probably. Got the leading position. For the consumer AI. Like open AI, but over there right now. In addition to

30:24 Just incredible revenue growth. This is the company that owned TikTok and whatnot. But They're not going public in You don't see him At all.

30:32 Which may get to the stallest. Tree thing. Yeah, I mean celebrities also disappear over there. No doubt very mysteriously. Yes. Well and business people. Yeah.

30:42 So yes, that does happen. I will say and for people who are wondering, because there are a lot of How should we put this? I mean There are people who are very angry, very hawkish. Some people are very, very supportive and then they're

30:56 Agendas or Alliances get questioned. I like you am just interested in understanding what is happening to the extent that I can. What is the actual Truth on the ground. What are the details? And frankly, I mean the innovation over there is remarkable and what they've done.

31:13 In terms of Establishing access to rare metals and everything they need to manufacture is remark you go to South America or Africa, and it is Chinese everywhere on infrastructure projects. I mean they've been very, very smart about it.

31:28 So I'm deeply interested in all of it. And Please hold your thought because I wanna hear everything you have to say. What I would say is a piece of the like three dimensional chest that I've been impressed with is

31:40 How Well. The Chinese government is able to Well, I mean of course they're able to integrate with

31:48 The private sector. So that they're able to use in a sense. products to widen their scope of access potentially, like DJI, for instance, great example.

32:00 People have a lot of questions around these cars, as spectacular as they might be, are they an extension? Of surveillance. These are open questions that I think are worth. Asking. Let me make one point and then let's come to that. So

32:13 There's two other things we wanted to mention. Obviously infrastructure. So They are building New Nuclear fission plants. So f fission being old school, not new school, at one fourth the price that we do it here in the US.

32:27 So is South Korea, but Yeah, and the numbers are incredible. But when we sit here and say, Oh, we wanna Resure manufacturing. And they can build things at one fourth the price we can't. If you don't solve that, you're gonna reshort something.

32:42 And we're gonna not be price competitive globally. Because you won't input what they have and you're gonna make our citizens buy. From this new factory where we're making things way more expensive. It doesn't work like the math doesn't math. And by the way, I know it's not sure it brings jobs.

32:58 The Xiaomi factory. Was it A third. Based on some numbers I was able to acquire a third the number of employees per car. Output transcript:

33:08 And I gotta believe In ten years it'll be a sixth. And so you could calculate the total number of jobs. You'd be bringing back if you brought back all this car production and it'd be Hundreds of thousands.

33:21 It's not millions and millions of jobs. So anyway, that infrastructure thing for real and I think Dan Wong does a good job of saying that America's run by lawyers. Countries run by lawyers and theirs is run by Engineers. So when you try and build something here.

33:39 You know, the lawyers just get in the way. And try and block it. Which certainly when you hear Elon talks about why the giga factor is here in Austin and not In California, it all relates to those things. So anyway, that's infrastructure. There's another

33:54 Thing that's I think quite interesting, which is The government may not Care. about whether or not their companies have really big market caps. And

34:05 When I first realized this, you know, you saw what happened when they Took down Alibaba when they went after Jack Ma and Financial could have been this big thing and it got, you know, haircut. And the question well, do they care? And If you are pushing your companies to be low cost providers,

34:23 Maybe That's at odds with them being hyper profitable and really big. And then you can turn around and ask the question. Hearing that caused me to ask the question.

34:33 Does America really benefit by the fact that the Mag Seven have three trillion dollar market caps? I know the employees of those companies do. But is that a sign of Or Competitive capitalistic

34:47 society not being truly competitive. On a global scale. No, e even within like There's a notion you learn about And economics class is called pure competition and in pure competition no one has

35:01 An intellectual property advantage. Marginal profits. or whittled down just to the cost of capital and the consumer benefits. Because there's no Excessive profit capture.

35:12 If we have all these companies that are able to kinda have excessive profits Is that a form of market failure? And Does it be. The fact that They exist help America in any way. I

35:25 At first I w of course I'm a venture capitalist. I want to think, yes, of course. But then as I think about it, I don't know that our government or our society or our people are better off because these six companies have three trillion dollar market caps. Yeah. Like the percentage of the country that's employed by those companies is small on an overall basis. I think they have a different perspective on whether big market caps matter and I think that

35:51 It's somewhat intriguing. What do you think about the innovation in China leading in some cases to the development of superior technology at a lower cost. That is plausibly an extension of the intelligence gathering apparatus.

36:08 Of the government. Is that a real thing? I'm not even good. Place to know. Um I would have to imagine maybe it seems like they would have to be stupid not to use That given the

36:18 Their ability to penetrate the private sector. I think it's yeah, I think it's certainly Well known that they Do surveillance of their own people. And I know that would be

36:29 Yeah. particularly upsetting to people like Greg Lukiano that Runs fire and is very interested in free speech. The flip side is there's very little street crime. You walk around You don't worry about that when you're there.

36:42 Yeah. It's true also in Japan, though. Doesn't doesn't make it right or wrong. It's just it is what it is. And I don't know that we have this ability to kinda tell'em how they have to do it.

36:54 No. The Huawei stuff where their products are being shipped out and then those are used to gather intelligence. out of their country and the rest of the world, of course that's a problem. But I think the way to deal with it, I'm not a politician, but I think the way to deal with it

37:09 I'm more of a believer of The engage You know, like Engage. Talk about what you don't like and what you do like.

37:17 And try and negotiate. Yeah. problem away, like we're trying to do with the fentanyl precursor. Yeah, well way back in the day when I was an East Asian studies major, this was lifetimes ago. And keeping in mind like I was at the Capitol University of Business Economics in nineteen ninety six. That was the bicycle era.

37:34 These old photographs of Beijing with Oh yeah. Millions of bicycles with people in their long green jackets. I add one of those jackets for the winter as it gets really cold. But things have changed a lot. At the time I was looking forward and thinking I might be one of those people.

37:49 Who could engage. In Chinese, I think the way to do it is in English, frankly, for a whole host of reasons. But Even if you speak. The other language. Like Putin speaks English pretty well. But he does all of his Negotiations.

38:02 When he's speaking in Russian for a lot of good reasons. First of all, I do get accused of being like a agent of the C C P or something, even by some of the people that Responded to your Your Twitter thing. Yeah. I'm not. I've only visited a few times. I don't know anybody in the in the government.

38:20 But I worry greatly that we make bad policy decisions if we misunderstand what's really going on. Oh, I agree with that. I fully agree with that. I mean, I've thought about I frankly I'm worried about it. I mean I would take a burner phone and a burner laptop. I've thought about because I want to get a better understanding of the culture of innovation that can be Fostered and

38:42 Exactly how things are to the extent that It would be visible to me. how things are developing in China. I've thought about going there. I've thought about doing the same thing in India too, to go and interview like Ten of the top entrepreneurs. But the reason I haven't done it is that I'm just like, I don't know what radars that's gonna put me on, what kind of surveillance, what kind of fill in the blank, how difficult is it gonna be, whose rings am I gonna have to kiss.

39:05 Am I overthinking it or is it straight? If you're overthinking it, I think the odds that Tim Ferris would disappear in China is really Oh I'm not worried about disappearing. That would be a terrible that like the upside downside on that doesn't make any sense. There are companies that may not speak with you like when I was there Deep sea community. The word was kinda out on the street that they're not meeting with Westerners. Yeah. You know, for reasons that are I'm sure that's true uh conversely in the US too. Yes. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that's and by the way, I think that reflective

39:38 You know. Lins when you think about the country is helpful. Like Alex Carp was just on stage a deal book last week. He was talking about surveillance and he says well of course Our tools are used to surveil the enemy.

39:51 Yeah. And and I'm like, Okay, well my God, the Chinese are s surveilling us, but Obviously we're surveilling them too. Like let's be honest about these things. Yeah, I mean it's a lot easier. For a bunch of obvious reasons.

40:08 in some respects a lot easier for them to surveil us than the other way around. I mean, partially just due to the homogeneity of No. society over there, right? You can't like send a bunch of Blonde haired, blue eyes, black, Latino, whatever. to China.

40:23 to end up at like top universities, top companies, et cetera. It's just a lot harder. hard. Like I would I would say there's two other things. One you hinted at one the supply chains. Are so integrated in China. Down to the raw material level. That even if you brought

40:41 The factory back here it'd be more of an assembly shop. And you'd still be sourcing from there, which isn't Necessarily. Cost competitive and To replicate all of it.

40:51 Would take. A very, very, very long time. Well including Raw materials for staple pharmaceuticals. I mean there's lot.

40:59 There's a lot going on. What at this point is it a day late and a dollar short for the US? I know I almost promised we weren't going to go into this, but I I want to know your opinion. I'm so curious. Like what are the keys to the US remaining? globally competitive and vibrant as an economy. You hint at the one Which is

41:19 it seems kinda inevitable, nuclear power or more power, so how do you do that? I'm not sure how quickly you can write the ship, although it seems like an a a handful of people have done a pretty good job of changing the narrative. Yeah. What are some of the key things in your opinion that the US? Needs to do. One is

41:37 Make it easier to build. Build companies. I think build infrastructure. Like if you're gonna Build semiconductor plants if you're gonna build nuclear plants. On time and on budget, that's very hard to do in the US right now. And

41:51 The glimmer of hope I would say is that a few State. seem to have governors that wanna get stuff out of the way. And I think it's red tape and bureaucracy. And lawyers and litigation that make this stuff so expensive.

