North Star Podcast

Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of WHOOP, which has developed next-generation wearable technology for optimizing human performance and health. I found him through an excellent interview he hosted with Rory McIlroy, a winner of four major championships who was once the #1 golfer in the world. Then, once we started talking, he told me about the group chats he shares with other top golfers like Justin Thomas. The man is obsessed with health technology like nobody I’ve ever come across, so conversation topics range from the business of wearables, to the challenges of tracking accurate data. Then, he shared his philosophy for why sleep and recovery are a more important data point for an athlete than exercise and stress. My favorite part of the interview was hearing about Will’s philosophy of management, and why he tries to hire people who have high intensity and high humility. Please enjoy my conversation with WHOOP CEO Will Ahmed. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:15 - What data Will wishes he could magically track for his users and why it could drastically improve their health. 6:30 - How breathing exercises, mindfulness, and meditations help your heart rate. 11:05 - Why WHOOP has found so much success in helping golfers and baseball players over other sports. 13:20 - What Will remembers as his favorite conversations with athletes. 16:24 - Why it's so hard to capture accurate sleep cycle data. 20:43 - Why teams on average get less sleep at an away game than at a home game. 23:38 - The limits of what can or can't and what should or shouldn't be tracked. 26:38 - How WHOOP separates itself from the larger players in the health market. 31:08 - Why Will believes strongly that the branding of WHOOP products aids in developing a person's own brand. 34:30 - Why not developing your own hardware to go with your software can be detrimental to your overall design. 41:41 - The future of informed coaching using WHOOP and their membership services team. 43:19 - Why WHOOP started out as a brand-focused company, and why it was so important to go about it this way. 45:38 - What it was like playing Augusta National. 49:00 - How to know when to operate analytically versus intuitively. 56:43 - The key to being different, and why you should always be asking your customers what their problems are, not what their solutions are. 1:01:16 - What piece of advice that Will would give his younger self in the past.

My guest today is Seth Godin, the author of nineteen international bestsellers that have been translated into more than 35 languages. My all-time favorite is Purple Cow, which I discovered in college and became my nickname. This is my second interview with Seth, who has published an article every day now for more than a decade. If you want to be a prolific creator, Seth is one of the best teachers you can possibly find. This interview is all about his writing practice. Seth calls himself a “professional noticer” so we talked about how he finds and validates new ideas. On the topic of shipping creative work, we spoke about the root of imposter syndrome and why Seth likes writing on airplanes, and how his book The Practice was inspired by one of his workshops. We also discussed his tactics for effective public speaking, how to improve the education system, and what we've learned by running online schools — his AltMBA and my Write of Passage. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:32 - What inspired Seth to start his now 20+ year daily writing streak. 6:00 - The root of impostor syndrome and why Seth thinks it's not only normal but just true. 8:14 - The evolution of an idea or a blog post into a full book. 10:50 - Why it is important to ship as a creative worker and what it means to ship your content. 13:50 - Why certain conditions make it easier for people to create than others. 16:59 - What Seth learned about creating inspiration from hard science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. 20:22 - How Seth developed his unique video style and the unique way he utilizes his slides. 23:25 - What the best future of education looks like to Seth and why he believes in the dream of public schooling. 29:48 - Why the standard lecture model of the current education system is missing the point of education. 33:53 - The difference between online education and online learning and why Seth sees them as almost polar opposites. 39:35 - Why there must be space for surprises in online learning. 41:31 - How capitalism has caused certain schools to flourish less through their educational prowess and more as a pipeline to various jobs.

