Audience of One

Tom Morgan is a writer and director at Sapient Capital. Tom and I discuss curiosity, Joseph Campbell's Hero’s Journey and the call to adventure, Brett Anderson’s work and the movement of reality towards complexity, the question of what is value, and more. — (00:30) Why he left finance (03:38) Directing your skills & talents towards something useful (07:28) Can we listen to our intuition more intently, rather than learning through experience? (09:52) Joseph’s Campbell's Hero’s Journey as a guide for life; curiosity & the call to adventure (13:57) The pursuit of curiosity is where you find a life worth living; science of meaning & curiosity (18:21) Brett Andersen's theory & updating models to get closer to reality (22:46) Movement towards complexity; life is a process (23:57) Complex vs complicated (26:02) What does reality deem valuable? (30:49) Operating optimally as an individual in a complex system (33:47) Does everyone really have value to add to the network? (42:13) Left-right brain hemispheres; paying attention to external cues (45:34) Use energy as your guide — Tom’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomowenmorgan Tom’s What’s Important Substack: https://whatsimportant.substack.com/ Sapient Capital: https://sapientcapital.com/ Brett Anderson’s Imitations of a New Worldview: https://brettandersen.substack.com/p/intimations Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Eric Wollberg, co-founder and CEO of Prophetic, discusses lucid dreaming, consciousness, and epistemological metaphysics. Topics include the purpose of dreams, agentic development through lucid dreaming, potential negative scenarios with neurotechnology, and answering questions about consciousness and reality.

Ben Wilson is the creator and host of How to Take Over The World, a podcast which analyzes the lives of some of the greatest people to ever live. He’s also the founder of PodRamp and the producer of the My First Million Podcast with Shaan Puri and Sam Parr. Ben and I talk about greatness, the art of podcasting, lessons from the people he’s covered, being addicted to your craft, power, living life like a work of art, and more. — (00:40) Why podcasting? (02:28) Why not YouTube? (04:08) Being “Tim Ferriss for dead people” (05:52) Getting people to notice (07:17) What’s the goal of HTTOTW? (09:16) Focus & speed (14:55) Getting to the point of contact quickly (17:51) Addiction (23:39) Research (25:12) Anti-characteristics we should avoid (29:38) What creates great people? (34:26) Power is freedom (39:05) Finding your groove, raising people's ambitions (43:32) Ambition vs. being well-balanced (49:52) Living life as art & Horatio Nelson's death — Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/benwilsontweets HTTOTW Twitter: https://twitter.com/HTTOTW HTTOTW Podcast: https://www.takeoverpod.com Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is an ex-Googler, writer and founder at Ness Labs, and PhD candidate in Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College in London. We talk about treating life as a series of experiments, mindful productivity, redefining ambition, combining perspectives across domains, and more. — (00:55) Developing a love for science & writing (03:49) Research & the scientific method (06:31) Building on the shoulders of giants & adding your own perspective (10:40) Her unique perspective on productivity & work (13:45) Mindful vs. traditional productivity (15:53) The importance of metacognition (20:15) Small experiments > finding your passion (24:51) Redefining ambition (28:44) Decoupling your self from the experiment (32:17) Ambition vs. contentment (35:42) When to start a new growth loop (40:36) Combining perspectives from different fields (44:29) Anne-Laure’s final question for listeners — Anne-Laure’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthilemoon Ness Labs: https://nesslabs.com/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Justin Welsh is a former startup exec turned solopreneur & creator helping people launch, grow, and monetize their internet businesses. We talk about long term thinking, playing your own game, content creation, status, the value of travel, and more. — (00:47) Why he chose content creation (02:47) Did content creation come naturally or take effort? (04:58) The challenges of solopreneurship & content creation (07:49) Why you don’t find your niche (10:04) All good things are hard & difficult (12:36) What's he (not) optimizing for (15:13) Would he ever turn this into a large, multi-person business? (18:17) Mimetic desire & playing your own game (21:16) Is the experience & journey towards your own authentic desire unavoidable? (22:56) Avoiding the disease of more & not getting blinded by growth (25:20) You can't fast forward reality (28:24) Are there downsides to status and internet fame? (31:22) His business wouldn’t grow without the personal brand (33:36) Why he chose not be a parent (36:09) What he likes about travel & how to emulate the benefits elsewhere (40:46) Investing in local communities & helping people abroad learn how to use the internet (44:42) Justin's final question for listeners — Justin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/thejustinwelsh Justin’s Site & Newsletter: https://www.justinwelsh.me Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com

