Podcast Notes Playlist: Business

Today's episode is with one of the greatest business authors ever, Jim Collins. Jim is one of the most inspirational figures in James' career. Not only did he inspire James, but he also is one of James' fathers, favorite authors. This has formed a bond at a young age between the two and has helped form many ideas in James' head. James and Jim cover many topics today, in one of our longest podcasts ever recorded, they talk about a wide range of VERY useful topics for founders and creators. From, breaking down Jim's personal rubric on writing a book to how an idea turns into a book. Jim explains why it is important to keep turning the flywheel even when you feel like abandoning it. James and Jim, also speak about how great leadership, can take a company, far beyond what is projected on paper. Jim also explains the difference between Good and Great. To conclude the episode, Jim speaks about luck and how not only good luck is inevitable but so is bad luck, he explains how not all time in life is equal and how you should zoom in on the good luck and reevaluate the bad luck.  

Find out more about Jim Collins here:

Buy Jim's new book, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.  

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine

Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline

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About your host, James:

“Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.

• “There’s this general idea that’s familiar, which is poor people buy status, rich people buy time, which becomes the status” – Alex Danco
  • Breastfeeding is the cheapest option for feeding a newborn but at the same time it’s incredibly expensive because it costs you your time
• Sometimes people get competitive with each other to exhibit status.
  • They do it through proxies. For example, parents use their children
  • This kind of status signaling intensifies as children go through high school
• Canada does not have the concept of Ivy League, but they have the concept of good schools
• There is still pressure to get into the best schools in Canada but less so than in the US
  • “…college is now not about the four years of college, it’s about the 15 years you spend preparing to get into college. Once you’re there, it’s over”– Alex Danco
• COVID accelerated the move to the digital world. Jim calls this the great reshuffle
  • People no longer have to move to get a job, the idea of the old-style CV will change
• The long term impact of covid will be heterogeneous- different outcomes for different countries

Our recurring guest, Alex Danco, returns to Infinite Loops for his fourth appearance to discuss:

• Books on social hierarchies
  
• Expensive in time vs. money
  
• Schooling in Canada vs. the USA
  
• The Great Reshuffle
  
• Long term impact of COVID
  
• And MUCH more!
  

Follow Alex on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Alex_Danco and read his amazing essays at https://alexdanco.com/

Hiten Shah is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nira. A company that specializes in protecting companies documents from unauthorized access. Hiten has been working remotely for close to 18 years. Today he joins James to talk about The Remote Workspace Utopia. James and Hiten start the episode by giving listeners insight into all the technological gadgets used to help complete daily tasks and meetings remotely. James and Hiten also dive deep into the topic of meetings. Hiten explains the detrimental effects of mixing strategy and execution and why each topic should be discussed separately. To conclude the episode, James and Hiten talk about Communication in the remote workspace and what are the best practices in keeping your team on track.

https://bit.ly/Go_BelowtheLine

Find out more about Hiten Shah:

Hit the show hotline and leave a question or comment for the show at 424-272-6640, email James questions directly at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline

Support Our Sponsors:

About your host, James:  

“Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Another Podcast Network.

• “It’s trying to find the magic in people and shining a light on it”– Fidji Simo
  • Great management is allowing people to be flexible in the path to success, giving them the right tools and conditions for their best functionality. All while being inflexible to the goal.
• Mentors are not critical, sponsors are
  • “Sponsors are the people who put their butt on the line for you and help you open doors when you need them the most” – Fidji Simo
  • Sponsors are advocates for the next step in your career; mentors mold you day-to-day in the role that you’re in
• If you want an opportunity, let your uniqueness overpower your experience (or lack thereof). Your uniqueness is your advantage.Make the hiring decision of you obvious.
  • “People who are curious and hungry will figure anything out. This will overcome a lot of experience” – Fidji Simo
• You’ll never experience burnout if you make creativity the focal point of everything that you do
• Instacart is planning for an evolution in the way people view, consume, and interact with food
  • Personalization, convenience, and nutrition are key themes

Fidji Simo is the CEO @ Instacart, the company that allows you to order whatever you want from local stores, delivering it straight to your door. Fidji joined the Instacart board 10 months ago and just 3 months ago, Fidji joined Instacart full time as CEO. Prior to Instacart, Fidji spent an incredible 10 years at Facebook in numerous different roles including Head of Facebook App and before that Vice President of Games, Video and Monetisation. If this was not enough, Fidji earlier this year announced her co-founding of Metrodora, an integrated medical ecosystem with the vision of advancing women’s health.

