Dru's Notes

Dru's Notes

By Dru RileyBusinessEntrepreneurshipEducationSelf-Improvement
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Dru's Notes episodes

  • How to Stay Consistent (By Finding the Minimum Dose)

    I cut my team's one-on-ones from every 2 weeks to once a month. Stretching the schedule looked like a clean win: fewer calls and more hours back. Alignment broke instead. Reconciling the drift took more time than the calls I set out to save. Each habit has a hurdle rate: the minimum input the system needs to clear what pushes back on it. In 1966, 3 weeks of complete bed rest cost young men 27% of their aerobic fitness; 30 years of natural aging only took 12%. You find the floor by lowering what you put in until progress slips, then returning to the input that held.

    Featuring: James Clear, William Blake, Benjamin Levine

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    Chapters:

    (00:00) Blake on knowing what is enough

    (00:06) Cutting one-on-ones to once a month breaks alignment
    (00:35) Each habit has a hurdle rate
    (00:52) Three weeks of bed rest versus 30 years of aging
    (01:21) The Silver Bridge collapses in 1967
    (01:49) Finding the floor by trimming input

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • His Joke Was So Bad It Cost £500 Million | Daily Essay

    He built the biggest jewellery chain in the world. Then he stood up at the Royal Albert Hall and called his products crap.

    Featuring: Gerald Ratner, Rabindranath Tagore, Carl Jung

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    Chapters:

    (00:00) Tagore on being too busy to be good

    (00:08) Gerald Ratner's joke costs 500 million pounds
    (00:50) A smash burger after a month of dieting
    (01:07) The brain grants slack after effort
    (01:19) Self-sabotage wears the costume of a reward
    (01:23) Deciding the reward before you start

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • You're Not Overthinking. You're Under-Moving. | Daily Essay

    Nelson Mandela broke rock in a quarry all day, went back to a cell about 7 feet across and ran 45 minutes on the spot. He kept that routine for most of 18 years, and he wrote down what it was for.

    Featuring: Nelson Mandela, Charles Dickens, Gabrielle Roth, James Blumenthal

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    Brought to you by:

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    Chapters:

    (00:00) Roth on moving the body

    (00:08) Mandela's routine in a Robben Island cell
    (00:58) Physical discomfort shifts a low mood
    (01:17) Duke's 16 week exercise versus sertraline trial
    (01:51) Dickens walks 30 miles through the night
    (02:15) A cold shower breaks the loop

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • How I Got My First Customer With 8 Notion Docs | Daily Essay

    3 months of mornings bought one Saturday's worth of information. In 2012 I coded before work every day on a product nobody had agreed to buy, then found out the truth in an afternoon at a car dealership. Thirteen years later the same test cost hours instead of months and produced a paying customer before a line of code existed.

    Featuring: Saras Sarasvathy

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    Brought to you by:

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    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) A Shanti proverb on testing depth

    (00:05) Three months building Shommi before one Saturday's test
    (00:45) Long loops make finding out expensive
    (00:51) Unilever's nozzle bred across 45 generations
    (01:23) Notion docs test HeadsUp on eight founders
    (01:42) Google's 12000 split tests a year
    (01:55) Sarasvathy's affordable loss rule

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • 1 Metric for Life Progress: The Daily Tempo Score | Daily Essay

    A single digit between -4 and +4 scores each day. Two questions follow it each night. An app called Apex correlates a year of those scores against habits, sleep and mood, which ranks cold showers at +0.7, phone off after 10pm at +0.7 and laptop off after 9pm at +0.6.

    Featuring: Margaret J. Wheatley

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    Brought to you by:

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    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Wheatley on reflection

    (00:10) Scoring each day between minus four and plus four
    (00:26) Apex correlates habits against tempo
    (00:47) A cold shower buys 21 earlier minutes
    (00:56) Compressing a day to one digit

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    2 min
  • AI's 7-Month Doubling Rule | Daily Essay

    METR sizes an AI's capability by the longest job it can finish, measured against how long a person would take, and through 2025 that length doubled roughly every seven months. A model counts as finishing when it comes out right half the time, so what you get is a coin flip you still have to check.