Molly Mielke is a writer and the founding partner of Moth Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm aiming to increase the agency of exceptional individuals through investments and grants. We talk about rapidly "career sunk cost fallacy", increasing agency, investing in people and ideas, off the shelf games vs. creating your own, being famous among friends, freedom, commitment, and the balance between introspection vs. action. — (02:47) Starting a venture capital firm instead of a startup (05:51) Career sunk cost fallacy & thinking of your life in projects (09:36) Famous among friends, picking people you don't have to explain yourself to (13:29) When to take advice vs. forge your own path (17:27) Increasing agency (22:32) Project-based learning & optimizing for failure (26:32) Breaking out of off-the-shelf games (30:14) Better models for funding people directly (36:02) Investment thesis: vertical SaaS, wealth transfer, AI category creation (41:46) Generalists vs. specialists, T-shaped people (45:46) Balancing the rational & emotional (50:39) Freedom (54:22) Closing the interest gap with commitment, having low expectations (58:14) Introspection vs action (01:01:54) Molly’s final question for listeners — Molly’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mollyfmielke Moth Fund: https://www.mothfund.com/ Moth Fund Substack: https://mothfund.substack.com/ Mind Mud Substack: https://mindmud.substack.com/ Milky Substack: https://milky.substack.com/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Adam Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of Workweek, a collective of industry-expert creators aiming to create business content their audiences actually enjoy. Adam and I talk about all things Workweek and the B2B knowledge/creator space. — (00:37) Individuals over institutions (03:35) Is there still opportunity in the B2C creator space? (05:31) Focusing on product (07:14) If you're an industry expert, you can become a creator (09:37) Workweek vs. being independent (14:27) Attributes to look for in creators (17:49) Consistency in content creation is under-appreciated (19:14) Choosing your mediums, platforms, and monetization strategies (24:28) Identifying niches (27:52) Industry focuses (29:44) VC-backed vs bootstrap (33:45) Inspirations (35:56) Being a creator & employee (38:30) Biggest challenge for Workweek over next 12-18 months (39:58) What does Workweek look like in a decade? (41:38) Choosing to commit 7-10+ years to this problem (43:52) What other problem in the creator space would he be working on? (46:44) What will look the same/different about creators in a decade (48:15) Adam’s final question for listeners — Adam’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdamRy_n Adam’s Perpetual Newsletter: https://workweek.com/discover-newsletters/perpetual/ Workweek: https://workweek.com/ Workweek Twitter: https://twitter.com/Workweekinc Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Zach Pogrob is a creator. He’s a writer, the man behind the animated videos on the @behaviorhack Instagram and TikTok accounts — which have amassed over 1.5M followers — and the leader of the “obsession movement” on Twitter. Zach and I talk about finding and sustaining your obsession, his inspirations, cultivating a long term mindset, building a brand as big as Disney, and more. — (00:34) How to find your obsession (02:16) His creative process (03:54) Using intuition and data (04:50) Knowing when to experiment & make big changes with your content (06:42) Experimenting & growing is just as important as consistency (07:54) His inspirations (12:52) Disney (15:27) What the obsessed brand look like 10 years from now (17:27) Leveraging AI for content creation (19:41) His biggest challenge: monetization (21:11) What he learned from his photo booth business (24:00) Having a long term mindset (25:31) Talking about obsession obsessively (27:04) Cult and community building (31:23) Knowing when to surrender (33:29) Drawbacks & tradeoffs of obsession (37:05) Winning the game with yourself & building something bigger than yourself (39:20) Take less advice, consume less content (40:23) Zach’s final question — Zach’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachpogrob Behavior Hack Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behaviorhack Zach’s Ten Bullets Newsletter: https://zach.blog/bullets Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Andrew Rose, along with his wife, Priya, are building The Neighborhood in New York City, with the goal of bringing together 1000 forward-looking, abundance-minded friends within walking distance of one another. Andrew and I talk about community building and bringing friends together, isolation, implementing the right social technologies, balancing contentment and ambition, and more. — (00:48) Building a community of 1000 friendly, ambitious, nerds within walking distance of one another (04:44) Why do we look so few people — especially friends — in the eye every day? (09:33) Seeing friends should be easy and fun (10:18) “Reversing the centrifuge”: why we're here and how we change it (16:24) Finding the right social technologies for your objectives (18:19) What are the small details you have to get right in physical communities? (21:08) The financial and governance systems they're using (and how that may change when they scale) (27:50) Is or will there be an online community? (30:26) Mitigating loneliness, obligation to humanity, and pooling social capital (34:54) Being content and ambitious (40:07) Can and should we encourage people to be less fearful? (42:37) Andrew’s final question for listeners — Andrew’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/__drewface https://fractalnyc.com/ https://prigoose.substack.com/p/how-to-live-near-your-friends https://andrewjrose.substack.com/ https://vienna.earth/plate/andrew/frontier Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Rich Bartlett helps people grow high-trust communities & decentralised organisations. He’s the co-founder of tech co-op Loomio, community building network Microsolidarity, management consultancy The Hum, and director of the social impact collective Enspiral. We talk about microsolidarity, fellowship and belonging, being optimistic and pessimistic about the future, cooperation and coordination, increasing agency, commitment, and identifying what you’re good at. — (01:04) Why do we need better human coordination? (06:25) Straddling the line between optimistic and pessimistic; being “pro” things instead of “anti” (12:23) Stories drive cooperation (15:51) Does he have a fundamentally good view of human nature? (20:24) How to increase human agency (27:10) How and when do you know to commit to something? (33:33) Identifying what you're uniquely good at (37:57) Rich’s final question for listeners — Loomio: https://www.loomio.com/ Enspiral: https://www.enspiral.com/ Microsolidarity: http://microsolidarity.cc/ The Hum: https://www.thehum.org/ Rich’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichDecibels Rich’s site: http://richdecibels.com/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/