42:06 And so Texas and Arizona seem to be getting their unfair share of data centers and semiconductor plants. I think because Of that attitude. I've seen A similar attitude in Pennsylvania. And you know, where they're like

42:21 They repair I ninety five in twelve days because But they literally had to Take a bunch of statutes that are on the books and Say they don't apply right now. So that mindset I think needs a lot more momentum.

42:34 Mm. That'd be one thing. There's another thing that That I think's important. For people to understand on the China front, there are numerous

42:43 Loud microphone that will say. Oh, they know how to scale. Out. Like

42:51 plants, but they don't know how to do any innovation. And that's just flat wrong. Whoever's saying that? Just hasn't been there. They don't know the facts on the ground. These entrepreneurs.

43:03 are every bit as good as the entrepreneurs they are here. There are examples like In LIDAR, they built a Mems Lidar product that's like a hundred and thirty dollars a car. What is Mems Lidar? It's solid state, it uses solid state semiconductor technology instead of that big spinning radar. And so the light are on a

43:23 On a Waymo is five grand. It's a hundred thirty bucks for Mem's lighter they're putting on every car. You can go into Chat GPT and say tell me about Mems Lightar innovation in China. But it's just a great example. Lejeune's another one, but like

43:38 Anybody that thinks there's no innovation is just Yeah, they're just raw. Yeah, no, that's not true. That's definitely not true. I asked you two years ago. If there are any countries that you're long on.

43:51 At the time, I'd be curious if this is still the case. You said you're long on the UK. Less regulatory capture. Losing party pay is in the legal system. I do love that. Which r which reduces frivolous litigation compared to the US. Any thoughts on where you're bullish these days?

44:07 Ironically, Matt Ridley was in town. A few weeks ago and rational optimist who I love his stuff. But He would say that I would be dead wrong on that. Things things aren't going well there. So and he lives there. So uh I'll I'll just take that as I I did I got that one wrong. Um

44:26 Well, I mean it depends on the time frame too, right? Is it two years, or is it five years, or is it ten years? You know, one of the things that's been impressive about China is you know since Deng Xiaoping kind of brought back capitalism. Five hundred million people have come out of poverty. You look at Countries that have

44:44 A very Strong work ethic. And a high Education. And a low

44:51 Currently low per population. income and you would think more jobs would come their way. So Two that would pop for me are Vietnam and Turkey. Mm. We kinda check all those boxes.

45:02 Right. Hopefully I do better then. Check in in another two years. I Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Creatine isn't just for muscle. It's essential daily fuel for your brain, your body, and long-term performance. For me, I have Alzheimer's and dementia risk in my family. The cognitive benefits

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46:16 Hey folks, Tim here, my best-selling card game Coyote, which I made with the amazing team at Exploding Kittens. Just won the pop insider best geeky game of 2025 and also best stocking filler in the Made for Mums Toy Awards 2025. It is on sale everywhere. It's cheap, it's fast to learn, has 4.8 stars out of five. People are loving it. Coyote Game.com will take you to all the retailers, but you can find it everywhere. It is a game of thinking fast and laughing faster. Think charades meets hot potato meets a bunch of brain fun. It's good for your head. It's perfect for families with kids age ten plus or adults who are kids at heart or don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of adults love this game. And as I said, it's available everywhere. Amazon, Walmart, Target. 8,000 plus retail locations, you name it. So please check it out. I loved making it. People are really enjoying it. It has three hundred or four hundred million plus social views of gameplay online. And uh try it. Enjoy it this holiday season. Check it out, coyotegame.com one more time. That's coyote game.com.

47:22 dot com or anywhere you buy your games. Now back to the episode. Yeah. All right, let's talk about this is gonna be a segue to talking about Running down to dream and all things.

47:36 involved with that. Maybe we could start with An anecdote from a fellow Austinite. Likes to play the bongos, long hair. Associated with

47:46 Smoke and reef for every once in a while. Matthew. Yeah. Short anecdote. about Matthew before we started recording, would you mind? Sharing that.

47:58 As I was preparing Because I was kinda wrapping up the book. I Started listening to green lights. And I was told you had to listen to it,'cause of course he reads it, so you get all the great

48:09 What kinda hay affections as you read it. But There's a story in it. Just popped in my brain and kind of summarized Exactly what I'm

48:18 trying to accomplish with this book Running Down a Dream. And He And The vast majority of his

48:27 Younger adult life. So this anecdotes from when he was like twenty. Twenty one. Telling his family he was gonna be a lawyer. And so

48:36 Yeah. Gotten into the University of Texas he was pre law. You know, every time we went home we talked about, Yeah, I'm gonna be a lawyer. And He had

48:45 Met some people at Texas. That had convinced him. That he should switch to film school. And He had

48:53 immense anxiety about sharing this with his father. His father This is all in the book, but his father's a very tough individual. And so Reason to be fearful.

49:04 You know, when you're gonna drop some news. I'm I'm no longer gonna be a lawyer. I'm gonna go to film school. And He builds it up a lot in the book. Like I I didn't know when I was gonna talk to him. You can imagine being in that situation, you're delaying, delaying, delaying But he finally tells and his dad utters the f this very simple phrase Well, don't have acid.

49:25 And He says You know, of all the reactions he could have had, don't half ass it were the last words I expected to hear and the best words he could have ever said to me. And he said in that single moment he gave him blessing, consent, approval, validation. Privilege, honor, freedom, and responsibility.

49:43 Call it rocket fuel. And I'd like to believe there are a number of People out there. Young adults, maybe even some midlife.

49:52 Oh yeah. Who have This notion That they should be doing something else, but society has put'em on a path.

50:00 Or just The way they matriculated through college, put'em into a career. That they just don't love. And that they have this inkling that they could go do this thing. Or maybe you're a young kid And you really wanna do X, but everybody else is telling you to do A, B, and C.

50:18 Like I want to help them. Have the confidence and permission to go do X. Like to go chase this dream. And

50:27 As you And it at from our last call. I think your ability to make connections And to gather information and learn. On your own pace. Has never been better.

50:39 You can literally Just sit there and talk. Yeah. Ch B T. Six hours a day.

50:45 If you so choose. And learn so much. About any particular field. And so your ability to take Things into your own hands.

50:56 And to go try and be successful in this thing you that you feel passionate about. I think it's never been better. Why do you think when you Initially gave And subsequently.

51:08 Had to go online, run down a dream as a presentation. Why do you think that took? Why did it strike a cord? In the way that it did. What do you think it was? I think we built a

51:20 society like nobody's fault. Like we just have built a society where We love to celebrate People That are successful in A lot of different fields, but when it comes to our own

51:33 Children. We tend to think Way more pragmatically about what they should be doing. Lawyers. Consultants.

51:41 Doctors. Computer scientists, like it's all these jobs that have certainty to the financial component. And I think That's s so well intended. Like I I don't think there's malintent of anyone in the system.

51:56 And I'm a parent of three, like I've been through this. You just feel this obligation to try and push them. Towards prosperity. But it's not Intellectual prosperity is not happiness, it's financial. You know, stability. Yes.

52:13 Children towards. And This isn't that complicated of math, but most people end up working eighty thousand hours in their life. It's a third of your life. You know, why do something you don't like?

52:26 There's Gallup poll data on career engagement and fifty nine percent of people say They're not engaged at work. Yeah, this is that whole quiet quitting thing that we hear so much about. And some of these numbers are at an all time low.

52:41 It just seems horrific. Like the people. Or kind of. Soltering through life. What are some of the keys?

52:48 Two Taking the path less travelled then. In this case. And I mean there are few I highlighted for myself, but Where should we start?

52:58 I highlighted one for myself. We don't have to start here, but go where the action is. I just think this is so underrated and people it further undervalue it, maybe in a digital world. But we can start anywhere you want. That's just one that's that really jumped out to me because I think it's really underrated. But Where would you like to start? In the book, one of the things that we tie together very early on is

53:21 The interplay between Passion or fascination or curiosity. And learning. And The way

53:30 to be most successful in any endeavor, but certainly if you're gonna go Tilt it. Something that's Less. Pragmatic.

53:38 Is to be the smartest. most knowledgeable person you can possibly be. And knowledge is free now. As we've talked about. And I have this test

53:48 You're actually Truly passionate about what You're trying to do. Which is

53:55 Do you self learn on your own time? Like would you not watch Breaking Bad? And read about This field. And

54:04 Be energized by that activity. If you If you are. And You know, we have

54:10 twenty, thirty different stories in the book of people that have been successful, almost all of them. Check that box. You just have this amazing ability to gain knowledge so much faster than everyone else you would be competing with. You know.

54:25 And that's gonna be useful. That's unquestionably gonna be useful. It makes me think of an interview I saw. long time ago, actually, it was quite a few years ago, but it was an interview with Joe Rogan. And He said something that surprised me, might surprise a lot of people.

54:41 Which was along the lines of He's not good at it was either willpower or discipline. Which is he's in great shape. Obviously he's black belt jujitsu, he's done what he's done with the podcast, he's the undisputed king of podcasting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And he said I'm not actually good at Whether it was discipline or willpower, but I am good at obsession.

55:02 It's all on or all off and I've seen that, I'm sure you've seen this in a lot of the entrepreneurs who actually make it to the other side and create these mega successes. They are just Obsessed.

