Timothy Ferriss's Blog, page 34

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This blog post is a very special holiday edition of “5-Bullet Friday,” my very own email newsletter! For twice the fun, we have twice the number of bullets.

It features ten of my favorite things, all of which make great holiday gifts. I also reached out to brands I love to get special deals for subscribers. I use many of these products on a daily or weekly basis. Each sponsored bullet is indicated with a star at the end of it, just like this sentence.*

I dislike shopping, but I do love finding the perfect gift. Finding that gift, though, gets harder with time. Those damn adults seem to have everything. So… If you’re having trouble thinking up great options, here are some goodies that deliver.

“5-Bullet Friday” is a short email of five bullet points, sent out each Friday, and it has become somewhat famous for crashing websites (AKA “the hug of death,” as one reader put it). Each newsletter describes the five coolest things I’ve found or explored that week, often including books, gadgets, experimental supplements, tricks from experts, and weird stuff from all over the world. If the spirit moves you, subscribe for free here. 

Enjoy!

Gadget I’m loving —
Roost – Adjustable and Portable Laptop Stand. On the road, I spotted a coder using one of these in a Starbucks. I crept over and waved to get his attention. Once he’d taken off his headset, I asked him how much he liked the ultralight laptop stand. He answered with a dead-serious stare and a poker face, “I LOVE this laptop stand. My posture has immediately improved, and I complete many more actions per minute.” Gotta love engineers… and he was right. This is a fantastic device. I’m using it in combination with the wireless Apple Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard. It’s the perfect size for on-the-go work or travel.

Eye mask I’m loving —
Alaska Bear® Natural Silk Sleep Mask. This was recommended to me by Dr. Peter Attia (@peterattiamd) on his 2019 podcast appearance. He takes one everywhere. I’ve tried many eye masks and was skeptical—aren’t they all basically the same?—but the Alaska Bear is an upgrade. The design checks a couple of basic but critical boxes: (1) it allows you to tighten the head strap, and (2) the soft material blocks light from entering under the bottom edge of the eye mask. If the ridiculous name isn’t enough, you can also choose many ridiculous patterns for your personalized sleep fashion needs.

High-quality meat and fish I’m cooking —
ButcherBox is my go-to trusted source for high-quality meats and proteins (outside of venison). They deliver 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef; free-range organic chicken; humanely raised pork; and wild-caught seafood directly to your doorstep at the frequency you choose. I love cooking with friends and family, and ButcherBox makes it easier to co-create delicious meals, whether a light fish dish or the best ribs you’ve ever had. ButcherBox also cares deeply about animal welfare, supporting the livelihood of farmers, and treating ecosystems with respect. They’re B Corp certified, which means they prioritize meeting the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. ButcherBox is giving you early access to their best Black Friday deal ever: Sign up and you’ll receive two 10 oz New York strip steaks for FREE in every box you order for a year.*

Coffee I am enjoying —
Four Sigmatic. You’ve heard me talk about these guys for years. I love their mushroom coffee with lion’s mane. It’s delicious, I recommend it, I gift it to my employees, and I give it to my houseguests. It’s my solution when I need to recharge but want to avoid the jitters I sometimes get from regular coffee. Their Reishi Elixir has also been a game changer for sleep. In the spirit of the holidays, Four Sigmatic is giving “5-Bullet Friday” subscribers up to 44% OFF their popular mushroom coffee. Simply visit FourSigmatic.com/Tim44. In previous offers to this newsletter, Four Sigmatic products have sold out in less than 24 hours, so the early bird gets the worm.*

Tech tool I am enjoying —
Logitech BRIO Ultra HD 4K Webcam. I’ve always used my built-in MacBook lens for podcasting, Zoom, and so on. I looked into getting a prosumer setup with a great Sony camera, but I wasn’t motivated enough to fuss with lots of setup on a laptop that is by definition going to move a lot. This BRIO webcam was the middle ground I found, and I love it. What’s most remarkable and surprising is that, although I bought it to improve the other side’s experience, it makes my own experience of video chats much more enjoyable and much easier on the eyes. Here’s the official description: “Brio is a remarkable piece of technology that streams crystal-clear video with superb resolution, frame rate, color, and detail, including autofocus and 5x HD zoom. Brio delivers 4K Ultra HD video at 30 fps, HD 1080p at either 30 or 60 fps, and HD 720p at 30, 60, or an ultra-smooth 90 fps for outstanding clarity, smoothness, and detail.”

Sleep technology I’m using every night —
Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover. This holiday season, give yourself or a loved one a gift that keeps getting better night after night with the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover. Good sleep has been one of my top priorities this year, and the Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep has been revolutionary. It’s helped me practically every night of 2021. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. The technology adjusts the temperature of each side of the bed based on your sleep stages, biometrics, and bedroom temperature, reacting intelligently to create the optimal sleeping environment. I like to sleep cool, my girlfriend likes to sleep warm, and this is the best solution I’ve found. Eight Sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by up to 40%, and get more restful sleep overall. This holiday season, give the gift of better sleep and a present that will keep on giving every day of the year. Go to EightSleep.com/Tim to get $250 off(!) of the Pod Pro Cover.* 

What I’m rereading and gifting —
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (@charliemackesy). This short and beautiful book was gifted to me by my mom. “This book is for everyone, whether you are eighty or eight,” as the introduction puts it. It looks like a children’s book, and you can read it in 30 minutes, but it’s replete with wisdom for adults. To give you an idea of how popular this book has become, it has 86,166 ratings on Amazon and an average of 5 stars.

Wine I’m drinking with family and friends —
Dry Farm Wines. I love wine with friends, and I’ll be drinking during the holidays, but I hate hangovers. For that reason, and for the past year, most of the wine in my house has been from Dry Farm Wines. In my experience, their wine means more fun with fewer headaches. Dry Farm Wines only ships wines that meet very stringent criteria: practically sugar-free (less than 0.15g per glass), lower alcohol (less than 12.5%), additive-free (there are more than 70 FDA-approved wine-making additives), lower sulfites, organic, and produced by small family farms. All Dry Farm Wines are laboratory tested for purity standards by a certified, independent enologist, and all of their wines are also backed by a 100% Happiness Promise—they will either replace or refund any wine you do not love. Dry Farm Wines has a special offer just for “5-Bullet Friday” subscribers—an extra bottle in your first box for just one extra penny. Check out all the details at DryFarmWines.com/Tim.*

What I’m putting in my coffee and tea —
Laird Superfood. I love Laird Superfood products, especially their creamers, which turn any coffee or tea into a functional superfood latte in seconds. Laird Superfood creamers are incredibly rich and delicious, completely plant-based, and contain naturally occurring MCTs. These creamers are also shelf-stable, which means they last longer and travel better than your old creamer. They come in a range of amazing flavors, including original, unsweetened, turmeric, pumpkin spice, and cacao. I’m a junkie for turmeric and cacao. Right now and for a limited time, you can get 20% off of your order of $40 or more when you use code TIM20 at checkout. Laird products are real-food fuel and supplements with nothing artificial. Check out LairdSuperfood.com/Tim to see some of my favorite products and learn more. Some exclusions apply, and this offer cannot be combined with other offers.*

Tech gadget that I’m using daily —
Anker Nano II 65W (Amazon, official website). Tired of carrying around that gigantic brick of a MacBook charger? Check out the photos at either of the above links. This tiny replacement is incredible. Huge thanks to our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Kevin Rose (@KevinRose)! Description: “Anker Nano II has the power you need to fast charge your phone, tablet, and USB-C notebook from a single, tiny charger. Charge a 2020 MacBook Air in less than 2 hours, a MacBook Pro 13ʺ at full speed, an iPhone 12 up to 3× faster than with an original 5W charger.…”

And, as always, please give me feedback on Twitter. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know. Just send a tweet to @tferriss and put #5BulletFriday at the end so I can find it.

Have a wonderful weekend, all.

Much love to you and yours,

Tim

P.S. If you’re looking for good causes to support this holiday season, I just used Endaoment (@endaomentdotorg) to set up my foundation to receive donations in cryptocurrency. Check out some of our projects here.

“God is love. Love is the ultimate god, so loving everything and everybody and not being filled with hate or animosity or fear and trying to find love. To me, that’s the ultimate in life.”

— David Blaine

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.

You’ll get plenty of that in this special episode, which features my interview with David Blaine from my 2017 TV Show Fear{less}. The “less” is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless.

Fear{less} features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they’ve overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big.

It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. You can find the video of this episode on YouTube.com/TimFerriss, and eventually you’ll be able to see all episodes for free at YouTube.com/TimFerriss.

Spearheaded by actor/producer and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn, Wild West Productions has produced a string of hit movies including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Break-Up.

In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric The Entertainer. In addition to Fear{less}, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN’s 30 for 30 episode about the ’85 Bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#546: Master Magician David Blaine — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

This episode is brought to you by “5-Bullet Friday,” my very own email newsletter, which every Friday features five bullet points highlighting cool things I’ve found that week, including apps, books, documentaries, gadgets, albums, articles, TV shows, new hacks or tricks, and—of course—all sorts of weird stuff I’ve dug up from around the world.

It’s free, it’s always going to be free, and you can subscribe now at tim.blog/friday.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear an episode with David’s friend and mentor Bryan Callen? Listen to our conversation in which we discuss the craft of comedy, fixing education, habits and tricks for boosting creativity, the process of writing, the general pursuit of excellence, eating corgis, and more.

#47: Bryan Callen on Eating Corgis (Yes, The Dogs) and Improving Creativity SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with David Blaine:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Tim Ferriss | YouTubeWild West Productions | TwitterBlaine’s Pain – Magic Man Meets Waterlog Waterloo as Breath Bid Fails | New York PostNavy Video Shows SEAL ‘Drown-Proofing’ Exercises | The Washington PostDavid Blaine: How I Held My Breath for 17 Minutes | TEDMEDBicycle Standard Face Playing Cards | AmazonLuggage, Backpacks, Bags & More | TUMIRikers Island | WikipediaDavid Blaine: Street Magic | NetflixR. Paul Wilson On the Real Secret of Three Card Monte Trick | Casino.orgHow Does Cold Reading Work? | Vanishing Inc. Magic ShopThe Nobel PrizeSiddhartha by Hermann Hesse | AmazonAbove the Below | David BlaineEverything You Should Know About Refeeding Syndrome | HealthlineRefeeding David Blaine — Studies after a 44-Day Fast | New England Journal of MedicineDavid Blaine Went on an Epic Quest to Learn How to Regurgitate Frogs | VultureWatch David Blaine Push an Ice Pick Through His Hand for Alec Baldwin | WNYCThe Spooky Effects of Sleep Deprivation | Live ScienceAnishinabe Dreams | Native American NetrootsSleep Deprivation as a Form of Torture | OptalertVertigo | David BlaineEntomophobia: Why You May Be Afraid of Bugs | Terminix BlogYes, Hippos Kill ‘Around 500 People a Year in Africa’ | Africa CheckStoicism for Modern Stresses: 5 Lessons from Cato | Daily StoicRebecca Sings Karaoke | Ted LassoHound Dog by Elvis Presley | Amazon MusicHow To Learn Close-Up Magic Like Ant-Man | BustleThe Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | AmazonJerry Seinfeld: Comedian | NetflixBrooke Army Medical CenterSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