My guest today is Dave Nemetz, the Founder of Bleacher Report, which was one of my favorite media companies as a kid. During his time there, Dave oversaw video, business development, and business operations. He helped grow the audience to more than 40 million monthly unique visitors before selling the company to Turner Broadcasting in 2012. Today, he is the Founder of Inverse and the Executive Vice President of Bustle Digital Group where he leads growth and business strategy for Inverse, Input, and Mic. The conversation topics in this episode fall into three buckets: personal principles, business principles, and the state of the world. We spoke about what it's like to lead your company through a merger, why you can think of media businesses like a supply & demand equation, and one of Dave's favorite quotes from Hunter S. Thompson: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” My favorite part of the interview was hearing about a band called Phish, which Dave has seen in concert more than 200 times. That section kickstarted a whole conversation about the brand-building tradeoff between being welcoming to new fans and serving die-hard fans. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:31 - What inspired David to get started on the Bleacher Report and why he was drawn to it as a project. 6:24 - Why the desire for a different kind of sports coverage took so long to take off and why other companies didn't get into it earlier. 9:06 - Why sites like Bleacher Report find their niche, even with an abundance of content being created all of the time. 12:46 - The implicit versus the explicit side of finding your niche and exploiting it in the market. 15:14 - What David has learned about building a brand and serving your customers from his favorite band, Phish. 20:12 - How businesses can both serve their die-hard fans and not neglect their newcomers. 27:05 - The arrival fallacy and why selling Bleacher Report to Turner wasn't as exciting as it may have looked on the outside. 31:36 - Why David believes that a fervent drive and passion to achieve goals is a double-edged sword. 34:26 - What most people don't know about managing a business during a buyout or a merger and why it was so difficult for David to handle. 42:54 - How the world of advertising in the early 2000s hadn't seemed to change much from the era of "Mad Men". 52:38 - Why the "the geeks won" and why David is super happy about it. 57:13 - How David has oriented his recruitment and retention strategy in his media brands. 1:05:43 - What the "career elevator" is and why David was determined to create it for himself. 1:10:29 - Some of David's favorite quotes, and why one of his core philosophies is to "enjoy your sandwich".

Newsweek Magazine once called Rabbi Wolpe the most influential rabbi in America. He is the Senior Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and he's the author of eight books including one about King David and another gem called Why Be Jewish? I don't remember the last time I enjoyed preparing for an interview so much. I'm named after King David, but until this interview, I hadn't explored the history of my name in more than a decade. This interview touches on various parts of Judaism including how rabbis should interpret the Bible, what we can learn from King David, and how Judaism anchors us when a loved one dies. There were two parts that I'll always remember. The first was a discussion about the concept of aloneness in Judaism. On one hand, the book of Deuteronomy says: “It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that I have set my heart upon you and treasured you—indeed, you are the fewest.” On the other, community is everywhere in Jewish life and the first thing God called not good in the Bible is loneliness — “It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18).” Secondly, I enjoyed our conversation about repentance in the Jewish faith and how you must repent after a loved one dies but also have to stop after 11 months. If this conversation interests you, I recommend his sermons on YouTube and the book I mentioned before called: Why Be Jewish? ____________________________ Show Notes 3:15 - How Jews have uniquely struggled with their identity and the way they present themselves. 5:56 - How the heroes of the Jewish culture have changed over time and what makes them heroic. 8:26 - What makes Judaism different from Christianity. 11:39 - The interpretation of the Bible and how Judaism reconciles its eternal nature with the changing interpretations over time. 14:43 - The most meaningful traditions in Jewish people's lives and why Rabbi Wolpe sees the Jewish mourning rituals as some of the most powerful. 19:24 - Why many Jewish people converted to Buddhism in the Modern era. 22:11 - Why the decline of religious people throughout the world may indicate a decline in art being created. 25:52 - The power of a culture of togetherness and why Rabbi Wolpe believes that Judaism was unique in being welcomed to America with open arms. 29:02 - Yom Kippur and why Judaism uniquely holds a ritual of confession not only for each person's sin but also from the sins of the Jewish people. 31:01 - One of the biggest differences between classical Christianity and Judaism. 34:35 - What separated Maimonides from other prominent Jewish philosophers. 36:39 - What Heschel meant in that the collapsing of space is seen as the collapsing of time. 38:45 - Why we should always take care of our "big rocks" first before anything else. 44:56 - Why modern life and technology can cause people to lose touch with the transcendent and the world around us. 49:09 - Why Rabbi Wolpe feels that introducing children to religion at an early age is important to their understanding of it. 54:20 - The origin of the Jewish style of dry humor. 1:00:05 - What about King David drew Rabbi Wolpe to study him so deeply. 1:04:34 - Why it's impossible to change the age of a boy's transition into a man through a bar mitzvah. 1:07:01 - What it means to Rabbi Wolpe to be a Rabbi.

