The Tim Ferriss Show

#404: Books I've Loved — Steve Jurvetson

Dec 30, 2019

Steve Jurvetson, an influential early-stage venture capitalist known for his investments in SpaceX and Tesla, shares his favorite transformative books. He discusses insights from 'Scientists in the Crib', revealing the cognitive marvels of babies and the importance of a childlike curiosity. The conversation explores lifelong learning through titles like Kevin Kelly's 'Out of Control', and unpacks Moore's Law, highlighting its impact on technology and innovation. Jurvetson emphasizes how interconnected ideas drive human progress and reshape industries.

25:39

Episode guests

Steve Jurvetson

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

4min

The Genius of Childhood: Insights from 'Scientists in the Crib'

5min

Exploring the Interplay of Biology, Technology, and Lifelong Learning

4min

Unpacking Moore's Law

8min

The Combinatorial Nature of Human Progress

5min

Books I've Loved — Steve Jurvetson | Brought to you by Four Sigmatic.

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types—from startup founders and investors to chess champions to Olympic athletes. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a shorter series I'm doing called "Books I've Loved." I've invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books — the books that have influenced them, changed them, and transformed them for the better. I hope you pick up one or two new mentors — in the form of books — from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

Steve Jurvetson (@jurvetson) is an early-stage venture capitalist with a focus on founder-led, mission-driven companies at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation. Steve was the early VC investor in SpaceX, Tesla, Planet, Memphis Meats, Hotmail, and the deep learning companies Mythic and Nervana. He has led founding investments in five companies that went public in successful IPOs and several others that were acquired for a total of over a $100 billion in value creation.

Before founding Future Ventures and DFJ before that, Steve was an R&D engineer at Hewlett Packard and worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT, and management consulting with Bain & Company. He currently serves on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX, and D-Wave.

Please enjoy!

You can find all books mentioned in this episode in the show notes.

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.