Smart Friends (Eric Jorgenson)

Sky King is an entrepreneur and podcaster, passionate about creating systems that incentivize authenticity in media. He founded his company Modern Stoa based in Austin, Texas where he helps podcasters like Aubrey Marcus, Paul Saladino, Luke Storey, and more create and monetize sincere media. His new podcast Sky King’s Mental Playground will be launching in late August on Supercast. If you want to be early to the party subscribe at skyking.substack.com   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for his help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).       If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Join the Course Correctly community: https://coursecorrectly.com/about/  I appreciate your support!     Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant    Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant    Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant   The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy. - Naval Ravikant

Codie Sanchez has been a journalist embedded with cartels, worked fancy-pants finance jobs at Goldman Sachs and Vanguard, and now -- she is an independent investor and entrepreneur. She owns a direct interest in FORTY FIVE businesses, with more than 25 cash flows. Codie’s interests include boring businesses (like laundromats and property managers), online media companies, and service businesses. You’ll hear us drop “leverage” a few times in this interview, and though it wasn’t what I’d planned on talking about, I think Codie is a living example of the power of methodically applying leverage. If you want to build an independent career like Codie’s, you’ll love my course+community, called Building a Mountain of Leverage. Check it out at EJorgenson.com/Leverage Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:   Topics Covered:  Putting money to work. (Angel Investing, Permanent Equity, Real Estate, and Stocks.) Leverage: The art of increasing your outcomes (tools, product, people, and capital.) How Codie keeps track of 45 different revenue streams What you can learn from cartels and spec ops organizations The universal language Why EQ is a better indicator for financial success than IQ How to create your own mentor How to build “free” equity How to withstand more than one bullet Favorite Quotes: “Civilize the mind, make savage the body, grow the revenue sheet” -Codie Sanchez “Money is just a tool. The more tools I have the more ability I have to construct the world I want and the world that I think is best for all and for me and for the people that are around me.” -Codie Sanchez “I think plans are normally for fairy tales. I truly believe that if people can follow their curiosity they're gonna end up exactly where they're supposed to be. The only thing you should be focused on is what is interesting to you, what you can get lost in.” -Codie Sanchez Additional Resources: Codie Sanchez Twitter Codie Sanchez Instagram UnconventionalAquisitions.com  The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Andrew Wilkinson: Investing vs. Operating, De-risking Leverage, and The Best Part About Business Nick Huber: How to Leverage Twitter, an Abundance Mindset, and A Love of Chaos Andrew Finn of WaitButWhy: How To Acquire A Free Company And Knowing When To Eat A Shitburger    Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Today, we’re kicking off a new long-term segment, called Track Zach -- my buddy Zach Marshall just founded a company called Conterra, and is about 3 months into the journey. I plan to have a conversation with him every 3 months or so to get a real-time, much more honest, interesting look at startup life. Zach, now in his second career after the Navy SEALs, is setting his considerable will against a new challenge -- starting a venture-backed company to fix today’s outdated, broken system for hiring private security around the world. Enjoy the ride! If you’re not on my email list, fix that asap by going to ejorgenson.com -- I share weekly blog posts, podcast highlights, and new exciting new projects!  Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  What drives someone to become a Navy SEAL What is private security? Conterra: the private security marketplace How Conterra is going to revolutionize a $50 billion dollar industry labor marketplace for private security industry The current state of Conterra and where it’s going Favorite Quotes: “In the military you have to learn things extremely fast and not just to pass a test, now you are responsible for these things. For example a skydiver in charge of a civilian drop in a stadium is coordinating all sorts of things and he has 10,000, maybe 5,000 jumps. Meanwhile I had to do the same thing in the service and I had around 65 jumps.” - Zach   “In the military you’re just given this massive amount of responsibility so you have to actually pay attention to every detail. Attention to detail is one of those phrases said thousands and thousands of times in the spec ops community and it really is true.” - Zach Additional Resources: Conterra Email Zach: zach@goconterra.com Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Andrew Wilkinson: Investing vs. Operating, De-risking Leverage, and The Best Part About Business Nick Huber: How to Leverage Twitter, an Abundance Mindset, and A Love of Chaos Andrew Finn of WaitButWhy: How To Acquire A Free Company And Knowing When To Eat A Shitburger    Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Bram Kanstein has become a professional at fucking around on the internet. He has built dozens of products, three of which he successfully sold, and he previously spent time working for a VC and Product Hunt. We dive right into talking about Startup Stash, which is listed as the number one product on Product Hunt. Startup Stash is described as a curated directory of resources and tools for startups. Two years after launching and going viral, he sold the micro product for Ethereum. He also discusses the first company he sold, roadtoscale.com, and says that both products’ success came from delivering value to the right audience. Bram talks about how he discovered and fell in love with Product Hunt, which became the tool for his hobby of curating and discovering new startups. He loved Product Hunt so much that he joined the company a short few weeks after launching Startup Stash. Bram got involved crypto when he was still a student and learned through experience. He recounts a funny crypto story of creating an account in the game, Second Life just to buy some BTC. After day trading for a period around 2013, he sold his Bitcoin and forgot about crypto for a while. In 2017, he discovered Ethereum and got back into crypto. Recently, Bram launched an NFT collection based on a color alphabet. Currently, Bram is consulting a large company on innovation practices and validating new ideas. He is also teaching an online course, No Code MVP, and is working on his new idea, seedrounds.eu, which is aimed at improving deal flow for investors. The main TLDR he wants to share with everyone is, “fucking around the internet can pay off.”   Links:  Product Hunt - https://www.producthunt.com/ Startup Stash - https://startupstash.com/ Microacquire - https://microacquire.com LAUNCH Conference - https://launch.is/ Road to Scale - https://roadtoscale.com/ No Code MVP - https://nocodemvp.com/ Seedrounds.eu - https://seedrounds.eu/ Bram on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bramk Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links:  Modern Wisdom Podcast Chris Williamson on Twitter Eric’s leverage course Jordan Peterson & Chris Williamson Podcast Mathew Fraser on Instagram Sky King on Twitter The School of Life Sam Harris Taylor Pearson Chris Sparks Aubrey Marcus, CEO of Onnit on what he would change about his life Essentialism by Greg McKeown The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron Tim Ferriss: 11 reasons not to get famous Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life Andrew Finn: WaitButWhy and G64 co-founder on How to Acquire a Free Company   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Naval shares the biggest, deepest, oldest thoughts in this philosophy episode. What is the meaning of life? It turns out there are 3 answers, from Naval’s perspective. Naval shares the values that he lives by, and “rational buddhism” the foundation of his worldview, which involves science, evolution, and ancient eastern wisdom. At the end of the day, as Naval reminds us… the present is all we have. This very moment of consciousness to enjoy peace and find joy and happiness. Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue Shownotes: Important Quotes from the podcast on The Meaning of Life:   The real truths are heresies. They cannot be spoken. Only discovered, whispered, and perhaps read. - Naval Ravikant   Before you can lie to another, you must first lie to yourself. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Values: Another example of a foundational value: I don’t believe in any short-term thinking or dealing. If I’m doing business with somebody and they think in a short-term manner with somebody else, then I don’t want to do business with them anymore. All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits. I only want to be around people I know I’m going to be around for the rest of my life. I only want to work on things I know have long-term payout. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Wisdom and being present: The older the question, the older the answers. - Naval Ravikant   Everyone starts out innocent. Everyone is corrupted. Wisdom is the discarding of vices and the return to virtue, by way of knowledge. - Naval Ravikant   Inspiration is perishable—act on it immediately. - Naval Ravikant   “Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.  You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again.”  —Homer, The Iliad

Chris says he isn’t the best poker player in the world, but he may be the most profitable.  Pro poker player Chris Sparks is training for the highest-stakes tournament he has ever played in after a long sabbatical. He says he has already decided he is going to win, and now he is doing the necessary things to create that outcome. What is the dynamic amongst poker friends? Chris says “frenemies” – all bets are off when the cards are on the table. Chris only plays when he expects to make money, and elaborates on the role of recreational players, stating that if you can’t recognize the fish at the poker table, you are the fish. In the poker world, the meta skill of finding good games, of getting invited, and staying invited are critical. A good example is how Chris got invited to a famous comedian’s poker parties multiple times. Chris recounts these parties that feature full sets of dealers, cocktail waitresses, and masseuses--and it all ends when the comedian gets tired. We talk about Chris’s consulting agency, Forcing Function, travel, and living with one of the world’s best pianists. Currently, Chris is coming out of a sabbatical and is preparing to play his largest tournament to date, with the prize pool potentially reaching seven figures.  For Chris, everything is a bet. But with any bet, the decision should be weighed with the things surrounding it and you go in with eyes wide open.   Links Chris’ Website - https://www.chrissparks.io/ Forcing Function - https://www.forcingfunction.com/ Chris Spark’s essay on Poker: Play to Win: Meta-Skills in High Stakes Poker Rounders Movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-K5dmt0Rc  Molly’s Game movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu4UPet8Nyc  The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron - https://amzn.to/3ljtOIh  Forcing Function Podcast - https://www.forcingfunction.com/podcast Forcing Function Performance Library - https://www.forcingfunction.com/library  Experiment without limits workbook - https://www.forcingfunction.com/workbook  The Fifth Discipline Field Book by Peter Senge - https://amzn.to/3I5rrCU  The Systems Bible by John Gall - https://amzn.to/3D3S9bj  Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links: David on Twitter Mitchell on Twitter Founders Podcast Invest like the best How to Take Over the World Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire Joe Lonsdale - Lessons from Peter Thiel Topics: (5:51) - David’s dinner with Charlie Munger (29:33) - The power of Podcasting, Chris Powers, and innovation (36:21) - How to make a successful Podcast (47:42) - The Scarcity of GREAT ideas (55:30) - Self-funding businesses and the philosophy behind Venture Capital (1:14:27) - Mitchell’s new business (1:55:53) - Travel plans, meet-ups and live events! To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! 

 During this conversation on Jorgenson’s Soundbox, I have my beautiful and brilliant fiancé Jeannine on as my guest, and we talk about all things HR, now known as the People Function or People Team in many organizations. Currently, Jeannine is leading the People Team at the startup Density, which has grown from 40 employees to 180 in the last year and a half. To start our discussion, I ask Jeannine to dispel some of the misperceptions of HR – she says often they are spending more time and energy fighting on behalf of employees. She also talks about the relationship between the CEO and the People Team and says she considers the CEO as a part of the People Team. We transition to talking about recruiting and why Jeannine self-proclaims herself to be the world's worst recruiter as she shows candidates the underbelly of the company and paints a realistic landscape of what working for the company will really be like and the hurdles they may face. She elaborates on the different kinds of recruiting, and she highlights how the People Team changes as companies reach different milestones in growth. Jeannine walks us through internal communications and some of the different systems she’s used, and she gives some examples of why people may seek out HR business partners for assistance. We talk about using Slack and whether it is a synchronous or asynchronous tool. She explains the necessary systems and processes and likens them to tree rings, with the HRIS (human resources information system) at the center, a ring for how the company gives and receives feedback, which we dive further into, and a third ring for things such as bonus programs and learning and development tools. Towards the end of our conversation, we talk about why people leave companies as well as the difficulties of having to fire someone, and we discuss companies’ compensation philosophies. We also explore the reality of Flat Organizations and how transparency and clarity are the more important factors. Jeannine says that now companies are focusing more on creating better work-life balances and true wellness including physical, mental, and financial health. We wrap up with Jeannine’s learning journey and talk about building company culture. Links:  Jeannine on Twitter Density.io Casper Notion CultureAmp   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Andrew Wilkinson: De-risking Leverage, Investing vs. Operating, and the Best Part About Business Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Helpful Links: The Rolling Fun(d) Al on Twitter Bo on LinkedIn Matt Loszak on Twitter Midjourney ChatGPT Portfolio companies Mentioned: FasterBetter Solve.io Sponsors: Athena: Get a free first month (Worth $3k!) when you sign up with my code: athenago.me/eric-jorgenson Listen and Learn more about Athena here: Creative EA Delegation with Athena on the Podcast Topics: (3:49) - Life Updates: Buying a cow, Sous Vide Bacon, and Eric’s book (13:44) - Faster Better & Athena (24:03) - Aalo Atomics (our first Nuclear company!!) (33:25) - Solve Data, The Brain for Ecommerce Cos (41:10) - Current fundraising environment & Artificial Intelligence (52:02) - Portfolio Updates  (1:01:02) - Growth of the fund To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

Today my guest is Cliff Kuang, author of a fantastic book called User Friendly: How The Hidden Rules of Design are Reshaping The Way We Live, Work, and Play, which was called a "tour de force" by the New York Times. He was the Design editor of Fast Company, and Editor at Wired Magazine. From there he went on to work at Google as a Senior Staff Designer on an innovations team. Cliff is obsessive about the deepest challenges facing UX design today such as the metaphors that undergird what we do, the future of digital ecosystems, and the future experiences those ecosystems can unlock. Enjoy these topics and many more on this episode of Jorgenson’s Soundbox! Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  What Cliff is doing to change the entire landscape of user interface What a unicorn is within the design industry and why they’re a dying breed The universal problem of design What is “good” design How metaphor and feedback are at the core of user interface How design is empathetic Why we are in the ever-present of user interface   Additional Resources: User Friendly Cliff’s Twitter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter  Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Eric Jorgenson: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links: David Senra on X Mitchell on X Founders Podcast Better Bookkeeping Mentioned on the episode: Fiftyyears.com Foundersonly.com Poor Charlie’s Almanac Liar’s Poker Atomic Habits The Pathless Path Morgan Housel books Tren Griffin Blog - 25iq Brent Beshore on meeting Charlie Munger Who is Michael Ovitz? Powerhouse by James Andrew Miller The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness  Blake Robbins on Twitter Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:53) - David - Product launching machine & the power of building relationships (00:24:18) - Thoughts on Podcast advertising  (00:31:35) - Book Publishing (00:38:27) - Eric’s new life as a CEO (00:59:23) - The permissionless adding of value (01:13:08) - The Power of Podcasting  (01:17:04) - Updates on the Baldridge Empire (01:34:19) - Reflecting on Main St. Summit (01:56:57) - Book recommendations (02:08:24) - Hire a paid critic (02:22:30) - Wrap up To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