My guest today is Joseph Henrich, a professor at Harvard and an expert on the evolution of human cooperation and culture. I am a big fan of his book, "The Secret of Our Success" and he just published a new one called the Weirdest People in the World about people who fall under the acronym WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Through his research, he explains culture's role in evolution. He shows how evolutionary theory can help us learn, innovate, and share knowledge. We begin this episode by talking about the role big Gods play in cultural evolution. Then we talk about the time Joe spent living with small-scale societies in rural Peru and Fiji. He talks about how he learns the language, plans the trips, and assimilates into societies so he can study them. Towards the end of the podcast, we talk about what economists can learn from anthropologists and the evolution of attraction. My favorite part of the conversation was learning about the tradeoffs between having an open or closed society, and how those factors contribute to innovation. Please enjoy my conversation with Joseph Henrich. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:06 - How the role of God has evolved over time and why bigger and bigger Gods have become the norm. 4:50 - Why acting as a third party for people made Gods culturally and socially so much more important. 8:36 - Marriage across cultures and religions and why they diverge sometimes wildly from what Western culture considers "normal". 13:44 - Why many religious restrictions that created the Western norm of a nuclear family also set up the stage for heightened individualism. 16:58 - How and why social safety nets transitioned from kin-based institutions to the states and governments. 18:46 - What surprising similarities and differences Joe saw between Americans and the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon. 22:22 - The role of humor in enforcing social norms, why Joe thinks it is absolutely universal, and the other universal ways trust is built-in communities. 28:35 - How narcotics and psychedelics are utilized in different cultures and the way their roles differ. 31:20 - Why cultural imitation does not always yield positive outcomes. 33:11 - How the introduction of agriculture changed family relationships and culture. 39:36 - The biggest takeaways Joe got from Guns, Germs, and Steel. 43:28 - Why Joe believes that religion is innate in human beings. 50:31 - The possible implications of losing rituals that for millennia have brought families and clans closer together. 52:24 - What the clock and a universal time have done to human psychology. 1:01:16 - What the collective brain is and why it is so prevalent throughout creative booms in history. 1:04:55 - How the proliferation of information helps and hurts creativity, and why the internet hasn't had the impact people thought it would. 1:08:26 - How information is affected by biases and manipulation and why humans are so susceptible to them. 1:11:39 - How the technology, institutions, and tools we use affect the way that we think. 1:15:12 - Why learning disabilities should not be looked at as purely negative and the benefits that cognitive diversity brings to humanity. 1:19:00 - The way gossip in a society helps define the collective philosophy of its people. 1:21:07 - How imitative education is currently at its peak and what doors it opens for people around the world. 1:24:36 - Why rituals and multiple gods were so common in the past and are so uncommon now. 1:28:40 - How Jon would alter the current research practices in the social sciences on "WEIRD" people and why. 1:31:39 - Why certain assumptions about humans are actually specific to a region or population, and why they don't represent humanity as a whole. 1:35:10 - Why the top-down lecture model is not serving education as well as it should, and why it shouldn't be replaced completely by Youtube. 1:39:20 - The selective physical and cultural evolution of certain populations and why it happens the way it does. 1:42:12 - What Jon finds to be the most interesting elements of culture to study and why. 1:45:33 - Why Jon's aerospace engineering degree is so valuable in his anthropology career. 1:47:41 - The problem with focusing solely on models in research and studies. 1:53:20 - Why humanity seems to be stagnating in intelligence but rocketing upward in cultural development.

My guest today is Grant Sanderson, the man behind one of the world's largest math-focused YouTube channels: 3blue1brown. He has more than 3 million subscribers and his videos have been watched more than 150 million times. Before making videos he studied math and computer science at Stanford before working at Kahn academy. On YouTube, he brings a visuals-first approach to math. Every video starts with a narrative or storyline. Then it revolves around imagery that illuminates the beauty of mathematics. Topics for his videos include linear algebra, neural networks, calculus, the math of Bitcoin, and quantum mechanics. This episode begins with a conversation about the culture of mathematics. We talk about ideas like prime numbers, the Twin Primes conjecture, and pop culture's role in advancing mathematics. Later in the episode, we talk about mathematical constants and the rate of progress in mathematics. Then, we close by talking about Grant's process for writing scripts, note-taking, and researching ideas for each episode. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:14 - Why everybody loves prime numbers so much and what makes them so special. 4:56 - What was initially so interesting about math for Grant and why he didn't end up going into a more formal researching role. 8:23 - Why Grant is getting increasingly more fed up with math that doesn't even try to be associated to reality. 11:36 - The usefulness of "useless" knowledge and why spending an afternoon solving a math puzzle is so satisfying. 18:42 - What is driving the accelerating progress of the entire field of math. 22:19 - How Gödel's famous theorem attacked the fundamental structure of math and changed the way mathematicians think about it. 27:31 - The unappreciated universality of math and why knowledge and interest in math by the public is higher than ever before. 31:49 - Why Grant believes that attention spans aren't getting shorter and why the evidence is so strong. 35:43 - The importance of the principles of symmetry and creating meaningful names in math. 40:58 - Why Grant believes that distraction is key to creative work. 44:33 - Brand-building and why Grant believes it is important for anybody looking to build trust in their products. 47:40 - What videos are the hardest for Grant to produce and why. 49:31 - Building the intuition of teaching through a non-interactive medium. 54:42 - What was most unexpected to Grant about working in the field of mathematics. 1:00:19 - Where Grant gets his video ideas and how his script-writing differs from video to video. 1:05:31 - How an idea evolves from sketches and drawings into a logical coherent video. 1:07:35 - How college education in math can be improved and why it can be unnecessarily hard for students in that program. 1:11:42 - The possible implications of the collision of mathematics and computing in pure math research. 1:14:32 - The story behind some of David's favorite quotes in Grant's videos.