55:16 And that gives him a huge not just knowledge advantage, but endurance advantage. You just go down the Checkboxes. It's all advantages. I had the opportunity to talk to Angela Duckworth when I was working on this and Her book. Grit.

55:32 Talks about two components, passion and perseverance. And I heard a podcast she had done recently where she said if she could go back. She would put far more weight on the passion and the perseverance because She says we've taught our children to grind. And so once again starting in sixth grade, they're told the You know, learn the flute and take lacrosse and do all this stuff and

55:54 you know, crush the SATs and take the extra credit classes and all this. And they all do it. And they all do it. And then they go to college and Oh, how you doing? It takes six hours of class instead of four and they're just going. But eventually she says if you don't Have that passion. You just burn out.

56:12 And so you're right about the energy part. I think it's both knowledge and Yeah. Put in more cycle. Yeah. It makes me think of Maybe this is

56:21 Cliched. in Silicon Valley because it gets so oft repeated, but a lot of folks listening will not have heard it, which is if you're looking for the next sort of technological break through or something on the edge. Look for what the nerds are doing on the weekends. But it's not just a great way to find

56:38 what might be coming around the corner in a few years, it's a great way to find the people to bet on who are already using their Excess their free time. to work on these things. No I think of Bree Petis and three D printing. I mean I can just go down the list. And by the way, that's another advantage of going to the epicenter is there's more people doing that. All the time.

56:58 Let's talk about People might be surprised by this, but Bob Dylan. I think this is just the quintessential. Example. Why is he relevant to what we're talking about?

57:08 When this idea popped in my head, I had finished a third biography and contrasted it with these other two and I just saw all these patterns. You know, V C's a game of pattern recognition. I guess my brain's just developed. I was like, Oh my God, I saw this kinda Locked. thing where these three people had all done the same thing. And one was a basketball coach, one was a Restaurant tour and the other was Bob Dylan. Not industry. This is where you should get career development advice, right? There's a part

57:34 Of the Dillon story that Most people wouldn't know unless they had read all the biographies or maybe seen the Scorsese. Documentary, but the new movie misses The whole thing, which is The pre New York Bob Dylan was hanging out.

57:47 In Minnesota. studying folk music at such a Deep level that I feel confident in saying when he left. He knew more about folk music than any other human.

57:59 In Minnesota. And he was Borrowing and maybe that's even a euphemism, he was stealing his friend's albums. He was going into the record store into these listening booths Like he knew

58:11 All there was to know. And had studied every bit of it. And he's Referred to by Scorsese as a music. Expeditionary. And the people that knew him

58:23 In New York City could mimic. Any one song. It's not what you would think of when you hear a Dylan song that he'd kind of Mastered the bedrock. Underneath.

58:33 And then started innovating. P Picasso, by the way, same thing. perfect realist painter at age fourteen. If you go to the Barcelona. Casa Museum. Like it's in geographic order and you're kinda shocked. At how good a realist.

58:47 This kid was before he went and did this other thing. That bedrock knowledge. I think it's so Differentiating. For someone to have All the history and then

58:59 To start doing the innovation. What was the Before and after. On Dillon, sort of Minnesota. New York City.

59:09 And why is that? Such an important thing. And and just to like even pile on more on this kind of studious part of Bob Dylan. He did a podcast. series for a while. Well.

59:21 He just walks through All these different genres of music. And You're talking about Bob Dylan himself? Yes. I didn't realize this. Yes, yes, you can go find it.

59:30 And then that book he put out of the fifty Best songs, the coffee table book that came out two years ago. It's incredible the amount of knowledge he has about songs. Outside of his genre, everything. So he's just clear student. Of what he's doing.

59:46 I think this is well known and is covered at the beginning of the movie. He went to New York to find Woody Guthrie. Probably the single kind of most deterministic and ambitious mentor pursuit story that I've ever heard of. Like he he hitchhiked there with no money. And found him. And became friends with him.

1:00:05 This echoes back to Go where the action is. Also. Oh no doubt. And by the way, he landed

1:00:13 in Manhattan at the center of the folk music scene and all those People he was studying when he was listening in Minnesota, they were all there. You know, he got to know them all. If that doesn't happen, I don't think Dylan happens, you know. How relevant do you think the go where the action is?

1:00:30 Now. considering the access to information. Using chat GPT or other tools. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe less so access to mentors, although you can have virtual relationships. But

1:00:44 How relevant do you think that is? I've got my own opinion. You could certainly Have The type of peer and mentor experiences that are

1:00:54 Remote. I have a great anecdote about Mr Beast in the book that we could talk about that was a remote one, but The benefits of being in and around a whole bunch of people that are chasing the same thing. Is so high.

1:01:08 And I think the Intuition is Oh, well it's gonna be even more competitive, so why would I Wouldn't it be better to try and do this in a town where it's less of a big deal? But the problem is

1:01:21 You're learning. Is impacted. Your access to peers and mentors is drastically reduced. And then Probably most importantly.

1:01:31 Your optionality. It's cut. So dramatically. People. Think that a lot of success stories

1:01:38 They attribute it to luck. But you know, there's that famous saying luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And When you're in the epicenter, both your preparation and your opportunity go up. You know, 10x.

1:01:51 And so your ability to just have that lucky moment where you get brought into something. It's so much higher. So the lucky moment. is I think really important to underscore in terms of going where the action is because

1:02:06 There's a lot you can do virtually. But let's just say you're using chat GPT. You're going to get what you prompt. In other words, like you're asking for something. Yeah. And that can take you down a rabbit hole. But they're at least in my lived experience. And certainly I still see this happening.

1:02:23 When I moved to Silicon Valley and Two thousand. And then I look back at my angel investing career, I look back at all these collaborations. The vast majority of them did not come from me going out with an agenda and seeking something. They came from serendipitous. bumping into somebody at a coffee shop. I literally met Naval Ravakov because I was hitting on his girlfriend at the time.

1:02:45 She was getting her coffee, didn't realize they were together. And then you look at Garrett Camp. Kevin Rose. These are like s at a barbecue. I met Kevin Rose. And you go down the list and you look at All of these formative massively impactful personally and professionally relationships. They almost all came

1:03:03 From serendipity. And you just don't seem to get that. Density unless you're in. the center of the action. And

1:03:11 Perhaps it's easier to relocate yourself. I'm sure it is when you have fewer responsibilities. But I can't even imagine what my life would look like had I not You know, left Long Island and then ultimately moved to Silicon Valley. Same for me. I had thought about

1:03:27 the notion of venture capital. And practicing it and probably would have jumped at any job I could have got. Like when I was at McCombs here in Austin. I tried to get an interview at Austin Ventures, like I didn't get one, but And they said yes, maybe I practice there and I I'm glad that didn't happen. Like going and practicing it where I did.

1:03:47 Was the exact right place to do it. I do think it's If you can. Because there are financial constraints, you know. If you want to be great at a field and that field has an epicenter.

1:03:59 I think you should go. And there are different types of ener epicenters too. Like you think about let's just say A I not to Repeatedly bang that drum, but You could just say, Okay, AI.

1:04:11 First thing that comes to mind, Silicon Valley. But It's gonna be a bit of a digression, but I remember asking Derek Siver is a friend of mine, amazing entrepreneur, kind of philosopher, programmer. People can look him up. But I ask him.

1:04:25 Who's the first person who comes to mind when you think of the word successful? And he said, Well, actually the most interesting or more interesting question might be who's the third person who comes to mind? Because I might say, Something really obvious like Richard Branson, but is he successful? I don't really know what his goals were. So I'd have to compare his goals to his outcomes. And then you get to the third similarly with an epicenter, you could say Silicon Valley first. But there might be something. That is a dense in learning, but

1:04:50 has other advantages. Like. I think it's the University of Waterloo, but one of these universities where industry is trying to raid academic program because it's so strong in terms of teaching the technical side, right? So there's so many different ways To approach it, but let's talk about a virtual example. You mentioned Mr. Beast.

1:05:09 Could you Describe that story. Yeah. I actually heard it on a podcast, but I had it I also got a chance to talk to Jimmy Donaldson, so we got it firsthand

1:05:19 When he was infatuated with YouTube. He was one of the first people that was infatuated with YouTube. His parents were rightfully trying to get him to go to School. In college.

1:05:31 Which he wasn't doing because he was playing around on On YouTube all day. He met three other people who were equally fascinated with YouTube. And

1:05:41 This is A virtual epicenter story, but it's really a peer story. One of the Might Six principles is embrace your peers. And I think

1:05:49 Far too many people. Have sharp elbows to peers'cause they think You know, they're climbing the ladder and they've gotta beat these people. And The world's just way too prosperous.

1:06:00 To have that mindset. You can learn so much. And get so much value from co climbing that you should definitely do that. And I think It's not taught enough and people don't do it enough, but

1:06:13 Jimmy happened on these three people and they got on a Skype call. He said twenty hours a day. And for years. Sounds like Jimmy. For years.

1:06:23 They shared best practices. On this call. Which Apparently in that world, like The color of the icon on the

1:06:33 posts you do on Instagram to send them to you to like all little these little bitty esoteric things can impact conversion. And He said When he was talking about this, that they all became millionaires. He said if you or any random individual had been a fifth person on those calls.