A time when one of David’s public feats went sideways, and why things went awry.How long can I hold my breath?How David’s childhood prepared him to test his superhuman abilities, and what his mother did to encourage his capacity for imagination and support an early interest in magic.How enduring his mother’s fight with (and eventual loss to) cancer and candid advice from someone famous for fighting informed the way David lives his life.David shares what happened the night he got arrested for jumping a subway turnstile and wound up in a holding cell with some rough characters.The generalities that make people easy to read with enough practice, and what magician Harvey Cohen taught David about controlling audience expectations with a simple and understated approach.With his heart set on making a career in magic, why did David go to acting school?What David did to compensate for growing up without a father figure.When did David start fasting, and why?Have any of David’s endurance stunts wound up being more dangerous than he expected they would be?What does magic mean to David, and is it possible to take it too far?Are there any tricks or stunts that David hasn’t yet been able to figure out?Has David learned anything from hallucinations brought about by sleep deprivation?What does David fear?What everyday feats from the mundane world are beyond David’s ken?What is David’s secret reserve of strength for those times he feels his body or mind can’t push through?One of David’s childhood superstitions.How can someone maximize results if they’ve only got 90 days to prepare for a close-up magic performance?What is David focused on learning right now?What does “success” mean to David, and who does he think about when this word comes to mind?What drives David’s continuing pursuit of magic?David performs a couple of tricks for the live audience.What would David’s billboard say?MORE DAVID BLAINE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“God is love. Love is the ultimate god, so loving everything and everybody and not being filled with hate or animosity or fear and trying to find love—to me, that’s the ultimate in life.”
— David Blaine

“When I was five I said to my mom, ‘I’m going to be a magician one day.’ And she went, ‘That’s amazing.'”
— David Blaine

“I’ve been obsessed with fasting since I was a kid, but I think it started when my mother gave me Siddhartha to read, the Hermann Hesse book. I read it when I was 11 years old. In it, he fasts and he stands and he does these things where he sees the world in a different way, and he realizes that he can control his body with his mind.”
— David Blaine

“One night I jumped over a turnstile and that’s when Giuliani was sweeping everybody, so I got locked up. But as I was going there, I kept breaking out of the cuffs for the cops.”
— David Blaine

PEOPLE MENTIONEDVince VaughnMandy-Rae CruickshankPatrice Maureen WhiteKing KongMike TysonHarvey CohenBryan CallenOrson WellesJean-Eugène Robert-HoudinHermann HesseMac NortonHadji AliHarry HoudiniCatoSenecaA.J. JacobsJerry SeinfeldBill Gates

Illustration via 99designs

“It was deeply embedded in my soul, and I was singularly focused. To this day, I commiserate with my wife: I’m the opposite of a Renaissance man. I have been embedded in the world of restaurants and food and cooking for the entirety of my adult life.”

— Marco Canora

After years working with and training under Danny Meyer and Tom Colicchio at Gramercy Tavern and Craft, Chef Marco Canora (@marcocanora) opened Hearth in the East Village in 2003, before the neighborhood was a culinary destination. In 2014, Marco kicked off America’s embrace of bone broth with Brodo, serving bone broth in coffee cups out of a side window at Hearth. Over the years, Brodo has been recognized consistently as a bone broth pioneer in outlets such as The New York Times, Time, and Good Morning America. Visit Brodo.com to order some bone broth for yourself, or visit one of their several locations in New York City.

Marco’s first cookbook, Salt to Taste: The Key to Confident, Delicious Cooking was nominated for a James Beard Award. He is also the author of A Good Food Day and Brodo: a Bone Broth Cookbook.

Marco has been profiled in The New York Times, Serious Eats, and Food & Wine. He was a finalist on The Next Iron Chef, a judge on Chopped and Top Chef, and he has appeared on Today, The Chew, Good Morning America, Martha Stewart, and Nightline. In May 2017, Marco won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: New York City.

He lives, cooks, and gardens with his wife and two children in Yonkers, NY.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#545: Marco Canora — The Art of Food, Eating, Nutrition, and Life

This episode is brought to you by Vuori clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at VuoriClothing.com/Tim. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but you’ll also enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns.

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM. 

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear an episode detailing how another restaurateur changed strategy to survive the pandemic? Listen to my conversation with Nick Kokonas, in which we discussed asymmetric risk-taking, safety steps in uncertain crises, pivoting from fine dining to carryout/delivery, recapitalization, managing supply chain disruptions, common but counterproductive mistakes made in the restaurant industry, Nick’s dad’s three-shoebox business finance model, and more.

#429: Nick Kokonas on Resurrecting Restaurants, Skin in the Game, and InvestingSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Marco Canora:

Hearth | Brodo | Instagram

Quality Bone Broth | Brodo Salt to Taste: The Key to Confident, Delicious Cooking by Marco Canora and Cathy Young | AmazonA Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great: A Cookbook by Marco Canora and Tammy Walker | AmazonBrodo: A Bone Broth Cookbook by Marco Canora | AmazonThe 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonCabernet Franc | Wine FollyWhere to Buy 2010 Bernard Baudry Chinon Le Clos Guillot, Loire | Wine SearcherDean & DeLucaThe Culinary Institute of AmericaThe Pros and Cons of Staging in a Restaurant | EaterUse “Mise en Place” to Make Meal Preparation Easier | UNL FoodGramercy TavernYes, You Have Too Many Tabs Open on Your Computer — and Your Brain is Probably to Blame | Mental FlossGourmet Magazine | WikipediaCelebrity Chef Lidia Bastianich Closes Felidia After Four Decades in Midtown | Eater NYPace UniversityTrailing Jonathan Benno’s Restaurant | EsquireContinuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) | Cleveland ClinicMetabolic Fitness Program | LevelsA Short Walk After Meals Is All It Takes to Lower Blood Sugar | HealthlineWalking after Eating – Ancient Folk Wisdom, Modern Science | Institute for Classical Asian MedicineMacronutrients: Learn About Carbohydrates, Proteins & Fats | Inner Body7 Powerful Food Combos to Control Diabetes | Everyday Health12 Glucose-Lowering Strategies to Improve Metabolic Fitness | LevelsContinuous Glucose Monitoring | Dexcom CGMOura RingEight SleepAlcohol and Sleep | Sleep FoundationKetamine Offers Lifeline for People with Severe Depression, Suicidal Thoughts | CNNBanya Hats | EtsyThe Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper | AmazonMetabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine by Robert H. Lustig | AmazonHow Is Canola Oil Really Made? | PreventDiseaseTVThe NOVA Food Classification System | EduChangeBrodo Chef Marco Canora Will Cook From a Window Just For You | La Cucina ItalianaGnocci at Hearth | OzerskyTVThis Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace | AmazonEssentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan | AmazonThe Essential Guide to Riesling Wine | Wine FollyAre Saunas the Next Big Performance-Enhancing “Drug?” | Tim FerrissMedicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets by Mark J. Plotkin | AmazonPlants of the Gods — Dr. Mark Plotkin on Ayahuasca, Shamanic Knowledge, the Curse and Blessing of Coca, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #508Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat by Marion Nestle | AmazonSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

“Pardon my French, but does this Cabernet Franc taste assy to you?”The Mantra.Why would Marco rather hire someone who’s done a year of staging over a fresh culinary school graduate? For that matter, what does he mean by staging?How did Marco get into cooking, and at what point did he consider it his calling?What would people who have worked with Marco consider his superpowers?The most common reasons someone might crumble under the pressure of a New York City restaurant kitchen, and the default stance of mise en place Marco suggests for alleviating this likelihood.The hands-off type of mentorship that allowed Marco to grow and shine in places like Gramercy Tavern, and why Marco was able to thrive under these circumstances where others might literally be going up and down the stairs all day.What type of reading keeps Marco constantly connected to what’s going on in his industry?Why Marco is on a mission to spread the gospel of cooking.How Marco narrowed down the list of restaurants where he wanted to work upon arriving in New York City, what that initial job hunt looked like, and the pitch that got the people he wanted to work for interested in giving him a “trail.”What’s expected of a prospective hire on one of these trails?Why did Marco decide to monitor his blood sugar with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), and what did he learn from the experience?“If you walk a hundred steps after you eat, you will live to be 99.”Combine the macronutrients.Why I’m eager to try the new generation of CGMs, and what I’ve learned about the effects of alcohol and temperature on my sleep thanks to the Oura Ring and Eight Sleep.How Marco protected his CGM in the sauna.It’s not what’s in the food, it’s what’s been done to the food. What is the NOVA classification system, how does it aim to make the level of processing through which our food goes more transparent, and why should this concern the average consumer?What is Brodo, how did it help Marco and Hearth survive the pandemic, and what flavors have been popular?How is Brodo now being brought to the masses, and what does Marco envision for the company’s future?What would Marco’s billboard say?Books Marco has gifted the most.“Favorite” failure.One reason you should never underestimate the little nagging things in a relationship — whether it’s personal or professional.Sauna talk.If the science isn’t working as intended, make sure you didn’t just forget to add the crab, that the research funding wasn’t sponsored by special interests, or that the great-great-great-great grandparents didn’t have some since-forgotten but very good reason for planting crops in weird places.Parting thoughts.MORE MARCO CANORA QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I do believe that we could have a [Brodo] shop for every 50 Starbucks in the world because broth as a hot beverage is incredible. There’s a lot to it, and I would put it up against coffee any day of the week.”
— Marco Canora

“Cook your own food. I think our obsession with convenience and our beliefs that we can outsource something as important as cooking has been one of the main drivers in the ill health of this country.”
— Marco Canora

“Say less because it’s a better test.”
— Marco Canora

“Take a walk after you eat. The power of a walk to reduce the spike of your blood sugar, regardless of what you eat, is extraordinary.”
— Marco Canora

“Cooking is an incredible process that engages all of your senses, that gives you a high reward—from health to flavor, to community, to connectivity, to other people—and it’s really a path to so many of the things that I think we need to be better humans.”
— Marco Canora

PEOPLE MENTIONEDJeffrey ZurofskyLaura SbranaTom ColicchioDiane ForleyLidia BastianichDanny MeyerFrank LipmanDavid Foster WallaceMarcella HazanP.T. BarnumPeter AttiaMark Plotkin

Illustration via 99designs

“We invested a billion dollars in a hundred different cleantech companies, and most of them failed. Failures come with the territory in the innovation business. But we stood by these entrepreneurs, and that billion dollars today is worth three billion. What I learned from that experience is that cleantech takes more time, more money, more guts, with longer horizons.”

— John Doerr

John Doerr (@johndoerr) is an engineer, venture capitalist, the chair of Kleiner Perkins, and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Measure What Matters. His new book is Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.

John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley’s cleantech movement, John has invested in zero-emission technologies since 2006. He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning.

Outside Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs who are tackling systemic issues across climate, public health, and education.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by ShipStation shipping software; Allform premium, modular furniture; and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement. More on all three below.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#543: Legendary Investor John Doerr on Picking Winners — From Google in 1999 to Solving the Climate Crisis Now

This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. Do you sell stuff online? Then you know what a pain the shipping process is. ShipStation was created to make your life easier. Whether you’re selling on eBay, Amazon, Shopify, or over 100 other popular selling channels, ShipStation lets you access all of your orders from one simple dashboard, and it works with all of the major shipping carriers, locally and globally, including FedEx, UPS, and USPS. 

Tim Ferriss Show listeners get to try ShipStation free for 60 days by using promo code TIM. There’s no risk, and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in TIM!

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

This episode is brought to you by Allform! If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about Helix Sleep mattresses, which I’ve been using since 2017. They’ve launched a new company called Allform, and they’re making premium, customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door—at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. You can pick your fabric (and they’re all spill, stain, and scratch resistant), the sofa color, the color of the legs, and the sofa size and shape to make sure it’s perfect for you and your home.

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear another episode with someone committed to saving the world? Listen to my conversation with Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan, in which we discuss monkey birthday cakes, tips for frequent travelers, subjects crucial to a balanced education, the power of crossing disciplines, storytelling to rule the world, common misconceptions about conservation, why the people of today are in a unique time and place to save the planet, what we can do to cultivate long-term thinking, and much more.

