Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• The rate of progress in the U.S. has slowed
  • Between 1920-1970, productivity growth in the U.S. hovered between 1.7-1.9%/year. Nowadays, most economists think it’s much lower (~0.4%).
  • “If you have a growth rate that’s 1% lower, over the course of a bit more than a century, you could have been 3x richer with the higher growth rate. That’s a difference between the U.S. today and Mexico.” – Tyler Cowen
• Overall, the U.S. is spending more for the same (or worse) results:
  • The average life expectancy has increased by ~a quarter of a year every year over the past century
    • But, we use to spend a few percentage points of our GDP on healthcare. Now, we spend 18%!
  • Despite directing more money towards funding science in the second half of the 20th century, doing so only resulted in similar returns (compared to the first half of the 20th century)
• “The notion that people have lost the ability to imagine a future much different and much better than what they know, to me, is one of the most worrying aspects of where we are now” – Tyler Cowen
• On the increasing costs of rent, healthcare, and education:
  • “If these problems continue at the rate they’re going at, it’s quite hard for me to imagine how we could do enough good to overcome the increases in costs… It’s hard for me to imagine more important problems over the next decade.” – Mark Zuckerberg

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the Conversations with Tyler Podcast

Over the past year Mark Zuckerberg has held a series of interviews themed around technology and society. This conversation with Tyler and Patrick is the last in that series, and covers why they think the study of progress is so important, including how it could affect biomedical research, the founding of new universities and foundations, building things fast, housing and healthcare affordability, the next four years of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more.

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Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• Looks for areas in life where you can stack your talents 
  • For example, with Dilbert, Scott combined his business background (his personal experience in the workforce, his MBA, and his degree in economics) with his artistic abilities 
• Humans are irrational creatures – remember this as you go about life
  • We make decisions for reasons we don’t understand, and then we rationalize the decisions to ourselves after the fact 
• “Most of what we regard as fact is some kind of sheltered truth” – Scott Adams
• Become aware of your blind spots by exposing yourself to concepts from a variety of different fields (psychology, history, economics, etc.)
  • This way, with whatever you come across in life, you’re able to view it through many different filters
• How to disagree with someone:
  • Technique #1:
    • First, state what you do agree on
    • Then, slowly introduce the disagreements (by introducing what you agree on first, the other person is primed to think: “Okay, this person agrees with me on a bunch of stuff, so maybe I should take him/her seriously”
  • Technique #2:
    • Put your disagreements in the form of questions, rather than statements
      • For example, you might ask the person you’re disagreeing with: “What would it look like if your idea played out for the next 10 years?”

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the Knowledge Project Podcast

Dilbert creator and author Scott Adams shares cognitive tools and tricks we can use to think better, expand our perspective, and avoid slumping into “loserthink.”

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For comprehensive show notes on this episode, including a full edited transcript, go to https://fs.blog/podcast/

Is your brain hungry for more? Don't miss out! Sign up for our weekly "Brain Food" at https://fs.blog/newsletter/

Follow @farnamstreet on Twitter for mind-expanding content. 

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways (Strategies for Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain)

• First off, RELAX – enjoy the food and company of your family
• Eat the meaningful foods (skip the Oreos, or foods you can eat any other day of the year)
• When eating, SLOW DOWN
• Fill your plate with protein (very filling) and veggies (high in fiber) before you hit the carbs
• Make sure you’re drinking water in between meals/alcoholic drinks
• If you know your holiday party won’t have any healthy dishes, bring one yourself!
• After a big meal, go for a walk to aid digestion

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the MInd Pump Podcast

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin cover seven ways to prevent packing on the pounds (or kilos) this holiday season.

• What is Mind Pump’s favorite holiday? (2:52)
• How much weight does the average American gain during the holidays? (4:20)
• The seven steps you can take to NOT get fat around the holidays.
• • #1 – Cutting the STRESS! (6:39)
  • #2 – Prioritizing the order of how you eat your food. (13:15)
  • #3 – The importance of drinking plenty of water. (17:35)
  • #4 – Bringing a healthy dish to your family dinner. (20:00)
  • #5 – Being mindful about the food you are about to eat and eating the desserts that are MOST meaningful to you. (23:40)
  • #6 – Going for a walk after your big meal. (31:03)
  • #7 - Scheduling workouts with your family and friends. (37:42)

People Mentioned

•  Paul Chek (@paul.chek)  Instagram

Related Links/Products Mentioned

• November Promotion: MAPS Performance ½ off!! **Code “GREEN50” at checkout**
• Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!
• Weight Gain over the Holidays in Three Countries
• The health benefits of strong relationships
• Why Eating With Your Non-Dominant Hand Can Help With Weight Loss
• Chewing Your Food: Is 32 Really the Magic Number?
• The Case For Taking a Walk After You Eat
• Mind Pump Free Resources

 

"If the customer doesn't scream, you don't have product-market fit." — Andy Rachleff

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This time, we have a slightly different episode—a takeover by Mike Maples, Jr.

Mike Maples, Jr. (@m2jr) and his firm, Floodgate, have invested in and supported many of the startups you might recognize — including Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Chegg, and Okta, among others — long before they were household names. He's been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade, but he's much more than a successful investor. Mike has also succeeded as both a founder and operating executive.

He's also simply a great guy and the first person who really taught me how to angel invest. For more on that background, listen to my interview with Mike at tim.blog/mikemaples.

In this episode, however, Mike speaks with Andy Rachleff (@arachleff), co-founder of Wealthfront and Benchmark Capital, about two of the biggest questions that should be on every start-up founder's mind: How do you reach "product-market fit" (a term that Andy coined), and how do they know when you've achieved it?

Andy has known many of the start-up world's giants and synthesized their lessons, so you will also hear what Andy learned from Don Valentine of Sequoia, Scott Cook of Intuit, Reed Hastings of Netflix, Geoffrey Moore, Clay Christensen, Eric Ries, and Steve Blank.

The audio from this conversation is from the premiere episode of Mike's brand-new podcast, Starting Greatness, which I encourage you check out. There are some incredible guests coming.

So, if you like this conversation between Mike and Andy, be sure to subscribe to Starting Greatness on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the website at greatness.floodgate.com, and on Twitter you can follow Mike at @m2jr and Andy at @arachleff.

Please enjoy!

This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer: Enter the code you heard during the Peloton ad of this episode at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. That’s onepeloton.com and enter the code you heard during the Peloton ad of this episode to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase.

This podcast is also brought to you by 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love. Its creative process has become the go-to solution for businesses, agencies, and individuals, and I have used it for years to help with display advertising and illustrations and to rapid prototype the cover for The Tao of Seneca. Whether your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99designs.

You can work with multiple designers at once to get a bunch of different ideas, or hire the perfect designer for your project based based on their style and industry specialization. It's simple to review concepts and leave feedback so you'll end up with a design that you're happy with. Click this link (99designs.com/tim) and get $20 off plus a $99 upgrade.

***

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests.

For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.

Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.

For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.

Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.

Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.

Follow Tim:

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Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss

Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss 

YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways (Strategies for Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain)

• First off, RELAX – enjoy the food and company of your family
• Eat the meaningful foods (skip the Oreos, or foods you can eat any other day of the year)
• When eating, SLOW DOWN
• Fill your plate with protein (very filling) and veggies (high in fiber) before you hit the carbs
• Make sure you’re drinking water in between meals/alcoholic drinks
• If you know your holiday party won’t have any healthy dishes, bring one yourself!
• After a big meal, go for a walk to aid digestion

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the MInd Pump Podcast

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin cover seven ways to prevent packing on the pounds (or kilos) this holiday season.

• What is Mind Pump’s favorite holiday? (2:52)
• How much weight does the average American gain during the holidays? (4:20)
• The seven steps you can take to NOT get fat around the holidays.
• • #1 – Cutting the STRESS! (6:39)
  • #2 – Prioritizing the order of how you eat your food. (13:15)
  • #3 – The importance of drinking plenty of water. (17:35)
  • #4 – Bringing a healthy dish to your family dinner. (20:00)
  • #5 – Being mindful about the food you are about to eat and eating the desserts that are MOST meaningful to you. (23:40)
  • #6 – Going for a walk after your big meal. (31:03)
  • #7 - Scheduling workouts with your family and friends. (37:42)

People Mentioned

•  Paul Chek (@paul.chek)  Instagram

Related Links/Products Mentioned

• November Promotion: MAPS Performance ½ off!! **Code “GREEN50” at checkout**
• Visit Butcher Box for this month’s exclusive Mind Pump offer!
• Weight Gain over the Holidays in Three Countries
• The health benefits of strong relationships
• Why Eating With Your Non-Dominant Hand Can Help With Weight Loss
• Chewing Your Food: Is 32 Really the Magic Number?
• The Case For Taking a Walk After You Eat
• Mind Pump Free Resources

 

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• “If you’re going to build a product, the only reason it should exist in the world is because it solves someone’s problem” –Mike Krieger
• To get an idea of what new product features to build, ask yourself: “How are people hacking our product, and how can we meet them in the middle to make that way easier?”
  • For example, people were using hashtags on Instagram before Instagram made them trackable or clickable
• “People forget your failures; they remember your successes” – Kevin Systrom
  • No one remembers the 15 features Instagram launched that failed, but everyone remembers their Stories feature
• Employee satisfaction at a company is highly correlated with whether or not the company is building a great product
• “No matter what new idea you have, people are going to tell you it stinks” – Kevin Systrom
  • “The one common thing of all great ideas is that they usually look pretty bad in the beginning”
• “Stay super curious and stay a learner” – Kevin Systrom
  • Most people stop learning after graduating from college – don’t be like most people

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the Invest Like the Best Podcast

My guests this week are Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram.

I met Kevin and Mike a few months ago over a shared interest in business and investing. I have found them both to be extremely good people who have a rare talent for finding and solving interesting problems. Indeed, problem-solving and jobs-to-be-done is a big part of our conversation.

I realized walking into the podcast that Kevin and Mike have a rare set of experiences: having both built and sold an extremely successful product from scratch, but then also operated and scaled inside one of the largest businesses in the world. This means they have unique knowledge to offer just about anyone interested in business and products. We dig into all those lessons here.

I am working on hosting more founders and CEOs on the podcast, and can’t think of a better pair to show you why I want to do so. Please enjoy my conversation with Kevin and Mike. 

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub.

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

 

Show Notes

1:38 – (first question) – Projects they’ve been working on since leaving Instagram

5:22 – How they can apply what they are learning in machine learning

7:18 – Most interesting experience diving back into data and machine learning

8:42 – How startups compare today to when they founded Instagram

13:23 – Judging founders and whether they know how to use their data effectively

14:26 – The jobs-to-be-done framework

19:14 – Laying out a vision vs solving problems that pop up

25:20 – Developing and sharing the principles of the company with the team

30:48 – Creating a community when it includes almost the entire world

39:03 – The most popular ways people used the platform

41:24 – What was the jobs-to-be-done rational behind the stories feature

44:15 – Interesting things that they saw as Instagram entered the developing world

46:40 – Their thoughts on how Instagram shaped culture and if they focused on those

52:58 – The new waves that they are observing right now

55:11 – How their thinking on leadership and teams changed during their time at Instagram and Facebook

1:03:23 – The pillars of a good business, including humility and confidence

1:06:06 – Focus on growth and distribution in a startup

1:10:01 – How early were they thinking about monetization on this free platform

1:13:43 – How do they think about how they invest their money and allocate resources

1:17:36 – Mentors for Kevin and Mike

1:20:30 – Their passion for learning to fly and the someday/maybe list

1:23:01 – Their interest in coffee

1:26:24 – Advice for everyone else

1:30:00 – Kindest thing anyone has done for them

 

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub

Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded live at an On Deck Fellowship event in San Francisco.

They discuss:

- The kinds of companies and founders he looks to fund, including why he wants half of his VC friends to laugh at how ambitious and ridiculous the companies he’s funding are.

- Why going from zero to one involves roughly the same amount of pain no matter whether the “one” the company gets to is tiny or a billion-dollar-plus enterprise.

- Some of the different spaces he’s invested in recently and how he’s navigated the idea maze in different sectors.

- Stories from the early days of PayPal.

- Why he likes regulated markets, and why he says “the more legal risk, the better.”

- How to think about creating a founding team, and why you need to absolutely make sure you and your co-founders agree on first principles.

And of course, they also discuss basketball and politics.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• “You have to make deposits during practice so you can withdraw them during game day” – Stephen Schwarzman
• Like the medical principle, “First, do no harm,” Stephen’s #1 investment principle is, “First, don’t lose money”
  • Avoiding losses leads to greater long-term wealth rather than constantly seeking the largest returns 
• Discussing a topic with multiple minds is more illuminating than trying to understand it from your perspective alone
• “Running a great organization is an exercise in lifetime learning of things that didn’t work out” –  Stephen Schwarzman
  • When a problem arises, look at it as an opportunity to improve your thinking process
• “Never compromise when you’re hiring people. Good enough is not good.” – Stephen Schwarzman
• On choosing what to work on:
  • “You should find a really big idea addressing a really big opportunity. Then, if you win, you win huge.” – Stephen Schwarzman
    • Big ideas will also excite and attract more supporters than small ideas

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the Knowledge Project Podcast

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman gives advice on attracting and assessing strong talent, making smart decisions, and how to press forward when the chips are down.

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For comprehensive show notes on this episode, including a full edited transcript, go to https://fs.blog/podcast/

Is your brain hungry for more? Don't miss out! Sign up for our weekly "Brain Food" at https://fs.blog/newsletter/

Follow @farnamstreet on Twitter for mind-expanding content. 

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• Alzheimer’s disease starts in the brain 20 to 30 years before the first symptoms of memory loss
• On ApoE:
  • ApoE is a gene
  • There are four different isoforms (aka alleles) of ApoE
    • They’re referred to as 1, 2, 3, and 4 (but most of the time you’ll find 2, 3 and 4)
  • Everybody has two copies of the ApoE gene (one from mom and one from dad)
    • Most people have two copies of ApoE3
  • People with an ApoE4 allele have an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (you can use 23andMe to see your ApoE phenotype)
    • People with one allele have a 2-3 fold higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, while those two alleles have a 10-15 fold higher risk 
• Alzheimer’s disease risk reduction techniques:
  • Physical activity is SUPER important 
    • “Exercise is by far the best thing a person can do to protect against Alzheimer’s disease… Physical exercise is by far the most powerful antidote to ApoE that I know of.” – Richard Isaacson
  • Eat fatty fish (wild salmon, sardines, mackerel, lake trout, and herring) for optimal omega-3 fatty acid consumption
  • Get adequate sleep
  • Monitor your body fat: “As the belly size gets larger, the memory center in the brain gets smaller” – Richard Isaacson
• If someone with mild cognitive impairment (AKA Stage II Alzheimer’s disease) follows a tailored set of recommendations and risk reduction techniques, it’s possible to delay conversion to dementia (AKA Stage III Alzheimer’s disease)

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



Subscribe to the Genius Life Podcast

Richard Isaacson is a board-certified neurologist and director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian.

In this episode, Kevin fields all of your AMA questions from Instagram. He covers career advice, finding purpose, supplements, buying crypto, his psilocybin experience, favorite biohacking tools, moving to Portland, Japanese whisky, his favorite book of 2019, and more!