1:06:51 You would have too. Because of Of that. And uh it's just a wonderful example of How Pierce You know, he he

1:07:00 On this podcast said something that was very clever. He took the Ten thousand hours. thing from Gladwell and said, Well, there were four of us spending ten thousand hours and then sharing ideas, so you get forty thousand hours. Of expertise. How would you suggest people who are not on YouTube where you can identify

1:07:19 Outliers, perhaps. I shouldn't say easily in this day and age. I mean it's it's a sea of participants, but How should people go about seeking peers and do you rank order your principals in a way For instance.

1:07:35 Do you want to first check the box, if you can, of go where the action is and then embrace your peers because the level Well be it. Higher, I think about it. For instance. My experience.

1:07:46 In Silicon Valley, it could have just as easily for something else been Nashville or New York City or Who knows? Shanghai. I mean it just depends on what you're doing. The mentors, let's just say like Mike Maples Jr., who to taught me the the very basic ropes of angel investing. He definitely without him, like I don't go zero to one in terms of having any basic literacy or access. So that was like the first rung on the ladder.

1:08:13 But then once I was in You look at people who are In a sense, just getting started at the time, I mean, holy shit, some of them have really exploded. I mean they've all done really well. Kevin Rose, Naval. Yeah.

1:08:26 Krasaka. The remaining the the latter goes on forever, but like 49 rungs after that initial step up, zero to one. Well it was all peer driven. And those guys we were we were comparing notes the whole way. See, that's the thing. Like I would say First of all.

1:08:42 I would practice it wherever you are. I'd practice it virtually. I'd practice it locally. And I i if you can move to the F center, I'd practice it there. I don't know that it's an either or thing. You can have multiple groups of peers. You can have multiple circles of peers. But I think there's only two tests. And One is trust. There are people in this world.

1:09:01 Oh View everything as a zero sum game. And they We'll elbow you out. The first chance they can get.

1:09:09 And so Those shouldn't be your peers. Those people you should Quickly push to the side. So trust and then This shared interest in learning.

1:09:19 And if They are equally learning on their own dime in their free time, which is my test for whether you actually truly are passionate about some If they're doing that also That's perfect.

1:09:32 And Those experiences you've talked about. I've had so many of them myself. They get excited to tell you what they just learned. Right. Mm-hmm.

1:09:42 Yeah. And then you Reciprocate. Mm-hmm. Right. And by the way, Mike's a great.

1:09:47 Example m. I have a both a passion and a Lot of respect for people that Are writers. In their

1:09:55 Industry. And Buffett did it and Howard Marks did it, who I benefited greatly from. I tried my entire career to write. Quite a bit.

1:10:05 Does this. He's a huge sharer when it comes to his knowledge about the subject matter. Yeah, and it's pattern breakers. Excellent book. Also. So great. Mm-hmm.

1:10:15 Yeah, Mike, I'm hoping to see him again soon. It's been a minute. We've talked about Mr Beast, Bob Dylan. In both cases. And like poor kids with nothing to lose, right? In a sense. Not in any

1:10:28 Destitute sense, but they're starting that like Futons and ramen, right? He was just interviewed at Deal Book also, and his mother was in the front row who apparently works for him now. So he was telling the story about when he went to tell her he was dropping out of college. Yeah, similar to the We're kind of historian. Jimmy's being more abrupt, but

1:10:49 You know, of course she's happy now. Yeah it all worked out. I mean there's there's always a little survivors bias, but Let's talk about Danny Meyer because I wanna Give an example of someone who gave something up. Yeah.

1:11:03 Pursue X instead of A, B, or C. So could you say a little bit about Danny? You know, I've interviewed him on the podcast. I might have met him through you. I don't even remember how I initially connected with him. But Who is Danny Meyer? And

1:11:17 What is this kind of Genesis story? Uh Danny Meyer at the restaurant. Twenty when someone asked me who is Danny Meyer, I feel compelled the first thing to say he's one of the most genuine humans on the planet. Yeah, for sure. Just a wonderful human. For sure. But uh he is also one of the most celebrated restaurant tours. Of our time. He

1:11:37 Was Working for a company that sold these devices to Clip on to clothes so you can't steal'em from a retail store. Yeah. And he was making good money. He was making about two hundred thousand dollars a year and this is at the time forty years ago. So real money. Real, real money. And he had convinced himself he was gonna be a lawyer.

1:11:58 I guess. Lot of people convince themselves of that. And he was about to take the L set and he was out to dinner with his uncle. And You know, his uncle was probing him and probing him and

1:12:09 Oh yeah, he's gonna take Dale Sitting. He's I think his uncle sensed a lack of Real conviction. About This thing this person, this human was gonna do. And

1:12:19 He literally said to him. Why are you doing this? You know you want to be a restaurant tour. And When you read Danny's book, he did spend a ton of time in his youth.

1:12:29 being fascinated with Restaurants. To the point where he would take copious notes, like prior to even doing this. So it's Family had a reason to know that he had this deep passion. But

1:12:41 It's interesting it's an uncle, right? I don't know that a parent He's gonna jump in and say that And maybe that's an advantage I have not knowing the readers of my book. In giving'em this permission to do things that aren't necessarily pragmatic, but Anyway, his uncle said you should start a restaurant and he took the test. He never submitted the scores to a university.

1:13:04 And very soon thereafter enrolled in Some vocational Restaurant.

1:13:10 And took a job. He took the first job you could get, which was a front office job at a restaurant that was making about a tenth the salary. that he was making in the sales job. And went on to you know, Grammar C T I mean all these iconic restaurants then

1:13:27 Shake shack then I mean dot dot dot yeah and I we walk through in detail his path once he made this intention And one of the variables that my co writer and I were looking for as we added stories to the book was this moment of intentionality. We didn't want people that fell into a job and were successful. We want people that That made a decision, usually a pivot.

1:13:50 They say I'm gonna go do this now. And once he had made that decision Not only did he take that job, but he Took advantage of being in that restaurant to learn about the multiple functions.

1:14:03 But then he set up. A tour through Europe. as a stage in multiple places where he's working for free, basically. I'm so glad you brought this up,'cause I wouldn't have brought it up myself, but This is gonna relate in in a second.

1:14:16 I've run a bunch of competition for let's just say creating artwork for like PDFs slash like free books I'm gonna put out or whatever. And there's always a big hubbub where Folks get. Some folks get very upset and they say, Oh, you want people to work for free. And I'm like, Well, there's gonna be a winner. It's like if you don't want to participate, don't participate. But there's always this kind of shaking of the fist, like, ah, you so unfair. You want people to work, do work for free. When I look at

1:14:44 Almost every example. of someone who became the equivalent of Danny Meyer in their world. They did a lot that was unpaid. Almost always. I'm sure there are exceptions. Staging is a great example. In the restaurant world where it's like, Okay.

1:14:59 You wanna work at a restaurant where where you're gonna have the highest density of learning. And you don't know shit, like guess what? They probably don't want to pay you a whole lot,'cause it's actually gonna be a bit of a drain on their resources to show you around and teach you how to work your station and do all this stuff. So I would just encourage people to not be allergic to that and The way I got In a sense, my foot in the door

1:15:23 In Silicon Valley was I volunteered at Thai, the Indus Entrepreneur. I volunteered at Thai, you're I I volunteered with all of these nonprofit groups. And quickly realize that most volunteers are doing the absolute minimum to be volunteers and if you just do ten percent more, it doesn't take much, I would just refill people's water glasses and stuff after I

1:15:46 Finished. taking their tickets for an event and suddenly the producers of this event who were also doing it but had Like real jobs. I mean I had a job out of college, sure, and I was working a lot.

1:15:56 They were like, wow, this kid's a go-getter because he's be filling these water glasses. Let's give him more responsibility. And that's how I ended up. connecting with all these speakers and everything. Just Did some stuff for free on the weekends. It didn't take a lot. There's a story in the book that

1:16:11 Actually hard to believe. We profile this woman, Jen Atkins, who's A hairstylist. It's an incredible story. But the one anecdote She's rising in her career. And things are starting to work.

1:16:24 And she has jobs and she's getting paid. She We go to Fashion Week in Paris and sneak in the back. Door. And volunteer.

1:16:35 to do the hair of the models on stage. Like snuck in. Like not supposed to be there. Just to get reps with these top models. In this environment. It sounds Unfathomable that someone would do that. She did it multiple times. And she did it.

1:16:53 Yes. What ended up happening. After that. I don't know her story. Oh, she's become probably the most successful hairstylist of our time. It's it's an incredible story. How do you suggest people who are maybe they're doing A, B, and C right now.

1:17:10 They're listening to this and they're just saying, All right, I wanna take the leap. I wanna do Z. I want to do whatever the off menu option is. Yeah. They might have to have a conversation with parent, they might have to have a conversation with spouse. The man I have to have a conversation with

1:17:27 Who knows? Whoever the the most important people are in their lives. How might they approach that? And we're gonna talk about Choosing paths in a second'cause I do have a question about maybe how to sanity check yourself in the world of AI, but

1:17:41 How do you suggest having those Conversations. Do you moonlight for a while? So it's not either or do you Make it time bound in a sense, or like hey. Just give me permission to try this for six months, a year, two years. It's interesting. I think any of those approaches is realistic. We

1:17:58 profile Sal Khan in the book of Khan Academy and He told his wife he wanted to go try it for a year. Mm-hmm. He worked at a hedge fund. Just like

1:18:07 Danny Meyer, he was making Real money. Oh, I didn't realize that about And started working with his Cousins. Across the globe.