My guest today is Eric Jorgenson, a Product Strategist at Zaarly and the author of the Almanack of Naval Ravikant: a guide to wealth and happiness. The book collects and curates Naval's wisdom from Twitter, podcasts, and essays over the past decade. Naval is the founder of Angel List, an angel investor who has invested in companies like Twitter and Uber, and the man behind one of the most popular Twitter accounts in the world. He's known for his thoughts on startups, investing, crypto, wealth, and happiness. This is a conversation about that book. We began the conversation talking about Multiply by Zero Effects, which comes from a short e-book Eric wrote called Career Advice for Uniquely Ambitious People. Then, we moved onto the Almanac. We talked about the differences between Charlie Munger and Naval Ravikant, building specific knowledge, and how operating companies influenced Naval's philosophy of life. At the end, we also jammed on what Naval would say to the owners of Joe's Bar-B-Que, Eric's favorite restaurant in Kansas City. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:28 - Why Eric wrote his new book, and what he regrets not putting in it. 6:15 - What Eric thinks Charlie Munger and Naval Ravikant would disagree on most. 9:34 - Why people like Naval and Munger often give advice as the "Iron Prescription" to solve a problem or learn in a field. 12:13 - Why so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were on track to be an academic but then split off. 13:20 - What entrepreneurs can learn from how comedians develop their voice and leverage their following. 15:57 - What knowledge Naval has that is unique only to him in his field. 19:36 - How to maximize leverage and value as an entrepreneur and in your career. 23:26 - What defines a startup, and what Eric has learned from Nivi through his writings on VentureHacks. 25:37 - How Naval uses Twitter as a repository for his ideas and findings and as a forge to test them out. 31:22 - Naval's view of hard work and how it has changed over time. 34:40 - Why it took multiple rereadings of his book and years of observation and experience for Eric to start fully understanding Naval's idea of "productize yourself". 36:11 - What about Eric's own book did he start to resent by the end of creating it. 40:01 - How the message of the book changed as Eric was compressing and cutting the source material down. 43:10 - Why Eric could not have done this book without loving Naval's work as much as he does. 46:19 - What advice Naval would give to Eric's favorite restaurant, Joe's Barbecue. 48:45 - Why David has never forgotten Eric's comment on how "owning a home is a never-ending battle against water" and what he means when he says that. 50:20 - How writing this book gave Eric "more clarity, confidence, and peace through all aspects of life."

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. He's the author of The Psychology of Money, where he shares 19 stories about the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to manage it. I revere Morgan's writing, and this episode was my chance to finally ask him about how he writes so well. We talk about why listening to loud music helps Morgan think, lessons from his favorite non-fiction writer, and why you should start stories at the moment when you're being eaten by a bear. We also talk about the rise of intangible assets in the economy, why the American economy shifted in the 1970s, and how investment strategies have changed over time. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:00 - How the economy is changing, and why the edge in technology is going up while the edge in finance is going down. 6:38 - How the rise of intangible assets is distorting our view of the economy. 9:58 - The benefit of being slightly underemployed and why perceived "leisure" is so important in Morgan's career. 14:12 - What differed between what Morgan thought he would do as a parent and what he actually does. 15:35 - How the 1970s and 1980s fundamentally shifted the economy and culture of America. 20:22 - The three most important factors in really understanding the economy and whether truth or coherence is more important for social stability. 24:35 - How Morgan gets away with almost no collection or organization in creating his work. 29:58 - Why writing for yourself as a way to better understand your gut feelings will always pay off. 31:46 - How and why Morgan searches for the obvious things nobody pays attention to. 34:00 - Why some colleges are here to stay and others are not going to last according to Morgan. 40:11 - The most important things about writing that Morgan has learned from former and current workplaces. 42:24 - The two articles that Morgan is most proud of writing. 45:46 - What it means that people spend more money on the lottery than movies, music, video games, sporting events, and books combined. 49:06 - Why there aren't enough good books about how to write well. 52:15 - A writer that Morgan wishes more people would read their work. 54:32 - How the Ben Affleck speech in Boiler Room inspired Morgan to work in finance. 56:10 - The most difficult part about writing his most recent book.

