The Tim Ferriss Show #872: Graham Duncan — Talent Is the Best Asset Class (Repost)
Graham Duncan, co-founder of East Rock Capital and chairman of the Sohn Conference Foundation, is an investor and talent-hunter focused on building elite teams. He talks about how to spot and evaluate top talent, the power of references and high-signal interview questions, matching temperament to context, and designing teams around people rather than products.
01:34:17
Build Positive Feedback Loops For Talent
- Graham Duncan defines his role as getting people into positive feedback loops by placing them where their natural compulsions create value.
- He built East Rock by meeting thousands of investment teams and pairing craftsmen with roles that match their compulsions and strengths.
Hired Persistence Became The Business Engine
- Graham recounts hiring 'Robert' who stalked him with calls and emails and became the salesperson who built their business.
- He used that placement to create a positive feedback loop that scaled into a firm.
Look For The Aggression Plus Humility Tension
- Taste in people matters more than single-point judgment; Graham looks for the tension of aggression plus humility (intensity and integrity).
- He finds 'commercial' people who create more value than they capture and cluster with similar partners.
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Intro
00:00 • 3min
Graham's Core Mission: Positive Feedback Loops
03:12 • 4min
Evolving Taste in Talent
07:09 • 2min
Balancing Aggression and Integrity
09:15 • 3min
References as the Real Interview
11:51 • 5min
High-Signal Interview Questions
16:40 • 4min
Reference Techniques and Net Promoter Scores
20:25 • 3min
A Supportive Stance When Checking References
23:09 • 3min
Wild Gardening and Orchids vs Dandelions
25:45 • 2min
Handling Ambiguity with Time and Context
27:24 • 3min
What East Rock Does for Families
30:29 • 2min
Originality, Triage, and Idea Volume
32:43 • 4min
Coaches to Surface Hidden Assumptions
37:07 • 7min
Ad break
44:11 • 1min
Designing Teams Around Humans, Not Products
45:40 • 1min
Training Versus Hiring Counterpoints
46:54 • 2min
Cultivating Disconfirming Evidence
48:39 • 4min
Books and Cultural Recommendations
52:52 • 4min
Embracing Discomfort: Tools and Rituals
56:53 • 2min
Finite vs Infinite Games Applied
58:57 • 3min
Time Horizon and Infinite Players
01:01:57 • 3min
Choosing the Right Game to Play
01:05:25 • 5min
Career River: Chaos and Order Metaphor
01:10:17 • 5min
Pushing the Edge: Innovation in Markets
01:14:56 • 1min
Time Billionaires and Valuing Time
01:16:13 • 5min
Practices to Increase Presence
01:21:26 • 3min
Billboard Messages: Welcome and Perspective
01:24:56 • 4min
Sohn Conference and Philanthropy
01:28:51 • 2min
Outro
01:30:34 • 4min
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Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multibillion-dollar multi-family investment office he launched in 2006. He is also Chairman of the Sohn Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.
This episode was originally published in February 2019. Show notes: https://tim.blog/2019/02/28/graham-duncan/
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Timestamps:
- [00:00:00] Start.
- [00:02:29] I think of Graham as far more than an investor. How does he describe what he does?
- [00:06:13] Absent the systems and frameworks he's honed over time, what made Graham a good talent hunter at the tender age of 24?
- [00:08:42] What constitutes taste when Graham is scouting for talent these days?
- [00:11:14] Upon meeting someone, how does Graham stress-test whether or not someone is "commercial" in the way they balance aggression and integrity?
- [00:16:49] One high-signal question Graham has found particularly useful when trying to determine the quality of anyone from a trader to an OB/GYN.
- [00:19:17] When interviewing a potential candidate, how does Graham vet their given references?
- [00:22:21] On approaching the reference process with curiosity rather than an attempt to catch anyone with a "gotcha."
- [00:25:34] Why does mutual friend Josh Waitzkin call Graham The Wild Gardener?
- [00:27:04] How does Graham deal with contradictory perspectives — when the data is telling him one thing and his gut is telling him another?
- [00:29:09] What does Graham do to familiarize himself with the way people underwrite their mental models (besides nearly beheading them)?
- [00:30:29] Graham talks about his role as an investment coach, of sorts, and how he picks the best "players" for the game at hand.
- [00:31:53] What other patterns has Graham noticed in the successful talent he's ended up selecting?
- [00:36:06] In what way have others helped Graham surface his hidden assumptions, and how might a coach do the same for others?
- [00:39:17] An example of when Graham's "grip" has been a bit too tight around his own beliefs.
- [00:40:09] What Byron Katie has taught us about articulating the opposite of such beliefs — and having a mindful lunch.
- [00:46:18] When evaluating a team, how does Graham think about each person developing the ability to look at the opposite versus hiring to end up at that optimal mixture?
- [00:49:12] How might someone train to more clearly see disconfirming evidence — and roll with the punches when their instincts lead them toward regrettable decisions?
- [00:42:21] What books does Graham gift to others most often?
- [00:56:11] An aside about Wim Hof and Josh Waitzkin embracing "the other side of pain" to get the most out of life.
- [00:59:31] How does James Carse's distinction of finite and infinite games apply to finance, and how would Graham test a potential teammate for compatible sensibility?
- [01:02:41] How likely would it be for Graham to invest in a Jocko Willink project?
- [01:04:16] Different people have different ways of sniffing around direct questions. Here are a few examples.
- [01:05:54] Graham explains what this Kwame Appiah quote means to him: "In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you're playing."
- [01:08:13] Going by David Foster Wallace's famous commencement speech, what's your water? Podcasting helps me see mine.
- [01:09:32] Graham's take on Greg McKeown's Essentialism.
- [01:10:31] How Graham sees careers as a river (with a nod of thanks to neuroscientists Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson's model of well-being).
- [01:12:53] Toward which bank do the top one percent in any given field swim? What if that field is financial markets? What if that field is writing fiction novels?
- [01:16:39] The differences between millionaires, billionaires, cultural billionaires, and time billionaires.
- [01:18:47] An idea for how Tim Urban might allow for personalization of his 90-year-life calendar.
- [01:20:00] Are you more concerned about the length of your life or its width?
- [01:20:38] Life changes Graham and I have both made as a direct result of reading Tim Urban's "The Tail End" piece at Wait But Why.
- [01:22:05] How does Graham try to appreciate the width of his life?
- [01:25:05] Aside from the aforementioned Kwame Appiah quote, what might Graham put on his billboard?
- [01:25:52] The power to be found in treating negative feelings like welcome party guests.
- [01:27:43] Parting thoughts from Mark Twain and Graham.
*
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