During the heady days of the space race, President Kennedy visited NASA headquarters. There, he bumped into a janitor. Ever mindful of a PR opportunity, the President started chatting with the broom-wielding worker. “What’s your job here?” JFK inquired. Without missing a beat, the janitor responded: “I'm helping put a…
When Luca Dellanna speaks, I listen. Unlike many of the other management, productivity and behavioral gurus out there, Luca is ruthlessly committed to providing actionable, tangible advice which is rooted in the messy, chaotic reality of daily life. This conversation, my second with Luca, revolves around his excellent new book,…
"You report to everybody. You need to really crush your ego or check it at the door because you will never, from this moment on, be the smartest guy in any room you go into, even the bathroom.” VC is a service business. If in doubt, they're probably your boss.…
Investor Ateet Ahluwalia is the Sherlock Holmes of due diligence. If you're hiding something, he'll find it. So, what red flags does he look for? 1. Question-dodging: "If I asked you a question and you answer an adjacent question, you think either I'm stupid, or you don't know the answer,…
Reid Hoffman once claimed that “in a changing world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things you can do.” It's a catchy line, but why is it true? And where in the investing world can we see this dynamic play out? Ateet Ahluwalia explains... Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5mcDlFNUJI
Remember that scene in The Dark Knight where The Joker sets fire to a massive pile of cash? Ateet Ahluwalia saw the same thing happen to his Wall Street heroes when Lehman Brothers fell. It was a shocking experience, but it taught him an enduring lesson: "I realized that my…
Let me introduce you to the four horsemen of the investment apocalypse: Fear. Greed. Hope. Ignorance. Notice anything? Three of four are emotions. I’ve long argued that effective investing is far more about emotional control than technical know-how (although the latter certainly helps!) By hook or by crook, the best…
An elite teacher will adapt to their student's interests. Would a dinosaur-mad eight-year-old rather: (A) rotely memorize punctuation rules; or (B) incorporate a comma, semi-colon, and brackets into a story about an encounter with a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Whether it’s video games, cosmetics, or, in Audrey Wisch's case, chicken nuggets, a…
Our education system is built on the idea that success requires a college degree. Kids' schooling resembles a factory line: a carefully structured process optimized for the next step. Great for efficiency. Disastrous for curiosity. Is change coming? Audrey Wisch explains... Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdiaZFpQ5Do
"Curiosity is crucial. We all know the person in any workplace who's uncomfortable with change, or you come in with a new idea and they roll their eyes..." Here's Audrey Wisch on the importance of adaptability… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdiaZFpQ5Do
A student is more likely to feel inspired by their mentor’s success if they are sufficiently proximate in age to feel that this success is achievable. Audrey Wisch explains… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdiaZFpQ5Do
I’ve always tried to encourage curiosity in my three children and now six (!) grandchildren. My kids often reminisce about my default response to their questions: pointing to the bookshelf that flanked our sofa and saying, “look it up in there!” Over the years, I have become increasingly frustrated when…
"It leads to greater catalog value, which means that an asset that you hope to capitalize- a podcast episode, a movie, a series of television- actually has enduring value over time." — Matthew Ball on why good taste provides "remarkable operating leverage" to streaming services… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTKKmwWPV78
"The first surgeon who performed live patient surgery using a mixed reality headset said it was like using GPS to drive for the first time in the nineties." Here's Matthew Ball on the future of Metaverse technologies… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTKKmwWPV78
Maybe all that teenage time you spent playing Call of Duty wasn't as wasted as you think... Here's Matthew Ball on the benefits of gaming… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTKKmwWPV78
According to Mark Zuckerberg, head-mounted displays (HMDs) are "the most difficult technological problem of our time..." Matthew Ball explains why… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTKKmwWPV78
Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion, which makes angel investments, provides advisory services, and produces television, films, and video games. He’s also a Venture Partner at Makers Fund, Senior Advisor to KKR, Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, and sits on the board of numerous start-ups. Matthew is one…
“When you see a cult as the main backing unit of a currency instead of a powerful military…that’s a sign that there's just not enough here to actually rely on”. — Nat Eliason on not buying the hype of crypto projects and their hard-charging leaders… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFm4-vZk1o
“[Most people saw] the token going up, they saw the news coming out, they all got excited.” Little did they know that investors were “were chumming the water”. “[It was] just brutal sharks all the way down.” — Nat Eliason on why sometimes regulation is much needed… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFm4-vZk1o
The prevalence of Diamond Hands “is a way to get other people to be your exit liquidity”. — Nat Eliason on the cultish doctrine of crypto’s ‘Diamond Hands’… Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFm4-vZk1o
“I only wanted to do things where if I lost, it would be a small loss, and if I won, it could be a really big win…” The long term opportunity is in actually “build[ing] something real” in the industry. — Nat Eliason on taking the longview and avoiding speculation……
Nat Eliason is a writer with a keen interest in writing about challenging and revealing things. His debut book, Crypto Confidential: Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance (out July 9th, 2024), charts his personal odyssey into Crypto’s Get-Rich-Quick underbelly. Nat joins the show to discuss the…
“We're spending trillions of dollars managing the symptoms rather than the root causes of these diseases…” — Noor Siddiqui on how solving the problem of disease can lead to better resource allocation for generations… Full episode: https://youtu.be/Gu135TROGr8
"I think that sex is going to be ... for fun with your partner, and for something really important like having kids, everyone is going to choose to do embryo screening." — Noor Siddiqui’s spicy opinion on the future of reproduction… Full episode: https://youtu.be/Gu135TROGr8