Podcast Notes Playlist: Business

• The key question to consider about work and productivity: “How do we produce stuff, and be proud and ambitious about what we are doing, but also not burn out?” 
• Pseudo-productivity places too great an emphasis on looking busy but not creating anything of value; it is busyness for the sake of busyness because measuring productivity any other way in the knowledge work sector is too difficult  
• Do not shatter your day into fragments so small that you get nothing meaningful done 
• History’s greatest knowledge workers worked very slowly 
• Doing fewer things at once will enable you to accomplish more things 
• Your results are determined by intensity in the short term and consistency in the long term 
• Never give a yes or a no in the room; not saying yes or no in the room creates psychological distance from the decision 
• “Busyness” is attractive to people because it is a goal that they can succeed at; if a person wants to be busy, they will be busy   
• Signal to others that you are very careful about your time
• “People who obsess over quality grow antibodies to busyness.” – Cal Newport 

Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University, a productivity expert and an author.

• Get Peter’s new Longevity Practices book for free

In this episode, recorded during the 2024 Abundance360 Summit, Peter and Elon discuss super-intelligence, the future of AI, Neuralink, and more. 

01:01 | The Power and Perils of Superintelligence

16:58 | Neuralink: Merging Humans with Technology

24:31 | A Step Closer to Multiplanetary Life

Elon Musk is a businessman, founder, investor, and CEO. He co-founded PayPal, Neuralink and OpenAI; founded SpaceX, and is the CEO of Tesla and the Chairman of X. 

Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit 

Use my code PETER25 for 25% off your first month's supply of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic: seed.com/moonshots 

Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/

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My new book with Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact, is now available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3P3j54J

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What I learned from reading The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. 

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(1:00) This is a 100 page biography of the human species

(1:00) The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant (Full Set) 

(2:30) Generations of men establish a growing mastery over the earth, but they are destined to become fossils in its soil.

(4:00) Ruthlessly prioritize how you spend your time.

(4:00) The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows.

(4:30) ALL OF THE NAPOLEON EPISODES:

Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294) 

The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Wordsedited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza. (Founders #337) 

(8:00) Our job is to make our companies and ourselves better equipped to meet the test of survival.

(11:30) Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group.

(12:30) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)

(14:30) In the end, superior ability has its way.

(16:30) Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.

(19:00) The imitative majority follows the innovating minority and this follows the originative individual, in adapting new responses to the demands of environment or survival.

(20:00) If you can identify an enduring human need you can build a business around that.

(21:00) In every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt.

(25:00) Survival at all costs: Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under.

(25:00) Victory in our industry is spelled survival. — Steve Jobs

(25:00) All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. (Founders #224)

(26:00) By being so cautious in respect to leverage and having loads of liquidity, we will be equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense while others scramble for survival. — The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham (Founders #227)

(27:00) History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.

(31:00) The Iron Law of Oligarchy

(32:00) Every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon superior ability.

(33:00) The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)

(34:00) Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman 

(37:00) All technological advances will have to be written off as merely new means of achieving old ends

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

• Check out these Podcast Notes from Charlie Munger’s appearance on Acquired 

Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTec would consider themselves an “investor”, at least in any traditional sense of the word. It’d rather be more accurate to call them scientists — scientists who’ve discovered a system of math, computers and artificial intelligence that has evolved into the greatest money making machine the world has ever seen. And boy does it work: RenTec’s alchemic colossus has posted annual returns in the firm’s flagship Medallion Fund of 68% gross and 40% net over the past 34 years, while never once losing money. (For those keeping track at home, $1,000 invested in Medallion in 1988 would have compounded to $46.5B today… if you’d been allowed to keep it in.) Tune in for an incredible story of the small group of rebel mathematicians who didn’t just beat the market, but in the words of author Greg Zuckerman “solved it.”

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‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

• Inflation is a hidden tax on the people; instead of the government openly taking your money with direct taxation, it creates new money out of thin air which robs people of their purchasing power
• Governments debase their currency because they know there is no other way to pay their existing debts 
• In the United States, houses used to cost about 3x the median income; now they cost about 10x the median income 
• “If it doesn’t have intrinsic value, then it’s not going to be money.” – Peter Schiff
• “This is the best macro opportunity of all time.” – Raoul Pal on bitcoin 
• People wrongly assume that the dollars we print will always have value, regardless of how many dollars are printed 
• Central banks are paying the debts by printing money; this is pure monetary debasement 
• Papering over the debts with more printed money does not solve the fundamental problem 
• Politicians do not do what is best for the country; they do what is best for their careers, which is often at odds with what is best for the country
• “They are going to keep on printing until the dollar collapses.” – Peter Schiff 
• The free market tries to lower prices by increasing productivity while the government tries to raise prices by creating inflation 
• Using inflation to melt away existing debts is not the “right” choice, but it is the expedient choice – and likely the option that politicians will choose 
• We will deal with the consequences of currency debasement once the can cannot be kicked any further down the road  

Welcome back to part 2 of this power-packed debate with Peter Schiff and Raoul Pal! 

