• Best Michael Ovitz quotes: 
  • “Insecurity and ambition make a powerful cocktail.” 
  • “I didn’t want to be standard in any way.”
  • “I would have been much happier if I hadn’t been so determined to appear all-knowing and invulnerable.”
  • “Everyone stopped. I didn’t stop.” 
• Lew Wasserman’s five rules that created his Hollywood empire 
  • 1. Tend to the client 
  • 2. Dress appropriately 
  • 3. Never divulge information about the firm 
  • 4. Do your homework 
  • 5. Never leave the office without returning every single phone call 
• Michael Ovitz’s founding principle for CAA
  • 1. All founding members get even equity 
  • 2. Get big fast 
  • 3. Share all clients and serve them as a group; no turf wars and no silos 
  • 4. Tell the truth 
  • 5. Create opportunities instead of waiting around for them 
• Belief comes before ability: “I believe that nobody wants to be treated just as they are. People want to feel encouraged to become more than what they are, to become the best versions of themselves.” 
• CAA poached talent by assumption: The firm behaved as if the talent was already their client, then made their dreams happen before ever even signing them

• Do the job before you are hired

At the core of Michael Ovitz's success is his relentless work ethic and commitment to mastering his craft. 50 years ago he founded Creative Artists Agency. CAA starts out as just five young guys in a run down office and eventually becomes the most powerful agency in the world. Ovitz's autobiography explains how that happened. As the Wall Street Journal wrote: When the history of Hollywood is written, few people will have played a larger role than Michael Ovitz. 

This episode is what I learned from reading (for the 2nd time!) Who Is Michael Ovitz?: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood by Michael Ovitz. 

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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

• “Gold, on some level, is a hedge – an insurance policy – against the existing system, as it has been allowed to evolve over the last 50 years.” – Luke Gromen 
• Gold serves as an anchor to reality: Establishment powers do not want gold to come back into the system because it is easier to run fiscal deficits without it 
• Throughout history, the first thing that autocrats tend to do once they seize power is remove the convertibility of their currency to gold
  • You are a free person as long as you can convert your currency into gold, but when you can no longer do that, your vote does not matter 
• “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild 
  • Throughout history, the first thing that autocrats tend to do once they seize power is remove the convertibility of their currency to gold 
• “It has become clear that the status quo dollar system has become an acute national security threat to the United States on two fronts.” – Luke Gromen
  • The US cannot make weapons fast enough to credibly defend itself or its allies 
  • The debt has gotten so high that it has become its threat to national security
  • Dollar Dutch Disease has weakened America and hurt the everyday American  
• The US borrows money from China to build weapons (which require Chinese components) to face China  – this is not a great geopolitical strategy considering China is the biggest adversary of the United States 
• The debt creates the problem: Introducing deflationary forces, such as an AI productivity boom or an energy breakthrough, to a debt-based system can cause it to implode  
• JD Vance has specifically said that the dollar’s reserve currency status may not be a good thing for the United States
• “At some point, Bitcoin might compete with [gold], but that’s far down the road.” – Luke Gromen  

More gold is being shipped quietly between countries right now than at any time in history. Why? Because we’re getting a new global financial system. Luke Gromen explains.

(00:00) Gold Is Still Critical to Our Economy

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• Identify and invest in outliers: The best venture capital investors recognize outlier potential when they see it and have a curiosity to discover what makes the outlier tick and WHY they tick that way 
• On being a VC or a founder: Inherent builders should be in the field – they should be building companies, not coaching other builders 
• Debug problems as far upstream as possible; take the rocks out of the river so the water can flow as fast as possible  
• Black magic is reserved for founders; every other area of the company-building process is mere mortal stuff 
• Stewardship over ownership: The goal is to leave your creation in a better place for the next generation 
• It is okay to choose the parallel tracked path of banking or consulting, and it is okay to take risks, but it is not okay to do one and spend your life thinking you did the other 
• The most common mistake that investors make is doing something contrary to the best interests of the founder 
• Traits of the best investment memos:
  • (1) Clearly state the one or two strongest reasons to invest
  • (2) Two to three pages max
  • (3) Present clear data from the opposing side
  • (4) argue why the investment should happen despite the opposing data
• Success starts at the foundational layer: Great culture is downstream of getting the foundation right and fostering internal belief, which is all a firm needs to be successful 
• Performance is the cultural component that matters most

Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years published once a month. These are N of one conversations with N of one people. There's nobody I've met quite like Doug Leone.

