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Smart Friends

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Mar 15, 2022 • 54min

#032 Solocast #3: Nuclear, Nanotech, and the next Industrial Revolution (Book Recap: “Where is my Flying Car?”)

Links:  Where Is My Flying Car? By J. Storrs HallWTF 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.
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Mar 8, 2022 • 1h 43min

#031 I’m Building an Early-Stage Fund with Al Doan and Bo Fishback (Rolling Fun #1)

Links: Rolling.FunAlan DoanBo FishbackAirtaskerLambda Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Chris Powers: Starting a Real Estate Empire at 17, Focus, Podcast FlywheelsShane 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.
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Mar 1, 2022 • 1h 44min

#030 Self-reinvention & building leverage in podcasts with Chris Williamson

Chris Williamson, an expert in self-reinvention and podcasting, shares his journey from reality TV fame to building a successful podcast. He discusses the importance of leveraging personal growth and social dynamics, drawing insights from influential figures like Jordan Peterson. The conversation touches on the art of engaging dialogues, the role of confidence in self-presentation, and the transformative power of pursuing authenticity in a conformist world. Listeners gain valuable lessons on adaptability, community building, and the intricacies of exploring personal identity.
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Feb 22, 2022 • 1h 8min

#029 Bringing Real Estate onto the Blockchain with Natalia Karayaneva & Adam Brown of Propy

Links: PropyNAR (National Association of Realtors)Natalia on TwitterNatalia on LinkedInAdam on LinkedIn Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless TransactionsShane 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.
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Feb 15, 2022 • 1h 43min

#028 Finding an edge in HR & Culture for growing Startups, with Jeannine Seidl of Density

 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 TwitterDensity.ioCasperNotionCultureAmp Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Andrew Wilkinson: De-risking Leverage, Investing vs. Operating, and the Best Part About BusinessShane 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.
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Feb 8, 2022 • 1h 44min

#027 Finding the 100 highest-quality public businesses in the world with Will Oliver and Will Barnes, founders of In Practise

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 PractiseIn Practise on TwitterEric’s NewsletterThird BridgeIain McGilchrist Books by Dee HockNaked WinesBurford 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! 
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Feb 1, 2022 • 1h 50min

#026 Jason Hitchcock #2 w/ Four Moons: structuring a DeFi Fund, Liquid Staking & How to get involved in Web3

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 SwapKingsly Capital Danny Ryan on Twitter CosmosLunaPolkaDotDogepunks NFTJason on TwitterBoz on TwitterAdam on TwitterAdam’s SubsctackEthropy.finance The Crypto Barbell StrategyAdditional 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 
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Jan 25, 2022 • 2h 10min

#025 Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust

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 NewsletterXMTP.comHow to Quit (and have everyone support you)Compound Squared AwayKoinlyAdditional 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 
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Jan 18, 2022 • 1h 51min

#024 SquidDAO: Web3 Project Deep-Dive: Part Crypto Hedge Fund, Part NFT DAO. An Anonymous Conspiracy for Mutual Enrichment

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 AuctionsSquid DocsSquid Treasury DashboardSquid Discourse (Governance Forum)Olympus DAOIndex CoopSquidDAO DiscordThe Squids on Twitter@SquidDAO@BigSquid0x@Zoption@0xSquidSteedAdditional 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 
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Jan 11, 2022 • 1h 1min

#023 Tim Hwang: Trade Journal Cooperative, Robot Lawyers, Bubble in Digital Ads, Zuck Being Quantitatively Weird, and Misinformation as Warfare

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 BooksThe 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 GraeberTimHwang.orgTim on TwitterAdditional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless TransactionsIf 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! 

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