In this episode of Jorgenson’s Soundbox, I continue exploring the world of web3 with my friend and former coworker Shane Mac. Shane is now the cofounder of XMTP, a decentralized and economic messaging protocol being built for web3. During our conversation, we talk about XMTP as a new protocol for building communication tools. We can spam-proof the next generation of the web! How Shane builds company culture to help him compete with world renowned companies and his personal and professional investing strategies. To kick off our conversation, we talk a bit about Shane’s decision to move to Nashville, driven by the exhausting culture of work scale at all cost in San Francisco, and the music scene there. Shane then discusses how he came to work with Matt Galligan and start XMTP. When looking for an opportunity to build a new company, he had a lightbulb moment when Robert Leshner, the founder of Compound, presented a communication problem in the web3 space. Shane realized that people who have wallets want to be able to communicate with others that have wallets and to be able to prove ownership, and he recognized the potential for a new messaging communication protocol with the wallet as a means of sending and receiving messages. XMTP was thus founded as a decentralized messaging protocol with a universal backend that developers could build on top of and that we can all be owners of. In the second half of the conversation, we explore Shane’s ability to create an awesome company culture. Shane says that while he can’t compete with renowned companies on having the most interesting idea, he can compete on culture. Shane aims to remove people’s anxieties so that they can be more productive. He does so by hiring personal assistants and coaches not only for executives but for everyone, removing the vesting cliff, and teaching people how to quit. We wrap up the conversation by talking about how Shane goes about investing. He says he focuses on what he knows well and believes in. Regarding crypto, he thinks of it as startup investing, and he has invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum and plans to hold for the long term. He also is the General Partner of the Logos Fund which invests similarly in startups, mostly focusing on the seed stage.   Links:  Eric’s Newsletter XMTP.com How to Quit (and have everyone support you) Compound  Squared Away Koinly Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: SquidDAO: Web3 Project Deep-Dive: Part Crypto Hedge Fund, Part NFT DAO. An Anonymous Conspiracy for Mutual Enrichment Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse)   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:13) - Catching up (00:13:14) - Making Earth (even more) Habitable by Controlling Weather (00:26:54) - Doug Burgum: Next Secretary of the Dept. of the Interior (00:31:30) - Building Rainmaker (00:44:19) - Are we short on clean water in America today? (00:50:37) - Drones, precipitation, cloud seeding, and the future Links: Rainmaker Augustus on X Augustus’ Thread on Doug Burgum To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Here’s what we explored in the episode: Inspired by projects like China’s Green Wall, Rainmaker aims to terraform deserts into lush, habitable landscapes. Water scarcity can be solved by creating more water rather than just conserving to stay in the existing limits.  There are already severely water-constrained communities and farms, especially in the American west and Southwest.  Rainmaker’s cloud seeding program uses custom drones, radar, and safe, common chemical compounds.  Cloud-seeding is decades-old tech. The breakthrough was a new radar to precisely measure the effectiveness of cloud-seeding efforts.  China has more than 40,000 working on weather modification projects. The U.S. can catch up by supporting private sector innovation. Rainmaker is actively recruiting passionate engineers ready to work on cutting-edge tech. Being close to the frontier of innovation naturally drives the creation of new technologies and opportunities. Lots of examples inside Rainmaker.  A commission in the book of Genesis in the Bible to steward the garden and take care of God’s creation is an intrinsic part of Rainmaker's purpose. Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Links: Garrett Scott on X Pipedream Labs Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:00) - Pipedream (00:08:33) - What’s the existing infrastructure for this product? (00:12:55) - Finding geographical partners (00:14:52) - Hyperlogistics, regulations, and long-tail e-commerce (00:30:35) - What are the toughest technical problems? (00:34:32) - The ability to master multiple disciplines (00:37:18) - The challenge of implementation (00:42:20) - Finding partnerships and building trust (00:47:46) - How did you become the person who’s pursuing this? (00:52:30) - The first 18 months of ideating Pipedream (00:56:47) - What’s the 50-year projection for hyperlogistics? (01:01:31) - How can people be helpful to the mission To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant   Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant Important quotes from the podcast by Naval on Leverage:   “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”  —Archimedes    To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines. - Naval Ravikant   Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. - Naval Ravikant   Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. - Naval Ravikant   Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. - Naval Ravikant   Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start. 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:24) - Watching the moon landing (00:07:32) - Klaus’ career (00:10:08) - Why Klaus wrote Leading To Thrive (00:15:13) - Energy management, not time management (00:19:37) - How do you implement these tactics in business? (00:23:46) - Spiritual energy (00:37:36) - Managing energy for life, work, and family & business (00:54:52) - Instilling purpose as a leader (01:04:59) - How do you approach balancing stakeholders? (01:07:50) - What do you look for when building a team? (01:12:01) - Closing advice Links: Leading to Thrive by Klaus Kleinfeld Klaus on LinkedIn To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Here’s what we explored in the episode: Watching the moon landing as a child from East Germany inspired Klaus’ lifelong belief in the strength of human innovation. Shifting from time management to energy management. Finding your purpose is like "focusing a laser" that channels diffuse energy to achieve extraordinary results. From observing professional tennis players, Klaus learned how mental toughness and micro-recharges help maintain peak performance. Controlled breathing is a simple but powerful tool to manage emotions and maintain focus during high-pressure moments. Klaus helped transform and restore purpose to Siemens’ struggling angiography division with the most impactful team meeting you can imagine.  Aligning a team's work with a meaningful purpose motivates teams and improves long-term performance. His book was born from a desire to share lessons with young leaders, his daughters, and others seeking balance and performance. Creating memorable moments with his family helped Klaus maintain strong relationships despite a demanding career. You can instill urgency and align teams by clearly communicating that a situation absolutely requires change. Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start. 

Andrew Wilkinson is the co-founder of Tiny, a venture capital firm that has helped to build over 25 profitable internet businesses over the last 15 years. He got his start founding MetaLab, one of the world’s top design agencies. He has gone from working out of his apartment a little over a decade ago, to today overseeing a group of companies with over 300 employees and tens of millions in revenue.   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).       If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Join the Course Correctly community: https://coursecorrectly.com/about/  I appreciate your support!     Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant    Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant    Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant    The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy. - Naval Ravikant

Links: Andrew on Twitter Andrew’s Substack The AI Salon Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez Topics: (00:00:00) Eric welcomes you to the episode (00:03:20) The rocketing popularity of superconductors (00:05:28) The LK-99 Superconductor Breakthrough (00:19:44) How to commercialize room-temp superconductors (00:25:36) The value of superconductors and their impact (00:34:16) When will Nuclear Fusion produce energy?  (00:52:08) The overlap of engineering and science (00:57:48) Understanding the physics behind economics (01:03:53) How technology breakthroughs affect civilization  (01:13:16) Predicting second-order economic effects from introducing this technology, punctuated equilibrium &  (01:18:00) Crazy biotech breakthroughs (01:21:47) How much of a breakthrough in the superconductor do we actually have? (01:27:15) Where to get more of Andrew Cote What’s Happening with Superconductors RIGHT NOW Researchers have spent their entire careers researching room-temperature Superconductors. It’s one of the Holy Grails of material science. About a week ago, two papers were published simultaneously claiming a breakthrough – actual Room-Temperature Superconducting Materials, created in a lab in Korea. There seems to be big drama between the scientists. A nobel prize may be at stake. Or even scientific immortality. It’s not the main story and there are many unconfirmed details, I won’t go into it here, but @8teAPi is basically live-tweeting an HBO series so follow them for that angle.  We might be one week into a MASSIVE change in humanity, seeing the first ripples of a coming tidal wave.  Now, RIGHT now, there are thousands of scientists all over the world working frantically to reprocuce these results, confirm theory, run simulations, and improve methodologies. It is INCREDIBLE to see the scientific base of humanity from all over the world rise as one and tackle this opportunity. Feel like a scene from a Michael Bay movie, but nerdier. Here is what they’re working on… Superconductors put simply Superconductors are materials with zero electrical resistance. Normally, when energy moves between sources (an outlet to a phone battery), or over distance (through wires and power lines) there is loss of energy. Some estimates of that loss between generation and end user are 66%!! With zero resistance transmission materials, there could be near-zero loss of energy. Cost of energy could fall by one-third JUST by improving transmission. That would be great – and just the beginning. I’m sure this description would make a Physics PhD cringe, but hey it’s my first week. The problem is so far all of our superconductors only work at insanely cold temperatures. Those are complex and expensive to maintain, so superconductors have only been used very rarely in special circumstances to date. Superconductors that work at room temperature would be an enormous breakthrough, making them less finnicky and cheaper to operate. We could put superconducting materials many more places like power lines, wires, computers, transportation, etc.  Why is everyone SO DAMN EXCITED about the impact of room-temperature superconductors? So glad you asked… Why It Matters “If successful LK-99 would be a watershed moment for humanity easily on-par with invention of the transistor. Overnight, we revolutionize all of electronics and energy.” -Andrew Cote To support this podcast: >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Topics:   (7:11) - Brett’s earliest memories of his strengths   (9:58) - Understanding different skills and abilities   (13:36) - Brett’s early career   (18:08) - What was the moment of conception for Remind?   (26:03) - What were some pivotal moments early on?   (30:08) - How much did Twilio aid your growth?   (31:18) - What role did investor selection play into the success of Remind?   (35:00) - Transitioning into Omella   (44:18) - How many customers did you talk to before building the product?   (45:11) - What’s the process of building conviction in your product?   (50:38) - How much wider is the purview of Omella than Remind in terms of the market it helps?   (55:11) - Thoughts on distribution, engagement and retention   (1:01:15) - How has the founder experience compared with your second company vs. the first?   (1:03:38) - How does leverage fit into structuring Omella?   (1:08:23) - What are the most common mental models you use to make decisions?   (1:12:50) - Do you find people to be overthinking while building a product?   (1:14:13) - Where would you like Omella to be in the next 5-10 years?   (1:15:09) - How do you ensure you can keep a small high-performance team rather than solve problems via headcount?   (1:16:16) - How often do customers that you interact with become evangelists for Omella?     Links: BrettKopf.com Brett Kopf on Twitter and LinkedIn   Omella   Remind   Acton academy   The Theory of Constraints   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

SquidDAO is an “Economic Flywheel denominated in Ethereum.” What does that mean? Good question, I wondered too. It’s basically a conspiracy amongst anonymous people on the internet to make money together. And anyone can join! I dug in with a few members to see what it’s all about.  They sell NFTs, they issue tokens, they invest a treasury… they earn money! And they share it with token and NFT holders.  This is my first pseudonymous podcast as well as the longest one I’ve ever done. In this episode, we explore a relatively new web3 project, Squid DAO, with a few guys I only know by their online handles. Squid DAO is described as an economic flywheel backed by Ethereum and is part company, part DeFi investment fund, and part NFT project. SQUID is currently trading for roughly the value of the assets it holds in the treasury, which could make it a great investment opportunity. Squid DAO is a great microcosm of the world of web3 as it is essentially a megatron of the various forks of web3 projects, which makes it a great learning opportunity. We explore the economics of the DAO and why it is denominated in ETH rather than dollars. It can be valued via income derivative, the multiple on the treasury, or what it is trading at against what is on the balance sheet. Recently, a new governance proposal was passed making Squid and NFTs productive assets so that users may better run analyses. ETH is considered the best index and essentially operates like cash for the DAO.  We wrap up the episode by talking about how to learn more and get involved. Squid DAO’s Twitter and Discord are great ways to learn more, but the best way to gain mastery is by investing your own money. If looking to get involved, you can help with whatever skills you have to offer, be it marketing, as a developer, a degen or coding strategist, or someone with a web2 background. Links:  Squid DAO NFT Auctions Squid Docs Squid Treasury Dashboard Squid Discourse (Governance Forum) Olympus DAO Index Coop SquidDAO Discord The Squids on Twitter @SquidDAO @BigSquid0x @Zoption @0xSquidSteed Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Simon Judd: How Index Coop is building Crypto Index products Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage 

This is a replay of episode 34 of this podcast. Links:  Josh’s Bio - Autogeny.org Where is my flying car? By J. Storrs Hall Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper The Martian by Andy Weir Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Beyond AI by J. Storrs Hall Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology by J. Storrs Hall   Other Episode You’ll Like: Solocast #3: Nuclear, Nanotech, and the next Industrial Revolution (Book Recap: “Where is my Flying Car?”) Massive Opportunities w/in Design & User Interface with Cliff Kuang   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Sean O’Connor is a brilliant writer and marketer who has been working full-time in Crypto since 2016. Sean O’Connor is Head of Strategy at BlockNative, a blockchain infrastructure company. Previously, he was part of ConsenSys, an Ethereum startup studio, where he helped to launch and scale fan engagement dApps. His career has ranged from launching new digital products (big data and open source content), taking Mentored from vision to product in market, coaching for altMBA, and serving as the first Fulbright Scholar posted in Sri Lanka's former war region. Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:   Topics Covered:  -What exactly the different iterations of Web technology have enabled -How Sean helped tokenize the first contract in pro sports with Spenser Dinwiddie -Why the US needs to lean into stable coins to become the internet’s reserve currency -How fan contributions to canon can be recognized and rewarded with blockchain -How crypto is reinventing collateralized debt products to make them safer -The different types of stable coins -Explaining Layer1 and Layer2 (L1/L2) of blockchain   Favorite Quotes: “The fun part about crypto is that it’s permissionless and anyone can jump in, the hard part about crypto is that it’s permissionless and no one is gonna tell you to jump in you just have to leap” - Sean O’Connor “Follow your interests because if you're pulling on a thread you're excited about the odds are considerably higher that you’ll contribute in a meaningful way… If you think there's a problem or you see something broken speak up, contribute” - Sean O’Connor   Additional Resources: Mental Models Email Series Mindfulness Meditations Book Sean's Website Sean's Twitter Cellarius White Paper Cellarius Universe Guide Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