Subscribe to Colossus Review.

Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 

Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

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Show Notes

• Check out the episode page

Satya Nadella on:

Why he doesn’t believe in AGI but does believe in 10% economic growth;

Microsoft’s new topological qubit breakthrough and gaming world models;

Whether Office commoditizes LLMs or the other way around.

Watch on Youtube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Linear's project management tools have become the default choice for product teams at companies like Ramp, CashApp, OpenAI, and Scale. These teams use Linear so they can stay close to their products and move fast. If you’re curious why so many companies are making the switch, visit linear.app/dwarkesh

To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkeshpatel.com/p/advertise.

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Timestamps

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:05:04) - AI won't be winner-take-all

(0:15:18) - World economy growing by 10%

(0:21:39) - Decreasing price of intelligence

(0:30:19) - Quantum breakthrough

(0:42:51) - How Muse will change gaming

(0:49:51) - Legal barriers to AI

(0:55:46) - Getting AGI safety right

(1:04:59) - 34 years at Microsoft

(1:10:46) - Does Satya Nadella believe in AGI?

• Advice for Young Innovators: Work on the things that you are genuinely interested in and do not rely on other people to tell you what you should be working on 
• The term “conspiracy theorist” was invented by the CIA and used to discredit anyone who questioned the original results of the JFK assassination investigation

• “It’s pretty extraordinary that “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorists” are themselves literally born of a government conspiracy.” – Palmer 

Palmer Luckey is an entrepreneur and innovator best known for founding Oculus VR and Anduril Industries. In 2012, he launched Oculus VR and developed the Oculus Rift, a groundbreaking virtual reality headset that redefined a wide array of industries. The company was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion, where Luckey subsequently worked until 2017.

Following his departure, he founded Anduril Industries - a defense technology company specializing in autonomous systems including drones, surveillance towers, and aircraft. Anduril has secured major contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and international allies. The company has raised significant funding, including $1.5 billion in 2022, valuing it at $8.5 billion.

Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors:

Palmer Luckey Links:

Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts.

• World-class founders are the scarce resource: Every investor is chasing after the 5-10-15 founders a year that have a non-zero probability of rearranging the planet to their will
• You either have a superpower, or you don’t; you need to be in the top 1% on some dimension or you have no chance of creating the next Nvidia 
• Identify a crack in the world where things are volatile or in transition, and build solutions that address those opportunistic gaps  
• How to attract talent: Embrace and foster strong cultural principles that can differentiate your company from other companies – and be sure that those principles are authentic 
• The framework for understanding when to promote comes down to whether an employee’s growth rate is outpacing the growth of the company  
• Knowing how much capital to raise: Identify the two or three inflection points that will make the startup successful, then work backward from those and calculate the capital needed to reach each of them 
• The biggest mistake that founders make is that they don’t do reference checks on investors 
• Most MBA-esque wisdom is bad: People default to hiring because they want to manage people; new teams get created but nothing new gets done – this creates complacency and makes it challenging to tell the good employees from the bad ones
• The job of the CEO is to clarify and simplify the company’s initiatives, then strategically allocate resources against those goals – all done in the interest of ensuring a consistent voice 
• It is the CEO’s responsibility to disseminate as much high-signal information as possible so that everybody has the same context; doing this increases the probability that more people will naturally arrive at the correct decision 
• Making the decision and deciding that you are going to be successful is more important than the option value of waiting 
• Focus on inputs not outputs: People within your organization won’t take sufficient risks if the perception is that results are the only thing that matters 
• Challenge yourself: “You either want to write something worth reading, or do something worth writing about.” – Ben Franklin 

Keith Rabois is a Managing Partner at Khosla Ventures and the CEO of OpenStore, which acquires small direct-to-consumer businesses. Keith co-founded Opendoor and led the first institutional investments in DoorDash and Affirm. He has early stakes in YouTube, Palantir, Lyft, Airbnb, Eventbrite, and Wish, and also led investments in Faire, Ramp, Trade Republic, and Stripe. He’s regarded as one of the greatest early stage investors.