#285: Overcoming Doubt, Battling the Busy Trap, and Enhancing Life — M. SanjayanSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with John Doerr:

speedandscale.com | Twitter | Kleiner Perkins | LinkedIn

Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now by John Doerr | AmazonMeasure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth by John Doerr | AmazonIntel at 50: The 8080 Microprocessor | Intel NewsroomThe Traitorous Eight | WikipediaOKRs: How VC John Doerr Sets (and Achieves) Goals | HBRThe Gates FoundationHealthcare Data & Analytics Solutions | NunaVenture Capital | InvestopediaGenentechTandem Computers | WikipediaHow We Started and Where We Are Today | GoogleJohn Doerr’s OKR Presentation | Google SlidesPopular Search Engines in the ’90s: Then and Now | WebFXEverything You Need to Know about Google PageRank | Semrush BlogVisualizing the Quantities of Climate Change | NASAGigaton Carbon Removal and the Paris Climate Agreement | Atlantic CouncilSchool Strike for Climate | WikipediaThe Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells | AmazonIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) at the SEC – Glasgow 2021XI Says China Will Stop Building New Coal-Fired Power Plants Abroad | NBC NewsCOP26 Aims to Banish Coal. Asia Is Building Hundreds of Power Plants to Burn It | ReutersMeet The Fisker Ocean | Fisker, Inc.Electric Cars, Solar & Clean Energy | TeslaAn Inconvenient Truth | Prime VideoLike Father, like Offspring? Mary Doerr, Daughter of Legendary VC, Launches Inconvenient Youth | VentureBeatIntroducing the Green Premiums | Bill GatesFrom 0 to 70% Market Share: How Google Chrome Ate the Internet | Nira BlogRemarks by President Obama at UN Climate Change Summit | The White HouseGM Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2035 | The New York TimesBiden Pledges to Double US Climate Change Aid; Some Activists Unimpressed | ReutersSHOW NOTESWhat initially drew John to Silicon Valley? [05:27]Who was Andy Grove, and what were John’s first impressions of him? [07:18]What made Andy Grove a great manager? [10:13]How did Andy deliver honest, tough love without being abusive to its recipient? [11:55]While at Intel, why did John — with all of his technical training and experience as an engineer — request to be transferred from the company’s Santa Clara headquarters to its Chicago sales office? [13:08]What compelled John to get involved in venture capital? [16:09]John shares his first meeting with Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. [18:23]What was on the slides John used in his pitch to Larry and Sergey, and what effect was he hoping they would have on them? [20:52]Way back in 1999, why were John and his partners confident enough to invest its largest capital commitment in the fledgling Google? [23:28]How does the Speed and Scale initiative plan to bring us back from the brink of an irreversible climate crisis? [28:40]What will it look like if we’re too late? [33:01]Why has there thus far been so little progress on getting closer to net-zero? [36:34]Favorite failures that set the course for successful action. [38:59]What changes have made cleantech investment more appealing in the past 15 years or so? [43:00]What are OKRs, and how do they differ from what many might consider goal setting? John illustrates how Google’s Sundar Pichai used OKRs to make Chrome the most popular browser in the world, along with an example of how he’s applied OKRs to his own personal life. [46:39]On making a life meaningful, and why John wishes he and his wife had started their family about 10 years before they did. [50:32]In what ways does John differ in opinion with Al Gore and Bill Gates on the climate conversation? [56:05]What action steps can we, as individuals, take to help mitigate the climate crisis in a meaningful way? [58:25]Parting thoughts. [1:03:35]MORE JOHN DOERR QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Cleantech takes more time, more money, more guts, with longer horizons. And the innovators, the entrepreneurs, need to—in Andy Grove speak—be ruthlessly, intellectually honest about where the risks are in their venture.”
— John Doerr

“For me, making meaning is to give a healthy climate to the future generations. I believe we owe it to them for them to enjoy the opportunities in nature and in the lives that we have.”
— John Doerr

“If we have a billion climate refugees, the people least responsible for this problem are going to pay the highest price, and they’re the least capable of dealing with it.”
— John Doerr

“Individual action is not going to be enough. If we’re going to get to net-zero, we need massive, global action.”
— John Doerr

“400 gigatons. That’s the maximum that we can emit to have a decent chance to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid an irreversible climate disaster.”
— John Doerr

“We invested a billion dollars in a hundred different cleantech companies, and most of them failed. Failures come with the territory in the innovation business. But we stood by these entrepreneurs, and that billion dollars today is worth three billion. What I learned from that experience is that cleantech takes more time, more money, more guts, with longer horizons.”
— John Doerr

“Climate change is the world’s biggest inequality machine.”
— John Doerr

PEOPLE MENTIONEDAnn DoerrAndrew GroveRobert NoyceGordon MooreJohnny AppleseedLarry PageSergey BrinJim LallyJini KimEric SchmidtGreta ThunbergDavid Wallace-WellsJeff BezosChristiana FigueresJohn KerryAl GoreMary DoerrBill GatesBarack ObamaSundar PichaiRae Nell RhodesJim CollinsMary BarraBruce Nilles

Illustration via 99designs

“What the smartest people do on the weekends is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.”
— Chris Dixon

“Denying and pushing back against NFTs and crypto is basically saying: ‘We’re not going to have a collectively owned future. We’re going to have a corporate-owned future, and we’re going to have a government-owned future.'”
— Naval Ravikant

Chris Dixon (@cdixon) is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where for the past six years he has been an active seed and venture-stage investor.

Previously, Chris co-founded and served as the CEO of two startups, SiteAdvisor and Hunch. SiteAdvisor was an internet security company that warned web users of security threats. The company was acquired by McAfee in 2006. Hunch was a recommendation technology company that was acquired by eBay in 2011.

Chris has been a prolific seed investor, co-founding Founder Collective, a seed venture fund, and making a number of personal angel investments in various technology companies. Chris started programming as a kid and was a professional programmer after college at the high-speed options trading firm Arbitrade. He has a BA and MA in philosophy from Columbia and an MBA from Harvard.

He has written about his theories and experiences as an entrepreneur and investor on Medium and before that at cdixon.org. His a16z Podcast appearances can be found here.

Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the co-founder and chairman of AngelList. He is an angel investor and has invested in more than 100 companies, including many mega-successes, such as Twitter, Uber, Notion, Opendoor, Postmates, and Wish. You can subscribe to Naval, his podcast on wealth and happiness, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find his blog at nav.al.

For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015—which was nominated for “Podcast of the Year”—at tim.blog/naval. We also had a second long-form conversation in 2020, and you can find that here. His most recent appearance was helping me interview Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by UCAN endurance products powered by SuperStarch®, Theragun percussive muscle therapy devices, and Tonal smart home gym. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#542: Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant — The Wonders of Web3, How to Pick the Right Hill to Climb, Finding the Right Amount of Crypto Regulation, Friends with Benefits, and the Untapped Potential of NFTs

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear my most recent interview with Naval? Lend an ear to our conversation in which we discussed why there’s no such thing as science with a capital S, the problems that arise when jargon masquerades as knowledge, how to get rich without getting lucky, get-rich-quick schemes for losers, anxiety control, cryptocurrency (of course), and more.

#473: Naval Ravikant on Happiness, Reducing Anxiety, Crypto Stablecoins, and Crypto StrategySELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Chris Dixon:

Website | Twitter | Medium | a16z

Connect with Naval Ravikant:

Website | Twitter | AngelList | Naval Podcast

Software Is Eating the World | Andreessen HorowitzFounder CollectiveVitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum, on Understanding Ethereum, ETH vs. BTC, ETH2, Scaling Plans and Timelines, NFTs, Future Considerations, Life Extension, and More (Featuring Naval Ravikant) | The Tim Ferriss Show #504Naval Ravikant on Happiness, Reducing Anxiety, Crypto Stablecoins, and Crypto Strategy | The Tim Ferriss Show #473The Quiet Master of Cryptocurrency — Nick Szabo | The Tim Ferriss Show #244Naval Ravikant — The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice | The Tim Ferriss Show #97“Otherwise Do Something Else” | Chris DixonGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter | AmazonHow Aristotle Created the Computer | The AtlanticBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by Satoshi Nakamoto | BitcoinThe Bible | AmazonWhat the Smartest People Do on the Weekend Is What Everyone Else Will Do during the Week in Ten Years | Chris DixonHomebrew Computer Club | WikipediaIBMMoore’s Law | WikipediaThe Geometric Design and Computation Group: History | The University of UtahWhat is Web3? The Decentralized Internet of the Future Explained | Free Code CampCryptoPunks – The NFTs That Started It All. Their Origin Story and Future Plans | Modern FinanceEthereumHashcash | WikipediaThe Alice in Wonderland Omnibus Including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel | AmazonWhat is the Byzantine Generals Problem? | CoinCentralProof of Work (PoW) | InvestopediaBlockchain 101: The Simplest Guide You Will Ever Read | VelotioHypertext Transfer Protocol | WikipediaSimple Mail Transfer Protocol | WikipediaRSS | WikipediaOn Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem by A. M. Turing | Proceedings of the London Mathematical SocietyIntroduction to Smart Contracts | Ethereum.orgNFTs: Blockchain-Powered Art, Trading Cards, Music, and More with Aftab Hossain | Modern FinanceCoinbaseReal Estate Investment Trust (REIT) | InvestopediaHousing Cooperatives: A Unique Type of Home Ownership | InvestopediaIs Spotify’s Model Wiping Out Music’s Middle Class? | The Ringer“Tokens Give Users Property Rights: The Ability to Own a Piece of the Internet.” | Chris Dixon, TwitterOpen-Source Software | WikipediaLEGOThe Composability of Identity across Web2 and Web3 | MirrorAPI | WikipediaDeFi (Decentralized Finance) | InvestopediaWhat Is an Automated Market Maker? | CoinDeskDecentralized Trading Protocol | Uniswap‘Crush Them’: An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valley | The RingerLinuxWhere the World Builds Software | GitHubSoft Fork vs. Hard Fork: Differences Explained | CointelegraphSoftware-as-a-Service (SaaS) | InvestopediaStar WarsHow to Get Rich with Naval Ravikant | Akira the Don“Productize Yourself” -Naval | Smart Nonsense, TwitterIllustrations for the Almanack of Naval Ravikant | Jack Butcher, TwitterAlmanack of Naval Ravikant | Eric Jorgenson1,000 True Fans | The TechniumThe Bored Ape Yacht ClubMichigan Brewer Launches Bored Ape IPA to Honor Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT | Travel the MittenBored Ape Yacht Club Sells $96 Million of Mutant Ape NFTs in One Hour | DecryptWhere Stories Live | WattpadThe Official Home of Harry Potter | Wizarding WorldReal Money Starts to Pour into Math-Based Currencies Like Bitcoin | QuartzPonzi Scheme (Fraudulent Investing Scam) | InvestopediaFiat vs. Crypto & Digital Currencies | GeminiHODL | InvestopediaCryptoPunk NFT Holder Offered $9.5 Million In Largest Deal That Wasn’t | International Business TimesFun and Games on the Blockchain | Dapper LabsCollect and Breed Furrever Friends | CryptoKittiesSubstackFoundationGlobal Fantasy Football | SorarePlay to Earn | Yield Guild Games (YGG)Madden NFL | WikipediaFortniteSupercellClash RoyaleLeague of LegendsA Digital Nation | Axie InfinityPlay-to-Earn Gaming with Yield Guild Games | PROOFDecentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) | InvestopediaFlamingo DAO – What You Should Know About Decentralized Autonomous Organizations With Priyanka Desai And Aaron Wright | Modern FinanceRingers by Dmitri Cherniak | Art BlocksArtist Spotlight: Ringers with Dmitri Cherniak | PROOFThe Eternal Pump by Dmitri Cherniak | OpenSeaMark Zuckerberg Is Betting Facebook’s Future on the Metaverse | The VergeAJ: Data Scientist Turned NFT Specialist | Zima RedMoneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis | AmazonNatively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale | Sotheby’sGall’s Law: A Rule of Thumb for Designing Complex Systems That Work by Jorge Arango | PrototyprWhy Steam Should Not Ban NFT Games | Enjin BlogWhat is Skeuomorphism? | Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)Dude Perfect | YouTubeLoot Is a Viral Social Network That Looks Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen by Casey Newton | PlatformerDom HofmannThe Velvet UndergroundDel.icio.us (Website) | WikipediaFlickrPinterestSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson | AmazonReady Player One | Prime VideoWhat Is a Blockchain Wallet? | InvestopediaZero Knowledge Proof: Explain it Like I’m 5 (Halloween Edition) | Hacker NoonChina Declares All Crypto-Currency Transactions Illegal | BBCChina to Release National Blockchain Standard Next Year, Says Official: Report | CoinDeskClimbing the Wrong Hill | Chris DixonThe Exploration-Exploitation Trade-Off: Intuitions and Strategies | Towards Data ScienceCurrent Crypto DeFi Yield Farming Rankings | CoinMarketCapCFTC Reminds SEC “We Regulate Derivatives Not Digital Assets” | YahooKnow Your Customer (KYC) | Wikipediaa16z Crypto Investments | Andreessen HorowitzCoin CenterHere’s How Austinites Think the City Failed during the Texas Freeze | KUT RadioBitcoin Maximalism | InvestopediaRegulators Want to Break up Facebook. That’s a Technical Nightmare, Insiders Say. | The Washington PostWeb3 Policy | Andreessen HorowitzA Legal Framework for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations | Andreessen HorowitzAlgorithmic, Autonomous Interest Rate Protocol | CompoundCoronavirus, Record Stimulus Halt Us Dollar’s Show of Strength | DWUS Takes Bitcoin Mining Crown After China Crackdown | WSJUS House Committee on Financial ServicesDotcom Bubble | InvestopediaInteroperability | WikipediaTim Ferriss, the Man Who Put His Money Behind Psychedelic Medicine | The New York TimesNavy SEAL FoundationLabor Theory Of Value | InvestopediaFriends With Benefits DAOTrident Spearmint Sugar Free Gum, 24 Packs of 14 Pieces (336 Total Pieces) | AmazonEmpires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes | AmazonThe Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge | AmazonLimited Liability Company (LLC) | InvestopediaDecentralized Finance (DeFi) | Ethereum.orgSword | Western European | The Metropolitan Museum of Art“If You Can’t See Yourself Working with Someone for Life, Don’t Work with Them for a Day.” | Naval, TwitterNFTs, Generative Art, and Sol LeWitt by Mitchell Chan | MediumTyler Hobbs – Designing NFT Generative Art with a Traditional Touch | Modern FinanceFidenza | Tyler HobbsArt Blocks – Generative NFT Art with Erick Snowfro | Modern Finance 8Manifold‘Clear the Kitchen Table’: How Apple and IBM Marketed the First Personal Computers | The AtlanticDan BricklinDan Bricklin Invented the Spreadsheet — But Don’t Hold That against Him | Quartz10 Secrets of The Mona Lisa | LeonardoDaVinci.netHow Can NFT Ticketing Disrupt the Ticketing Industry? | Leeway HertzSHOW NOTESChris explains his interest in philosophy and the advice given to him by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett. [07:44]How long is Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper? [11:05]What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in 10 years. How this has been true of the development of the personal computer, and how will this play out with blockchain technologies and cryptocurrency? [12:20]The problems proof-of-work system Hashcash was created to solve, and how it was adopted by we know today as Bitcoin. [17:02]What is the Byzantine Generals Problem, and how does it relate to decentralization? [19:36]What are Web1, Web2, and Web3? [20:20]Digital scarcity, open source, composability, and the real promise of Web3. [27:01]What gives digital assets like altcoins and NFTs value? [41:53]How Web3 rewards creative people in ways Web2 has only robbed them. [50:07]How video games are adapting to the Web3 world. [55:45]Naval expands on the idea of NFTs being more than the sum of their JPGs. [1:01:12]The data science of Sorare. [1:04:28]Don’t have a house to offer as collateral on that loan? Maybe the bank will accept your CryptoPunk. [1:06:16]What Gall’s Law tells us about who will win in the battle between decentralized gaming and centralized gaming. [1:07:35]How skeuomorphic design has been used in the past, and how it will fit into a Web3 world. [1:08:47]A couple of recommendations to prepare you for Web3. [1:15:42]Weaknesses of — and challenges presented by — Web3. [1:16:31]What is hill climbing in computer science, and how can you be sure you’re not climbing the wrong one? [1:22:38]You’re not late to the party (yet): decentralization is still in its early days. [1:26:41]The sticky wicket of regulating decentralization with archaic laws designed to govern the world where our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up. [1:28:33]How mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies is held back by the same political divides that are holding back society. [1:32:40]How do novices — especially policymakers — even begin to wrap their minds around what’s going on in the world of crypto and separate signal from noise? [1:34:24]Thoughts on decentralizing the American Dream to preserve the US as a bastion of innovation. [1:35:48]Policymakers who seem to have the right idea about how to coexist with crypto, and what Chris and Naval think sensible regulation should look like. [1:41:24]Streamlining philanthropy, fundraising, and production by blockchain. [1:47:08]Where does Chris rate on the hierarchy of vices with his gum-chewing habit? [1:53:56]Most gifted books. [1:55:04]“Wen Tim Ferriss NFT drop?” [1:59:10]How DAOs can serve communities, organizations, and governments in the real world. [2:00:09]A disclaimer: do not take anything you hear on this episode as financial advice! Support the projects that genuinely appeal to you rather than trying to predict the future and cash out with a fistful of crypto. [2:03:54]The lens through which Chris views NFTs. [2:07:57]Further thoughts on motivations for participating in NFT markets. [2:09:07]How the NFT market has finally made generative art profitable for the artists who create it, and why now may be the greatest time in history for creative people. [2:12:31]Are we in “the kitchen recipe period” of NFTs? [2:16:04]Still don’t get NFTs? Consider, instead, the humble sneaker. [2:19:21]Vetting customers and ticketing with NFTs. [2:20:59]Friends with Benefits and other spiffy DAOs. [2:22:11]Parting thoughts. [2:25:03]MORE CHRIS DIXON AND NAVAL RAVIKANT QUOTES FROM THE EPISODE

“We were told the internet is bad for creative people. The internet is not bad for creative people. Web2 is bad for creative people.”
— Chris Dixon

“Denying and pushing back against NFTs and crypto is basically saying, “We’re not going to have a collectively owned future. We’re going to have a corporate-owned future, and we’re going to have a government-owned future.'”
— Naval Ravikant

“As with all sorts of tech things and money involved, there are bad people. It’s just inevitable. It happened in the ’90s; it happened in the 2000s. It happens now. And those people give Web3 a very bad name. We want to get rid of those people.”
— Chris Dixon

“Where we started was we actually decentralized the hardest thing. The hardest thing to decentralize is money. And once you have money decentralized, then you can own private property.”
— Naval Ravikant

“The killer app of the internet is networks. We’ve got a million networks built on this thing now.”
— Chris Dixon

“Any regulator that stops the next generation of artists and musicians and gamers and game developers from owning their platforms and their work is going to go into the wastebasket of history as a villain. It’s that simple.”
— Naval Ravikant

“Step one will be you take the existing artists and they get more money. Step two is you’re going to incentivize a whole new generation to go do these cool things.”
— Chris Dixon

“This should be the greatest time in history for creative people.”
— Chris Dixon

“I really believe very strongly that one of the most important things you can do is just go speak to a lot of people. That’s where I get all of my information is talking to entrepreneurs, talking to people that are smarter than me.”
— Chris Dixon

“I think Web3 is not only better for the world, but it’s also going to beat Web2. It’s going to be more popular because the people get really excited when they actually get to participate.”
— Chris Dixon

PEOPLE MENTIONEDNick SzaboVitalik ButerinDaniel DennettBertrand RussellKurt GödelAlan TuringJohn von NeumannReid HoffmanSatoshi NakamotoSteve JobsSteve WozniakClayton ChristensenFred WilsonAdam SmithMark ZuckerbergLarry PageSergey BrinJoe RoganAkira the DonJack ButcherEric JorgensonKevin KellyPunk 65293LAUDmitri CherniakAndrew SteinwoldAJ RomeroBilly BeaneKevin RoseErnest HemingwayNeal StephensonHayden AdamsRobert LeshnerHenry FordBalaji SrinivasanPatrick McHenryKyrsten SinemaAndrew YangKarl MarxKathryn HaunElon MuskGeorge WestinghouseThomas EdisonOrville and Wilbur WrightAlexander Graham BellAaron WrightWilly WonkaWarren BuffettTyler HobbsKanye WestJay-Z

Illustration via 99designs

“The chemist wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s try the following seven compounds.’ They try the seven compounds, none of them work. And at five o’clock, they go home to have dinner and think, watch television, and the next morning they think of another seven. Well, the computer can do a hundred million in a day. That’s a huge accelerant in what they’re doing.”

— Eric Schmidt

Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) is a technologist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He joined Google in 2001, helping the company grow from a Silicon Valley startup to a global technological leader. He served as chief executive officer and chairman from 2001 to 2011 and as executive chairman and technical advisor thereafter. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a culture of innovation. In 2017, he co-founded Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative that bets early on exceptional people making the world better.

He serves as chair of the Broad Institute and formerly served as chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He is the host of Reimagine with Eric Schmidt, a podcast exploring how society can build a brighter future after the COVID-19 pandemic. Eric has a new book out titled The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, which he coauthored with Henry A. Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#541: Eric Schmidt — The Promises and Perils of AI, the Future of Warfare, Profound Revolutions on the Horizon, and Exploring the Meaning of Life

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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Want to hear the last time Eric was on this show? Listen to our conversation in which we discuss the immeasurable impact that late coach Bill Campbell had on Silicon Valley’s rise as a veritable modern superpower.

#367: Eric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar CoachSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Eric Schmidt:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