1:18:16 online doing these tutorial exercises. And ended up posting a few on YouTube, they started working, and he told his wife, I really want to go tilt at this. He didn't even know What the business model was. And it you know, it w went and changed it. Look, I think

1:18:31 The real test comes back to This passion element or we use a lot of different words because passion's been kind of considered trite, but Fascination, curiosity. Like If you have

1:18:44 This deep desire to know so much about this one thing that that curiosity's so high. I think the odds that that's not apparent. To Whoever these people are you're trying to convince is pretty low. 'Cause if you're gonna tilt it something that hard and if you're gonna really differentiate yourself by being

1:19:04 That learned in that Yield. I think it'd be hard for someone to tell you not to go do it. It's not gonna be easy. I I don't want it. Anyone to think that

1:19:13 Oh, just read this book and magic happens. Like It requires effort, and that's why this test matter so much this test of whether you would Learn about this thing on your free time. And maybe are you all ready?

1:19:27 Or you're already learning about it on your pre-cut. Yes. No doubt. At least that one. You should be. You should be. You I doubt you're gonna turn it on history. Yeah. Well, actually I I have an example of someone who just turned it on. We have a chapter called Never Too Late, which is where the Sal Khan thing is,'cause that happened when he was close to forty. Another local Austinite bird.

1:19:48 Tito beverage. Oops. Started. His endeavor in the spirit business that Oh, I was just thinking about him while driving here for no good reason. At the age of forty. All right. He's watching a PBS special.

1:20:00 This is also hard to believe. He's watching a PBS special. Back when probably when they were only Or channels or whatever. But they said On the screen. They said, Take a blank sheet of paper, draw a line down it, put what you

1:20:13 Love to do on the left and what you're really good at on the right. Just a list of those things. And then contemplate what might be in the middle. And He had studied chemistry and a lot of stuff and he liked going out to bars and socializing and he was making

1:20:29 Flavored vodka. Christmas presents in his spare time. His first career was in seismatology and the oil field and that dragged him to South America. When that became dangerous both in Midland and in South America, he became a mortgage broker.

1:20:46 Okay. He didn't love either of them. Yeah. But the reason I brought it up when you said like already. I don't know that he was already studying the spirit business, but once he

1:20:56 made that intentionality to go do this. Then he studied it writ large. How did he start? Just out of curiosity, because I was just thinking about him. T of Beverage just acquired. Lala Tequila, which I was involved with. Yeah. That's probably why he popped the mind. But how did he start? He first started by just studying the distilling process writ large, like read everything he possibly could. And then it turns out there were no distilleries in the state of Texas and there were laws on the books that made it nearly impossible. So then he had to study that and and literally rewrite regulation to to make it possible.

1:21:30 Interestingly, he did the whole thing on credit cards, so he owns a hundred percent of the business. Which is a huge business. It's the single largest Spirit. Sold in America. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Didn't realize it was that big. It's you.

1:21:45 Yeah. Yes. So wild. So wild. I promised to get to this and I do want to get to it. Are there any sanity checks that you would put in place?

1:21:55 Two Compliment. the fascination slash obsession slash what I'm doing in my spare time or would pay to do. Or do for free.

1:22:05 Because I'm wondering. If there are any things you you would take off the table or how you would hone that given The Rapidly developing. technology of AI. So if someone said, you know, what I love to do in my spare time is copy editing, I might not suggest that they throw caution to the wind and burn the ships and go into copy editing.

1:22:26 Any thoughts? The first thing I would note is that many of those pragmatic jobs that the well intentioned parents have been pushing their children towards are at risk. Yeah, for sure. So so Right. Yeah, risky but as compared to what, right? Comp side went from being the

1:22:44 least risky major you could possibly get to one that's Somewhere risky. Like overnight. And so That'd be my first Like

1:22:53 Notion and The second thing I would add to that, which I already said is No matter what your endeavor is, you need to be playing with this tool. It's a modern tool. It's the equivalent of a laptop and Microsoft Word was its equivalent of what a calculator was.

1:23:09 Like you don't wanna go out in the world And play without the modern tool set. It's a part of what you need. If you're playing with those things and you're curious, you know where the edge is of Whatever you're passionate about and what the technology's capable of. Yeah. In order to find that edge and follow that edge, right, which will move.

1:23:30 You have to be playing with the tools. One thing I love to suggest on the learning side is Know the history. And know then the new innovative edge. If you bring both of those things to the table.

1:23:41 You are highly compelling. That could be true even if you're not Chasing your dream job. Even if you're Just a A marketing major. If you walk into an interview at Clorox and you can simultaneously show that you've studied all the historical best marketers and you also understand

1:23:59 How tick tock works. That Heavily differentiating in that interview. Like you're gonna get the job. I would argue.

1:24:06 Versus someone else, if you can portray those things. How would you apply that here? Is that just I guess field dependent or are you referring to AI? I think AI is the leading edge of almost any industry. So yeah, I'm I'm saying you should just study what it's capable of. The thing that LLMs are most capable of It's a large language model, the language type stuff. Your copy editing example. Like things that

1:24:31 We're just rote. Moving on. Words around. Yeah, it's really good at that stuff. But it doesn't mean Th you can't.

1:24:39 be the person that really understands what it's capable of. And then Superpower yourself. To go attack a particular Interest.

1:24:49 You had started a question by Saying like warnings. You know, I think there are a lot of fields where talent really does matter. Like I don't know that can make you a singer or a I certainly can't make you an NBA basketball player. But In all those fields, whether it be Hollywood or sports.

1:25:07 You know, even it Danny Meyer at one time thought he was gonna be a chef and he just became a restaurantur. He wasn't a chef. I would say that there For any artistic field, there are way more jobs that support Those artists than there are The jobs of the artist.

1:25:22 What do you mean by that? I mean We have an example in the book of a Hollywood agent and that individual had not Thought about it. A job in Hollywood

1:25:32 When they were growing up. felt they couldn't act. So they're like, Oh, I can't go do that. But there's tons of jobs in Hollywood within the sector of entertainment. That aren't the talent itself. So if you're passionate about You know. Basketball are you passionate about?

1:25:49 You know. The chef example of a restaurant. Like there's tons of jobs you can go do. Music industry. Without being that particular person. This makes me think of uh

1:26:01 Interview I was watching recently, Patrick O'Shaughnessy. Invest with the best. He was interviewing our E Manual. So famous superagent. Yeah. Show

1:26:10 force of nature. His whole family is just like drinking different water. I don't know what's going on there. But He has raised a ton of money to invest in Live events, sports, and so on. As an anti

1:26:24 A I or Maybe AI anti fragile. That. There are lots of ways to make money when you raise a lot of money. So I swa so putting that aside. Any other

1:26:37 AI resilient or anti AI bets that you think are interesting outside of live events, live sports. I think a lot of the service industries I think humans Enjoy. Experiences and I don't think That

1:26:53 Changes. Personally that much. And so you know. restaurant tours or hotel years, like I think all those things. are gonna thrive and people that know how to really differentiate

1:27:04 Experiences in that way. I don't share this thought that we're all gonna go watch movies that we've imagined and are made just for ourselves. Yeah.

1:27:15 find that hard to believe. I think people enjoy Great. Art in many different forms. They enjoy talking about it. And

1:27:24 They enjoy the community element. Of having seen the same thing. And so It may be that If you're

1:27:31 A movie maker using AI instead of This expensive CGI tool set. I think the storytelling and The imagination and Writing. I think all those things.

1:27:42 Will still be real. They really do. And obviously just general business. Entrepreneurship. I took my dad, who's ninety three, fly fishing in Montana this summer and

1:27:53 And we were at a lodge and One of the other guests that was staying there Yeah. Twenty eight year old. Entrepreneur from

1:28:01 The tip of Texas down near Corpus Christi area. And he had started like three or four businesses. And it was well off, like I'm not saying Right.

1:28:09 He was so enamored with AI. He said, and then I needed this and then it did this, and then I needed this and then it did this, and then I wanted to know where to put the next one of these. And I just asked it, where would you put it in the city? And it immediately gave me answers. He goes, This guy was Already successful, but he was running triple speed because he had tipped into this stuff. And he was learning what was possible.

1:28:34 Because he had an open mind towards it solving problems. And I thought, holy shit. Yeah. Other people. Kinda just leaned at it. The way he's leaning at it.

1:28:45 They would become superpowered themselves. I was like really blown away by that. Yeah, this makes me think of uh Kevin Rose. Kevin Rose is spending the vast majority of his free time. playing with all these tools, five coding, using them.

1:29:01 Endlessly. And I feel like That is probably over the next few weeks where I need to Put some more time. And just take a layup with wherever it happens to intersect with some place that makes it easy to apply.

1:29:13 Who's Sam Hinky? Um Sam Hanke is a gentleman. Yeah.

1:29:20 About I don't know if it Six years ago became Maybe the youngest GM in the history of the NBA. He became The general manager of the uh Philadelphia seventy sixers.

1:29:32 Why is this story relevant? He was A Amazing student. He grew up in Oklahoma. His father worked for Halliburton.

1:29:41 Yeah. Made good grades, good students. Kinda classic did everything right. Became a consultant. I think he was working for McKinsey.

1:29:51 And they moved him to Australia. And he's sitting there. And he's reading other things in his spare time. He's not Reading about How to be a better consultant. And he reads a book called Moneyball, which we all know of.

1:30:05 The Michael Lewis book about the Oakland A's. And In almost what seems like an instant. Decided I really need to be in sports analytics.

1:30:16 I mentioned that a lot of the stories we found have this intentionality. So that book, just like the Last Laugh did for Seinfeld, that book told him I'm gonna go do this and From the day he read that book to getting The job is ahead of GM of the seventy sixers was about ten years.

1:30:34 So No experience whatsoever in the field. To The youngest GM. Of all time in ten years. Was he obsessed with sports already at that point?

1:30:43 I think so he played you know, this gets back to what I said about maybe you Your original obsessing or being the talent, but then You know he's not particularly The And so

1:30:56 He was successful in high school, but it wasn't You know, there was no path. To keep going down that. Yeah, so yeah, he had immense passion for The category, but it never

1:31:07 Imagine himself in the field. You know, in one of these other roles until That book. kinda disinhibited him and gave him permission to think Well, you know what? I couldn't be

1:31:18 differentiated on this dimension, on this dimension of understanding analytics. Immediately. was applying to business school And he used that as a pivot point for those that have the needs and the resources, I think, in MBA programs. Can be a great place to switch careers and go chase.

1:31:37 A different dream. And There's a great Interesting anecdote in the book where He's trying to decide between Harvard and Stanford, which is a

1:31:46 The choice for most humanity. Yeah, exactly. But He went and told them both what he wanted to do. And Harvard basically said, Well, we don't really have any programs like that. And Stanford to give Stanford. A lot of credit said.

1:32:01 You know what? That's super interesting. We have This person associated with the school that does this. We'll introduce you to these four people. And

1:32:10 We're a lot like McConahay's dad. You know. When Sam brought him that challenge. Sounds about right. That checks out for me. Yeah. Based on what you know of the two institutions. You know, he ended up meeting Michael Lewis because he was in the Bay Area and some of the Stanford people knew Michael and so He talked to the guy that wrote the book that inspired him.

1:32:31 He hustled his ass off. Like I don't wanna make it sound like he kinda built his own curriculum. But it worked. For people who are not going to get an MBA, would you still suggest Everyone read the first three chapters of Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. All right.

1:32:48 Anyone that's gonna do anything in business should read that book. All right. I'll want to give the throwback to our first conversation. By the way, at the back of the book. A list of About fifty bucks.

1:33:00 Just to at the very end. Just to wet the appetite. Well I I think you did the same thing. I love it. Oh yeah. Oh no. In fact, I looked at yours for the structure when I wanted to see how to lay it out. Oh amazing. Amazing. I want to get your Expansion. On

1:33:17 Avoiding False failures. Let me explain what I mean by that. So there's this expression. If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Yeah. Right.

1:33:28 But my experience has been It's not always fun. Even if you're doing what you love. Sometimes there's burnouts, sometimes you go through chapters where Things do feel like a grind. Maybe I'm an outlier, but that's been my experience, right? When when I

1:33:45 realized, for instance, in the case of the podcast like wow, I've much more sponsor demand than I could ever fill. If I just double the number of episodes, I double the number of revenue. So why don't I do that? And it started to feel Like a bad job. Not a bad job. Still a great job, but the volume was too high. And I can imagine

1:34:05 If people take The expression I just mentioned, right? If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. They pursue X, whatever that is. the songwriting in the case and the performing in the case of Bob Dylan.

1:34:18 Danny Meyer, whatever it might be. And then they hit a really hard stretch. Yeah. Maybe it's early on. Maybe it's later. Maybe they're staging and some French guy yelling at them. And they're like, wow, God, you know, this really feels painful. Maybe this isn't my path. How do you distinguish

1:34:40 Between Growing pains. That are temporary. And an indication that You're not doing the right thing.

1:34:49 It's funny. I I'll take a short diversion in answering the question because people often ask me You know, how do you use AI? When I was wrapping up the book My publisher and editor said uh

1:35:01 Yeah, I want you to Right, the concluding chapter. And I wrote What.

1:35:06 I think most people would do, which is I just summarized the whole book and I submitted it to him. And he said No. This is no good. And so then I went to Chat GP T D research mode.

1:35:19 And I should. Tell me about the ten best. Nonfiction. Concluding chapters. That you know of.

1:35:28 And it went and did like a twenty page report. And send it to me. And What I noticed in reading that was that the most of these great Including chapters were a Ortogonal.

1:35:39 They weren't a summary. They were Kind of a different take. On the whole thing. Well my Including chapters now titled It Ain't Easy.

1:35:48 To your point. And I went through Um of the stories that we have in the book.

1:35:54 And I pulled out the darkest hour moments for each one of those people. And included it kinda at the end.'Cause I didn't want to leave people with the impression That it's just all Smiles and babies and hugs. I don't think that's true in any field.

1:36:11 And I guess. My answer would be, you know. Do you still feel this? Natural.

1:36:18 Curiosity to learn. The entire time. Is the impediment something D Is truly

1:36:26 means you should stop like I can't get around it. Is it something that maybe can be avoided, something I can get around? I push Heavily on the peer thing because one of the things a peer group can do This help you in those moments, both just from emotional support, but also to put perspective

1:36:45 On whatever the speed bump is and whether it's Insurmountable or not. Mentors can help with that too, but I think peers are better for that. Because y you worry about being judged in disclosing This

1:36:59 Yeah, a hundred percent. And so peers like don't judge. That's why that trust thing really matters also. Another reason why it matters. I think they can help you determine Whether that Yes. as big a blocker as it may seem like.

1:37:12 But there's gonna be some of that in any field. I don't think there's any run. It's just without pain. I'm also imagining That

1:37:22 One of the challenges that I had and Some of my friends had at different points in pursuing fill in the blank. Starting our first companies. Just beginning to invest.

1:37:34 having a career in X, right? When I got out of college, it was mass data storage. And hitting these really rough patches and feeling like You're the first person in the world to experience this. And it's because of your unique flaws. Or uniquely bad decisions.

1:37:50 And I'm just realizing now I haven't tried this, I'm sure it would work. That you could just describe the dark chapter you're going through and Can you give me any

1:38:02 Comparable examples from other people who have succeeded in other fields. It'll also give you Five Answers on how to deal with it or to get around. But by the way, one thing that's important when we're talking about this is Daniel Pink has this great book on regret. And he talks about it as a

1:38:18 valid motivator to get you to make good decisions. And There is A reality that that anxiety you may feel may mean you're not in

1:38:29 the right lane. And so when you were at that Sales job, you got to the point where you're like, Holy shit. I don't want to be doing this anymore. And

1:38:38 I had two careers before I became a V C one as an engineer and one as a cell site analyst. I enjoyed both. I think I was good at both. But I reached a point. About three years in with each, where I was like

1:38:50 I don't wanna do this the rest of my life. And so I would say Equally with like don't give up too early, but if the signal is really telling you I don't want to do this the rest of my life. Jump out. That's the precise moment to move on and try something new. And I spend a ton of time In the early chapters.

1:39:10 Trying to get people to understand that's okay. Most people don't end up in a career that their major was. Like I think one of the reasons People grind too long is because

1:39:22 They think they're supposed to. They just think they're supposed to stay in this lane they're in. How did you Conclude. It was time to hop. In those cases. We don't have to go into tons of the

1:39:35 background because we talked about so much your history. And decisions and so on, including I don't wanna say stealing palm pilots, but it's a pretty good story about getting a palm pilot. But Was it just a gut feeling? Was it like a disquiet that you felt in your system, or was it more than that?

1:39:51 I'm sure I've overplayed it in my brain, but they feel like very concrete moments where I had Almost near certainty. The first one was I started My third project at Compact Computer Corporation where I was an engineer.

1:40:05 And the projects were these Computers we're releasing. And The third one was Another computer with

1:40:14 A little faster clock speed and a Better intel too. But the rest of it was all the same. And we were gonna do it again. I'm like

1:40:23 Uh that doesn't seem that interesting to me. And I'd become curious about other things. So when I was Doing external learning, which is What I refer to as this kind of spare time learning. It wasn't.

1:40:36 That Yeah, It was something else. I was reading Peter Lynch's book on

1:40:42 Stocks and stuff like that. So segue to the sell side analyst. Yes. The thing that happened as a sell side analyst, and this gets into And I may parley this into uh Something from the Daniel Pink book, but This notion of do you want to do this the rest of your life, the South Side job is wonderful. You get access so early. in your life to so many amazing people. But

1:41:05 You have to work really hard. And You know, this classic thing where you're In your twenties and you're working on Wall Street. You know, they serve dinner at the office. Like

1:41:15 The cafeteria's open, that'll tell you something. And It was like ten thirty or eleven PM. And The entire research department was on the thirty sixth floor of Park Avenue Plaza.

1:41:25 And I did a loop. The four corner offices were the most senior analysts. And for whatever reason. I pop my head in each of their office. And they were

1:41:36 career self scientist analyst. I said, Do I want to be this person? When I'm sixty. It just stuck in my head. I went to the next one. Went to the next one. Hopefully I don't know who those people were, but

1:41:48 I was like no. I don't. Like that night. That night. I made the decision.

1:41:54 Did I got it. Go do something else. In Daniel Pink's book, he talks a lot about boldness regrets. And this is where I say do you want to do this the rest of your life? He says

1:42:04 One of the most robust findings in the academic research and my own is that over time we're as much more likely to regret the chances we didn't take than the chances we did. What haunts us is the inaction itself. Forgone opportunities all linger in the same way. And he says that they've studied this across China, Russia, Japan. Common across all of'em.