Keith began his career in the industry as a senior executive at PayPal and subsequently served in influential roles at LinkedIn and as chief operating officer of Square. As a board member, Keith guided Yelp and Xoom from inception to IPO, and served on the board of Reddit from 2012-2018.

0:00 - Intro1:56 - Great Founders and the Bottleneck to Innovation4:35 - Vertical Integration6:24 - The Hollywood Model of Startups7:41 - The “Why Now?” in Company-Building9:50 - Multi-Product Companies10:58 - Iteration and Pivots12:52 - Picking Co-Founders14:51 - Identifying Mispriced Talent17:20 - Attracting Talent20:57 - Assessing Talent24:02 - Doing References25:56 - Closing Hires28:28 - Thinking 6 Months Ahead31:36 - How Long Should You Interview For?33:28 - Creating a Monopoly on Talent35:44 - Raising Capital37:40 - Screening Investors41:21 - Building a Board44:11 - Triaging and Identifying Problems47:59 - Writing vs Editing and Consistent Voice49:34 - Creating Transparency50:50 - Barrels and Ammunition54:55 - Task-Relevant Maturity56:40 - On Delegating59:21 - Measuring Inputs vs Outputs1:02:58 - Underrated Metrics

1:05:22 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

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• “My appetite for finding the best person in the world to do the thing instead of me doing it is almost infinite.” – Graham Duncan 
• Desire wants what it wants; get in tune with your desire 
• Leverage your comparative advantage: Most investing strategies are downstream of the simple goal of (1) making money and (2) not losing too much

• In investing, the goal is to make money – not be right or feed the go 

• Be opportunistic and flexible so that you can flow with emergent market dynamics instead of getting stuck in them 

My guest today is Graham Duncan. This conversation will make you think about your life in new ways. This is a two-hour segment of a 4.5-hour interview I did with Graham last year. It stands alone as remarkable, but those who subscribe to Colossus Review will gain access to the full conversation. This will be true in future issues, too.

In 2006, in his early 30s, Graham convinced Stuart Miller, CEO of home construction company Lennar, to let him manage $50 million of his family's wealth. A year later, Miller gave him the rest of his capital outside of Lennar. That investment turned into East Rock, where Graham built an incredible investing track record managing billions for a select group of families by focusing on people.

Our conversation explores a wide range of topics—from what makes a great investment partnership to the power of positive feedback loops to starting a restaurant.

I’m thankful to Graham for showing me the way so many times and for being willing to be so incredibly open in this conversation. Please enjoy this discussion with Graham Duncan. 

Subscribe to Colossus Review.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).

Show Notes:

• DOGE is forcing the essential question: “What is the essential role of government?”
  • The people who are complaining the loudest about DOGE are probably the ones who have committed the most fraud 
• DOGE found USAID making some interesting payments:
  • $1.5 million to “advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
  • $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala 
  • $70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland 
• The corrupt USAID payments force the question: “What is the real grassroot support for these left-wing policies all over the world?” 
• “We know that the US government runs a $2 trillion deficit every year; we’re in debt almost $40 trillion. We also knew that anytime anyone tries to cut anything in Washington, the whole city screams bloody murder. So the question is, why? Well, now we know: the money is all going to them – it is round-tripping to them.” – David Sacks 
• USAID paid $8 million to Politico and several million dollars to the BBC; this may help to explain why certain political controversies, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, were buried during the 2020 election cycle 
• The Democrats have lost their way because they have forgotten “kitchen table issues” – the things that regular people care about and discuss at their kitchen tables 
• “A sovereign wealth fund would be a stealthy way to create industrial policy in America.” – Antonio Gracias 
  • A US sovereign wealth fund can serve as a rainy-day fund for the nation and a place to store the enormous amounts of revenue that can be created from pro-energy policies 
• Unleashing the American Productivity Machine: AI will cause job loss, but the amount of productivity that it will also enable in the US economy will be extraordinary 
• GLP-1 drugs aren’t just for weight loss and appetite control – they might protect the brain and heart but could come with risks for digestion, kidneys, and the pancreas 