As Naval says, life is a single-player game. No one else is going to make you rich. No one else is going to make you healthy. No one else is going to make you happy. You have to learn the discipline and clarity of living your own life your own way. Naval shows you the basics he has learned of health, diet, exercise, meditation, and mental strength. This is Naval’s basic blueprint for a happy life and a wealthy life. It starts with how you build yourself -- the foundation of everything. Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue Shownotes:   Important Quotes from the podcast on Choosing Yourself: All you should do is what you want to do. If you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, you get to listen to the little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way. Then, you get to be you. - Naval Ravikant   Your goal in life is to find the people, business, project, or art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you. What you don’t want to do is build checklists and decision frameworks built on what other people are doing. You’re never going to be them. You’ll never be good at being somebody else. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Choosing To Care For Yourself: When everyone is sick, we no longer consider it a disease. - Naval Ravikant   We evolved for scarcity but live in abundance. - Naval Ravikant   I’m not an expert, and the problem is diet and nutrition are like politics: everybody thinks they’re an expert. Their identity is wrapped up in it because what they’ve been eating or what they think they should be eating is obviously the correct answer. Everybody has a little religion—it’s just a really difficult topic to talk about. I will just say in general, any sensible diet avoids the combination of sugar and fat together. - Naval Ravikant   When it comes to medicine and nutrition, subtract before you add. - Naval Ravikant World’s simplest diet: The more processed the food, the less one should consume. - Naval Ravikant   Important quotes from the podcast on Exercise:   The harder the workout, the easier the day. - Naval Ravikant   What I did was decide my number one priority in life, above my happiness, above my family, above my work, is my own health. It starts with my physical health. [4] Because my physical health became my number one priority, then I could never say I don’t have time. In the morning, I work out, and however long it takes is how long it takes. I do not start my day until I’ve worked out. I don’t care if the world is imploding and melting down, it can wait another thirty minutes until I’m done working out. - Naval Ravikant   How you make a habit doesn’t matter. Do something every day. It almost doesn’t matter what you do. The people who are obsessing over whether to do weight training, tennis, Pilates, the high-intensity interval training method, “The Happy Body,” or whatever. They’re missing the point. The important thing is to do something every day. It doesn’t matter what it is. The best workout for you is one you’re excited enough to do every day. - Naval Ravikant

Naval says building good judgement is a foundation to building wealth and getting rich. But how do we build judgement? How do we get smarter? Become wiser? Make better decisions? This episode focuses on Naval’s advice for learning to learn, learning to think, learning to see reality. This helps you make good business decisions, investment decisions, and good partnership decisions. We talk about Naval’s favorite books, mental models, and his techniques for reading. By the end of this episode, we hope you are a little calmer, a little wiser, and more assured in your path.   Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   Shownotes:   Important Quotes from the podcast on Judgement and thinking clearly:   Wisdom applied to external problems is judgement - Naval   “Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart.” - Naval Ravikant   Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority. - Naval   The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. - Naval Ravikant   Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.   A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform.    Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed. - Naval Ravikant Important Quotes from the podcast on Wealth, Business, and Entrepreneurship: You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money.  You get rich by saving your time to make money. - Naval Ravikant   One definition of a moment of suffering is “the moment when you see things exactly the way they are.” This whole time, you’ve been convinced your business is doing great, and really, you’ve ignored the signs it’s not doing well. Then, your business fails, and you suffer because you’ve been putting off reality. You’ve been hiding it from yourself. - Naval   The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth. Especially in business, if something isn’t going well, I try to acknowledge it publicly and I try to acknowledge it publicly in front of my co-founders and friends and co-workers. Then, I’m not hiding it from anybody else. If I’m not hiding it from anybody, I’m not going to delude myself from what’s actually going on. - Naval Ravikant Important Quotes from the podcast on Leverage: In an age of leverage, one correct decision can win everything. - Naval   You have to put in the time, but the judgment is more important. The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. - Naval Ravikant   Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love at the same time. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. - Naval   I think people have a hard time understanding a fundamental fact of leverage. If I manage $1 billion and I’m right 10 percent more often than somebody else, my decision-making creates $100 million worth of value on a judgment call. With modern technology and large workforces and capital, our decisions are leveraged more and more. - Naval Ravikant

In this week’s episode, I talk with Phil Huber, the Chief Investment Officer at Savant Wealth Management and author of the new book The Allocator’s Edge. This episode does not include financial advice.* Rather, we talk about the advice Phil gives other people about their finances and the book he wrote about financial advice. We begin the episode with a discussion about financial advising and what goes into becoming a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and a CFP (Certified Financial Planner). We also talk about how it’s important to find the right financial advisor as a person’s financial life becomes more complex. I ask Phil if any of his clients ever ask if he can YOLO them so hard with investing, and he discusses advisors’ business of growing and preserving wealth responsibly. Phil’s new book focuses on alternative investments, and he gave us a glimpse of what those investments are. He demonstrates how diversifying clients’ portfolios help manage risk. Phil explains catastrophe reinsurance, and we discuss the recent proliferation of alternative investing apps and platforms and how barriers are being broken down to previously inaccessible asset classes for average investors.   Any conversation involving alternative investments would in one way or another, end up with crypto. Phil talks about how advisors are trying to navigate crypto and the current difficulties of incorporating it into clients’ investment portfolios as well as possibilities for its inclusion in the future. We end the episode talking about the process of writing a book and how it differs from blogging. Phil wrote The Allocator’s Edge for himself ten years ago. By reading his book, Phil believes that investors can become more comfortable discussing and using alternative assets.   Links:  The Allocator’s Edge by Phil Huber - https://amzn.to/3m1tu1d Savant Wealth Management - https://savantwealth.com/  Phil Huber’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bpsandpieces  Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Mitchell Baldridge: Defeating Taxes, Crypto & Financial Planning Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support!

Links: Scribe Media Paul’s website The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd Good Work by Paul Millerd Paul on X Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:15) - Introducing Paul, and the early days of the publishing industry. (00:06:48) - The earliest days of publishing, distribution of profit, and printing methods. (00:17:46) - The 2014 E-book collusion (00:20:27) - The self-publishing surge, the $4.99 sweet spot, and where authors can optimize. (00:24:47)- The history of paperbacks (00:37:28) - Book deals and agents (00:48:15) - The India market, publisher problems, and compounding disinterest. (01:06:06) - The future of publishing To support this podcast:  >> Explore writing or publishing your book with Scribe: Scribemedia.com >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Here’s what we explored in the episode: We dive deep into the quirky history of the publishing industry, tracing it all the way back to the 1400s. In the 19th century, authors could increase their earnings by co-investing in fixed costs, like print plates and bookbinding. Traditional Publishing has always seen hardcovers as “the real books” and sought to protect them and their profits.  Trade paperback was published only after a successful hardcover, with those rights often sold separately.  Self-publishing changed the game for authors, with Amazon enabling print-on-demand and much higher royalty percentages. If you are an author signing with a traditional publisher, realize YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER–book retailers are their customers. Lots of authors who earned big money retained their rights. Stephen King retained his paperback rights an early successful book. After the hardcover version succeeded, he sold those rights for $400,000 Harper Lee made significant earnings from To Kill a Mockingbird by retaining movie adaptation rights. Tom Clancy held on to his film and international rights. This later became highly lucrative as his popularity grew and more of his books got adaptations. Traditional Publishers often prioritize prestige, tradition, and their profits – which doesn’t always align with author’s goals.  Indie authors can now disregard tradition and experiment with pricing strategies to maximize reach, revenue, and their own personal results.    Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start. 

Links: Join us in Rolling Fun! Hear our other Rolling Fun eps! Ouros AltHQ Zencastr Atom Limbs General Fabrication Company Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:57) - Dear Listener (00:09:44) - Eric’s life as a CEO & Scribe (00:17:14) – Rolling Fun Q2 Investments (00:30:21) - Rolling Fun Q3 Investments (00:41:26) - Lessons from playing basketball with Mr. Beast for 3 days To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! 

In the very first episode of Jorgenson’s soundbox Eric Jorgenson sought to use this opportunity to answer some of your core questions around The Almanack of Naval including:   What I learned creating the Almanack of Naval? What story is underrated from the Alamanack of Naval? What I have applied from The Almanack of Naval? And of course I answered questions about leverage! At the end of this episodes Erick Jorgenson    We also go into what you can expect from Jorgenson's Soundbox. Topics can include DeFi, NFT's, How to put your money to work, education and much more. I hope you enjoy and continue on the journey to Jorgenson’s Soundbox. A huge thank you to Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss, Jack Butcher, and everyone who made this book possible. Thank you for helping Eric Jorgenson help others live the lives that they want to live. If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Join the Course Correctly community: https://coursecorrectly.com/about/  I appreciate your support!     Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant    Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant    Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant    The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy. - Naval Ravikant   

On this episode we welcome Index Coop, a DAO focused on building and governing crypto indexes. They want to be the Vanguard of Crypto. In our discussion we explore Simon’s journey from the US Marines to the world of crypto. Simon explains what Index Co-Op is and why it’s the most intense group he’s ever been a part of. Lastly, learn why people all over the globe are quitting their jobs to become a part of DAOs and more on this episode. Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:   Topics Covered:  -What a DAO is and why they are so enticing  -How people are making full time jobs out of crypto -How Index Co-op pays via governance tokens -The next generation of intra business communication -How Index Co-op plans to replace Vanguard in the next 10 years Favorite Quotes: ”With DeFi the technical barriers of today will be solved within a month from now, anything is possible.”   Additional Resources: Index Co-op Website Index Co-op Forum Index Co-op Discord Jason Hitchcock Episode Sean O’Connor Episode   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links: Atom Limbs Waitlist Crowdfunding Round - Wefunder Tyler on X Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:19) - Inside building Atom Limbs   (00:18:37) - The process of researching what knowledge was needed to build this company (00:27:26) - Feedback loops in prosthetics (00:29:23) - Where is Atom Limbs today? (00:40:48) - Wild, irresponsible speculation: Where do you hope this company will be in 50 years? (00:48:30) - Are there ways for these prosthetics to extend lifespan? (00:52:21) - What’s the price point you’re speculating for a prosthetic? (00:55:32) - How do you see the next 18 months playing out? (01:03:16) - How can people support you? To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant   Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant Important quotes from the podcast by Naval on Leverage:   “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”  —Archimedes    To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines. - Naval Ravikant   Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. - Naval Ravikant   Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. - Naval Ravikant   Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. - Naval Ravikant   Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Links:  Where Is My Flying Car? By J. Storrs Hall WTF Happened in 1971?   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

This final episode of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant includes Naval’s favorite books, his recommended reading, and more thoughts. This is a great resource to view Naval’s influences, and to find books to read deeper on key ideas from the book: investing, mental models, happiness, philosophy, and science. You’ll notice authors like Matt Ridley, Nassim Taleb, Richard Feynman, and more as well as some blog posts from Naval in this Epilogue.   Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   Shownotes:   Important Quotes from the podcast on Books: The truth is, I don’t read for self-improvement. I read out of curiosity and interest. The best book is the one you’ll devour. - Naval Ravikant   Read enough, and you become a connoisseur. Then you naturally gravitate more toward theory, concepts, nonfiction. - Naval Ravikant   I always spent money on books. I never viewed that as an expense. That’s an investment to me. - Naval Ravikant   If you eat, invest, and think according to what the “news” advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt. - Naval Ravikant

On today’s episode I host Joe Hertler from the Michigan based funk/soul/pop band, Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers! Joe Hertler recorded his first album "The Hard Times LP" in 2009, in his college dorm room. He later went on to form his band The Rainbow Seekers and never looked back. Listen as we discuss: how the craft of songwriting works, how Joe got started, and why music is a universal language. Learn how a band actually works, what the path to their success looked like, and much more.  Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:   Topics Covered:  -Why music is a universal language -The path to success in the music industry -The craft of songwriting -How Joe got started in the music industry -What makes a good song? -How bands actually work -An inside look at 250 days on tour   Favorite Quotes: “Figure out who you are and what brings you joy and pursue that relentlessly”- Joe Hertler “Everybody has moments of genius the difference is how many people pay attention to capturing them and writing them down”- Eric Jorgenson   Additional Resources: Live at Red Rocks AudioTree Full Session Live at The Russell  First Music Video: Ego Loss on Grand River Avenue Quilted Attic Sessions - Carbon C14   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links:  Propy NAR (National Association of Realtors) Natalia on Twitter Natalia on LinkedIn Adam on LinkedIn   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links: Ambiologix Rolling Fun SBIR requirements Participating governmental agencies State funds for SBIR   Topics:   (6:00) - Maria’s origin story & the founding of Orbis (12:03) - What is this technology? (13:46) - What was Corey’s breakthrough? (16:06) - How many months of burn did you have from the seed round? (17:42) - What was the process of running down your first 4 contracts? (18:49) - When did grant funding come into the picture and how do people go about getting this type of funding? (27:51) - What happens to your options when you secure a phase 1 grant? (30:10) - What was your experience pursuing these sources of funding? (34:00) - What are some of the technologies you see coming into contact with grant funding? (35:44) - How and where are you submitting requests for grants? (37:03) - How are proposals filtered through the acceptance process? (37:55) - How often is the motivation for funding so that agencies can become customers? (39:38) - How much of your funding came from equity investors and then from grants? (44:47) - How long does it take from start to finish in order to secure grant funding? (48:15) - How many times the funding in a deck come down to minute details within a proposal? (49:58) - What process do you walk entrepreneurs through when they want to work with you about securing grant funding? (55:56) - How do you think about acquisition coaching? (1:01:35) - What was your experience being acquired? (1:05:27) - How can other founders position themselves for a sale? (1:07:07) - How do you think about managing a team through an acquisition? (1:08:59) - How did the licensing inflection point tie into the acquisition? (1:11:58) - What are some facts from your industry that would blow people’s minds? (1:13:55) - How far can this technology go? (1:14:47) - What happens to an IP of a technology like Orbis?   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

This week’s guest is David Perell. David is a creator, a writer, and a teacher at his massively successful online writing course, called Write of Passage. The success of his course gave me inspiration for my own course, and gives me fundamental optimism about the future of education. David and I have been friends for years, so this is less of an interview and more of a one-sided hang-session, where I get the pleasure of drawing out new ideas and experiences from David that I haven’t heard before. This is… basically what it’s like to hang out with us in person, and I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not :). David is a man of endless-energy. He is reference-rife and story-stacked. I always have a great time talking with David, and I welcome you to join the conversation.  As always, additional resources to enrich your experience below:   Topics Covered:  The upcoming Porter Robinson documentary that David is working on.  How David applied the ideas of Peter Thiel to… everything in life How to learn writing the fun way (less grammar more jammin)  Mental models for building successful products and companies What it means for something to “move” us The most interesting modern art form of today What deliberate consumption looks like    Additional Resources:   The Economy is Mind-Bogglingly Huge — Eric Jorgenson   Practice Analytically, Perform Intuitively - David Perell My Principles of Company Building - David Perell Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell Saving the Liberal Arts - David Perell David's Essays Write of Passage Course David's Twitter David’s Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Solocast: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Joe Hertler: Tapping Into Creative Genius & Pursuing Joy Through Creativity Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:05:10) - The decision to live in Idaho (00:08:21) - Nathan’s flying hobby (00:15:09) - Building Flywheels (00:46:07) - Incentive compensation and giving people ownership (01:06:39) - Inflection points in building ConverKit (01:14:16) - How to work on a ton of things (01:23:15) - What are the rules of thumb you use the most in life? Links: Nathan Barry on X ConvertKit Nathan’s website Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson Good to Great by Jim Collins Small Giants by Bo Burlingham To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Nathan Barry on building audience, wealth, and startups: "If I look back at all the good things that have happened in my career in the last 3 years, they all come from writing. One little habit of writing 1,000 words a day revolutionized my career." — Nathan Barry "ATTENTION IS THE MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE" — Nathan Barry "When you start writing you don’t have to worry about crafting perfect prose. Instead you just need to focus on teaching useful skills." — Nathan Barry Making money is a skill—like playing the drums or piano—that you can get better at over time.  I wouldn’t expect to be able to sit down at a piano for the first time and play a concerto. The same is true for making money.  This is why most first companies fail. — Nathan Barry, Ladders of Wealth Creation