My guest today is Claire Lehmann, the founder and editor-in-chief of Quillette, a for-profit online magazine that publishes essays on topics like politics, science, and academia. We started our conversation talking about Quilette's business model and the niche it occupies on the Internet. Then, we moved on to societal topics like the longevity of bureaucracies, the pros and cons of standardized tests, and what Claire would change about childhood education. ____________________________ Show Notes 1:31 - Why Claire believes being a for-profit instead of a non-profit gives her and her company more freedom. 5:32 - What Quillette has learned through publishing so many submitted articles over the years. 10:15 - The relationship between free speech and innovation. 13:12 - What we can learn from how Russia handled scientific experimentation and their lack of freedom to critique it. 15:08 - Why one of the biggest flaws Claire sees with higher education is that it seems necessary for people to go. 20:17 - How higher education is only creating academics and not lifelong students. 23:32 - Why organizations may have a lifecycle and how it plays into the problems that come with their extended growth. 29:45 - Why Claire believes literacy in subjects like psychology and statistics is massively underrated. 34:55 - What Enlightenment-era values are justly held in high regard, and which we may need to reconsider in the modern age. 40:54 - The historical reasons why intellectualism is not a strong value in Australia. 43:46 - What Claire has learned about childhood education through her time at Quillette, and why she believes younger children need to spend most of their time learning facts. 51:04 - Why standardized testing is beneficial for children from underprivileged families. 55:37 - What Claire believes to be her strengths in both her personal and business life. 58:12 - What about the book "The Custom And The Country" makes Claire love it so much. 1:01:42 - What it may mean for our brains as we possibly move into a "post-literate" society. 1:05:03 - Claire's favorite articles she's ever hosted on Quillette.

My guest today is Balaji Srinivasan, an angel investor and entrepreneur. When it comes to the future, he's the single most creative person I know because he's so technical, innovative, and polymathic. Talking to him is an experience unlike talking to anybody else, which I tried to replicate in this conversation. A little bit about Balaji. He's worked as the Chief Technology Officer at Coinbase and a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. In the world of academia, he holds a BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering, all from Stanford University. He's also taught at Stanford, where his online course has reached 250,000 students worldwide. This episode is a whirlwind through Balaji's interests. We started by talking about his production function. We talked about what holding all those degrees from Stanford taught him about learning, how he identifies talent, and what building and selling two companies for more than $100 million taught him about management. We also talked about his interests in genomics, how to reverse aging, and why living forever is the ultimate goal of technology. At the end, we built off the ideas I talk about in my online writing school called Write of Passage to talk about his plan to fund online writers with a project called MediaFund. ____________________________ Show Notes 2:42 - What Balaji learned about how to learn from his extended time in academia and why he doesn't read the instructions until he has to. 4:21 - Why knowing philosophy and history is so integral to starting a successful company. 6:54 - Why Balaji thinks we are severely underutilizing the collaborative potential of the internet. 12:45 - How remembering references to knowledge instead of the knowledge itself gives Balaji a better way to argue his points. 13:47 - Why searching for people who are "hungry and can teach us something" serves everybody who is involved very well. 19:39 - The "tour of duty" and how to create a great strategy for developing and managing yourself and your team. 24:25 - The movement from a centralized century to a decentralized century and why Balaji feels the future is moving more towards his lifestyle. 31:19 - How technology hyper-deflates the market of everything it touches. 38:23 - How the past is wrapping back around to the future and how the evolution of education is leading the way. 44:49 - Why abstraction means progress as a culture up to a certain point and can become harmful beyond that. 48:57 - How to optimize your information diet to make you smarter, more effective, and more honest about where you spend your energy. 54:07 - The future of online education and why it doesn't end with Wikipedia. 59:32 - New ways to look at incentive structures for writing and how it inspires technological and social growth. 1:04:27 - How to bridge the gap between Hollywood, big data, and education. 1:12:43 - The future of the internet and why the pseudonymous economy seems likely to Balaji. 1:15:04 - How we can use a "crypto oracle" to create an unfalsifiable history of our digital information. 1:21:31 - Why a worldwide ledger of record is the future we need in an information-driven world. 1:26:59 - Why Balaji believes that the pinnacle and goal of technology is to help humans live forever. 1:32:50 - How to build a digital country through writing. 1:39:34 - Why genomics needs more attention from the general population and technology. 1:44:42 - Why writers will be the future of millionaires and billionaires.