The Age of AI: And Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher | Amazon Reimagine with Eric SchmidtSchmidt FuturesBroad InstituteEric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar Coach | The Tim Ferriss Show #367Bilderberg MeetingsHenry Kissinger: Former US Secretary of State and Nobel Prize Winner | Talks at Google‘Google Is a Threat to Civilization’ & ‘Schmidt is One of My Best Friends’ | The SociableAre We in an AI Summer or AI Winter? | Big ThinkWhat is Deep Learning? | IBMImageNetAlphaGo | DeepMindHow the Enlightenment Ends by Henry A. Kissinger | The AtlanticArtificial Intelligence Yields New Antibiotic | MIT NewsGPT-3 Powers the Next Generation of Apps | OpenAIWhat It’s Like To be a Computer: An Interview with GPT-3 | Eric ElliottIs It Legal to Swap Someone’s Face into Porn without Consent? | The VergeWhat is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? | IBMA Gentle Introduction to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) | Machine Learning MasteryCelebrity Face Generation with Deep Convolutional GANs | Towards Data ScienceEric Schmidt: AI Could Worsen Our Misinformation Problem | The AtlanticAnchoring and Recency Bias | Minerva Planning GroupWhat Is Artificial General Intelligence? | ZDNetSingularity: Explain It to Me Like I’m 5-Years-Old | FuturismWhat is Quantum Computing? | IBMThe Google-IBM “Quantum Supremacy” Feud | MIT Technology ReviewSteve Jurvetson — The Midas Touch and Mind-Bending Futures | The Tim Ferriss Show #317The AI Revolution and Strategic Competition with China by Eric Schmidt | Project Syndicate2021 Final Report | NSCAIHenry Kissinger Looks Back on the Cold War | Council on Foreign RelationsLos Alamos, NM | Atomic Heritage FoundationThe History of Nuclear Proliferation | World101Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA) | CaltechAI Sophia Answers the Trolley Problem | DW ShiftRacial Discrimination in Face Recognition Technology | Harvard UniversityWhat Brain-Computer Interfaces Could Mean for the Future of Work | HBR5 Things To Know About Rolling Stop Violations in California | TicketClinic.comWhat is Pizzagate? 10 Facts About the Conspiracy Theory | EsquireCarl Sagan: 4th Dimension Made Easy | CosmosBetter Than Life (B.T.L.) | Red Dwarf FandomSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson | AmazonNeuromancer by William Gibson | AmazonSeveneves by Neal Stephenson | AmazonThe Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman | AmazonDonald Hoffman: Do We See Reality as It Is? | TED TalkReady Player One | Prime VideoStar Trek’s Utopia: Dilemmas of the Early 21st and Late 24th Centuries | PopMattersJukebox | OpenAIDeepMindThe Relation of Physics to Other Sciences | The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. I Ch. 3‘It Will Change Everything’: Deepmind’s AI Makes Gigantic Leap in Solving Protein Structures | NatureWithout Code for DeepMind’s Protein AI, This Lab Wrote Its Own | WiredSHOW NOTESHow did Eric come to collaborate on The Age of AI and Our Human Future with former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger? To what does Eric attribute the 98-year-old’s continued mental acuity and ability to stay up to date on 21st-century developments in artificial intelligence (AI)? [05:37]Daniel Huttenlocher is the third collaborator on this new book. For the overall project, what did each party bring to the table? [11:10]Eric shares a few of his own firsthand accounts of amazing things AI has been able to accomplish. [13:21]How might a GPT-3-generated Tim Ferriss Show work? [18:29]What is AI (and what is AI not)? [20:18]What is artificial general intelligence (AGI), what technological feats will it take to achieve it, and when does Eric believe we’ll see true AGI emerge? [25:17]What problems need to be solved before AGI is realized? [31:43]How do these timelines factor in to the potential applications of quantum computing? [33:28]Interesting considerations in hypothetical developments between AIs and humans. [37:49]Looking forward to how geopolitical factors will play into the advancement of AI (and the effect AI will, in turn, have on them). [42:56]What currently inscrutable problems would Eric like to see solved by AI of the future? [49:40]How does Eric foresee computer scientists programming ethics and morals into AI? [51:50]How soon might we see human brains directly connecting with AI-assisted technologies? In what ways will this optimize our ability to make use of them? [57:06]Important questions and next steps regarding inevitable technologies, the regulations that will be drafted to keep them in check, and the adaptations people will have to make in the middle of it all. [1:02:26]How will science fiction becoming science fact force us to reexamine everything the Reformation taught us about the nature of reality? [1:08:12]What rules or constraints does Eric have for himself around social media and other types of digital stimuli? [1:13:33]In what ways might humans find value and meaning in a world shared with AGI? Will such a world lean more utopian or dystopian? [1:15:21]How will intellectual property work in a world where human art is assisted by AI insight? [1:19:33]Who’s currently doing work in the AI sphere that stands out most to Eric? [1:20:30]What does Eric hope the impact of The Age of AI and Our Human Future will be? [1:25:26]Eric’s thoughts on podcasting so far since starting Reimagine, and parting thoughts. [1:27:15]MORE ERIC SCHMIDT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“We believe today, from the Reformation, that we have the sole power of understanding reality. But at some point, that’s not going to be true.”
— Eric Schmidt

“I am convinced that the secret to longevity is being a workaholic. The reason I say that is that Henry Kissinger, at the age of 90, knew nothing about the digital world, although he had a lot of opinions about it. But he has mastered the digital world and artificial intelligence with the alacrity and the speed of people who are just getting into it now.”
— Eric Schmidt

“Today, computers can see better than humans. Their vision is literally better. I didn’t realize at the time how important sight was for everything. A car should be driven by a computer. The doctor should use an AI system to examine you and then give him or her recommendations on your care. I’d much rather have the computer look at my skin rash or my retina in my eye because we now know, from many, many tests, that humans make observational mistakes—even the best—but computers, when properly trained, don’t.”
— Eric Schmidt

“I thought a lot about the way politicians speak. If you watch carefully, they take a set of phrases, and they repeat them over and over again. They’re simple phrases. That’s anchoring. They’re trying to get the audience, their voters, to start with this fact and then judge past it. Well, computers will be incredibly good at exploiting that.”
— Eric Schmidt

“The chemist wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s try the following seven compounds.’ They try the seven compounds, none of them work. And at five o’clock, they go home to have dinner and think, watch television, and the next morning they think of another seven. Well, the computer can do a hundred million in a day. That’s a huge accelerant in what they’re doing.”
— Eric Schmidt

“Over and over again, I would like the AI system to educate me and entertain me and keep me curious about the dynamism of the world.”
— Eric Schmidt

“We have never had a situation in our human experience where there was an intelligence that was similar to ours, but not the same, that was nonhuman. Imagine a situation where these intelligences exist and they can be consulted. Well, who gets to consult them? What happens to their answers?”
— Eric Schmidt

“[It] has a lot to do with whether the systems produce more meaning for humans or less meaning. If the computer replaces me, that’s less meaning. If the computer augments me, it’s more meaning. This is true at every level of society.”
— Eric Schmidt

PEOPLE MENTIONEDHenry A. KissingerRichard M. NixonWilson E. SchmidtDaniel HuttenlocherMarcus AureliusMark TwainAbraham LincolnOprah WinfreyTaylor SwiftSteve JurvetsonDonald TrumpWilliam GibsonDonald HoffmanPablo PicassoBill JoyRichard P. Feynman

Illustration via 99designs

“The chemist wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s try the following seven compounds.’ They try the seven compounds, none of them work. And at five o’clock, they go home to have dinner and think, watch television, and the next morning they think of another seven. Well, the computer can do a hundred million in a day. That’s a huge accelerant in what they’re doing.”

— Eric Schmidt

Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) is a technologist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He joined Google in 2001, helping the company grow from a Silicon Valley startup to a global technological leader. He served as chief executive officer and chairman from 2001 to 2011 and as executive chairman and technical advisor thereafter. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a culture of innovation. In 2017, he co-founded Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative that bets early on exceptional people making the world better.

He serves as chair of the Broad Institute and formerly served as chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He is the host of Reimagine with Eric Schmidt, a podcast exploring how society can build a brighter future after the COVID-19 pandemic. With co-authors Henry A. Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher, Eric has a new book out titled The Age of AI: And Our Human Future.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by ShipStation shipping software, ButcherBox premium meats delivered to your door, and Pique Tea premium tea crystals (pu’er, etc.). More on all three below.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#541: Eric Schmidt — The Promises and Perils of AI, The Future of Warfare, Profound Revolutions on the Horizon, and Exploring The Meaning of Life

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear the last time Eric was on this show? Listen to our conversation in which we discuss the immeasurable impact that late coach Bill Campbell had on Silicon Valley’s rise as a veritable modern superpower.

#367: Eric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar CoachSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Eric Schmidt:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

The Age of AI: And Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher | Amazon Reimagine with Eric SchmidtSchmidt FuturesBroad InstituteEric Schmidt — Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar Coach | The Tim Ferriss Show #367Bilderberg MeetingsHenry Kissinger: Former US Secretary of State and Nobel Prize Winner | Talks at Google‘Google Is a Threat to Civilization’ & ‘Schmidt is One of My Best Friends’ | The SociableAre We in an AI Summer or AI Winter? | Big ThinkWhat is Deep Learning? | IBMImageNetAlphaGo | DeepMindHow the Enlightenment Ends by Henry A. Kissinger | The AtlanticArtificial Intelligence Yields New Antibiotic | MIT NewsGPT-3 Powers the Next Generation of Apps | OpenAIWhat It’s Like To be a Computer: An Interview with GPT-3 | Eric ElliottIs It Legal to Swap Someone’s Face into Porn without Consent? | The VergeWhat is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? | IBMA Gentle Introduction to Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) | Machine Learning MasteryCelebrity Face Generation with Deep Convolutional GANs | Towards Data ScienceEric Schmidt: AI Could Worsen Our Misinformation Problem | The AtlanticAnchoring and Recency Bias | Minerva Planning GroupWhat Is Artificial General Intelligence? | ZDNetSingularity: Explain It to Me Like I’m 5-Years-Old | FuturismWhat is Quantum Computing? | IBMThe Google-IBM “Quantum Supremacy” Feud | MIT Technology ReviewSteve Jurvetson — The Midas Touch and Mind-Bending Futures | The Tim Ferriss Show #317The AI Revolution and Strategic Competition with China by Eric Schmidt | Project Syndicate2021 Final Report | NSCAIHenry Kissinger Looks Back on the Cold War | Council on Foreign RelationsLos Alamos, NM | Atomic Heritage FoundationThe History of Nuclear Proliferation | World101Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA) | CaltechAI Sophia Answers the Trolley Problem | DW ShiftRacial Discrimination in Face Recognition Technology | Harvard UniversityWhat Brain-Computer Interfaces Could Mean for the Future of Work | HBR5 Things To Know About Rolling Stop Violations in California | TicketClinic.comWhat is Pizzagate? 10 Facts About the Conspiracy Theory | EsquireCarl Sagan: 4th Dimension Made Easy | CosmosBetter Than Life (B.T.L.) | Red Dwarf FandomSnow Crash by Neal Stephenson | AmazonNeuromancer by William Gibson | AmazonSeveneves by Neal Stephenson | AmazonThe Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman | AmazonDonald Hoffman: Do We See Reality as It Is? | TED TalkReady Player One | Prime VideoStar Trek’s Utopia: Dilemmas of the Early 21st and Late 24th Centuries | PopMattersJukebox | OpenAIDeepMindThe Relation of Physics to Other Sciences | The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol. I Ch. 3‘It Will Change Everything’: Deepmind’s AI Makes Gigantic Leap in Solving Protein Structures | NatureWithout Code for DeepMind’s Protein AI, This Lab Wrote Its Own | WiredSHOW NOTESHow did Eric come to collaborate on The Age of AI and Our Human Future with former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger? To what does Eric attribute the 98-year-old’s continued mental acuity and ability to stay up to date on 21st-century developments in artificial intelligence (AI)? [05:37]Daniel Huttenlocher is the third collaborator on this new book. For the overall project, what did each party bring to the table? [11:10]Eric shares a few of his own firsthand accounts of amazing things AI has been able to accomplish. [13:21]How might a GPT-3-generated Tim Ferriss Show work? [18:29]What is AI (and what is AI not)? [20:18]What is artificial general intelligence (AGI), what technological feats will it take to achieve it, and when does Eric believe we’ll see true AGI emerge? [25:17]What problems need to be solved before AGI is realized? [31:43]How do these timelines factor in to the potential applications of quantum computing? [33:28]Interesting considerations in hypothetical developments between AIs and humans. [37:49]Looking forward to how geopolitical factors will play into the advancement of AI (and the effect AI will, in turn, have on them). [42:56]What currently inscrutable problems would Eric like to see solved by AI of the future? [49:40]How does Eric foresee computer scientists programming ethics and morals into AI? [51:50]How soon might we see human brains directly connecting with AI-assisted technologies? In what ways will this optimize our ability to make use of them? [57:06]Important questions and next steps regarding inevitable technologies, the regulations that will be drafted to keep them in check, and the adaptations people will have to make in the middle of it all. [1:02:26]How will science fiction becoming science fact force us to reexamine everything the Reformation taught us about the nature of reality? [1:08:12]What rules or constraints does Eric have for himself around social media and other types of digital stimuli? [1:13:33]In what ways might humans find value and meaning in a world shared with AGI? Will such a world lean more utopian or dystopian? [1:15:21]How will intellectual property work in a world where human art is assisted by AI insight? [1:19:33]Who’s currently doing work in the AI sphere that stands out most to Eric? [1:20:30]What does Eric hope the impact of The Age of AI and Our Human Future will be? [1:25:26]Eric’s thoughts on podcasting so far since starting Reimagine, and parting thoughts. [1:27:15]MORE ERIC SCHMIDT QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“We believe today, from the Reformation, that we have the sole power of understanding reality. But at some point, that’s not going to be true.”
— Eric Schmidt