I built the Almanack of Naval Ravikant or Navalmanack entirely out of transcripts, Tweets, and talks Naval has shared. Every attempt is made to present Naval in his own words. However, there are a few important points.     The transcripts have been edited for clarity and brevity (multiple times).   Not all sources are primary (some excerpts are from other writers quoting Naval).   I can’t be 100 percent certain of every source’s authenticity.   Concepts and interpretations change over time, medium, and context.   Please verify phrasing with a primary source before citing Naval from this text. Please interpret generously.    By definition, everything in this book is taken out of context. Interpretations will change over time. Read and interpret generously. Understand the original intent may be different than your interpretation in a different time, medium, format, and context.    In the process of creating this book, I may have mistakenly re-contextualized, misinterpreted, or misunderstood things. As content passed through time, space, and medium, some phrasing may have shifted in flight. Every effort has been made to maintain the original intent, but errors are (very) possible.    Interviews have been transcribed, edited, rearranged, and re-edited for readability. I did my best to keep Naval’s ideas in his own words.    All brilliance in this book is Naval’s; any mistakes are mine. Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   If you don’t have time for the podcast here are a few important quotes from the prologue of The Almanack of Naval.   Naval Ravikant has changed my life for the better, and if you approach the following pages like a friendly but highly competent sparring partner, he might just change yours. - Tim Ferriss   “Naval is one of the smartest people I have ever met and he is one of the most courageous.” - Tim Ferriss    “I’ve learned a few things, and some principles. I try to lay them out in a timeless manner, where you can figure it out for yourself. Because at the end of the day, I can’t quite teach anything. I can only inspire you and maybe give you a few hooks so you can remember.” - Naval Ravikant   “Naval is one of the people I call most for advice” - Tim Ferriss   “Books make for great friends, because the best thinkers of the last few thousand years tell you their nuggets of wisdom.” - Naval Ravikant   “I take Naval seriously because he:   Questions nearly everything  Can think from first principles Tests things well Is good at not fooling himself  Changes his mind regularly  Laughs a lot  Thinks holistically  Thinks long-term  And…doesn’t take himself too goddamn seriously.    That last one is important” - Tim Ferriss

Just me and you today, dear listener -- and I’m going to talk through some ideas that have been fascinating me recently, weaving together authors like Rory Sutherland, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nassim Taleb. As I reviewed my highlights from books, blogs and articles that I’ve been collecting over the past 10 years the main ideas that jumped out at me are playing the metagame and feedback loops. Both of these are ways to transcend the muggle world and start playing a different game.  I hope you enjoy this format -- if you love it (or hate it, actually), please tweet or email me so I know whether to ever do this again. It’s all part of the sandbox experience!  Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  What are Metagames How Metagames change the game and allow you to dominate What are feedback loops Why we accept false barriers to cushion our egos Places to intervene in a system The power of transcending paradigms How a system can be destroyed by ignoring feedback How to expand your theoretical fish tank   Favorite Quotes: “In any system where there are norms, there are strengths and weaknesses to those norms. If you follow the norms of the system, the results you get are likely to be the norm. When you play a different game, a metagame, you have the opportunity to outperform.” -fs.blog “Play the metagame in your domain too, whether you’re head of an organization or just starting out. Blowout the walls of your fish tank and transcend paradigms.” - Eric Jorgenson “False barriers are accepted because they are the path of least resistance for the ego” -Eric Jorgenson    Additional Resources: Alchemy Rory Sutherland Moneyball Michael Lewis Inadequate Equilibria Eliezer Yudkowsky Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life Nassim Nicholas Taleb Systemantics. The Systems Bible John Gall and D.H. Gall User Friendly Cliff Kuang Structures J. E. Gordon Mike Barton Runs England’s Best Police Force. What Sets Him Apart? Readwise Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Codie Sanchez: Learning Leverage From Drug Cartels, Vanguard, And Goldman Sachs Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links: Join us in Rolling Fun! Hear our other Rolling Fun eps! Rolling Fun GPs: Al Doan - Founder of Creativity Inc., a $100m+ collection of e-commerce brands. Founder of Pretzel. BS from BYU Hawaii, OPM at HBS. Makes one hell of a peach cobbler. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Bo Fishback - Founder of Lightspeed Genomics (acq 2008), Orbis Biosciences (acq 2020), Zaarly (acq 2020). BS in Biomedical Engineering from SMU, MBA at HBS. Completed the ‘impossible’ Gallon Challenge, drinking a whole gallon of milk in an hour. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Eric Jorgenson - Founding team of Zaarly. Author of Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Has a podcast. Barely graduated from a state school. Received a cease & desist from Craigslist for some frowned-upon marketing techniques. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:06) - Warming up the vocals/ catching up (00:09:14) - Q4 Catch-up and new deal flow (00:15:16) - Portola (00:41:40) - Atomic Industries  To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant   Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant Important quotes from the podcast by Naval on Leverage:   “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”  —Archimedes    To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines. - Naval Ravikant   Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. - Naval Ravikant   Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. - Naval Ravikant   Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. - Naval Ravikant   Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:24) - Recapping FoundersOnly Conference (00:36:36) - Helping others first (00:44:32) - Baldridge updates & the power of working hard (01:03:46) - How do you want to spend your time? (01:10:38) - Great book recs, Scribe, and the knowledge gap (01:44:38) - Unethical founders (02:00:56) - Optimizing for usefulness Links: Founders Podcast Mitchell Baldridge on X Get in touch with Mitchell David Senra on X Perplexity AI Books: Hard Drive by James Wallace So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport Born Standing Up by Steve Martin Jerry Seinfeld in GQ Zero to One by Peter Thiel To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from David Senra and Mitchell Baldridge: "People don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. And so like we could write a book on this two-hour or whatever long conversation we've had and every single person's going to have a different perspective." — David Senra "I'm here to be the best in the world at what I'm doing. And then you get around other people like that. Like we just talked about Mike Ovitz. You think he was optimizing for days on the golf course?" — David Senra “I wake up every day more obsessed to the point where, like, if this continues, we're going to have to be concerned about me. And what I love is I'm really trying to go after it.” — David Senra "Books don't have to make money to make you money." — Mitchell Baldridge "Mute the world and build your own world and it's like part of building your own world you don't want to start from zero like a feral child in the middle of the woods." — Mitchell Baldridge

Today, I’m talking with my new Capital Camp buddy Andrew Finn. He is the co-founder of the blog Wait But Why. Since age 25 he’s been patiently building, buying, and operating small businesses. Now, he and Tim Urban share a portfolio of cash-flowing small businesses. Together we discuss how to get a free company, why it is often easier to buy a company than build it, and when to eat a shitburger. Enjoy these topics and countless others on this episode of Jorgenson’s Soundbox.  Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  How to get a “free” business What a $100,000 failure in early stage podcasting looked like Why it’s easier to buy a company than build a company Why “doing it later” is a risk and the opportunity cost that comes with it The importance of judgement and getting experience making ‘real decisions’ How to be a legitimate player in “the game” An illustration of a jobless renegade pirate’s day looks like Eating shitburgers, and how to know when to stop   Favorite Quotes: “If I do all this maneuvering, find this company, sell at this price, sell some debt and get some money. In 5 years it’ll be like poof here’s a free company and I get my money back.” - Andrew Finn   “Your job is not to win the SMB game, it’s to win the game. It’s to win the game of money in a way that will benefit your life. Like, we’re invested in crypto, and the stock market too.”   “All service businesses are chicken, just as much as software. You pay someone $X. Resell their time for $X + $Y. And the entirety of the business is justifying and expanding Y to both customers and workers. Y comes from well managed opex, capex, and organization structure. To do it well, you have to just laser focus on what you're providing in exchange for Y. The market gets pissed long-term if it doesn't feel like you're providing enough, and every day it conspires to ask you the question.” - Andrew’s Twitter Additional Resources: Wait But Why Andrew Finn’s Personal Blog G64ventures - Andrew’s holding company Andrew Finn Linkedin Jorgenson Leverage Course    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Andrew Wilkinson: Investing vs. Operating, De-risking Leverage, and The Best Part About Business Nick Huber: How to Leverage Twitter, an Abundance Mindset, and A Love of Chaos Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life If you enjoy podcasts with Brent Beshore of Permanent Equity or Patrick O’Shaughnessy, you’re going to love this one!  Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Naval has such a following because he is successful financially AND happy, in the sense that he has focused on learning happiness. Naval built happiness habits, reminders and behaviors that create an inner peace. This episode has Naval’s best ideas on how envy, success, and desire can interfere with your innate happiness, and how you can defend it or win it back. It all starts with realizing that happiness is a choice, and happiness is a skill. You can train yourself into happiness through perspectives and Naval’s small changes in thinking habits.  Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue Shownotes: Important Quotes from the podcast on Happiness as a choice:   The Tao Te Ching says this more articulately than I ever could, but it’s all duality and polarity. If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point. If I say he’s attractive, then somebody else is unattractive. Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering. You have to view the negative before you can aspire to and appreciate the positive. - Naval Ravikant   If you believe Happiness is a choice you can start to work on it - Naval Ravikant The fundamental delusion: There is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever. - Naval Ravikant   Happiness is being satisfied with what you have. Success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose. - Naval Ravikant   Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time. If you’re a peaceful person, anything you do will be a happy activity. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Success and Desire:   When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you. When playing, surround yourself with people happier than you. - Naval Ravikant   Tell your friends you’re a happy person. Then, you’ll be forced to conform to it. You’ll have a consistency bias. You have to live up to it. Your friends will expect you to be a happy person. - Naval Ravikant Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Anxiety: I think a lot of us have this low-level pervasive feeling of anxiety. If you pay attention to your mind, sometimes you’re just running around doing your thing and you’re not feeling great, and you notice your mind is chattering and chattering about something. Maybe you can’t sit still…There’s this “nexting” thing where you’re sitting in one spot thinking about where you should be next. - Naval Ravikant   It’s most obvious if you ever just sit down and try and do nothing, nothing. I mean nothing, I mean not read a book, I mean not listen to music, I mean literally just sit down and do nothing. You can’t do it, because there’s anxiety always trying to make you get up and go, get up and go, get up and go. I think it’s important just being aware the anxiety is making you unhappy. The anxiety is just a series of running thoughts. - Naval Ravikant   How I combat anxiety: I don’t try and fight it, I just notice I’m anxious because of all these thoughts. I try to figure out, “Would I rather be having this thought right now, or would I rather have my peace?” Because as long as I have my thoughts, I can’t have my peace. - Naval Ravikant

Topics:   (6:21) - What is your specific knowledge?   (7:20) - Taylor’s career   (12:38) - Transaction Cost Economics   (20:02) - The work behind Taylor’s first book: The End of Jobs   (21:20) - Was publishing that book a major inflection point in your career?   (23:53) - Taylor’s writing on the crypto space and work in investing & finance   (29:03) - Mutiny Funds   (32:57) - The Long-Volatility Strategy   (36:33) - The Thousand-Year Portfolio   (40:49) - Who is using the long-volatility strategy and how are they using it?   (43:16) - What does the strategy look like day to day?   (50:07) - Volatility Index   (55:33) - Are there future products in the funnel for Mutiny?   (57:44) - What do you look for in the hedge funds you assemble?   (1:00:20) - How long have you been building this core of knowledge?   (1:04:11) - How do you know when to shift your focus?   (1:07:11) - Are there people you look up to who are great examples of playing the long game?   (1:09:25) - What is the long game for Mutiny?   (1:12:49) - How do you maintain discipline when the world tells you to take the other path?   (1:16:22) - What mental model do you use most often?     Links:   Mutiny Funds   Taylor’s website   Taylor’s The Interesting Times newsletter   The End of Jobs by Taylor Pearson   Blog post: Markets Are Eating The World by Taylor Pearson   The Kelly Criterion with Edward Thorp   The Cockroach Portfolio   The Volatility Index   The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker   Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone   A Man for All Markets by Edward Thorp   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links: Rohun on Twitter JT Capital The Sovereign Individual by James Davidson CBRE JLL 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss Loom Maven The Fear Setting Exercise - Tim Ferriss Topics: (6:10) - Why Eric and Rohun Should have been friends 10 years ago (8:30) - Rohun’s Heroes & family dynamic (15:44) - Journeying into Real Estate (20:52) - Getting Reps: Underwriting Deals (26:57- The importance of scale (30:14) - What is the order of operations for buying a deal? (33:17) - How did you find your partners for JT Capital? (35:26) - Did your uncle pay you for your apprenticeship? (37:25) - What kind of expense ratios are you getting with these large deals as opposed to smaller properties (40:31) - What was your vision for building the company? (43:32) - Were you thinking about leverage at all in this process? (47:26) - Was there anything you brought with you from your career in tech into the RE industry? (50:49) - How are you using EA’s and Virtual assistants in your business? (1:05:04) - Is there anything in your business that cannot be automated or delegated? (1:10:46) - How has your life changed after making this investment? (1:13:36) - How do you balance having partners when you’re structuring your career around freedom? (1:16:15) - How do you compare the pressures of your job now vs. all the unique things you did before this? (1:21:53) - What was the single biggest inflection point of your career? (1:23:41) - Was there any single deal that was make or break for the company? (1:24:56) - What is the mental model you use most frequently? (1:28:50) - Final thoughts & Wrap up To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Tim Hwang is the most interesting man on the internet. He runs a project called the Trade Journal Cooperative, which I've subscribed to for years. We talk about how the Trade Journal Cooperative got started it, how Tim *secretly* went to law school, and several other projects Tim is working on including an academic journal dedicated to bizarre images of Mark Zuckerberg. Thought that was all? That’s not all. Also using bots to wage information wars on social media, and Tim’s book which predicts an online advertising bubble. My favorite thing about Tim is his ability to sit on the fence between very serious and very whimsical. To start our conversation, Tim talks off the cuff about one of his heroes, Charles Fort, who compiled books of anomalous phenomena and is the source of the term “Fortean.” This explains a lot about Tim. We then explore Tim’s role as a trade journal sommelier and the Trade Journal Cooperative which provides a quarterly exploration of various industries. We talk a bit about the vastness of the trucking industry and also about the elevator, i.e., vertical transportation, industry. Tim also tells us the awkward story of how he somewhat unintentionally ended up going to law school secretly, and we explore some of the projects he started after graduating, including Rosen, Wolfe and Hwang, a boutique law practice that specializes in serving the unique needs of independent creators and small to midsize technology businesses, and Robot, Robot & Hwang, which was created off the notion of creating a fully automated law firm. Among other projects, Tim also started the academic journal The California Review of Images and Mark Zuckerberg, which explores why Zuckerberg seems to be exceptionally good at ending up in strange images and what that says about the media and culture.  I ask Tim to talk about his 2019 paper titled “Maneuver and Manipulation: On the Military Strategy of Online Information Warfare,” which is about how bots shape discussions online and the possible strategies of combating public manipulation. We also talk about a couple of branches off the information warfare piece, the National Conspiracy Writing Month (NaCoWriMo), in which participants complete a “daunting, but straightforward challenge to develop a deep, viable and complete conspiracy theory during the 30 days of November,” and COGSEC, which is a conference on the real-world practice of countering online influence operations. We wrap up our discussion talking about Tim’s recently published book The Subprime Attention Crisis that explores the bubble of online advertising and its potential implications on web2 giants.   Links:  Charles Fort Books The Trade Journal Cooperative Iron Clad Contract Management  Maneuver and Manipulation: On the Military Strategy of Online Information Warfare Sub-prime attention crisis by Tim Hwang The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber TimHwang.org Tim on Twitter Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:04:43) - Russian interpretations of friendship (00:09:28) - Thoughts on the state of society and its rate of technological adoption (00:13:22) - Creating alliances between entrepreneurs, capitalists, and scientists (00:17:17) - Rick Rubin on Creativity in Investing (00:20:55) - Does Taste exist in the world of VC? (00:26:06) - Becoming a better Communicator (00:40:59) - What archetypes do you see in the folks you work with? (00:44:18) - Arkady’s background and career (01:00:34) - Arkady’s thesis and technical due diligence for rpv (01:11:26) - Companies Arkady is excited about (01:16:55) - What important problems are you not seeing pursued? (01:21:11) - How can people get in touch with you? Links: Arkady on LinkedIn Rpv Venture Fund Specialist by Robert Sheckley The Creative Act by Rick Rubin To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Arkady Kulik: "Good communication is essential to avoid conflicts and build better relationships, both personally and professionally." — Arkady Kulik "Aligning visions with founders is critical. It’s not just about the business, it’s about shared values and missions." — Arkady Kulik "The alliance between entrepreneurs and scientists is the key to unlocking humanity's transition to an advanced civilization." — Arkady Kulik "Technology is the only source of never-ending growth. Our ability to reshape what we have with a small amount of resources into something fantastic is a never-ending source of creativity." — Arkady Kulik "People who are not true to themselves and lie to themselves are not founder material. The people who don’t lie to themselves and know what they are trying to do are the ones who can actually get there." — Arkady Kulik