- The growing national debt and potential hyperinflation

- Historical patterns of financial repression

- Blockchain technology and digital asset utilization

- The future of Social Security 

You won’t want to miss out on the final part of this hot debate between Raoul Pal and Peter Schiff. 

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If you want to dive deeper into my content, search through every episode, find specific topics I've covered, and ask me questions. Go to my Dexa page: https://dexa.ai/tombilyeu

Themes: Mindset, Finance, World Affairs, Health & Productivity, Future & Tech, Simulation Theory & Physics, Dating & Relationships

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Episode 562: Shaan Puri (https://twitter.com/ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) get into the economics of personality tests–including the most famous one which is used by 89% of Fortune 100 companies.

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Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.

• #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future

• #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto

• #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett

• ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates

• Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More

• How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

• The trick of entrepreneurship is convincing yourself that it is not that hard, even when it is 
• “Your organization should be the architecture of the machinery of building the product.” – Jensen Huang   
• Pave the way to future opportunities; you cannot wait until the opportunity is in front of you to reach out for it  
• Many of the great all-time tech companies began by building products and services for developers 
• You don’t have to be that perfect if you can position yourself near opportunities 
• Every person should learn how to use an AI to augment their productivity
• Nvidia tries to position itself in a way that serves a need that is yet to emerge
• Push your chips in when you know it is going to work   
• Don’t do everything; prioritize your time, and make sacrifices, but realize that there is plenty of time in life  

We finally sit down with the man himself: Nvidia Cofounder & CEO Jensen Huang. After three parts and seven+ hours of covering the company, we thought we knew everything but — unsurprisingly — Jensen knows more. A couple teasers: we learned that the company’s initial motivation to enter the datacenter business came from perhaps not where you’d think, and the roots of Nvidia’s platform strategy stretch back beyond CUDA all the way to the origin of the company.

We also got a peek into Jensen’s mindset and calculus behind “betting the company” multiple times, and his surprising feelings about whether he’d go on the founder journey again if he could rewind time. We can’t think of any better way to tie a bow on our Nvidia series (for now). Tune in!

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‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

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What I learned from rereading Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins. 

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(0:01) Vanderbilt was only interested in two things: making money and winning

(3:00) Cornelius Vanderbilt, the descendant of poor Dutch immigrants, would die in 1877 possessing more money than was held by the United States treasury.
(3:00) The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles

(5:00) The NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. (Founders #329) 

(6:00) “If I had learned education. I would not have had time to learn anything else.”

(7:00) Vanderbilt wrote nothing down, keeping every detail of his business dealings in his head, and at any given time he knew his income and expenditures down to the last cent.

(10:00) From Founders Notes. I asked the chat feature:

Tell me about Cornelius Vanderbilt. How did he make his money?

One trait it identified in Vanderbilt was this:

Vanderbilt's approach to business was often marked by a sly concealment of his intentions, keeping information close while simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors. This strategic obfuscation allowed him to make moves that others often couldn't predict or comprehend until it was too late

(This feature will be available to Founders Notes subscribers very soon!)

(15:00) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields (Founders #292)

(24:00) The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233) 

(26:00) Gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.

(37:00) He's turning everyone against Walker by appealing to their interests. He’s not saying do this for me to get my ships back. He appeals to their interests and aligns their interests with his own.

(40:00) Vanderbilt had more money than all the Central American governments combined.

(41:00) As far as my nature is concerned, I do not meet competition, I destroy competitors.

— The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #324)

(41:00) Vanderbilt said why don’t you pay me to not compete with you?

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

One of the most common strategies for achieving a powerful ideal lifestyle vision is to leverage entrepreneurial activities to find a stable source of income that allows autonomy and flexibility. To help understand how to succeed in such ventures, Cal interviews the entrepreneur and author Noah Kagan about his new book, "The Million Dollar Weekend." Recording on the road as part of his book tour for "Slow Productivity," Cal also shares some lessons about what he's been observing.

Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo

Video from today’s episode:  youtube.com/calnewportmedia

INTERVIEW: Marketing guru Noah Kagan [11:06]

Links:
Use this link to preorder a signed copy of “Slow Productivity”:
peoplesbooktakoma.com/preorder-slow-productivity/
FREE download excerpt and 2 Bonuses for “Slow Productivity”:
calnewport.com/slow

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Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, Kieron Rees for slow productivity music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

There's often a gap between the textbook treatment of statistics and the cookbook treatment--how to cook up the numbers when you're in the kitchen of the real world. Jeremy Weber of the University of Pittsburgh and the author of Statistics for Public Policy hopes his book can close that gap. He talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how to use numbers thoughtfully and honestly.