    Featuring: Margaret Atwood

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    Brought to you by:

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    HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. https://headsup.bot

    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Atwood on waiting for perfection

    (00:05) Choosing Multi's model off a public ranking
    (00:18) METR measures how long AI jobs run
    (00:40) A model that finishes half the time
    (00:48) Launch now and swap in better models

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    2 min
  • Y Combinator's 1,000-to-1 Bet | Daily Essay

    Charlie Munger accused venture capitalists of screwing their investors, then called the business legitimate if you do it right. Two strategies sit behind that contradiction, one betting on what changes and one on what endures, and the choice between them turns on which fits you.

    Featuring: Paul Graham, Niels Bohr, Charlie Munger

    Read the full post

    Brought to you by:

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    HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. https://headsup.bot

    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Bohr on profound truths

    (00:06) Munger on how venture capital makes money
    (00:29) Buffett bets on what customers still want
    (00:56) Paul Graham's math for funding many
    (01:33) Amazon picks its moment and its constants
    (01:47) Bezos on what will stay the same
    (02:12) Two strategies that both work

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • Why Rich People and Dying Spacecraft Follow the Same Rule | Daily Essay

    One drop of solder came off each kerosene can and kept paying Rockefeller for as long as the plant ran. Rockefeller, Amazon, Voyager 1, a 272-year-old shark and the co-founder of HubSpot all run the same rule: lower what a thing costs to run and the advantage keeps paying.

    Featuring: Dharmesh Shah, David Senra, Vicki Robin

    Read the full post

    Brought to you by:

    Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/

    HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. https://headsup.bot

    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Vicki Robin on frugality

    (00:07) Rockefeller's 39th drop of solder
    (00:47) Amazon's frugality and door desks
    (01:14) Marketing capped at 55 minutes a day
    (01:25) Voyager 1's shrinking power budget
    (01:54) The Greenland shark's 272 year lifespan
    (02:13) Dharmesh Shah keeps his costs flat

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min
  • You're Not Undisciplined. Your Habit Is Too Big. | Daily Essay

    Two men who won the Nobel Prize for pricing options helped found a fund that lost 4.6 billion dollars in four months. Ed Thorp ran the formula that names the right bet size and spent 19 years betting half of it, because you can count your odds at a blackjack table and only estimate them in a market. Eliud Kipchoge, an Okinawan dinner table and the race to the South Pole all run the same rule at different speeds.

    Featuring: Eliud Kipchoge, Ed Thorp, John Kelly, Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, Peter L. Bernstein

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    Brought to you by:

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    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Bernstein on survival

    (00:05) Long-Term Capital Management's collapse
    (00:20) Ed Thorp's Kelly formula fund
    (01:12) Thorp bets half of the formula's number
    (01:35) Kipchoge trains easy most weeks
    (01:58) Amundsen paces 15 miles a day to the pole
    (02:09) Scott's race ends in a blizzard 11 miles short

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    4 min
  • The 150-Year Art of Delayed Gratification | Daily Essay

    I put off a book for 15 years and finished it before lunch. The notebook it came out of had been filling since 2013, which is the whole point: Johan Cruyff's academy, a bankrupt royalist's letters about clover, and a Vanderbilt grandson who kept every dollar all run the same pattern at different speeds.

    Featuring: Johan Cruyff, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Guan Zhong, Samuel Hartlib

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    Brought to you by:

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    Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com

    Chapters:

    (00:00) Guan Zhong on planting for a hundred years

    (00:11) A book finished 15 years after it started
    (00:34) Cruyff's academy produces the world's top three
    (01:02) Richard Weston's letters on Flemish crop rotation
    (01:39) Norfolk's wheat yields climb over 150 years
    (02:00) A Vanderbilt grandson inherits and finds nothing to seek
    (02:30) What the next day inherits

    Where to find Dru:

    Essays: https://druriley.com/

    X: https://x.com/DruRly
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dru-notes
    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/drus-notes/id1888795427
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3lFHqgKxuvEHmdiEUfYShG

    Subscribe to Dru's Notes for a new episode every day.

    Click here to view the episode transcript.

    3 min

About Dru's Notes

From the publisher's feed

One mental model each day in a few minutes. Habits, business, building products and thinking clearly. From Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc.