Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes

Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol) interview Keith Rabois (@rabois), newly announced GP at Founders Fund.

Keith starts out by talking about why he joined Founders Fund and the reason that the structure of VC means we don’t see more people moving from one fund to another. They talk about the future of venture and whether there will be more M&A in the space and where he sees things going in the next 10 years. Keith explains why being an effective VC is much more an art than a science.

Erik asks about Keith’s goals at this point after all that he has already accomplished and why it’s thus far not been possible to scale one’s investing model beyond one’s self. Keith also has a well-known theory about breaking down businesses into equations and Erik asks whether one can do the same with careers as well.

Keith recounts the story of working for Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel at PayPal and how he has learned to trust his instincts in the absence of specific quantitative metrics. He talks about why being vertically integrated is important for a startup, why getting the timing right is part of a founder’s job (and can’t be a founder’s excuse for failure), and why in his view founder quality trumps all other factors when evaluating a business.

He also talks about some of his requests for startups, including an integrated fitness and nutrition company. They also talk about some of the places where he agrees or disagrees with prominent thinkers in tech and how Keith’s politics and contrarianism have evolved.

Quotable Lines From This Episode

"You want to solve your biggest risks first. Mediocre founders solve the easiest risks first. Take the three most risky things and conquer them. I always counsel a founder to address risks in order of difficulty not in order of ease."

"To me when a founder says they didn’t get the timing right, that means they just didn’t do their job."

"I focus all on the people and a lot less on the market, a lot less on the product and a hell of a lot less on the technology."

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 and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Caterina Fake, co-founder of Yes VC & Flickr, explores tech's unintended consequences in new podcast "Should This Exist?"; shares insights on community building, founder skills, the zebra movement, the future of capitalism & funding startups that embody creativity & expression

"Everyone's genius is right next to their dysfunction." — Graham Duncan

Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multi-family office investment firm that manages $2 billion for a small number of families and their charitable foundations.

Before starting East Rock 14 years ago, Graham worked at two other investment firms and started his career by co-founding an independent Wall Street research firm. Graham graduated from Yale with a B.A. in ethics, politics, and economics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as co-chair of the SOHN Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.

Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy who served as the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, calls Graham "the tip of the spear in the realms of talent tracking and judgment of human potential in high stakes mental arenas."

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.

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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. 

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Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• Deep sleep is essential for cementing memories and information
• REM (rapid eye movement)/dream sleep helps to form connections between recently learned information and our entire back catalog of memories
• If you’re thinking about pulling an all nighter to study for an exam…don’t
• Playing the same sound at a sub-threshold awakening level while you learn and sleep seems to improve memory retention
• Here’s what happens when you don’t get enough sleep:
  • Your regulation of blood glucose is profoundly impaired
  • “In my lab, the most reliable thing we see when we deprive people of sleep of any dose – anxiety goes up”
  • Men who are sleeping 5 hours or less a night will have a level of testosterone that of 10 years their senior
  • Your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease skyrockets 
  • In one study, participants restricted to 4 hours of sleep for just ONE night experienced a 70% reduction in natural killer cell activity
    • Natural killer cells are a critical part of your immune defense arsenal
  • When you’re sleep deprived, you have a lowered desire for social proximity and social interaction
    • You’re also more likely to appear as a “lonely person” when sleep deprived and people are less likely to engage with you
    • “Being lonely increases your mortality risk by 45%” – so being lonely is twice as risky for your death concern as obesity
  • Relative to person with a full night’s sleep, the amygdala (the emotional part of the brain) is 60% more reactive under conditions of a lack of sleep
    • And on top of that – sleep deprivation shuts down the prefrontal cortex’s communication with the amygdala (the prefrontal cortex acts as a break on the gas pedal of your emotions)
• People with insomnia have an amplified fight or flight nervous system (aka the sympathetic nervous system)
• As we age, the amount of deep sleep we get decreases
  • By the time you’re 50, you’re getting about 50% less deep sleep compared to your teens
• When sleep trackers are compared to actual data gathered in lab sleep studies – “they’re not quite accurate”
  • This includes the Oura Ring
• Here’s how typical sleep cycles work:
  • Deep non-REM sleep always comes before REM sleep
  • This repeats every 90 minutes throughout the night
    • As the night goes on, the ratio of REM to non-REM/deep sleep changes
      • In the first half of the night, the majority of those 90 minute cycles are comprised of lots of deep sleep, and little REM
      • In the second half, you get much more REM sleep and little deep sleep
      • So….if you typically go to bed at 12 AM and wake up at 8 am, but have to wake up at 6 AM one morning – yes you’ve lost 25% of your sleep duration, but you’ve lost perhaps 80% of your REM sleep
        • The same happens if you go to bed too late – you miss out on valuable deep sleep
• Sleep tips:
  • Aim to get lots of light during the day and lots of darkness at night
    • An hour before bed, it’s a good idea to dim or turn off most of the lights in your house
    • Avoid blue light too close to bed time (specifically the hour before bed)
  • For you to fall asleep and stay asleep, your body has to drop its core temperature 1 °C (2-3 °F)
    • To help lower your core body temperature – take a hot bath/shower before bed (or use the sauna)
      • Why? – When you get into a hot bath, you get massive vasodilation
        • All the blood vessels open up on the surface of your skin – this results in a rush of blood from the core of your body to the surface, so your skin/hands/feet act like a thermal radiator and dissipate body heat, thus lowering your core body temperature
        • Wearing socks to bed also acts to do something similar
    • Try to set your bedroom temperature between 63 to 66 °F
  • Don’t stay in bed if you can’t fall asleep
  • Know that alcohol suppresses REM sleep
    • (So does cannabis – specifically the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis (tetrahydrocannabinol -THC) – although it may reduce the time it takes you to fall asleep)
    • Related:
      • Low doses of cannabidiol (CBD) seem to promote wakefulness
      • High doses of CBD seems to help people sleep more consistently
  • Avoid caffeine after midday

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Matthew Walker, Ph.D., is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and serves as the Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. Formerly, Dr. Walker served as a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School.

Walker's research examines the impact of sleep on human health and disease. One area of interest focuses on identifying "vulnerability windows" during a person's life that make them more susceptible to amyloid-beta deposition from loss of slow wave sleep and, subsequently, Alzheimer's disease later in life.

Dr. Walker earned his undergraduate degree in neuroscience from the University of Nottingham, UK, and his Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the Medical Research Council, London, UK. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.

Click here to get this episode's show notes and transcript.

Watch nearly twenty-seven episode highlights on the new FMF Clips channel.

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Submit your raw genetic data. You can find the APOE report and the Circadian Report at foundmyfitness.com/genetics.

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• The most expensive mistake you can make in life is to be a pessimist
• What makes Sam who he is?
  • “I’ve met many people smarter than me, but I’ve only ever met a handful people that are more curious than me”
• What makes a good founder?
  • It is VERY hard to be successful as a founder if you are not decisive
  • Being relentlessly resourceful
  • But the MOST IMPORTANT trait of a successful founder – Having a vision that someone feels compelled to make happen in the world
• On artificial intelligence (AI):
  • “The upside of AI is UNBELIEVABLE. Real economic sustainable growth comes from technology, and I think this technology is going to generate more of it than the sum total that has ever been generated by technology in human history.”
• Sam is a huge proponent of universal basic income (UBI)
• There are two huge problems with coworking spaces:
  • They act as a band pass filter and kill off great ideas
  • The average level of ambition and willingness to work hard at a coworking space is incredibly low
    • The regression to the mean law then takes effect
• “Nuclear energy is BY FAR the safest form of energy that humanity has ever created”
  • Sam believes we’ll get net gain nuclear fusion working in the next decade
• What did Sam do wrong as a 19-year-old?
  • “I didn’t spend enough time thinking about what to work on. I just let myself get pulled along.”
• Sam tries to always live his life aiming to never regret anything
  • So if he’s making a decision, and feels like he’s going to regret not doing something in the future, he goes for it
• Most things in life are not as risky as they seem
• “The best way to generate wealth is to own a significant piece of a startup”

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Founders aren’t superheroes, says Sam Altman.They may play extreme sports, respond to emails within seconds, and start billion-dollar companies, but they are rarely the product of extraordinary circumstance. In fact, they tend to be solidly upper-middle class, reasonably smart, and with loving parents. 

So would Sam fund Peter Parker? What about Bruce Wayne?

Tyler and Sam discuss these burning questions and more, including what’s wrong with San Francisco, Napoleon’s underrated skill, nuclear energy, the greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution, his rant against coworking spaces, UBI and AGI, risk and regret, optimism and beauty, and why venture capitalists don’t have superpowers either.

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At LAUNCH SCALE 2017, Jason sits down with two leaders defining the future of investment. Chamath Palihapitiya, who grew Facebook and went on to found VC powerhouse Social Capital, sets us straight on the state of venture capital and markets today, and what we need to do to win. It’s a turbulent time to say the least; investors need to help founders hunker down and restructure how they’re spending money and get their business models working for escape velocity. (Hint: this does not include the use of ICOs, for which Chamath has many choice words….) Next is David Eun, President of Samsung NEXT who talks to Jason about his formidable work at AOL and Google, which led to him to Samsung and helping founders and startups. David nurtures innovation by meeting entrepreneurs wherever they are, a strategy that’s paying off with 23 (and counting) acquisitions in transformative software, including Smart Things leader in smart home. Exciting days.

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• “The next year is going to go by whether you’re doing something about your life or not”
  • Sure you’re far from your goal now, but the time is going to go by anyway – make the incremental changes, and every day you’ll be better off
• There’s a stigma attached to mental illness and there shouldn’t be
  • “Having depression or anxiety should have no more stigma than having a knee injury, a kidney infection, or diabetes”
• On using medication to treat depression:
  • It usually only makes sense to do so for a biochemical reason, or for the short-term
  • “I look at a lot of depressed people, and in a sense…it makes sense. How could they not be depressed?”
    • “You don’t need a pill in that case. Put somebody in a chemical straitjacket because their life is falling apart? What the hell is that gonna do?”
    • Giving someone a pill in a situation like that might just keep them off task
      • Pain is a good motivator – it’s not necessarily bad. If you’re in pain, it’s going to motivate you to MOVE to change something. And to dull that pain with drugs is NOT a good thing.
• Medicine has become a high volume business
  • Doctors write prescriptions TOO OFTEN
    • They don’t take the time needed to really discuss things with patients, and see if perhaps there are real external circumstances that warrant the patient’s depression
• If you’re still taking the opioid prescribed to you at the 7 day mark, your chance of being addicted at the 1 year mark is 1 in 12
  • If your still taking them at 30 days, your likelihood of being addicted at the 1 year mark is 1 in 3

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Dr. Phil McGraw is an author, psychologist, and the host of the television show "Dr. Phil."

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• One of the best things you can do for yourself is to develop a reading habit
  • Now sure what to read? – The best books are the ones you’re excited about reading
• View reading as an investment – a book costs $10 or $20 and can change your life in a meaningful way
• On reading:
  • “I probably read 1 to 2 hours a day”
  • “That alone puts me in the top .00001% and accounts for any material success that I’ve had in my life”
• Some advice – Only associate with people where you don’t have to drink to be around them
• When people say they don’t have time for something, all it means is it’s not a priority
  • If you make something your number one priority, you’ll get it done
• On Happiness:
  • “Happiness is a default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing from your life.”
  • “Nature has no concept of happiness or unhappiness”
    • In nature – everything is perfect the way it is
    • “It’s only in our particular minds that we’re unhappy or happy”
• “Every positive thought has a seed of a negative thought within it”
  • An example – if someone says they’re happy, it means they were unhappy at some point
• When the monkey mind won’t stop, here’s a tip:
  • Ask yourself – “Do I really need to solve this problem right now?”
  • The reality is that 95% of what your brain runs off to do, you probably don’t need to tackle at that exact moment
  • In fact, if the brain is like a muscle, then you’d be better off resting it, being at peace, and when the particular problem arises, immersing yourself in it
• Naval recalls a Buddhist saying – “Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody else”
• Here’s some advice Naval would give to his younger self – “Do everything you’re going to do, but with less emotion, and especially less anger”
• On making decisions – “The more of a desire I have that it work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth”
• And of course, some classic Naval quotes:
  • “All the benefits in life come from compound interest; whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities or habits”
  • “Life is a single player game. You’re born alone. You’ll die alone. All your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. And in three generations, you’ll be gone – no one will care. Before you were born – nobody cared.”
  • “All of the real score cards are internal” – like learning to be happy
  • “Any given time when you’re walking down the street, a very small percentage of your brain is focused on the present. The rest is future planning or regretting the past. That’s keeping you from an incredible experience. It’s keeping you from seeing the beauty in everything and being grateful for where you are. It can literally destroy your happiness if you spend all your time living in delusions of the future.”
  • “The tools and means to learn are infinite, it’s the desire to learn that’s incredibly scarce”
  • “I think education should be about learning the basics in all the fields, and learning them really well over and over, because life is mostly just about applying the basics and only doing the advanced stuff in the things you truly love, where you know the basics inside and out”
  • “You don’t need to do anything. All you should do is what you want to do. When you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, then you get to listen to that little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way, and then you get to be you. No one in the world is going to beat you at being you.”
  • “Each person is uniquely qualified at something – they have some specific knowledge, capability, and desire, that no one else in the world does”
    • So your goal in life – find the people/business/project that needs you the most
    • “There’s something out there just for you”

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList. He’s invested in more than 100 companies, including Uber, Twitter, Yammer, and many others.

It’s difficult to nail down exactly what we discuss in our conversation because I had so many questions to ask him. Naval is an incredibly deep thinker who challenges the status quo on so many things. This is an interview you’ll want to listen to, think a bit, and then listen to again.

Here are just a few of the many things we cover in this episode:

• What a “typical day” looks like (not the answer I expected, and not one you’ve likely heard before)
• How Naval developed his legendary reading habits and how he finds time to read no matter how busy life gets
• How the internet has impacted book reading (both good and bad) and how to make sure you’re getting the best information from the most reliable sources
• What popular habit advice Naval thinks is BS and why
• Naval’s habit stacking technique that helped him overcome a desire for alcohol and other potentially destructive habits
• How Naval’s core values give direction to his life and how those values developed over time
• Naval’s thoughts on the current education system and what we can do to facilitate better learning for our children
• Naval’s favorite mental models for making critical high-stakes decisions
• His brilliant two-factor calendar authentication concept to keep him focused on only the most important projects
• Naval’s definition for the meaning of life (buckle up for this one)
• His amazing response to the investor who wanted to be just like Steve Jobs

And so, so much more.

Just a heads up, this is the longest podcast I’ve ever done. While it felt like only thirty minutes, our conversation lasted over two hours!

And although it is the longest, it’s also our most downloaded episode on the Knowledge Project, so make sure you have a pen and paper handy. There’s a lot of wisdom up for grabs here.

Enjoy this amazing conversation.

***

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

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David Sacks on raising $350m for Craft Ventures, betting big on scooter unicorn Bird & transforming transportation, future of VR & crypto, lessons scaling Yammer from 0 to $1b, cleaning up Zenefits, keys to frictionless flywheel & great early-stage investing @ LAUNCH Angel Summit

Calm Co-founder Alex Tew shares lessons on hyper-growth done well, finding the right investors, creating a new market & making a positive difference in the world with 1m+ subscribers, $80m revenue & a $250m valuation