Topics: (4:12) - David on how to grow a podcast & Mitchell as a connector (13:32) - David on changing the structure of his podcast (15:58) - Creator-Led Business, Kobe Bryant, Arnold Schwarzenegger & Balaji (36:49) - The genius of Berkshire Hathaway & The power of Twitter (51:24) - Creator Economics & Story time with David Senra (1:06:38) - Eric’s impact on David (1:09:48) - Mitchell’s career model & Building a bookkeeping business (1:28:11) - Focusing career growth (2:04:32) - Thoughts on TikTok (2:16:43)- How the guys spend their time (Finding operational leverage) (2:21:29) - Trying to convince Mitchell to start a podcast (2:24:34) - David’s thoughts on his new business model  (2:33:38) - Wrap Up   Links: - The Founder’s Podcast w/ David Senra - Connect with Mitchell Baldridge - Mitchell Baldridge on Twitter - David Senra on Twitter - BetterBookkeping.com - David’s appearance on Jorgenson’s Soundbox - Mitchell’s appearance on Jorgenson’s Soundbox - Trung Phan on Twitter - Sam Hinkie - WorkWeek - Coked Up Options on Twitter - Ed Thorpe on The Tim Ferriss Show - Business Breakdowns - Berkshire Hathaway - Money20/20 - George Mack on Twitter - Frank Niu on TikTok   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links Epic Gardening Kevin Espiritu on YouTube Creator Capitalists post from Eric Kevin’s first appearance on Smart Friends Scribemedia.com/consult Timestamps (00:04:23) Kevin’s career leading to content (00:14:00) What did raising capital unlock for you? (00:20:36) Attaching a dollar value to your niche (00:27:08) What is your high-leverage work today? (00:28:24) What do you see for Epic Gardening over the next 10 years? (00:29:43) What other places can this playbook work? (00:37:29) Being *good* on every platform (00:39:00) Not thinking about “Marketing” (00:40:41) Is it easier to start with media and attach commerce after? (00:46:52) The importance of authenticity (00:53:55) Q&A (01:03:00) Wrap up To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Links: David on Twitter Mitchell on Twitter Founders Podcast Stuff mentioned: Jocko Go Drink Capital Camp People mentioned: Jeremy Giffon on Twitter Brent Beshore on Twitter Clayton Dorge - CEO of Capital Camp Books mentioned: Setting the Table by Danny Meyer Becoming Trader Joe by Joe Coulombe In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman Sam Walton: Made in America The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro The Creative Act by Rick Rubin Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda Podcasts mentioned: Jocko Podcast Modern Wisdom w/ Chris Williamson Founders episode 305 - Robert Caro Invest like the Best w/ Sam Hinkie  Smart Friends - Kevin Espiritu Invest like the Best with Peter Chernin Acquired - Louis Vuitton Audience of one with Jeremy Giffon Infinite Loops: Billy Oppenheimer Timestamps (00:04:09) David & Jocko Go: a Love Story (00:15:49) Recapping Capital Camp (00:40:35) The power of audio & writing, Sam Hinkie, Podcast recommendations (00:50:37) Finding conviction in your career pursuits (00:56:58) The opportunity for niche businesses (01:06:29) Power Leaking & the HoldCo phenomenon (01:21:47) Favorite moments from Capital Camp (02:00:49) The power of taste (02:09:23) The Climb and the Summit To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Topics: (4:21) - Introducing Omar & Zach (nerds) (5:30) - Why will Web3 data take 100% of the market? (7:22) - What are data flows? (14:40) - Does the whole world need to be on Web3 to execute your vision? (18:02) - Is there a gamification to this whole approach? (25:05) - Are you seeing finance being the first industry to adopt Web3 Data flows? (34:29) - CryptoPoops.com (Finest shit on the internet) (36:02) - Being able to verify truth at any point (44:59) - The history of HTTPS (47:41) - The SVB crisis, wire transfers & chainalysis (50:09) - Can we implement something like Weavechain without replacing the skeleton of the current financial system? (1:01:15) - Distribution in Web3/Crypto & how Weavechain works in pharma and insurance (1:14:49) - Decentralized Science (1:17:35) - What is the 50-year vision for Weavechain? (1:25:42) - Who are the best people for you to talk to regarding Weavechain? Support our Sponsor: madebybread.com Links: Weavechain Omar on Twitter & LinkedIn Zach on Twitter & LinkedIn For Fintechsake Podcast Money20/20  To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

In the last episode, we discussed alternative assets, and in this episode, we take a deep dive into the career of Chris Powers, the master of one specific alternative asset: real estate. Chris began his real estate career when he was just 17 years old and has spent the last 17 years building Fort Capital, a real estate firm in Fort Worth, Texas. Chris was a hungry 17-year-old, just showed up at college, bought his first house with no money down in 2004. By the time he left college, he had 12 houses. Fast forward to 2021, just this year, along with investors, they purchased $500 million of industrial real estate in Texas. Throughout the episode, we discuss Chris’s journey in real estate, investing, recruiting, and podcasting. We started the conversation by asking Chris who his heroes are. He shared the story of his father who went back to college to pursue medicine even after being a lawyer for 13 years. His dad taught him the valuable lessons that you only live one life and that money can only make you so happy. Chris bought his first house at 17 when he was starting college and got into real estate as a means to make money during his studies. He was driven by constantly waking up and feeling behind and wanting to do something. Before graduating, he bought more student housing, started a property management business, and started a leasing business. He graduated in 2008, during the economic collapse, and had no choice but to continue in real estate. From 2010 to 2015, Chris was doing a bit of everything related to real estate – he was building custom homes and spec homes, buying land, VC investing, and had a small team that he managed. Despite having some success, he realized he wasn’t compounding his business the way he wanted. Reading Good to Great by Jim Collins motivated him to narrow the focus of his business. Chris talks about his need to be able to recruit and the importance of having a mission. We also discuss how flywheels can propel us forward, and for Chris, his flywheel is based on his podcast, Twitter, real estate business, and investors that create a virtuous cycle of growth. Recently, Chris has transitioned out of being the CEO of Fort Capital, and he is learning how to be an owner. He is also focusing on his VC Funds and building Powers Capital, which he says will function like a family office but also will function like private equity. We wrap up the conversation discussing when enough is enough and measuring impact; Chris says he’s no longer in it for the money but rather to see what it is possible to accomplish during the one life he has.   Links:  Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fortworthchris The Fort Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dLKPVTiXWmrFwd43iN2LZ  Chris Powers & Pete Chambers Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2X8vKyUIQaIxV5Mr9J5KMv Good to Great by Jim Collins:  https://amzn.to/3yJV9Jc Owned and Operated Podcast w/ Chris Powers: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/21-chris-powers-building-%24600mm-commercial-real-estate/id1560999545?i=1000527344852 Fort Ventures: https://www.fort-ventures.com/ On Deck: https://beondeck.com/ Token Economy - How the Web3 Reinvents the Internet by Shermin Voshmgir:  https://amzn.to/3mpmHi7 Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Mitchell Baldridge: Defeating Taxes, Crypto & Financial Planning Codie Sanchez: Drug Cartels, Vanguard, and Goldman Sachs Nick Huber: How to Build Leverage, Buy Businesses, and Go Viral on Twitter   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