1:42:26 And you may have heard of this YouTube video where Bezos talks about his regret minimization framework. Yeah. Yeah. And so he had the same thing. He's walking around Central Park, should I Stay in this incredible job at DE Shaw where he's making tons of money. Or should I take this flyer on this online bookstore I want to do? And he put it in his mind that test, which is when I'm eighty and looking back, I'm gonna regret not doing this.

1:42:52 Yeah. Well makes me think of and this is also The dicey proposition quoting Niccolò Machiavelli, but make mistakes of ambition, not mistakes of sloth. Yes, right. Same thing.

1:43:04 And I do think about That's A lot myself. I mean I'm at a point where I'm trying to figure out my next chapters too,'cause This podcasting game's getting pretty crowded. It is.

1:43:14 And I still enjoy doing it, but that's only because I refuse to kind of play by the incentives that the platforms and algorithms provide, which is like economically punishing but intellectually rewarding. So Two successful careers is not just a Podcaster influencer, but as an angel investor I would

1:43:34 I would encourage you to read Arthur Brooke's book, Strength to Strength. I did. I did. It was great. It was great. It was great. I think it gives Great perspective for kind of a Later career. Yeah. Yeah, I should go back and and look at my notes from that book again.

1:43:49 So let's chat for a second. People should all check this out. I mean you're you're such a an operator, track records incredible. Running down a dream, how to thrive in a career you actually love. We'll talk about that again. We'll mention it again at the end. What do you want to do after this book? And you you can't sit on your hands very long. No, and I As I mentioned when I

1:44:08 Made the decision to Stop. The venture career, which I think we talked about on the last I guess we've never read the Steve Martin book. But

1:44:17 I didn't know. I knew I wanted to do something else and I Went on a listening tour and I Can you just reiterate what a listening tour is? Oh I just I identified several people who had

1:44:28 kind of successfully Retired's a strong word, but made a decision to stop doing a job. They were very successful that. And then What do you do now?

1:44:38 And it's similar to the Arthur Brooks book, but it was just a personal And Lot of people ain't doing best. A lot of people go on boards. A lot of people Manage their own money. I had this list.

1:44:50 Yeah. People teach. Yeah. Slowly. Checking'em off. Like scratching them out. Yeah, like don't really want to manage my own money. Don't really want to angel.

1:45:00 Yes. Don't Wanna start my own venture firm. I've done that. And so I found myself crossing'em all off and I couldn't discover something that got me excited and tied into this What are you doing with your external learning thing?

1:45:14 And slowly I've come around to an idea. That I made up. So it's not a career that other people have, but I think I'd like to start a policy institute. I've come up with a name P three, which stands for purpose progress.

1:45:27 And prosperity. When I was doing the B G two podcast, which I recently stepped away from. We did. A episode. At the Diablo Canyon nuclear facility.

1:45:39 And before I did that episode. I spent three or four weeks Calling everyone I knew. To make sure that I was prepared. for that. And that was one of our more successful episodes. And I just really enjoyed that.

1:45:53 I look at The Shifting mindset. around the globe on nuclear energy in the past five years. As an example

1:46:02 Oh. What's possible. With Really great policy work. And

1:46:08 It wasn't one person, I think. You know, the fact that Steve Pinker was Banging the drum was super important, but you know, and Dreessen and Elon and all these people. started pounding that same drum.

1:46:19 Jill Gebby's wife. made this like a big life passion project of ours. What? It's shocking how quick we went from this stuff's bad to oh no, we made a mistake. It's actually good.

1:46:31 And that could have a powerful impact on the planet. And so I don't know how many of those type things there are to find. I don't want to go grind on state by state. legislation. I don't have any interest in that. But looking at big problems, looking at US China relations. US healthcare system has some massive problems. Can you come up with

1:46:53 ideas that help Shift these things. And I've already got To know some really innovative professors who are thinking in very innovative ways. And I A look to

1:47:05 Use my Financial. Capabilities to do grant writing through people like that. See what we can go do. See what we can go change. Regulatory capture is another one. Mm-hmm. That I've spent time tilt at. So could you

1:47:18 Elaborate on what's If you're not doing this state by state. Legislative change. What does the work of P three potentially look like.

1:47:29 What is policy work? We're we're day one. So uh but I'll give you what might it look like. Yeah, here here's an example. A professor Approach me on the regulatory capture front. There's a Nobel Prize winner from the University of Chicago named George Stigler. He's passed away, but Who made the very strong argument.

1:47:52 That regulation is the friend of the incumbent. The large businesses Learn how to lobby Washington. And No matter how well intentioned a policy is that's passed.

1:48:04 It ends up. benefiting the incumbent more than restricting the incumbent. And He won a Nobel Prize for that work. I gave a speech at the All and Summit that you can go watch on YouTube. Has like five million views. on this topic, but I think this happens

1:48:19 The majority of the time. That's why A C H takes three days to clear, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. But stablecoin may solve that. But this professor approached me about making a global database that scores countries on how captured they are. Mm. And uh

1:48:35 identifies the best practices from the countries that have the best scores. That kind of thing, like investing in That type of data and transparency is pretty compelling to me. That's an example of what I might go do. Let me chew on that for a second. So let's say you create this.

1:48:52 data set. Presents these scores on a country by country basis. What are the hoped for outcomes of that that Countries that have worse scores start to model the countries with better scores.

1:49:05 Certainly there might be Talent flight from one place to another. I mean, we already see that in some respects. I mean, that's not purely regulatory capture. Determined, but when you share that data, what would the hope be? The hope would be that you can shine a light on The best practices and try to get those implemented. In other places. Yeah.

1:49:23 That would be the hope. And also I think just shining a light. On them. I'll give you an example that relates to regulatory capture. After you've been a senator or congressman for a while, you get invited on the committees. Yep.

1:49:36 The minute you're on a committee, you Or in charge of regulation that affects different industries. Well what happens I don't even know if most humans know this. What happens is Your local.

1:49:49 Senator or your local congressman who you think is representing your district. Now starts raising money national. They go around and meet with businesses that because they're on that committee. And have influence. And they're raising money.

1:50:02 Naturally. Like I think that's ridiculous, personally. And you could imagine Restrictions against that, transparency towards it.

1:50:11 Like If your congressman Represents. This zip code in Austin. Wouldn't you wanna know if they're raising money and

1:50:19 Minnesota. Isn't that a little unusual? Well, you shared a story last time we spoke about being asked to raise a hundred grand in donations just to get a meeting with the Congress. Our mutual friend Rich Barton. Talks about shining flashlights in dark places, this technology that we have access to.

1:50:37 I think donations should be on the blockchain, quite frankly. Like there's no reason why this information needs to be in the dark. I think there's a lot of opportunity. Around data aggregation. Any other ideas that are percolating?

1:50:50 I'm Enamored by Uh state versus state competition. Part of it. Pops into my brain.

1:50:58 From the China experience in the provincial competition. Right. But You know, you see Newsom and Abbott. You know, fighting back and forth. And maybe there can be a positive outcome from this. Mm-hmm.

1:51:11 I think some of the federalist papers Kind of envisioned. Mm. different states could try different experiments and we could see What happens as a result of that. But

1:51:20 We are seeing some of it. And could lead to positive change. I'd love to see I have this dream. Dead.

1:51:32 Some State. And maybe This state that we're sitting in that has a surplus. Would do something crazy with

1:51:40 Teacher salaries. Like what if a state just All of a sudden said we're gonna pay fifty percent more for teachers. Yeah. Think about the dynamic that would create. Pretty wild. Would be. So Maybe I'll go tilt it down too. So other problems on your mind. Well just

1:51:57 Present a list here from Some prep notes. We have US healthcare. Regulatory capture, intellectual property, US China, Fairness and Financial Markets, US K twelve. Could you speak to intellectual property and fairness in financial markets? How you might be thinking about those?

1:52:14 Intellectual property is I gotta be at top. Ten thousand percent uh supporter of open source. Yep. And this gets back to Ridley's book The Rational Optimist, but He talks about

1:52:25 Prosperity comes. When Ideas have sex. And just the sharing of information. in my mind should be free. That it it shouldn't cost anything.

1:52:35 And It's Very unclear to me that the patent system actually adds value. I'm quite doubtful. Yeah. The human mind wouldn't innovate.

1:52:45 If it didn't come with a seventeen year financial protection. Like I just I'm doubtful of that. There's great scientists at every university. Working on problems that aren't necessarily being patented.

1:52:57 And Your ability for hyper competition and innovation is so much higher when there aren't restrictions. Voice. I think the world's a better place when ideas are

1:53:08 Or shared and not protected. Since the system we're working with is the system we're currently working with, how might something like drug development Work. Without patent protection. Here's an interesting thing. The NIH gives out forty billion dollars a year.

1:53:22 And a lot of that money goes to companies that end up getting venture capital back. I've had some very open fights with people about this. Yeah. So why doesn't an NIH grant come with a open source writer? Yeah. And so if the VCs want to federal funding require Yeah, it's federal funding. Yeah, I agree with that. And right now.

1:53:42 There's a big fight over whether just their research papers have to go on non Private. networks instead of the private ones they're on today. I mean, they just want the information out there. Like that's a minor step. I would consider a major step. And you don't have to take the money. Why is the US government giving people money that ends up becoming

1:54:01 Proprietary inventions. That makes no sense. Yeah, whether it's the US government or individual philanthropists or foundations. I mean on some level. If that then at some point I agree with that. But are there industries that I mean the only one that first came to mind was drug development, where the cost are so high. They all cry. The V Cs will tell you it'll never work. We don't have any incentives if we don't have a seventeen year protection. The entire silicon bill I'm not saying I've been.