1.) How Fidji made her way from a small coastal fishing town in France to leading the Facebook App and becoming one of the most powerful CEOs in tech with her new role at Instacart?

2.) The Rise @ Facebook: How did Fidji rise in the ranks at Facebook so much faster than anyone else? What were the biggest inflection points in her rise? What bets did she make that others did not see? How did they play out? Did any of the bets go wrong? What did Fidji learn about management style when the bet went wrong?

3.) Problem Solving and Decision-Making: What framework does Fidji use to have the most effective problem-solving and decision-making process? How does Fidji built such tight trust and honesty with her team members? In what way can leaders make people feel safe to take big bets but also not lose accountability if it does not work out?

4.) The Move To Instacart: Why did Fidji decide that CEO of Instacart was the right next move for her? What was Fidji's hypothesis of how the first 100 days would go? What has been a surprise in the first 100 days? How do the best leaders onboard into new CEO roles? How does the role of CEO change when moving from private to public company?

Fidji’s Favourite Book: The Night Circus

• “Ruling institutions often go from being service providers to rent-seekers”– Mike Maples Jr.
  • The ability to exit is what gives your voice its power
    • Bitcoin provides you an exit opportunity from the centralized financial system
    • Covid has digitally separated work from location, creating exit power over local governments
  • Governments are being forced to treat us more like customers again rather than assets because more options emerge from the decentralization of products/services
• Category Design: Trying to be the better choice isn’t credible, being different is believable
  • “I’m not the best, I’m the only. You want to force a choice and not a comparison.” – Mike Maples Jr.
• Scalable start-ups that design new product categories are the way to defeat your susceptibility to inflation
  • Contributing towards existing institutional product categories only creates further dilution of the dollar down the corporate production line – feeding the machine per se
  • The phrase ‘the robots are going to eat your job’ is political speak to uphold industrial-era social contracts that maintain organizational power
  • Don’t subordinate your creativity as a trade-off for organizational hierarchy
• Software gives people the ability to create a scalable business and participate in a more net positive, competitive, and decentralized business ecosystem
  • Competition drives innovation, the ‘robots’ are going to create more opportunity for the entrepreneur
  • “The future doesn’t happen to us, it happens because of us” – Mike Maples Jr.

Mike Maples Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate (early investor in Twitter, Twitch, and Lyft) and the host of the Starting Greatness Podcast.

In this conversation, we spoke about surviving how an entrepreneur survives near-death experiences, the balance of centralization vs. decentralization, why you should seek to join a breakthrough company, and how to manage your own psychology.

Emoji to describe this episode: 🤯

Mike's Links

Starting Greatness Podcast / Twitter

Advice by Patrick Collison

Continue the conversation with me...

Twitter / Instagram / YouTube / Website

Hiten is a serial entrepreneur and investor currently serving as the Co-Founder and CEO of Nira. He previously co-founded KISSmetrics, and before that, CrazyEgg. Hiten has invested in or advised more than 200 startups over the last 15 years and has recently turned his attention towards crypto. Follow Hiten on Twitter @hnshah.

[2:21] - Hiten’s story, his fathers advice, and early days as an entrepreneur

[15:00] - Extreme curiosity, customer obsession, and arbitrage

[19:02] - How Hiten got into crypto

[23:20] - When great technologies start on the fringe

[26:22] - NFT avatars and Lazy Lions

[34:59] - Discord as a new arena for learning

[38:26] - Observations from 18 years of working remotely

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