(0:00) The Besties intro Antonio Gracias!

(3:11) DOGE takes on USAID

(31:44) Sacks breaks in to talk USAID

(34:00) Sacks explains what he's working on: Crypto/AI Frameworks

(46:41) The Democratic Party's shrinking base

(52:33) US Sovereign Wealth Fund + Breaking DOGE/Tax News

(1:09:07) Google to spend $75B on AI buildout in 2025, future of work in the age of AI

(1:23:21) Science Corner: GLP-1 macro study

Follow Antonio:

https://x.com/AntonioGracias

Follow the besties:

https://x.com/chamath

https://x.com/Jason

https://x.com/DavidSacks

https://x.com/friedberg

Follow on X:

https://x.com/theallinpod

Follow on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod

Follow on TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod

Follow on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod

Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/tppkzl

https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Intro Video Credit:

https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Referenced in the show:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_International_Development

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/usaid-donald-trump-elon-musk-marco-rubio-state-department-foreign-aid-8d2a1920

https://www.usa.gov/agencies/u-s-agency-for-international-development

https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/agency-for-international-development?fy=2024

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/at-usaid-waste-and-abuse-runs-deep

https://www.wsj.com/finance/banks-sell-5-5-billion-of-x-loans-after-investor-interest-surges-4b84f89c

https://www.usaspending.gov

https://www.foxnews.com/media/ex-politico-reporters-reveal-editors-quashed-slow-walked-negative-biden-stories-with-no-explanation

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c3-1bd39cc6a49e-C/2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/about/funding

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid

https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1884034727046226317

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886627783138316442

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-security-leaders-removed-refusing-elon-musks-doge-employees-accercna190357

https://x.com/Jason/status/1885082871074886110

https://x.com/anc_aesthetics/status/1886176995433763188

https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1887501752213409919

https://x.com/pm_viktororban/status/1887224829352280505

https://x.com/daily_romania/status/1887883017550430435

https://x.com/kanekoathegreat/status/1887261736618893636

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology

https://x.com/davidsacks47/status/1886878016183394403

https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/majority/scott-hagerty-lummis-gillibrand-introduce-legislation-to-establish-a-stablecoin-regulatory-framework

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/02/rahm-emanuel-democrats-voters-kitchen-table

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/a-plan-for-establishing-a-united-states-sovereign-wealth-fund

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/scott-bessents-3-percent-deficit-target-would-require-massive-cuts-to-anti-poverty-programs-and-middle-class-tax-increases

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-weigh-block-doge-accessing-treasury-department-records/story?id=118498817

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_DOGE_Service

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1887585824218509380

https://fedscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/02/show_temp.pdf

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/05/alphabet-shares-fall-7percent-on-revenue-miss-heightened-ai-investments.html

https://abc.xyz/assets/a3/91/6d1950c148fa84c7d699abe05284/2024q4-alphabet-earnings-release.pdf

https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1886899315735507255

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03412-w

• Price is the most important thing: Many investors make the mistake of wanting to buy the good things irrespective of price, but investing in a great company that gets expensive is worse than investing in a bad company that is cheap 
• It’s all about real purchasing power: People always talk about markets “going up” without accounting for the denomination that those markets are measured in  – in this case, the declining US dollar 
• “The dollar has been a strong currency, but not measured in gold or bitcoin.” – Ray 
• During periods of structural fiat currency debasement, it is best to own assets that have the following characteristics: international, mobile, relatively private, secure 
• Long-term risk of AI: Determining how the proverbial pie is divided will be a very political issue to navigate because the disruptive effects of AI will be enormous 
• The AI “tech war” is a war that no country can lose because it is more important than profits: If the US or China loses this war, they will face significantly greater consequences than simply losing out on profits
• It is ideal to invest in productivity, but there will be great disruption along the way – perhaps even amongst the hyperscalers, such as Nvidia
• The arithmetic debt spiral: The longer we wait to intervene, the more we will have to cut in the future to get out of the hole – the consequences of inaction compound non-linearly 
• We need more than just DOGE to fix the current fiscal situation; we need less regulation, more productivity, and new streams of revenue 
• While things are fine now, likely, a period of great conflict is ahead: A “hellacious” ten-year period is upon us in which our problems will be greater and our coordination for dealing with those problems will be less 

(0:00) Ray Dalio joins Friedberg!

(0:50) The current US fiscal situation

(6:23) Breaking down "The Big Debt Cycle," a potential US debt spiral, and the impact on real wealth

(24:54) USD vs other currencies and assets, best hedges against the dollar

(33:20) Portfolio construction, how China increases risk for US AI companies, why this market reminds Ray of 1998-1999

(41:45) How the US can avoid a debt crisis

(53:29) DOGE, Trump, and AI's greatest risk

(1:05:31) Chances of conflict between the US and China

Follow the Besties:

https://x.com/chamath

https://x.com/Jason

https://x.com/DavidSacks

https://x.com/friedberg

Follow Ray Dalio:

https://x.com/RayDalio

Read Part 1 of "How Countries Go Broke":

https://x.com/RayDalio/status/1878840018770210979

Pre-order "How Countries Go Broke":

https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Investment-Economic-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124064

Follow on X:

https://x.com/theallinpod

Follow on Instagram:

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Follow on TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod

Follow on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod

Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/tppkzl

https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Intro Video Credit:

https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Referenced in the show:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp

https://www.crfb.org/press-releases/treasury-confirms-calendar-year-2024-deficit-tops-20-trillion

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61172

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2bstne1l09npgdk1s5yww/corner-office/ray-dalio-makes-his-exit-from-bridgewater

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/outlook/economic-outlook/fed-meeting-september-2024

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2024/11/08/fed-cut-interest-rates-so-why-do-mortgage-rates-keep-climbing

https://www.chathamfinancial.com/insights/fomc-recap-december-2024

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/a-global-bond-sell-off-is-deepening-as-hopes-for-multiple-fed-rate-cuts-fizzle.html

• The Life of Isaac Newton: Forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone 
• Top Isaac Newton quotes from this episode: 
  • “Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.”
  • “I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait until the first dawnings open slowly, little by little, into a full and clear light.” 
  • “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
• Brilliance without passion: Geniuses are not beasts of burden and cannot be chained to whatever problem is set before them; intelligence is only half the equation of genius – it is the excitement that generates most of the action 
• Learning as a form of obsession: Newton learned as a form of obsession, which is the vital ingredient for achieving greatness 
• Balancing Obsession and Moderation: Too much study and too much passion will lead to madness 
• Newton on imagination and fantasy: “Fantasy is helped by good air, fasting, and moderate wine. It is spoiled by drunkenness, gluttony, and too much study.” 
• Newton was driven to understand things from first principles; he obsessively tried to quantify everything  
• Newton made his crowning scientific achievement at the age of 44, publishing the Principia in 1687; this work laid the foundation for classical mechanics, introducing his laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation
• Newton’s child-like love for the world and his desire to understand the world around him led to his greatest breakthroughs 

Isaac Newton was one of the great geniuses in human history. He established the basic laws of physics, discovered the laws of gravity, invented calculus, and refined the scientific method. On this episode we take a look at how he was able to accomplish so much by analyzing his strategies, tactics, and work habits.