1:54:31 If someone comes into our office and talks about patents. We roll our eyes because none of the types of businesses that we've backed at benchmark in Silicon Valley are ever about patents. Elon It's famously open source to all as

1:54:48 Tesla Pans like Such a bold thing to do and so gracious I think really to society. But his point Is Oddly, I was talking to Ted Cruz about this and he said, Yeah, Elon thinks the same thing.

1:55:02 Like he views the edge of competition is How fast are you moving? How great are your products? The consumers love'em.

1:55:11 Not can I defend'em in a court of law. And the protection that the drug Guys kid is so much. No one can really use software patents to like get protection uh an algorithm or something. Like no one even tries.

1:55:26 But with drugs, if I have this particular Genome sequence all of a sudden like I get This huge proprietary window in the market.

1:55:35 This is nutty. This is not exactly the same thing, but What a service to humanity. I was just watching I think the documentary name. People can watch it for free on YouTube and other places, The Thinking Game. About deep mind. And Demis and his team rele releasing Alpha Fold. I mean, all the structures of these proteins. I mean, it's just like, oh my God.

1:55:54 What an incredible right there. The the original Well Open source. Open AI doesn't exist with uh

1:56:06 Yeah. Discovery which happened at Google. Yeah. In open source. You know, they just exploited it the fastest. Yeah.

1:56:13 Wild. And by the way, this I mean, not to divert too much back, but right now China has Ten open source AI models, they're all in hyper competition with each other. That is a Dangerously effective.

1:56:29 Primordial soup. For innovation compared to what we have here. How does I mean I should probably know this, but I don't. How does China handle What are the policies around and laws around intellectual property? Interestingly, I found a document online that someone had put together a Power about

1:56:48 the history of open source at China and it's twenty years old. So it's not Like they just stumbled into it. I think When you consider that You know, go back twenty years ago, the primary criticisms of China was that they stole I P. And so if you're the Chinese government

1:57:06 And there's this new thing called open source. You're gonna embrace it. Because There's no fault. Yeah.

1:57:13 Because everyone's sharing and everyone And so You know, if you look at the big open source projects, Linux, MySQL, and you go on the web pages, like you'll see Alibaba. You know, ten cent. Like these companies have been supporting these technologies for a while.

1:57:29 But Every five years they write this five year plan. Yeah, the Chinese government. Puts it out. Five years ago they had a huge section on open source. So they're clearly

1:57:40 Suggesting to the uh entrepreneurs that the government favors that approach. And Going back to Ridley's book and the notion of pure competition, I think This is a rational optimist. Yeah. I think the society benefits from that.

1:57:55 I use this. Example. Imagine There's two feudal societies that are Oh. Agricultural base. There's two of them though.

1:58:03 In one. Once a week the farmers come to market. And Just trade goods and then they leave. And the other one The farmers come to market and they're

1:58:12 required to share their best practices with everybody else and then they leave. Going back to this peer kinda example in the book. That one's gonna be be much more performant than the other. And this gets to Ridley's point.

1:58:26 Bad ideas. Having sex. I mean open source also, we we talked about this a decent amount in our last conversation, but It can be used as an incredible strategy or counter punch. From for profit companies.

1:58:42 Like Android. I mean, my God. I mean it's like you can do a lot. It's an incredibly powerful tool. I think that using open source as a defensive tool instead of An offensive tool is one of the most sophisticated

1:58:56 Corporate strategies. company can possibly do. It's very hard to do because it goes against all of your instincts, but I would suggest. Yeah. Amazon and Apple.

1:59:08 And maybe Mana. Who has toyed with it. Should be. run at the idea of jointly supporting An open source model.

1:59:17 Mm. I don't think they're doing it, but I think they should. Because their incumbency's at risk. Yeah. Someone else.

1:59:26 has a massive proprietary advantage. Mm-hmm. Fairness in financial markets. What does that mean? You know, I've been tilting against this insider's game of the IPO market for some time and

1:59:38 I'm very passionate. Yeah. Does that come up with the luxury of retirement or maybe I mean if you tilt against the uh investment banks you gotta be comfortable not going to conferences, that's for sure. They owe some really nice funds.

1:59:56 You fall off the invite and Real quick. The way that an IPO is price is so God awful. Stupid.

2:00:05 Who gets the stock and they pick the price and I've said it over and over again, but a freshman comp size student and a freshman They would just match supply and demand anonymously. Like it's how every bond is priced.

2:00:21 It's interestingly how every Initial coin offering works. And so I've become a Late to the game crypto enthusiasts.

2:00:31 Because I'm so sick of this damn IPO process being broken. Could you say a bit more about how it's broken? Like just walk us through a hypothetical example of why it's broken. Yeah, when a company's coming public. The bankers Literally.

2:00:45 They ask everyone for orders, but then they pick who gets the stock and they pick the price. Supply and demand can automatically pick the allocation and the price. It's not automatically the wrong word. Can algorithmically like This is super easy. Like it's not hard. Why don't they do it that way? Because they're handing free money to their clients. There we go. That's what I was looking for. Yeah, no, it's been known for a long time. I uncovered an email from nineteen ninety nine.

2:01:13 Goldman Sachs, which I've posted on Twitter several times, where they're like saying, Oh, we can use this hot stock to reward our top clients. Like They know what's going on. And the the fact that the SEC doesn't Get involved really. Bothers me. But this tokenization thing Is there real

2:01:30 way to get around it because The crypto community's already Decided to use algorithms to Allocate. And determine price.

2:01:39 Like the price and the allocation should just be determined. It's how direct listing works. Like everyone knows how to do it. They just don't do it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's horrible. There's other things too.

2:01:50 In this category. The The long Kind of. Prevalence of Visa MasterCard is just ridiculous.

2:01:58 Two and a half percent. And stable coins. Have so much momentum right now. I just think. Those two companies are gonna be in real trouble within a five year window.

2:02:09 By the way, most of the financial problems Or Pure regulatory capture. Like the reason that there's a problem. Mm-hmm.

2:02:16 And just to Tell me if I'm explaining this well,'cause I'm not sure we said it this directly, but basically the incumbents help to write laws. And regulations that favor them and prevent newcomers. After oh nine we wrote this thing Dod Frank like And we thought

2:02:33 Oh we're gonna Make things better and all you've had is consolidation and banking since uh And if you look at the offering, especially the low end for the poorest Citizens of the US. Like free checking went away.

2:02:47 The poor people have a hard time paying their bills, so they don't even have the tools to do it. Because free checking went a free checking went away after Dod Frank. Right. So just to please push back from oversimplifying this, but regulatory capture is not just bad for startups in Silicon Valley who hope to grow and disrupt and fill in the blank. It's also

2:03:06 bad for Everybody. Oh. horrible for consumers. I mean the the US healthcare situation Which seems to be getting worse on a daily basis is a Huge example of regulatory care. Somewhere

2:03:20 In the past ten years they just told physicians they can't run hospitals. Who other than a doctor is gonna go start a new hospital? Like the amount of competition you eliminated in this One swoop. Is Enormous.

2:03:34 Just enormous. No, that's just a single example, but there's Hundreds of them in that in that area. What would success be for this book six months after It comes out.

2:03:45 What will lead you to have been happy with putting the time in? It's taken a while. That's take a lot of work. What do you hope the outcome will be? It really started as a passion project and I I have no financial goals for whatsoever. In fact

2:03:58 I'm gonna As we get to book launch, I'm gonna launch a foundation that gives grants to people who want to chase their dream job, but don't have The financial Where was all to do it?

2:04:10 And so I'm gonna Start working on that in addition to P three. For me it's all about You know, how many people

2:04:18 Do I affect in the way that McConnell, his dad did or the D this book did for Seinfeld. Like some of'em saw the talk uh on YouTube. From

2:04:28 the U T presentation that I gave and have already reached out and said thank you and they've shared how it changed your life. But The more people I can do that for, I will just be tickled pink. I'd just be so excited. Because I think When people

2:04:42 Get out of this pragmatic lane and go do these types of things. They tend to be Unusually successful, which I think then has a Bigger impact. And just on them themselves.

2:04:54 The number of humans positively impacted by Danny Myers. Success. Is In the thousands, I'm certain. Yeah, I'm not counting customers. Shake shit.

2:05:06 So people Check it out. I love your writing. Don't You're not just a commentator, right? You've been an operator. You've observed a lot of operators, studied outliers.

2:05:19 And People who've chosen X instead of A, B, or C. The book is Running Down a Dream, How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love. Check it out, folks. People can find you on X At B. Girly, of course. they want to see just a landing page, they can go to benchmark.com. Anywhere else you'd like to point people or anything else you'd like to mention before we start the landing plan? Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thanks, Bill. And for everybody

2:05:46 watching and listening, we will have a link to everything we mentioned. We mentioned a lot. Of things. And a lot of references and resources. Just go to Tim.blog slash podcast. You can check all that out. And until next time, as always, be a bit kinder than is necessary to others and to yourself. But look for X when people give you A, B, or C, or when you think you're limited to A, B, and C.

2:06:08 Till next time. Thanks. Tune it out. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short

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