“I am convinced that the secret to longevity is being a workaholic. The reason I say that is that Henry Kissinger, at the age of 90, knew nothing about the digital world, although he had a lot of opinions about it. But he has mastered the digital world and artificial intelligence with the alacrity and the speed of people who are just getting into it now.”
— Eric Schmidt

“Today, computers can see better than humans. Their vision is literally better. I didn’t realize at the time how important sight was for everything. A car should be driven by a computer. The doctor should use an AI system to examine you and then give him or her recommendations on your care. I’d much rather have the computer look at my skin rash or my retina in my eye because we now know, from many, many tests, that humans make observational mistakes, even the best, but computers, when properly trained, don’t.”
— Eric Schmidt

“I thought a lot about the way politicians speak. If you watch carefully, they take a set of phrases, and they repeat them over and over again. They’re simple phrases. That’s anchoring. They’re trying to get the audience, their voters, to start with this fact and then judge past it. Well, computers will be incredibly good at exploiting that.”
— Eric Schmidt

“The chemist wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s try the following seven compounds.’ They try the seven compounds, none of them work. And at five o’clock, they go home to have dinner and think, watch television, and the next morning they think of another seven. Well, the computer can do a hundred million in a day. That’s a huge accelerant in what they’re doing.”
— Eric Schmidt

“Over and over again, I would like the AI system to educate me and entertain me and keep me curious about the dynamism of the world.”
— Eric Schmidt

“We have never had a situation in our human experience where there was an intelligence that was similar to ours, but not the same, that was non-human. Imagine a situation where these intelligences exist and they can be consulted. Well, who gets to consult them? What happens to their answers?”
— Eric Schmidt

“[It] has a lot to do with whether the systems produce more meaning for humans or less meaning. If the computer replaces me, that’s less meaning. If the computer augments me, it’s more meaning. This is true at every level of society.”
— Eric Schmidt

PEOPLE MENTIONEDHenry A. KissingerRichard M. NixonWilson E. SchmidtDaniel HuttenlocherMarcus AureliusMark TwainAbraham LincolnOprah WinfreyTaylor SwiftSteve JurvetsonDonald TrumpWilliam GibsonDonald HoffmanPablo PicassoBill JoyRichard P. Feynman

Illustration via 99designs

“If you can alternate power, you get a lot of good incentives for everyone treating everybody relatively well.”

— Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Feldman is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his JD from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the US Supreme Court.

He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem — and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Headspace easy-to-use app with guided meditations. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercast#540: Harvard Polymath Noah Feldman — Deep Focus for Hyper-Productivity, Learning 10+ Languages, Predicting the Future with History, the Possibilities (and Limitations) of DAOs, Lessons from the Iraq Invasion, Designing the Supreme Court of Facebook, the Virtue of Scholarship, and the Wild Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

And now, my dear listeners—that’s you—can get $250 off the Pod Pro Cover. Simply go to EightSleep.com/Tim or use code TIM. 

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. 

Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.

This episode is brought to you by Headspace! Headspace is your daily dose of mindfulness in the form of guided meditations in an easy-to-use app. Whatever the situation, Headspace can help you feel better. Overwhelmed? Headspace has a 3-minute SOS meditation for you. Need some help falling asleep? Headspace has wind-down sessions their members swear by. And for parents, Headspace even has morning meditations you can do with your kids. Headspace’s approach to mindfulness can reduce stress, improve sleep, boost focus, and increase your overall sense of well-being.

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Dig conversations with polymaths? Then you’ll want to hear the conversation I had with the Polymath of Polymaths, Stewart Brand. Lend an ear to the episode in which we discussed the Whole Earth Catalog’s sentiment of “stay hungry; stay foolish,” influencing civilization by changing its tools rather than trying to reshape human nature, artificial intelligence vs. intelligence augmentation, addressing the idea of de-extinction and the woolly mammoth in the room, bioabundance, how Stewart lost 30 pounds at age 75, the rewards of being a pack rat, and much more.

#281: Stewart Brand – The Polymath of PolymathsSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Noah Feldman:

Website | Twitter | Bloomberg | Facebook | Instagram | Harvard

The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America by Noah Feldman | Amazon Deep Background with Noah Feldman Podcast | Pushkin IndustriesDivided by God: America’s Church State Problem — and What We Should Do about It by Noah Feldman | AmazonWhat We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building by Noah Feldman | AmazonCool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition by Noah Feldman | AmazonScorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman | AmazonThe Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman | AmazonThe 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars: Causes of Triumphs and Failures | E-International RelationsInterview with American Law Professor, Linguist and Author, Noah Feldman | Wordsmiths’ BlogHow to Reach your Audience with the Right Dialect of Arabic | Asian AbsoluteThe Koran | AmazonWhat Is the Arab Spring, and How Did It Start? | Al JazeeraOrigin and Meaning of Algorithm | Online Etymology DictionaryAl-Qaeda International | FBISleep and Caffeine: Benefits and Risks | Sleep EducationRepetitive Strain Injury (RSI) | HealthlineDragon Speech Recognition | NuanceSome Practical Thoughts on Suicide | Tim FerrissSupreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch Wants Scalia-Style Conservative Leadership | BloombergDecision, Explained in 5 Simple Sentences | VoxMisquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman | Amazon8 Key Distinctions Between an LLM and a JD | US NewsCity of Cambridge, MAI Am Not a Short Adult!: Getting Good at Being a Kid by Marilyn Burns and Martha Weston | AmazonTinker v. Des Moines: Landmark Supreme Court Ruling on Behalf of Student Expression | ACLUMilgram’s Experiments and the Perils of Obedience | Verywell MindDifferences Between Classical vs. Operant Conditioning | Verywell MindRepublican Palace | WikipediaAfoot in Iraq: Harvard Sets Sights on Stable Middle East | The Harvard CrimsonAfter Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy by Noah Feldman | AmazonBush v. Gore (2000) | Justia US Supreme Court CenterCeramic Armor | WikipediaAssassins’ Gate | Wikipedia80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) | InvestopediaThe 5 Levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs | Verywell MindThe World’s Constitutions to Read, Search, and Compare | ConstituteConstitution of the United States: A History | National ArchivesConstitutional History of South Africa | ConstitutionNetAfrican National Congress (ANC) | WikipediaHow To Kill A Country | The AtlanticTen Years In, Tunisian Democracy Remains a Work in Progress | BrookingsWhat Is Cryptocurrency? | InvestopediaBlockchain 101: The Simplest Guide You Will Ever Read | VelotioVitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum, on Understanding Ethereum, ETH vs. BTC, ETH2, Scaling Plans and Timelines, NFTs, Future Considerations, Life Extension, and More (Featuring Naval Ravikant) | The Tim Ferriss Show #504Vitalik Buterin’s Plan for Legitimating Crypto | Deep Background with Noah FeldmanThe Most Important Scarce Resource is Legitimacy | Vitalik ButerinJoe Gebbia — Co-Founder of Airbnb | The Tim Ferriss Show #301Green Book | Prime VideoNoah Feldman: Polarization Conquers the Supreme Court | Akron Beacon JournalPatrick Collison — CEO of Stripe | The Tim Ferriss Show #353How Lee Kuan Yew Engineered Singapore’s Economic Miracle | BBC NewsPower and Nations: Francis Fukuyama | Deep Background with Noah FeldmanPolitical Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama | AmazonDemocracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America by Adam Przeworski | AmazonDecentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) | InvestopediaFlamingo DAO – What You Should Know About Decentralized Autonomous Organizations With Priyanka Desai And Aaron Wright | Modern FinanceTao Te Ching by Lao Tzu | AmazonSmart Contracts: The Blockchain Technology That Will Replace Lawyers | BlockgeeksCrusaders, Criminals, Crazies: Terror and Terrorism in Our Time by Frederick J. Hacker | AmazonHistorical Painting Is Altered to Show Most Declaration of Independence Signatories Were Enslavers | HyperallergicThe Deleted Passage of the Declaration of Independence | BlackPastWhy Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig | Journal of the Abraham Lincoln AssociationLincoln’s Eulogy on Henry Clay | Abraham Lincoln OnlineLincoln Memorial | US National Park ServiceSoft Fork vs. Hard Fork: Differences Explained | CointelegraphHistorical Context: The Constitution and Slavery | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American HistoryNo Evidence ‘3/5 Compromise’ Aimed to End Slavery | AP NewsFugitive Slave Clause, The Constitution of the United States (1787–1992) | Encyclopedia VirginiaThe Emancipation Proclamation | National ArchivesThe Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. | AmazonBuck vs. Bell Trial | Eugenics ArchiveThe Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand | AmazonFermat’s Last Theorem | Wolfram MathWorldWalter Isaacson on CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race | The Tim Ferriss Show #503How the Iroquois Great Law of Peace Shaped US Democracy | Native America, PBSPartly National, Partly Federal: James Madison, the Amphictyonic Confederacy, and the Republican Balance | Journal of the American RevolutionIndependent Judgment. Transparency. Legitimacy. | Oversight BoardOversight Board Says Facebook, Not Trump, is the Problem | NPRWill We Ever Get Rid of COVID-19? | Gavi, the Vaccine AllianceSHOW NOTESNoah is fluent in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and French. He can speak and read conversational Korean, read Aramaic, Latin, some Greek, Spanish, Italian, and German. How did this happen? Where did this start? [07:02]Dispelling a common myth: you don’t need to start learning a language as a child to become fluent. How did picking up Arabic in his teens change Noah’s universe? [13:13]How did Noah and his parents come to live in Egypt during his early life? [15:34]Who was Dr. Wilson Bishai, and how did Noah come to learn modern colloquial Arabic from him? [17:05]What does the spectrum of Arabic look like? [22:01]Exploring the algorithm of “al.” [25:42]What does Al Qaeda mean, and how did it get its name? [29:38]How does Noah live a life so full without the benefit of caffeine? Perhaps most important: why? [31:06]How does Noah structure his time in a way that this full life doesn’t become an overwhelmed life? [33:01]Why did Noah think he was failing at therapy when he first started going in his late thirties, and what did that look like? What perspectives had to change for him to start “succeeding” at therapy? [36:05]How long has Noah used voice recognition software as part of his time management system, and what prompted him to adopt it in the first place? [40:19]What voice recognition software does Noah use today, and what best practices does he recommend for optimally benefiting from this technology? [42:36]An example of how a column Noah wrote went from concept to first and final draft, and how he supported its premise with proof. [45:10]Comparing the interpretation of scripture and the interpretation of the US Constitution prior to the abolition of slavery. [49:15]With an undergrad in Near Eastern languages and civilizations, why did Noah decide to go to law school? [51:38]LLB (Legum Baccalaureus) vs. JB (Juris Doctor). [54:29]What forces or people contributed to Noah’s decision to go to law school? [56:05]How did Noah’s dad instill morals in him? What positive and negative reinforcements were most effective? [58:54]Noah talks about the three months he lived in the Iraqi Republican Palace’s kitchen, got shot at, et cetera. [1:03:31]Things that one should be advised against doing when invading a country, and what constitutes a need to rely on certain people “even if they’re not trustworthy.” [1:11:00]What is a constitution, what circumstances need to exist for one to be drafted, and what considerations must be contemplated? [1:15:25]A modern constitution that Noah finds well-suited to the time and place it was drafted, and an important thing to remember: even the best, most beautiful or elegant constitution can’t solve every problem. [1:21:47]To know what will happen in crypto, you need to know how constitutions work and how they fail. [1:25:00]Why Noah is appreciative of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s ongoing contributions to the crypto space. [1:28:15]How does having an understanding of history allow someone to be a futurist? [1:30:24]Recommended reading for people who want to learn more about the process of creating constitutions. [1:34:52]What are DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and what does Noah find promising about them? [1:40:40]What I find promising about DAOs. [1:43:30]Questions about humanity’s ability to work collectively and solve problems that DAO experiments may be able to answer better than previous real-world attempts. [1:45:55]The pros and cons of uneditable smart contracts on a blockchain. [1:49:29]What prompted Noah to write The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America? [1:52:23]How Lincoln’s story fits into addressing the Constitution’s most glaring flaws regarding who gets to enjoy its lofty conceits of freedom and equality. [1:54:31]Is the Constitution meant to be a moral blueprint? [2:01:37]What does world peace mean? It depends on who you ask. But what if it’s summed up best by the word compromise? [2:03:42]Two kinds of compromise: real aspiration and waffling. [2:05:39]People Noah considers particularly adept at crafting productive compromise. [2:09:31]Who was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and why does Noah find him interesting? [2:11:07]For all of his accomplishments, the Yankee from Olympus had plenty of non-admirable characteristics. [2:16:42]Why hasn’t Noah written about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. yet? [2:18:56]Did the Iroquois Confederacy have any impact on the Constitution? [2:20:49]Experiments in governance and big tech Noah is looking forward to seeing played out (like the so-called Supreme Court of Facebook), and what their success or failure might look like. [2:23:59]Foreseeable common mistakes that Noah thinks people should avoid when trying to create boards that oversee big tech companies. [2:29:45]How legitimacy might operate as currency to drive a company’s compliance with its oversight board. [2:33:29]Another ongoing experiment Noah is watching with constant fascination. [2:35:58]Parting thoughts. [2:38:12]MORE NOAH FELDMAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“There’s actually nothing more frustrating in life than hearing someone speak a language that you don’t speak because you know there’s a whole universe going on there. For me, the impulse to decode is to sort of get behind there and to know what’s going on underneath.”
— Noah Feldman

“Is our whole system, from the Constitution on, fundamentally ruined by having racism and slavery in its DNA from the start? Or can we be a lot more optimistic about our capacities as a country by virtue of progress that we’ve made since our Declaration of Independence was written by a slaveholder and our Constitution was drafted primarily by a slaveholder at a convention where slaveholding states had a huge amount of influence?“
— Noah Feldman

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because imitation shows you that other people think something is working.”
— Noah Feldman

“Transparency drives transparency, and giving reasons drives legitimacy. Nontransparency, or failure to give reasons, detracts from legitimacy.”
— Noah Feldman

“Almost no constitutions in the modern world are totally invented from scratch.”
— Noah Feldman

“If you can alternate power, you get a lot of good incentives for everyone treating everybody relatively well.”
— Noah Feldman

“When you learn a language, it puts you in the thought world of the people who speak it, and you no longer are seeing them as an outsider, imagining what they might think when they speak to themselves. But you’re actually a participant.”
— Noah Feldman

PEOPLE MENTIONEDNoah’s ParentsWilson B. BishaiHammad ibn SalamahMuhammad ibn Musa al-KhwarizmiKevin KellyOsama bin LadenAntonin ScaliaAbraham LincolnFrederick DouglassH.W. Perry Jr.Stanley MilgramB.F. SkinnerAl GoreGeorge W. BushRyan HenryPaul BremerColin PowellJames MadisonNelson MandelaVitalik ButerinNikola TeslaBill NyeFrancis FukuyamaPatrick CollisonLee Kuan YewAdam PrzeworskiAlexander HamiltonHenry ClayMartin Luther King, Jr.Malcolm XOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.William JamesCharles Sanders PeirceHenry AdamsFelix FrankfurterLouis BrandeisLouis MenandWalter IsaacsonDonald Trump

Illustration via 99designs

“If you can alternate power, you get a lot of good incentives for everyone treating everybody relatively well.”

— Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Feldman is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his JD from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the US Supreme Court.

He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem — and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Dig conversations with polymaths? Then you’ll want to hear the conversation I had with the Polymath of Polymaths, Stewart Brand. Lend an ear to the episode in which we discussed the Whole Earth Catalog’s sentiment of “stay hungry; stay foolish,” influencing civilization by changing its tools rather than trying to reshape human nature, artificial intelligence vs. intelligence augmentation, addressing the idea of de-extinction and the woolly mammoth in the room, bioabundance, how Stewart lost 30 pounds at age 75, the rewards of being a pack rat, and much more.

#281: Stewart Brand – The Polymath of PolymathsSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Noah Feldman:

Website | Twitter | Bloomberg | Facebook | Instagram | Harvard

The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America by Noah Feldman | Amazon Deep Background with Noah Feldman Podcast | Pushkin IndustriesDivided by God: America’s Church State Problem — and What We Should Do about It by Noah Feldman | AmazonWhat We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building by Noah Feldman | AmazonCool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition by Noah Feldman | AmazonScorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman | AmazonThe Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman | AmazonThe 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars: Causes of Triumphs and Failures | E-International RelationsInterview with American Law Professor, Linguist and Author, Noah Feldman | Wordsmiths’ BlogHow to Reach your Audience with the Right Dialect of Arabic | Asian AbsoluteThe Koran | AmazonWhat Is the Arab Spring, and How Did It Start? | Al JazeeraOrigin and Meaning of Algorithm | Online Etymology DictionaryAl-Qaeda International | FBISleep and Caffeine: Benefits and Risks | Sleep EducationRepetitive Strain Injury (RSI) | HealthlineDragon Speech Recognition | NuanceSome Practical Thoughts on Suicide | Tim FerrissSupreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch Wants Scalia-Style Conservative Leadership | BloombergDecision, Explained in 5 Simple Sentences | VoxMisquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman | Amazon8 Key Distinctions Between an LLM and a JD | US NewsCity of Cambridge, MAI Am Not a Short Adult!: Getting Good at Being a Kid by Marilyn Burns and Martha Weston | AmazonTinker v. Des Moines: Landmark Supreme Court Ruling on Behalf of Student Expression | ACLUMilgram’s Experiments and the Perils of Obedience | Verywell MindDifferences Between Classical vs. Operant Conditioning | Verywell MindRepublican Palace | WikipediaAfoot in Iraq: Harvard Sets Sights on Stable Middle East | The Harvard CrimsonAfter Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy by Noah Feldman | AmazonBush v. Gore (2000) | Justia US Supreme Court CenterCeramic Armor | WikipediaAssassins’ Gate | Wikipedia80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) | InvestopediaThe 5 Levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs | Verywell MindThe World’s Constitutions to Read, Search, and Compare | ConstituteConstitution of the United States: A History | National ArchivesConstitutional History of South Africa | ConstitutionNetAfrican National Congress (ANC) | WikipediaHow To Kill A Country | The AtlanticTen Years In, Tunisian Democracy Remains a Work in Progress | BrookingsWhat Is Cryptocurrency? | InvestopediaBlockchain 101: The Simplest Guide You Will Ever Read | VelotioVitalik Buterin, Creator of Ethereum, on Understanding Ethereum, ETH vs. BTC, ETH2, Scaling Plans and Timelines, NFTs, Future Considerations, Life Extension, and More (Featuring Naval Ravikant) | The Tim Ferriss Show #504Vitalik Buterin’s Plan for Legitimating Crypto | Deep Background with Noah FeldmanThe Most Important Scarce Resource is Legitimacy | Vitalik ButerinJoe Gebbia — Co-Founder of Airbnb | The Tim Ferriss Show #301Green Book | Prime VideoNoah Feldman: Polarization Conquers the Supreme Court | Akron Beacon JournalPatrick Collison — CEO of Stripe | The Tim Ferriss Show #353How Lee Kuan Yew Engineered Singapore’s Economic Miracle | BBC NewsPower and Nations: Francis Fukuyama | Deep Background with Noah FeldmanPolitical Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy by Francis Fukuyama | AmazonDemocracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America by Adam Przeworski | AmazonDecentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) | InvestopediaFlamingo DAO – What You Should Know About Decentralized Autonomous Organizations With Priyanka Desai And Aaron Wright | Modern FinanceTao Te Ching by Lao Tzu | AmazonSmart Contracts: The Blockchain Technology That Will Replace Lawyers | BlockgeeksCrusaders, Criminals, Crazies: Terror and Terrorism in Our Time by Frederick J. Hacker | AmazonHistorical Painting Is Altered to Show Most Declaration of Independence Signatories Were Enslavers | HyperallergicThe Deleted Passage of the Declaration of Independence | BlackPastWhy Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig | Journal of the Abraham Lincoln AssociationLincoln’s Eulogy on Henry Clay | Abraham Lincoln OnlineLincoln Memorial | US National Park ServiceSoft Fork vs. Hard Fork: Differences Explained | CointelegraphHistorical Context: The Constitution and Slavery | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American HistoryNo Evidence ‘3/5 Compromise’ Aimed to End Slavery | AP NewsFugitive Slave Clause, The Constitution of the United States (1787–1992) | Encyclopedia VirginiaThe Emancipation Proclamation | National ArchivesThe Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. | AmazonBuck vs. Bell Trial | Eugenics ArchiveThe Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand | AmazonFermat’s Last Theorem | Wolfram MathWorldWalter Isaacson on CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race | The Tim Ferriss Show #503How the Iroquois Great Law of Peace Shaped US Democracy | Native America, PBSPartly National, Partly Federal: James Madison, the Amphictyonic Confederacy, and the Republican Balance | Journal of the American RevolutionIndependent Judgment. Transparency. Legitimacy. | Oversight BoardOversight Board Says Facebook, Not Trump, is the Problem | NPRWill We Ever Get Rid of COVID-19? | Gavi, the Vaccine AllianceSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added.

Noah is fluent in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and French. He can speak and read conversational Korean, read Aramaic, Latin, some Greek, Spanish, Italian, and German. How did this happen? Where did this start?Dispelling a common myth: you don’t need to start learning a language as a child to become fluent. How did picking up Arabic in his teens change Noah’s universe?How did Noah and his parents come to live in Egypt during his early life?Who was Dr. Wilson Bishai, and how did Noah come to learn modern colloquial Arabic from him?What does the spectrum of Arabic look like?Exploring the algorithm of “al.”What does Al Qaeda mean, and how did it get its name?How does Noah live a life so full without the benefit of caffeine? Perhaps most important: why?How does Noah structure his time in a way that this full life doesn’t become an overwhelmed life?Why did Noah think he was failing at therapy when he first started going in his late thirties, and what did that look like? What perspectives had to change for him to start “succeeding” at therapy?How long has Noah used voice recognition software as part of his time management system, and what prompted him to adopt it in the first place?What voice recognition software does Noah use today, and what best practices does he recommend for optimally benefiting from this technology?An example of how a column Noah wrote went from concept to first and final draft, and how he supported its premise with proof.Comparing the interpretation of scripture and the interpretation of the US Constitution prior to the abolition of slavery.With an undergrad in Near Eastern languages and civilizations, why did Noah decide to go to law school?LLB (Legum Baccalaureus) vs. JB (Juris Doctor).What forces or people contributed to Noah’s decision to go to law school?How did Noah’s dad instill morals in him? What positive and negative reinforcements were most effective?Noah talks about the three months he lived in the Iraqi Republican Palace’s kitchen, got shot at, et cetera.Things that one should be advised against doing when invading a country, and what constitutes a need to rely on certain people “even if they’re not trustworthy.”What is a constitution, what circumstances need to exist for one to be drafted, and what considerations must be contemplated?A modern constitution that Noah finds well-suited to the time and place it was drafted, and an important thing to remember: even the best, most beautiful or elegant constitution can’t solve every problem.To know what will happen in crypto, you need to know how constitutions work and how they fail.Why Noah is appreciative of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s ongoing contributions to the crypto space.How does having an understanding of history allow someone to be a futurist?Recommended reading for people who want to learn more about the process of creating constitutions.What are DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and what does Noah find promising about them?What I find promising about DAOs.Questions about humanity’s ability to work collectively and solve problems that DAO experiments may be able to answer better than previous real-world attempts.The pros and cons of uneditable smart contracts on a blockchain.What prompted Noah to write The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America?How Lincoln’s story fits into addressing the Constitution’s most glaring flaws regarding who gets to enjoy its lofty conceits of freedom and equality.Is the Constitution meant to be a moral blueprint?What does world peace mean? It depends on who you ask. But what if it’s summed up best by the word compromise?Two kinds of compromise: real aspiration and waffling.People Noah considers particularly adept at crafting productive compromise.Who was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and why does Noah find him interesting?For all of his accomplishments, the Yankee from Olympus had plenty of non-admirable characteristics.Why hasn’t Noah written about Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. yet?Did the Iroquois Confederacy have any impact on the Constitution?Experiments in governance and big tech Noah is looking forward to seeing played out (like the so-called Supreme Court of Facebook), and what their success or failure might look like.Foreseeable common mistakes that Noah thinks people should avoid when trying to create boards that oversee big tech companies.How legitimacy might operate as currency to drive a company’s compliance with its oversight board.Another ongoing experiment Noah is watching with constant fascination.Parting thoughts.MORE NOAH FELDMAN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“There’s actually nothing more frustrating in life than hearing someone speak a language that you don’t speak because you know there’s a whole universe going on there. For me, the impulse to decode is to sort of get behind there and to know what’s going on underneath.”
— Noah Feldman

