Smart Friends #015 David Perell: Intellectual Openness, Mental Models for Success, and Peculiar Ways of Looking at The World
Porter Robinson Documentary
- David Perell followed Porter Robinson on tour to capture his story.
- This culminated in a documentary project, born from a simple video idea that organically grew.
Autobiographical Art
- Porter Robinson's music is deeply autobiographical, exploring themes of creative awakening and internal struggles.
- His work blends electronica, indie pop, and DM, offering a unique artistic expression.
Originality as Curation
- Originality in creative work is an illusion; it's about rephrasing and recompiling existing ideas.
- The creative process involves carefully collecting and connecting obscure sources, curating and connecting them in new ways.
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:
- 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
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