(2:29) - How clear is the picture of how far you’ve come in the past 4 months? (3:27) - Recapping Track Zach #2 (10:36) - What are customers buying now and how have the service offerings changed? (20:06) - Do you know the bootstrapping process of these other industry marketplace products? (21:49) - How did you arrive at home security audit and family protection as the right first products to offer? (29:20) - What’s your ultimate revenue goal as it pertains to fundraising? (38:35) - What do your internal operations look like? (41:06) - Zach’s experience in Launch New York (43:32) - Spending too much time on “shiny object” opportunities (48:55) - Traction and the fundraising process (57:01) - Entrepreneurship is really hard (1:06:01) - Is there anything you’ve changed your mind on in the past quarter? (1:17:06) - Are there other mental models from your time as a SEAL that you apply in business? (1:20:44) - Feeling high leverage work shift over time (1:26:22) - How can people listening help Conterra? Links:  ConterraSecurity.com LaunchNY.org The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen NfX Marketplaces Other Episode You’ll Like: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 Figgures by mixing Media + D2C Biz Models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models.   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Topics: (7:05) - Updates from Zach: hiring, firing, building software, and finding PMF (13:41) - What drove the decision to focus more on the marketplace rather than services? (20:18) - How different was it working with a fund rather than angels? (23:03) - Cost cutting measures (24:35) - What was it about services that made them not repeatable or scalable? (37:00) - Fear mongering (38:19) - Regional focused marketplaces (41:07) - Corporate Enterprise focuses (45:15) - Rebuilding community and staffing via website development (50:38) - How does affiliate marketing discounts fit into your strategy? (54:34)- Firing a customer (59:17) - A bias for action, mixed with patience (1:07:06) - What are your hopes for our next meeting? (1:10:38) - Homework for the audience Links: Zach on Twitter Conterra Security Listen to Episodes 1-3 of this series The Art of the Start by Guy Kawaski Webflow Zapier AirTable New Illinois crime law going into effect To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Topics: (1:05) - Life updates and catching up from Al’s Quilting Capital: Hamilton, MO (20:08) - Fund updates for end of Q2 (25:15) - Fund updates for Q3: Omello, Ohm, Driv.ly & Glyph (49:35) - Closing out Q3 (50:28) - Updates on old portfolio companies: StableCoin, Terran, Gently  (55:23) - How to get involved with Rolling Fun!   Links: Rolling Fun #1 Rolling Fun #2 Portfolio Al on Twitter Bo on Twitter Wongo Puzzles Positive Food Co. Omella Smart Ohm Driv.ly Glyph   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Topics:   (2:11) - Tech Gossip about Elon, Twitter & Fast    (9:26) - Q1 Portfolio Recap: Gently & Terran Robotics   (28:36) - Q2 Portfolio Update: Lumo, Stablegains   (43:05) - How listeners can help portfolio companies   (46:07) - Fund Updates   (51:29) - Explaining how quarterly investments work in the fund and deadlines   (53:01) - Reasons we passed on companies   Links:    Rolling.Fun   Gently.com   Terran Robotics   Terran Robotics on YouTube   Lumo.co   Stablegains.com   Other Episode You’ll Like: Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust Chris Powers: Starting A Real Estate Empire at 17, Focus, Podcast Flywheels   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Today, my guest is Dan Reecer. Dan joined the crypto world 3 years ago instead of going to get his MBA, and is now VP of Growth for Acala, the Defi Network launching soon on the Polkadot Blockchain Platform. Don’t worry, all of those words get explained in the podcast.  In this conversation, I try to bring us all (myself included) from basics to applications of blockchain, and help us all see around the next few corners we’ll all go through together over the next decade. We talk about: Dan’s path to working in crypto, what Polkadot is, where it came from, why it’s different from Bitcoin and Ethereum, and how crypto will benefit people not already in the space. Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: (I encourage you to go play around with some of these tools and technologies. Things start to click when you actually use them and feel them work.)    Topics Covered:  What is Polkadot? Where Polkadot came from and why it’s different from Bitcoin and Ethereum What does a multi-chain future look like? Why do we need that? What problems does Polkadot solve? What is Acala?  How crypto will benefit normal people Dan’s path to working in Crypto    Additional Resources: The Infinite Machine book by Camilla Russo Dan Reecer’s Twitter Polkadot Twitter Acala Twitter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions Simon Judd: How Index Coop is building Crypto Index products Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Will Barnes and Will Oliver are two fantastic individuals I met through Latticework and got to know by bonding over our fandom of Charlie Munger. They are the co-founders of In Practise, a company that conducts interviews with executives and sells them to investors looking at the companies and building conviction in their portfolio. They conduct one-to-one interviews in pursuit of finding the best investment opportunities for their clients. During our conversation, we talk about how they came to start their business, how it is structured to authentically align with themselves, and tactics they employ in conducting interviews. To kick off the conversation, I ask about who their heroes are and both Wills talk about their fathers as well as Munger and Buffet, and then we transition into how they met and came to start In Practise. They both worked for Third Bridge, an expert network that connects mainly investment companies with operators in private one-to-one phone calls, and they came together to build the content side of the business. They fell in love with the work, and seeing a niche in the market for a more affordable solution for smaller hedge fund managers, they spun out from Third Bridge and formed In Practise. We discuss how they are building a system to understand what quality means in a business and how they build conviction for investors. We talk a bit about Dee Hock, the founder and CEO of Visa, and how he has inspired and influenced In Practise. Their core offering is a library of interviews; they first aim to get their client up to speed quickly on the workings of the company they are interested in and then to delve into what really matters, and the next part is the analysis phase in which they offer investor dialogs about the company. Moreover, they are aiming to build a community for learning founded on trust. We explore how they approach the interviews of executives and the balance between noticing patterns but also allowing the interview to go where it flows. They must understand the business and what the customers care about but also have to be willing to really listen. Will Barnes emphasizes the importance of the line of questioning rather than just the questions and says the epiphanies often come when the original hypothesis was wrong. They walk me through a couple of company examples, Naked Wine and Burford, and what really matters in them. To wrap up, I ask about the companies they can list that they believe to be in the hundred highest quality public businesses in the world today and about their project of In Practise 40 years out.   Links:  In Practise In Practise on Twitter Eric’s Newsletter Third Bridge Iain McGilchrist Books by Dee Hock Naked Wines Burford Capital   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Phil Huber: Crazy Alternative Assets, Crypto for Financial Advisors & the Book Writing Process Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast.   David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthony Bourdain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, and many more. Visit founderspodcast.com to subscribe or listen to sample episodes. Links:  Michelle on LinkedIn Michelle on Medium info@gosquaredaway.com Squared Away  Asana Trello Zirtual Harvest   Support our sponsor: founderspodcast.com    Other Episode You’ll Like: Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links: The Gray Lady Winked by Ashley Rindsberg Ashley on Twitter Ashley on Substack Ashley’s writing Sponsor: MadeByBread.com GiveWell.org Topics: (5:02) - The impact of Balaji’s love for your book (6:54) - When did you realize this book needed to be written? (10:35) - Rejected by publishers (11:44) - What changed? How did this get published? (13:51) - The research and writing process (18:01) - Examples: Holocaust, Fidel Castro, Vietnam, Atomic Bomb…  (30:45) - Who is responsible for the failures? (34:45) - Is misreporting happening in other legacy media companies? (39:15) - Like a real-life ‘Succession’ (43:15) - Do people know about these lies? (46:04) - Ashley’s broad personal perspective (52:10) - How Ashley reads the news (54:27) - The future of legacy media (57:07) - Building Alitheum to solve these problems (1:04:58) - Final thoughts To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:05:25) - Studying both Medieval History and Engineering (00:09:48) - Founding Speculative Technologies (00:11:25) - Defining “Useful” in Science and Technology (00:13:46) - Building the roadmap of discoveries to unlock futuristic tech (00:17:24) - The need for new institutions (00:25:22) - Why focus on material science and manufacturing technologies (00:46:57) -  The day-to-day work and impact of Speculative Technologies Links: Speculative Technologies Ben on X Ben’s website To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Here’s what we explored in the episode: How studying history helps us see the present and the future more clearly.  Ben’s vision is to work with founders who are not just chasing profits but are driven by the desire to solve meaningful problems. Most successful concepts emerge from multiple rounds of experimentation. As institutions evolve, gaps formed around important research that used to be funded by universities or R&D labs of corporations. Ben is building a non-profit to fill that gap.  Ben shared why he chose to invest in startups rather than founding his own. Ben invests in "physics-enabled" startups that apply scientific principles to solve tough problems. For startups to be successful, there needs to be an alignment of motivations between investors and founders. Founders should approach investors with clarity about their vision and expect honesty and support in return. There are significant global issues that aren't being addressed by startups and opportunity abounds. Leaders must build complementary teams where members fill each other’s gaps, particularly in technical and strategic expertise. There’s a need for effective communication to bridge gaps between technical experts and the broader public. (hopefully some of what we’re doing here!)  If you’re looking for non-profit causes for your philanthropic donations, SpecTech may be among the highest-leverage ways to advance human civilization through donations.  Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Topics:   (5:14) - Matt & Ben’s friendship origin   (8:42) - Starting Texts From Last Night   (18:17) - Matt’s early career with Google, Coachella & Lafayette American   (43:33) - Mille Mitten   (58:34) - Tik Tok, Ads and Algorithms   (1:06:55) - Elon Musk & Twitter   (1:15:38) - Fixing Movie Theaters & car charging infrastructure   (1:38:07) - Fixing conferences   (1:50:50) - Exercise: Rebranding the podcast   Links:   Texts from Last Night   Lafayette American   TickPick   Mille Mitten   Mil-Spec Automotive   Alamo Drafthouse   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

This episode is a replay of episode 22 of this podcast. Links:  Eric’s Blog Eric’s blog post on digital scarcity Eric’s Blog post on The Cost of Trust Technological revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez Topics: (0:08) - Introducing the Web3 discussion (4:13) - What is the Blockchain? (6:06) - Lowering transaction costs across Web1, Web2 & Web3 (9:46) - Creating cheap, digital scarcity (12:12) - Why does the blockchain matter? Trust & Decentralization (18:50) - What happens when blockchains are deployed? Digital and Physical impacts. (26:26) - Technological Revolutions & Financial Capital by Carlotta Perez (28:23) - DAO: Distributed Autonomous Organization (30:51) - Predictions: The biggest networks will be bigger than the biggest companies (39:03) - Wrap Up: What do you have to do? (42:02) - Web3 is supposed to be fun!

Topics: (4:56) - Chris’ background and work at Athena (6:53) - What does a Chief Client Officer do? (10:20) - Robert’s background and work at Athena (17:00) - Robert recruiting Chris to Athena (20:20) - What distinguishes Robert as an operator (25:02) - Robert’s first year with Athena and how the company has scaled  (33:39) - Chris’ decision to join Athena (37:28) - Creating a great experience for both clients and the EAs (46:17) - What people use their EAs for at Athena (50:28) - How Athena focuses on leverage (57:46) - Thoughts behind recruiting EAs and training  (1:09:04) - Playbooks and systems for delegation (1:13:14) - biggest moments of relief gained from an EA? (1:17:58) - How does someone know when they need an EA? (1:32:28) - Where is Athena today? (1:38:40) - Where do you predict the global workforce goes over the next several decades? (1:46:30) - What are the mental models or heuristics you use in making decisions? (1:55:41) - Athena helps clients provide feedback (1:58:06) - Wrap up Links:  Athena - www.athenago.com Island Heights Construction - https://www.islandheights.ca Humi - https://www.humi.ca Eric’s Site: www.ejorgenson.com  Other Episodes You’ll Like: EA Delegating w/ Michelle Penczak: Founder of Squared Away - Military Spouses becoming Top Tier Virtual Assistants Drug Cartels, Vanguard, And Goldman Sachs with Codie Sanchez Andrew Wilkinson: De-risking Leverage, Investing vs. Operating, and the Best Part About Business   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter. Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:  How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. - Naval Ravikant  Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.  You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy. - Naval Ravikant

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast.   David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthony Bourdain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, and many more. Visit founderspodcast.com to subscribe or listen to sample episodes. Support our sponsor: founderspodcast.com  Links:  Zach Pettet on Twitter Zach’s Podcast - For Fintech’s Sake On YouTube On Spotify On Apple Podcasts Money 20/20 V-Sum SoLo Funds MoneyLion Blooom Figure   Other Episode You’ll Like: Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Andrew Finn: WaitButWhy and G64 Co-founder on How To Acquire A Free Company   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Topics: (00:04:26) - Who are your influences? (00:08:57) - When Facts Expire: The Half-life of Knowledge (00:22:57) - The Playbook behind Boston Dynamics and DeepMind  (00:28:36) - Research Orgs other than Academia, Govt, and Industry (00:31:00) - DARPA and Speculative Technologies (00:39:08) - Ink & Switch (00:41:13) - Challenges of University Tech Transfer Offices (00:47:42) - Transforming the future of Education  (00:52:20) - Using AI tools in day-to-day life (00:55:40) - Sam’s job at Lux Capital (00:58:07) - Overperforming and Underperforming Technologies (01:02:33) - What mental models do you use most frequently? (01:03:45) - How to corner the market on a high-tech skillset (01:05:40) - Industries you’re watching that no one else is paying attention to?  (01:07:41) - Sci-Fi book recommendations Links for more on Sam: Sam on Tedx: The Half-Life of Facts Sam’s books Sam’s Website Companies Mentioned: Boston Dynamics DeepMind DARPA Speculative Technologies The Foresight Institute Books Mentioned: Why Greatness Cannot be Planned by Ken Stanley The Three-Body Problem Trilogy by Cixin Liu Neal Stephenson Books Culture series by Iain Banks Babel by R. F Kuang Foundation by Isaac Asimov Don Swanson - Undiscovered Public Knowledge To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Nick Huber owns a real estate private equity company (http://boltstorage.com) in the self storage space. He owns 24 properties and over 630,000 rentable square feet in 4 states. He employees a team of 17 individuals and has raised over $10m in outside capital.   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).       If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Join the Course Correctly community: https://coursecorrectly.com/about/  I appreciate your support!     Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   I came up with the principles in my tweetstorm (below) for myself when I was really young, around thirteen or fourteen. I’ve been carrying them in my head for thirty years, and I’ve been living them. Over time (sadly or fortunately), the thing I got really good at was looking at businesses and figuring out the point of maximum leverage to actually create wealth and capture some of that created wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant    Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant    Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant    The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy. - Naval Ravikant  

This week’s podcast is my second SoloCast, and during the episode, I share my thoughts and some predictions on the potential impacts and implementations of web3. The blockchain can be basically defined as a cryptographic breakthrough that allows for openness but with very careful editing permissions. While web1 resulted in costless publication and web2 in costless communication, web3 allows for costless transactions. This will likely increase the number of transactions we make. Web3 can also create cheap digital scarcity which may help authenticate originality in the digital world. Why does this all matter? My answer to this question regards the implications of web3 on the cost of trust and decentralization. Currently, the cost of trust in the market is relatively high, and with increasing transactions and original creations occurring via the blockchain, we will have to pay less for trust. Also, there will be less need for centralized parties such as brands or centralized banks, though it’s too early to say which authorities will all be affected. Next, I make some predictions about what will happen as the blockchain gets deployed. The first to be impacted is the management of digital items, with finance and gaming among the earlier industries. Also, we will likely see digital components getting separated from analog components so that they can be managed on the blockchain. Another trend that may happen is that the blockchain may be implemented to manage atoms in the real world. To wrap up the SoloCast, I explore the implications of web3. It will probably impact managerial culture, and DAOs (distributed autonomous organizations) will likely take over some market share from companies. I also believe the biggest networks will be bigger than the biggest companies, in part because there is no cap on involvement in web3 networks and ecosystems. My goal in sharing my thoughts is not just to tell you what I think will happen but to provide some notions and rough directions so that you can hopefully overlay some of these lessons into your own experience and expertise. Web3 is still not easy to navigate, and it is still early in its implementation, but it provides incredible opportunity, and it is fun to get involved.   Links:  Eric’s Blog Eric’s blog post on digital scarcity Eric’s Blog post on The Cost of Trust Technological revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez SquidDAO   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 Simon Judd: How Index Coop is Building Crypto Index Products   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Topics:   (5:53) - Start of Balaji Interview (6:24) - How would you introduce yourself to a stranger? (8:19) - Do you think of your work as “whatever it takes” to advance your ideology? (10:05) - What would you like to see most achieved? (13:14) - What are the things you believe you are the best at? (20:52) - What are the ideas you are most confident telling others that you know for certain? (30:22) - Balaji’s upbringing & growing up in an age before the internet (1:03:35) - Have you always been like this? Was there an inflection point that made you who you are today? (1:11:41) - Are there any formative media, movie or books that really had an impact on you growing up? (1:19:15) - Doing math as a hobby & philosophical frameworks (1:29:19) - The Feynman Lectures & Magic the Gathering (1:51:29) - Were there any inspirations you looked to in your transition into entrepreneurship? (1:56:45) - What do you consider your career or body of work? (2:07:20) - Where have you seen some of the bigger obstacles in your career? (2:25:57) - Wealth, Burn Rate, and feeling “free to speak your mind” (2:38:40) - How are you spending time and resources to have an impact according to your mission? (2:50:56) - Are you trying to start your own network state or help people start theirs? (2:55:06) - What’s your process with getting up to speed on new technologies? (3:00:23) - What do you think about the trade-off between focusing on learning vs. when to start doing? (3:03:50) - Countries that impacted Balaji’s philosophy (3:08:33) - Balaji’s predictions on what Eric chose to have in the book (3:13:13) - What are the mental models or heuristics you use most often? (3:19:21) - Eric’s Themes of Balaji’s work (3:28:14) - What is your definition of technology? (3:36:09) - Do you believe a startup is synonymous with a great new technology? (3:37:20) - The co-evolution of technology and humanity & Youth-Extension (3:43:34) - The long-term battle for Network systems (3:45:50) - What do you envision transhumanism looking like? (3:53:05) - Wrap Up             Links:   Balaji on Twitter The Network State Feynman Lectures on Physics From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew The Man Who Knew Infinity Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos Howl's Moving Castle Isaac Azmov Elements of Mathematical Modeling Paul Tipler Physics books Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham One Thousand Exercises in Probability fast.ai Quantum.country Classical Electrodynamics by John Jackson The PERL Cookbook PLEAC Obey the Testing Goat Nobody cares by Ben Horowitz The Jewish State by Theodore Herzl How ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence by Kellie Jackson Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham Limitless   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links: Austen on Twitter Al on Twitter Bloomtech (Formerly Lambda School) Becoming Trader Joe by Joe Coulombe Rolling.fun Rolling Fun Podcast episodes: Rolling Fun Ep. 1 Rolling Fun Ep. 2 Rolling Fun Ep. 3 Rolling Fun Ep. 4 Creative EA Delegation with Athena on the Podcast Sponsors: Athenago.com MadeByBread.com Topics: (6:29) - Warming up & Austen escaping San Francisco (13:35) - Catching up on Bloomtech’s growth (24:34) - Hiring horror stories and strategies (37:02) - A lot of advice is bullshit (50:10) - How to deal with hypergrowth (1:00:05) - Will VR be a real thing? (1:05:43) - AI’s early investment in Bloomtech (1:13:32) - Bottlenecks for future growth (1:18:09) - Work/Life… balance? To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

This week’s guest is my friend, Kevin Espiritu. Kevin is the founder of Epic Gardening, the world’s biggest gardening education platform. We became good friends over the internet--Kevin and I talked about the trend of parasocial relationships and how you can get to know someone despite having little to no in-person interaction. We talked about how Kevin transitioned from making a living out of playing poker, to building websites, to marketing and blogging, and finally, working full-time on Epic Gardening. This project went on to garner the biggest gardening audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and has branched into direct-to-consumer business without any ad spend. Kevin relates his mistake in scaling the company revenue faster than he built the team, saying he likely left growth on the table. Leveraging people was a challenge at first. He says he thinks of himself more as a content creator and not really as a writer or YouTuber or podcaster, which eventually helped ease the process of trusting new team members to take on such responsibilities as he grew the company. Kevin is now raising PE money and making an acquisition as an independent entrepreneur. We’ve had such a wonderful conversation that goes beyond Epic Gardening and into fun stuff like how creators can implement web3 tools, Kevin's short career as a male model, pink pineapple piracy, and so much more.   Additional Resources Epic Gardening - https://www.epicgardening.com/ Epic Gardening on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicGardening Epic Gardening on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/epicgardening Epic Gardening on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/ Epic Gardening on Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@epicgardening The Epic Gardening Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epic-gardening-daily-growing-tips-and-advice/id1221085548 Scribe Media - https://scribemedia.com/ Missouri Star Quilt Company - https://www.missouriquiltco.com/ The Fish that Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen - https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Nick Huber: How to Build Leverage, Buy Businesses, and Go Viral on Twitter   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Topics:   (3:48) - David Hijacks the podcast: Eric’s Heroes, Munger as a copywriter and “Jeffisms”   (8:31) - How did you start Founders Pod and build it into a business?   (27:39) - How did you engrain this level of discipline in your craft?   (34:41) - Emulating Ed Thorpe   (43:59) - The power of podcasting   (50:43) - Eric and David discuss career goals   (57:46) - Thoughts on the ‘serial entrepreneur’   (1:08:18) - Deep dive into David’s approach to reading   (1:19:17) - Is this just a chapter of your life, or is this the business to dedicate your life to?   (1:25:24) - Do you think more people should do what you’re doing?   (1:28:20) - How to get the most value from what David is doing   (1:36:06) - How have you changed pre-Founders vs. today?   (1:38:29) - What does the best version of this podcast look like?   (1:53:48) - Compounding & Leverage   (1:59:38) - Books are the original links   (2:04:45) - Final thoughts   Links:   FoundersPodcast.com   Kevin Rose interviewing Elon Musk on the Tesla Factory Floor   Jocko Podcast   Paul Graham’s “How to Do what You Love”   Masters of Doom by David Kushner   Chapo Trap House   Edwin Land   Founders Podcast: Founder of Hyundai   Neckar’s Minds of the Market   Readwise   The Kanye West Genius documentary   The Great Books Program   Biographics on YouTube   Graphtreon.com     To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast.   David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthony Bourdain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, and many more. Visit founderspodcast.com to subscribe or listen to sample episodes. Links:    FE International FE International Whitepapers Client Case Studies Thomas on Twitter Thomas on IG Thomas on Facebook Join our Fund at Rolling.Fun Support our sponsor: founderspodcast.com    Other Episode You’ll Like: Andrew Finn: WaitButWhy and G64 C-Founder on How to Acquire a Free Company Codie Sanchez: Drug Cartels, Vanguard, And Goldman Sachs To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

[This is a replay of episode #002] Andrew Wilkinson is the co-founder of Tiny, a venture capital firm that has helped to build over 25 profitable internet businesses over the last 15 years. He got his start founding MetaLab, one of the world’s top design agencies. He has gone from working out of his apartment a little over a decade ago, to today overseeing a group of companies with over 300 employees and tens of millions in revenue. To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! 

Links for Matt’s stuff: Aalo.com Matt on Twitter Aalo on Twitter Aalo Job Board Link to invest alongside Eric in deals like Aalo: rolling.fun Links to stuff mentioned: Decouple Podcast Titans of Nuclear Podcast Nuclear Barbarian Substack Atomic Awakening by James Mahaffey Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop by Jack Devanney Topics: (00:03:08) How the popular opinion of nuclear has changed from the 1950’s (00:15:16) The regulation issues surrounding nuclear (00:17:20) Water-based nuclear reactors vs. advanced nuclear reactors (00:19:40) Matt’s journey into nuclear energy (00:34:42) Aalo’s strategy (00:41:12) What is the TAM for this nuclear microreactors? (00:45:53) The manufacturing process for a nuclear plant (00:48:51) The nuclear supply chain (00:50:01) The change in public opinion on nuclear energy (00:55:56) Support for nuclear energy in the VC world (01:01:12) Recommendations for learning more about the sustainable energy industry (01:03:30) What do you look for when hiring?   To support this podcast: >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant   Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant Important quotes from the podcast by Naval on Leverage:   “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”  —Archimedes    To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines. - Naval Ravikant   Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. - Naval Ravikant   Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. - Naval Ravikant   Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. - Naval Ravikant   Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start. 

This episode is a conversation about investing in the DeFi space with my previous podcast guest Jason Hitchcock and his partners of Four Moons Capital, Adam and Boz. They talk about how they all got together to form Four Moons and came to partner with Kingsley Capital to create a 100-million-dollar fund to be invested in DeFi. Throughout the conversation, we chat about some of their favorite tokens, projects, and ecosystems and how early it is in the space. We talk about how they all keep up in the industry and decide what to pay attention to. Each team member has their own approach, but generally, the community you belong to can help inform you as well as following “thought leaders” on Twitter and Discord. Jason says he focuses on what will make money and tries to sort whether people are right about opportunities or if they are being duped. Adam shares a theme he’s adopted from the space, “We’re all gonna make it,” and says everyone is working to help grow the pie. In the second half of the conversation, we talk about block explorers as the next Googles of the world, we explore the analogy of where crypto is at in comparison to where internet was in the 90s, and we talk about OpenSea as the Amazon of crypto and whether it will be disrupted or not. We also explore some thoughts on the metaverse and its opportunities. I then ask about some predictions for their fund in 10 years and am told they expect the fund to have several billion in proof stake tokens and that they’ll be able to take on other subadvisor arrangements with other types of treasuries. To wrap up, we talk about some steps people can take if they want to learn more or get started in DeFi. Jason talks about building a portfolio to earn yield, which can then be sold to start building up a dream portfolio, or it can be compounded back into your strategy to earn more yield. Adam points out the common characteristic of successful crypto investors is resourcefulness and that it is a do-it-yourself industry. Boz suggests learning while earning; he says a first step is starting to yield on a stable coin, then learning through podcasts, Discords, Twitter, etc., and then the next phase is going from stable coin to a web3 interface and staking.   Links:  Sushi Swap Kingsly Capital  Danny Ryan on Twitter  Cosmos Luna PolkaDot Dogepunks NFT Jason on Twitter Boz on Twitter Adam on Twitter Adam’s Subsctack Ethropy.finance The Crypto Barbell Strategy Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: SquidDAO: Web3 Project Deep-Dive: Part Crypto Hedge Fund, Part NFT DAO. An Anonymous Conspiracy for Mutual Enrichment Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage 

Naval’s famous tweetstorm ‘How to get Rich’ (without getting lucky) was just the start. This episode has all of the chapters from the Building Wealth section of the book of Naval. You will learn the details of specific knowledge, accountability, building equity, finding leverage and how to play the long game. Learn the principles of wealth that tells you how Naval got rich from his startups, Angellist, and his angel investments. These principles explain how millions of people have gotten rich, and give you the ideas that you need to plan your own path to wealth.    Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky   Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

Topics:   (1:46) - Who are your heroes?   (7:25) - Sebastian’s affinity for studying history, sports, art & professional gamers   (11:30) - How do you take lessons learned from these studies and apply them to entrepreneurship?     (13:01) - Why do you approach life and work with a lens of ruthless optimization? (18:12) - Breaking down the concept of ‘productivity’   (26:56) - Non-value producing work   (28:11) - Do you find that you have a higher sense of baseline after experimenting with  optimizing your entire life?   (34:25) - Maximum sustainable pace vs. Maximum possible pace   (39:44) - Optimizing for fun   (44:34) - Can you expand on the growth of Ultraworking?   (50:04) - Improving scope-to-quality of work   (55:36) - Sebastian’s period of life attempting to visit every country in the world   (1:00:59) - Sebastian’s writing eras and how they changed him   (1:14:40) - Agree or disagree: Self-measurement is self-punishment   (1:19:51) - Monthly themes for life   (1:22:45) - What is the mental model you find yourself implementing in your life the most?     Links:   Ultraworking Sebastian Marshall on Medium   The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt   Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon by B. H. Lidell Hart   On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle   You and Your Research by Richard Hamming   Stedi Annual Letter - Operational excellence   Gateless by Sebastian Marshall   Extreme Productivity by Robert Pozen   Product Hunt   Clockwork Nutrition   To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links: XBE Sean on Twitter & LinkedIn ChatGPT ChatGPT-4 BarelyKnown.com OpenAI CoPilot Ben’s Bites newsletter BaeKayla.com Support our Sponsor: Bread: https://www.madebybread.com/ Topics: (5:04) - Setting the stage: Sean’s company & programming background (20:38) - Part 1: Individual Contributor AI Applications: ChatGPT 4 (44:23) - Part 2: Product Improvement AI Applications (1:11:40) - Part 3: Organizational expectations post-implementation (1:21:26) - What resources would you recommend for people to learn more about AI tools? (1:22:55) - How do you view the landscape of your company given the advancement of AI? (1:26:50) - Will this cause margins to increase? (1:30:21) - How do you feel about the potential risks of AI? (1:36:14) - How helpful was your technical background in implementing AI? (1:39:24) - Where can people find you online? (1:40:07) - IF YOU ARE AN ELIGIBLE BACHELOR SEEKING A SMART & ENERGETIC WOMAN, LISTEN TO THIS SECTION To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Links: Center for Growth and Opportunity Where’s my Flying Car by J. Storrs Hall Eli on Twitter Eli’s Substack Ethan on Twitter Ouros Energy Episode #32 of Smart Friends: book recap of Where’s My Flying Car? Episode #34 of Smart Friends w/ J. Storrs Hall Episode #58 of Smart Friends w/ Brett Kugelmass Timestamps: (00:04:09) Eli Dourado & Ethan Loosbrock’s backgrounds (00:05:53) Impact of Next-Gen Batteries on the future: Flying Cars, EVTOL Jets, Electric Vehicles, AR Contact Lenses, Off-Grid Power, and more. (00:10:51) Lithium-Ion Battery’s role in sustainable energy (00:11:52) Higher Energy density is the key metric for battery quality (00:27:18) Why Ethan Loosbrock devoted his life to battery technology (00:30:55) How Ethan Loosbrock and Eli Dourado met and worked together  (00:33:32) What needs to happen to change the world through batteries (00:43:02) Starting Ouros Energy, the Standard Oil of Batteries To support the costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!

Links: Rolling Fun #1 Rolling Fun #2 Rolling Fun #3 Portfolio Al on Twitter Bo on Twitter Positive Food Co. Omella Tonic Audio Stell Engineering NSION Gently.com Glyph Terran Robotics Topics: (5:34) - Crypto has imploded, thanks FTX! What’s the long-term play? (21:00) - Life and news updates (23:20) - Q4 Investment updates (1:01:00) - Elon and Twitter (1:06:22) - Discussing the pros and cons of an uncapped Convertible Note and investment philosophies (1:31:27) - Fund Growth Updates >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast.   David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthony Bourdain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, and many more. Visit founderspodcast.com to subscribe or listen to sample episodes. Links:  Josh’s Bio - Autogeny.org Where is my flying car? By J. Storrs Hall Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper The Martian by Andy Weir Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Beyond AI by J. Storrs Hall Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology by J. Storrs Hall   Support our sponsor: founderspodcast.com  Other Episode You’ll Like: Solocast #3: Nuclear, Nanotech, and the next Industrial Revolution (Book Recap: “Where is my Flying Car?”) Massive Opportunities w/in Design & User Interface with Cliff Kuang   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

On this episode I welcome Jason Hitchcock, crypto sensei and Principal at To The Moon Capital. Jason (Twitter: @JasonHitchcock) was among the few to be early to Ethereum, Helium, CryptoPunks, Alchemix, and more. He has 12 years of early stage startup experience and previously held a role at Twitch and Bebo. Listen as we explore DeFi, NFTs, intermediate wealth building, the Metaverse and much more. If you are new to the space I wanted to provide a quick glossary of terms and phrases that you might not be familiar with. Check it out here: Crypto Glossary: $ETH - I don’t own any Bitcoin. Bullish on Eth becoming the iOS of crypto. The next few months will be wild as miners are zeroed out, fees get burned, and staked eth yields go up. You cannot own enough eth. Setting up a validator is the easiest path to non trivial passive income $Luna - user friendly Defi gov token that gets more valuable as more $UST is minted  $ALCX - self paying loans. ALCX will earn 10% of protocol fees in v2, and grow along with stablecoin demand $HNT - decentralized cellular network with parabolic growth $AKT - A decentralized version of AWS compute. Users pay bills with AKT and fees go to stakers at 56% apy  $ATOM- the gov token for the blockchain-in-a-box. Earns fees with every cross-chain transaction on IBC, the standard for interoperability. $crv and $CVX: stake these to earn crazy yield from stablecoin swaps on Curve.  $RUNE: cross chain liquidity of native assets. This will truly bring Bitcoin to defi. Insanely hard problem to solve is solved.  $OGN - Shopify for NFT drops. OGN is making big deals, pay attention $MATIC - first mover of the L2s has already inhaled billions on liquidity, and launches major integrations every day.  $SUSHI - not just an exchange; but offering a full suite of smart contract templates for projects to launch their token economy. And it earns fees when staked $AAVE - the perpetually undervalued lending platform that has an ocean of liquidity. $ETH2x-FLI a token that gives exposure to a perfectly executed 2x leverage strategy on Eth. When eth is up, this goes up double. No liquidations or gas fees! $osmo - osmosis is the uniswap of Cosmos and the first dex. It went to 100m in tvl in 2 weeks. Not bad! It’s the only place in defi to get all the Cosmos tokens. $MOB - mobile coin is the payments token for signal. If it works out, they have millions of users who’d benefit $ARCx - the first onchain credit score system for defi. Not all LPs or borrowers are the same. Protocols can give better liquidation levels or better rates depending on track record  $RPL - if you believe staking ETH will be big, then the east staking-as-service will be too Cryptopunks- the first @larvalabs’s innovation predated the ERC-721 token standard and was the inspiration for it.   Additional Resources: The Bull Case For Ethereum Bankless Newsletter Suggest People to Follow: -@CL207 -@RyanSAdams -@TrustlessState -@iamDCinvestor  -@CryptoCobain (king of CT) Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Join the Course Correctly community: https://coursecorrectly.com/about/  I appreciate your support! 