“Is our whole system, from the Constitution on, fundamentally ruined by having racism and slavery in its DNA from the start? Or can we be a lot more optimistic about our capacities as a country by virtue of progress that we’ve made since our Declaration of Independence was written by a slaveholder and our Constitution was drafted primarily by a slaveholder at a convention where slaveholding states had a huge amount of influence?“
— Noah Feldman

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because imitation shows you that other people think something is working.”
— Noah Feldman

“Transparency drives transparency, and giving reasons drives legitimacy. Nontransparency, or failure to give reasons, detracts from legitimacy.”
— Noah Feldman

“Almost no constitutions in the modern world are totally invented from scratch.”
— Noah Feldman

“If you can alternate power, you get a lot of good incentives for everyone treating everybody relatively well.”
— Noah Feldman

“When you learn a language, it puts you in the thought world of the people who speak it, and you no longer are seeing them as an outsider, imagining what they might think when they speak to themselves. But you’re actually a participant.”
— Noah Feldman

PEOPLE MENTIONEDNoah’s ParentsWilson B. BishaiHammad ibn SalamahMuhammad ibn Musa al-KhwarizmiKevin KellyOsama bin LadenAntonin ScaliaAbraham LincolnFrederick DouglassH.W. Perry Jr.Stanley MilgramB.F. SkinnerAl GoreGeorge W. BushRyan HenryPaul BremerColin PowellJames MadisonNelson MandelaVitalik ButerinNikola TeslaBill NyeFrancis FukuyamaPatrick CollisonLee Kuan YewAdam PrzeworskiAlexander HamiltonHenry ClayMartin Luther King, Jr.Malcolm XOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.William JamesCharles Sanders PeirceHenry AdamsFelix FrankfurterLouis BrandeisLouis MenandWalter IsaacsonDonald Trump

Illustration via 99designs

“If you like these problems, let’s solve these problems. These are the problems you’ve chosen for yourself.”

— Alisa Cohn

Alisa Cohn (@AlisaCohn) is one of the most prominent startup coaches in the world. She has advised founders and executives at Venmo, Etsy, DraftKings, Wirecutter, Mack Weldon, InVision, Tory Burch, and others. She has also coached CEOs and C-suite executives at enterprises such as Dell, Hitachi, Sony, Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, The New York Times Company, and Calvin Klein.

She is the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up, a guidebook for entrepreneurs on the leadership journey from founder to CEO, and host of the From Start-Up to Grown-Up Podcast. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Inc. magazines, and she has been featured as an expert on Bloomberg TV, the BBC World News, and in The New York Times. A recovering CPA and one-time startup CFO and strategy consultant, she is now an angel investor and advisory board member. Outside of work, she is a (very) amateur rap artist and an investor in Broadway shows, two of which have won Tony Awards.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Kettle & Fire  high quality, tasty, and conveniently packaged bone broths ; Wealthfront automated investing ; and Allform premium, modular furniture . More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Listen onApple Podcasts[image error]Listen onSpotify[image error]Listen onOvercastAlisa Cohn on Prenups for Startup Founders, How to Reinvent Your Career, the Importance of “Pre-Mortems,” and the Three Selves (#539)

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

Want to hear an episode with someone else who understands the value of difficult feedback? Listen in on my conversation with Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, in which we discuss approaches to getting honest feedback from the conflict-avoidant, how to take honest feedback non-defensively, how to give honest feedback without fear, what a 360 interview can teach us, how disallowing a seven on a one-to-10 scale when soliciting feedback prompts honesty, and much more.

#369: Kevin Systrom — Tactics, Books, and the Path to a Billion UsersSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODEConnect with Alisa Cohn:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn

From Start-Up to Grown-Up: Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business by Alisa Cohn | AmazonFrom Start-Up to Grown-Up PodcastTown of Holliston MABoston UniversityNortheastern UniversityCornell UniversityPwCGoldman SachsLord of the Flies by William Golding | AmazonMemento | Prime VideoRancho Santa Fe, California | WikipediaThe Better Boss | The New YorkerWhat Is a 360 Review in the Workplace? | The Balance CareersLeadership Coaching: The 360 Degree Review Process | Fast CompanyJoe Gebbia — Co-Founder of Airbnb (#301) – The Blog of Author Tim FerrissJohn Arnold: The Most Prolific Philanthropist You May Not Have Heard Of | The Peter Attia DriveTribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss | AmazonUsing Content, Pattern, Relationship (CPR) to Save Relationships | Crucial LearningCrucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler | AmazonCrucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler | AmazonRadical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott | AmazonRadical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth by Brad Blanton | AmazonI Think You’re Fat by A.J. Jacobs | EsquireA.J. Jacobs — 10 Strategies to Be Happier Through Gratitude | The Tim Ferriss Show #344Dr. Jim Loehr on Mental Toughness, Energy Management, the Power of Journaling, and Olympic Gold Medals | The Tim Ferriss Show #490Mental Toughness Training for Sports: Achieving Athletic Excellence by James E. Loehr | AmazonJanna Levin on Extra Dimensions, Time Travel, and How to Overcome Boots in the Face | The Tim Ferriss Show #445Jim Dethmer — How to Shift from Victim Consciousness, Reduce Drama, Practice Candor, Be Fully Alive, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #434Don’t Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor | AmazonWhat Is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? | Verywell MindWhat Is Self-Awareness and How Does It Develop? | Verywell MindThe Catastrophe You Fear Will Happen Has Already Happened | The School of LifeAlain de Botton — How Philosophy Can Change Your Life | The Tim Ferriss Show #118Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan | Amazon“A Problem Well-Defined is a Problem Half-Solved” by Grace Kalisha | LinkedInThe $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson | AmazonI Wanna Be a Producer: How to Make a Killing on Broadway…or Get Killed by John Breglio | AmazonMy Healing Journey After Childhood Abuse (Includes Extensive Resource List) | The Tim Ferriss Show #464Psychedelics 101: Books, Documentaries, Podcasts, Science, and More | Tim FerrissSHOW NOTES

Note from the editor: Timestamps will be added shortly.

Alisa fills us in on her background, the journey, and the catalyst that opened her up to coaching as a career possibility.How trying to backtrack at a crossroads revealed Alisa’s superpower, and what she learned about unexpected qualifications sometimes outshining impressive resume highlights and postgraduate degrees in the eyes of a potential employer.What was it about coach Cheryl Richardson that appealed to Alisa when she was still trying to figure out her own career trajectory?How does Alisa’s approach to dispensing advice empower the person asking for it?When it was clear the door to Alisa’s Goldman Sachs opportunity had closed, how did she fare at the startup she’d chosen instead?How Alisa finally found her footing as a “real” coach after reluctantly bouncing back and forth across the country to act as a startup’s temporary CFO and home office GM.Alisa shares what happened on her San Diego pilgrimage to meet legendary coach Marshall Goldsmith, how she was able to make the connection through a cold email pitch, and what she brought to the table that made her a valuable part of his coaching team.On the devastating power of 360 feedback.When 360 feedback prompted an unexpectedly terrifying response from a COO in India.The challenges of addressing concerns and fixing problems with 360 feedback while maintaining anonymity when working with a small team.What have I found valuable about 360 feedback in my own experience, and what have I changed as a result of enduring it?Premortem versus postmortem in the 360 feedback process.Alisa’s suggestions for ensuring a meeting is productive.To offsite or not to offsite?Clarifying why it makes no sense for an organization to fret over small expenses when it doesn’t prioritize a need for meetings to be productive.How Alisa suggests communicating with someone who doesn’t improve upon feedback you’ve already given them (perhaps multiple times).When no amount of feedback does the trick and the only recourse is to fire the repeat offender, how does that conversation go?Books or resources for making these types of conversations go more smoothly.An example of why holding off on having a difficult conversation with an underperforming team member doesn’t do either party any favors.The “three words that you think about when you think about me” exercise and how it’s meant to demonstrate the way we see ourselves versus how others see us.Reframing through failures and accepting that obstacles aren’t merely obstructions along a given path, but the path itself.How Alisa gears her self-talk to favor motivation over demoralization.The three selfs: self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-talk, and the bridge of self-compassion that takes you to them.Where does “I will be okay no matter what” come in?Just because life’s circumstances may have taken a turn for the better doesn’t mean the anxiety from which you’ve always suffered will follow suit.How did From Start-Up to Grown-Up come to be, and why did it take 10-and-a-half-years of work?What got Alisa over the hurdle of procrastination to actually finish the book? What changed?On the three sections of From Start-Up to Grown-Up: Managing You, Managing Them, and Managing the Business.The prenup and checklist questions for managing the “marriage” of business partnership.What does Alisa hope readers will take away from From Start-Up to Grown-Up?Leadership is an unnatural act.Resources for people who want to learn more about the economics and ecosystem of Broadway.What would Alisa’s two-sided billboard say?Parting thoughts.Alisa gives a rundown of the scripts she’ll share here, the people who will make the best use of them, and the circumstances for which they’re most ideal.Scripts for quick, positive feedback (including one to use when someone is struggling), and how to make sure you integrate their use into your daily routine.A developmental feedback script to use with an employee who is junior to you.A developmental feedback script to use with an employee who plays a managerial role.A script for having a difficult feedback conversation (aka constructive criticism) with an employee.A couple of scripts for having difficult feedback conversations with employees when the first one’s been used but the situation hasn’t improved (and you’re not ready to fire them — yet).The firing conversation script.Scripts for soliciting more feedback from your managers and bosses.A script you can use to either set or reset expectations for your employees.Questions you can ask your employees so that you can have a deeper conversation about work in your one-on-one.A script for introducing the idea of career coaching, and proactive questions to ask about future goals and expectations.A script for telling someone you’re bringing in a manager on top of them.Simple networking scripts, resources, and suggestions.An email script you can use to reconnect with an old friend or colleague.MORE ALISA COHN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“Leadership is an unnatural act.”
— Alisa Cohn

“I don’t know what it’s like to be with me. I only know what it’s like to be me.”
— Alisa Cohn

“If you’re lucky, you pick your problems.”
— Alisa Cohn

“When you talk down to yourself, when you criticize yourself, especially harshly, you’re actually burning up a lot of calories that you could have used to actually solve the problem. You’re not your most resourceful, you’re not your most creative and best self when you’re beating yourself up.”
— Alisa Cohn

“Believe in yourself, and then act like it.”
— Alisa Cohn

“Problems, problems everywhere.”
— Alisa Cohn

“If you like these problems, let’s solve these problems. These are the problems you’ve chosen for yourself.”
— Alisa Cohn

PEOPLE MENTIONEDCheryl RichardsonPiggyMarshall GoldsmithJoe GebbiaJohn ArnoldPeter AttiaKim ScottA.J. JacobsJim LoehrJanna LevinJim DethmerKaren PryorDonald WinnicottAlain de BottonKathe SweeneyMichael Bungay StanierRobert KeganJohn DeweyYodaK-Bell