Mitchell Baldridge is an accountant and financial planner who also identifies as a libertarian anarchist crypto-degenerate. We talk through the creation of his firm, everything financial planning entails, and how he flipped a Bored Ape NFT for $250k. A little something for everyone today! Mitchell can’t be everyone’s personal planner and accountant, (though he is mine and I’m very grateful for that!) but he offers expertise that can help anyone. Taxes are likely your single largest expense over your entire life, so it pays to understand them. Be sure to tweet or email me so I know what you think of the episode, and be well! Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:  Topics Covered:  Crypto plays in the public markets Wealth-building and preservation strategies 101 resources for people who want to self-educate on financial planning and taxes How web3 could affect accounting and tax over a 20-year time horizon? Mitchell’s business specifically What is the path and what do you learn to become a CFP and accountant When should someone start working with a CFP or accountant? How do you know if you have a good accountant? A good financial planner?  Additional Resources: Mitchell Twitter  Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter    Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Eric Jorgenson: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life   Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).    If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter  >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Links: Join us in Rolling Fun! Hear our other Rolling Fun eps! Rolling Fun GPs: Al Doan - Founder of Creativity Inc., a $100m+ collection of e-commerce brands. Founder of Pretzel. BS from BYU Hawaii, OPM at HBS. Makes one hell of a peach cobbler. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Bo Fishback - Founder of Lightspeed Genomics (acq 2008), Orbis Biosciences (acq 2020), Zaarly (acq 2020). BS in Biomedical Engineering from SMU, MBA at HBS. Once drank a whole gallon of milk in an hour. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Eric Jorgenson - CEO at Scribe Media. Author of Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Has a podcast. Barely graduated from a state school. Received a cease & desist from Craigslist for some frowned-upon marketing techniques. (Twitter, LinkedIn) Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:49) - Showing love for new LPs (00:10:25) - Q1 New Investment: Dirac (00:16:23) - Q1 New Investment: Reactiv (00:26:53) - Q1 New Investment: Longshot (00:34:44) - How Founders can find lead investors (00:52:05) - Stell Engineering raised a Seed round!  To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Naval on building wealth and the difference between wealth and money:   How to get rich without getting lucky. - Naval Ravikant   Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. - Naval Ravikant   Seek wealth, not money or status. - Naval Ravikant   Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   Money is how we transfer time and wealth. - Naval Ravikant   Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.    You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom. - Naval Ravikant Important quotes from the podcast by Naval on Leverage:   “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”  —Archimedes    To get rich, you need leverage. Leverage comes in labor, comes in capital, or it can come through code or media. But most of these, like labor and capital, people have to give to you. For labor, somebody has to follow you. For capital, somebody has to give you money, assets to manage, or machines. - Naval Ravikant   Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you. - Naval Ravikant   Code and media are permissionless leverage. They’re the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep. - Naval Ravikant   If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. - Naval Ravikant   Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. - Naval Ravikant   Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve. - Naval Ravikant   Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Links: Zach on Twitter & LinkedIn Money 20/20 For Fintech’s Sake Podcast TripleBlind Rule 1033 Propel Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller Topics: (4:25) - Recap the last episode with Zach and Eric (5:34) - Fintech Industry Overview (15:21) - Money 20/20 – the Biggest Fintech Conference in the world (24:02) - Regulation looms over Fintech, always (27:12) - The “Off The Record” Stage at Money 20/20 (29:28) - The CFPB and Rule 1033 (43:15) - Stripe, Adyen, Warren Buffett, and The Media (49:01) - Behind the scenes at Money 20/20 (59:20) - How do you get Serena Williams on stage? (1:01:58) - Holding the keys to so much potential ROI (1:04:33) - Defining the relationship between a fintech org and a bank (1:11:21) - Entrepreneurs buying their own community banks (1:16:58) - The intersection of Crypto and Fintech (1:27:11) - Is OnlyFans only a bad thing? (1:35:34) - What is the overarching story that Money 20/20 tells? (1:41:50) - Wrapping up >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:30) - What’s the most important thing you’ve ever learned? (00:07:23) - Learning to Learn (00:11:20) - How learning changes as you age (00:18:51) - How do you think about your circle of competence? (00:22:21) - The future of book publishing and how authors adapt (00:35:29) - AI disruption in book publishing (00:47:56) - Jim’s inaugural book: Two Thoughts (00:56:46) - LLMs for authors, and UBI Links: Jim on X Infinite Loops Podcast Infinite Books O’Shaughnessy Ventures Margins: Book Tracker To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Here’s what we explored in the episode: "The most important thing I learned was how to learn and unlearn... most people are never taught it. It is something that, almost by definition, you have to do yourself." It’s important for leaders to admit when they are uncertain, and lead a culture of open-mindedness. It’s important to adapt to new environments, not cling to outdated practices. There’s an upcoming shift toward AI-driven, author-friendly publishing models that reduce inefficiencies and empower writers. Jim predicts AI will allow a “tsunami of slop” content and open huge opportunities in curation. In a world of abundant content, good taste and effective curation will be very profitable. Jim shares his evolving views on Universal Basic Income (UBI), arguing for experimentation to address societal shifts caused by technological advancements. Understanding opposing viewpoints to refine one's perspectives helps make better decisions. Jim uses AI to force him to debate and understand his own opinions better. Jim credits his success to a lifelong commitment to curiosity, whether through broad reading or questioning established norms. "Curiosity is a shit starter. It ignited my curiosity to the point where I just voraciously read everything." Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship   There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant   You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.     Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.

Links: Bret Kugelmass on LinkedIn Last Energy Titans of Nuclear Podcast Energy Impact Podcast Marc Andreesen regulatory capture podcast episode The Energy Impact Center Decouple Podcast Invest your money alongside ours in high-tech, high-growth startups: Rolling.fun  Rolling Fun Podcast episodes: Rolling Fun Ep. 1 Rolling Fun Ep. 2 Rolling Fun Ep. 3 Rolling Fun Ep. 4 Sponsors: Athena: Get a free first month (Worth $3k!) when you sign up with my code: athenago.me/eric-jorgenson Listen and Learn more about Athena here: Creative EA Delegation with Athena on the Podcast Topics: (5:42) - “The more nuclear meltdowns, the better!” (11:06) - Working with regulators on nuclear fission (12:10) - Making regulation capability a competitive advantage in nuclear (16:09) - Bret’s previous startup (drones) (22:14) - Starting The Titans of Nuclear Podcast (24:41) - The process of learning a new industry (26:27) - Factions inside the nuclear industry? (27:52) - Nuclear evangelist Dr. Chris Keefer (29:46) - How did you form Last Energy’s strategy? (37:26) - Avoiding supply chain risks in nuclear (42:59) - Perceptions vs realities of nuclear waste, and Cognitive Biases (44:29) - Public Opinion is more and more pro-nuclear (49:16) - How do you see the next 50 years playing out for the Energy sector? (51:42) - Renewables are fine, Nuclear is magic (54:14) - The beauty of Nuclear (55:37) - Hiring people without a background in nuclear industry To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

Welcome to the second episode of Track Zach, a series of quarterly podcast episodes in which we will be following Zach’s journey as he starts and scales his private security marketplace, Conterra. We will check in on how the previous goals Zach set are going, hear about what he’s learned and how he’s pivoted, and see what he is looking to accomplish in the next quarter in the huge, fragmented, and heavily middle-manned $50 billion industry of private security.  This quarter, Zach’s target was at least ten customers, 300 professionals to sign up on the supply side, and a new website launched by October 1st. His original thesis was to collect the supply side of the marketplace first. The website ended taking up longer than expected, which made him think he’s building the wrong thing. Zach stopped pushing for signups and though he didn’t get 300, there was a ton of word of mouth and recommendations going around. Zach was “collecting no’s” the second-best thing to yesses, and from the no’s, he was able to listen to what customers want, learn from that, and alter how they go to market.  He highlights that one of the main issues in the security industry is a lack of trust amongst providers/security professionals and a fear of being taken advantage of. With this, he found collecting demand to be proving to be more difficult, while the supply side is coming easier, prompting him to alter his original thesis and focus more on the demand side.  With all these observations, Zach says he gained clarity, and now things are starting to come together. He intends to focus the business on being the connective tissue and reputation for the major players in the space, and by doing so, they can cut out the major middlemen and reallocate that cash to those in the industry that should really have it. He is also shifting expectations and being clearer on focusing in on the things that will impact the business in a greater and faster way rather than the things that won’t have as much impact, and he is getting better at vetting and hiring.  Zach explained his new technical roadmap as a process that starts with building a wheel, then a skateboard, then a scooter, then a bicycle, then a motorcycle, then a car. He explains that at this point, they have built skateboards. During the next quarter, Zach expects to be neck-deep in fundraising and finding the right partners, and he is aiming to be confident in knowing the right amount of capital he’ll need. He predicts the team will look a little different as he continues to recruit for an operations person. For the next 90 to 180 days, he will be mainly focused on operations, and he hopes to learn exactly what a world-class security recruiting company looks like.  Links:  Conterra Workrise Zach on Twitter Jeremiah Rogers Coaching Attivo outsourced accounting Ben & Jerry’s vs. Amazon: Strategy Letter Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models Introducing "Track Zach" with Former Navy SEAL Zach Marshall   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media  >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  I appreciate your support! 

Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:52) - The Gardener of Systems (00:07:43) - Builders vs. Gardeners (00:11:09) - Who are the best farmers of miracles? (00:16:52) - How did you become a “systems” person? (00:23:45) - What does Systems Thinking look like for you? (00:53:09) - Alex’s Slime Mold deck (00:55:12) - The iterative, adjacent possible (00:59:53) - Alex’s experience at Google (01:03:12) - AI uses and potentials (01:17:54) - Book recommendations Links: Alex’s website Alex on X Alex on LinkedIn Emergence by Steven Johnson The Systems Bible by John Gall The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!  Important quotes from Alex Komoroske: "I think that to really wrestle with systems you have to let go and just dance with the system." — Alex Komoroske "I like the word gardening because it underlines that you are not in control of this system. You are influencing it." — Alex Komoroske "The builder gets immediately to work, but the gardener understands that other things can be alive." — Alex Komoroske "Technology should be about helping people create and use hand-tuned tools to extend their agency in collaborative ways." — Alex Komoroske "If people who are very unlike each other all find it interesting or intriguing, that's a good sign that it will spread out to be a very large audience." — Alex Komoroske

Links:  Rolling.Fun Alan Doan Bo Fishback Airtasker Lambda   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Chris Powers: Starting a Real Estate Empire at 17, Focus, Podcast Flywheels Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust   To support this costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Topics: (5:29) - Max’s background and career (14:15) - Is it reasonable to use Neural Net, Deep Learning and Machine learning interchangeably? (26:37) - The Future of AI (39:18) - Google & AI Writing (49:42) - Hiring AI for help in our personal lives (55:02) - How Improvements in Robotics will massively push things forward (57:12) - Computers being able to smell and taste (1:04:56) - Scarier futures of AI (1:08:13) - Is there a new field of opportunities you’re paying attention to now in Computer Vision? (1:16:03) - Prompt Engineering (1:24:54) - Final recap   Links: Max on Twitter MaxOlson.com Max’s Newsletter, Blog & Podcast - FutureBlind Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders from Max Olson Mashgin LEX AI GPT-3 Juggernaut AI Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark Turing Test Midjourney community showcase Jasper AI Copy AI       >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.

Links:   Domo.so Grace on Twitter Mitchell on Twitter Domo on Twitter Jorgenson’s Soundbox #38 with Athena Jorgenson’s Soundbox #52 with Zach Pettet     Sponsor:   Athenago.com Givewell.org     Topics:   (5:21) - Introducing Grace and Mitchell (5:58) - Who are your heroes? (8:27) - How did you discover there was a need for Domo? (17:22) - How are you thinking about incorporating fiat-based companies with Domo? (21:18) - Who are the customers for this and how would you get accounting done for this? (25:41) - What kind of real world applications do you envision for Domo? (31:49) - Is invoicing one of the bigger features? (32:22) - How did you start the company? (36:44) - DAO Tooling (37:43) - Domo’s ability to build horizontally or vertically (40:53) - The decades outlook for crypto & blockchain (54:03) - How differently do these chains behave? (58:32) - Has anything gotten measurably harder at the end of 2022 vs. the beginning? (1:00:35) - Are you getting inbound interest from accountants? (1:03:57) - What is the next step to getting crypto bookkeeping to the ideal person? (1:08:20) - Grace’s experience hiring with Athena (1:13:10) - Manifesting the crypto future (1:15:18) - How can people reach you?       To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners 

Topics:   (3:15) - Mark’s career & background   (4:40) - Do you think there is a popular renaissance behind Nuclear Energy?   (6:27) - Realizing the regulatory problem holding back energy advancement   (15:35) - The costs behind Nuclear   (18:06) - The Nuclear customer & Europe’s approach to Nuclear   (31:46) - France’s energy price crisis   (37:00) - The history of Nuclear Power   (51:07) - The next wave: Advanced Nuclear   (1:01:51) - Who’s behind the push for Advanced Nuclear?   (1:03:27) - How did the USA lose its ability to build new reactors?   (1:08:38) - Nuclear success in the United States Navy   (1:21:57) - Debunking Plutonium   (1:224:26) - What is the supply chain of building reactors in the Navy?   (1:27:10) - What are reliable resources for people to learn more about or work in Nuclear?   (1:32:14) - Wrap up     Links:   Mark on Twitter   Radiant Energy Fund   Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David JC MacKay   The World Nuclear Association Library   Clean Corps   The rePLANET Network   The Mothers for Nuclear Organization     To support the costs of producing this podcast:  >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/  >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage  >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners  >> Name-your-price subscription monthly, annual, or one-time: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa  >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson >> Get in touch about sponsoring this podcast by replying to an email or DMing me on Twitter.