North Star Podcast

Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast Today’s guest is Eugene Wei, who's spent his career working at some of the world’s best technology companies including Amazon, Hulu, and Facebook. He joined Amazon in 1997 after graduating from Stanford and it was at Amazon that he watched Jeff Bezos turn a small little internet bookstore into “The Everything Store” that were all so familiar with. After leaving Amazon, Eugene moved to New York to become a film editor before moving to Los Angeles to become a director. That summer he joined the company that would become Hulu, leading the product, design, editorial, and marketing teams. And since then, he founded and sold a startup called Erly, and worked as the head of product for Flipboard before joining the Facebook as the head of video at Oculus. In this conversation, we talk about the spiritual significance of the second law of thermodynamics and its impact on movies, company building, and personal growth. We talk about the principles of communication and draw lessons from Jeff Bezos on how to communicate clearly and memorably. And finally, we take lessons from Eugene’s time living in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley and explore the ever-fascinating intersection of media and technology. And before we begin, you can find links to his blog, Remains of the Day, along with my favorite posts below.  Links: Find Eugene online: His blog Eugene’s most popular posts Linkedin Mentioned in the show: Amazon [0:38] Hulu [0:38] Facebook [0:38] Erly [1:10] Oculus [1:17] Eugene’s Iliad discussion [9:35] (couldn’t find this one) Eugene’s Second Law of Thermodynamics discussion [9:35] UCLA Film School [22:17] Reddit [36:57] Twitch [58:02] Tree of Life film [1:06:53] Interstellar [1:08:15]   Books mentioned: Born to Rebel [14:15]  The Complacent Class [48:55] The Rise of Superman [59:14] The Iliad [1:02:27] The Odyssey [1:02:27] The Sound and the Fury [1:06:27]   People mentioned: Jeff Bezos [1:32] Daniel Day-Lewis [16:55] Mike Tyson [47:24] Tyler Cowen [48:52] (podcast episode with Tyler) Gary Vaynerchuk [53:19] Malcolm Gladwell [1:03:07] Neil Degrasse Tyson [1:03:30] (podcast episode with Neil) William Faulkner [1:05:54] Virginia Wolf [1:05:54] Terrence Malick [1:06:51] Christopher Nolan [1:08:22] Show Topics 0:32  - Some information on the episode guest, Eugene Wei and a bit of background on his career.   1:58 - Introduction to Eugene, what life was like for him early on, and what he got into as a kid. Also, a bit on how he got into the filmmaking scene.   3:32 - Eugene on some of the biases from his parents that he faced regarding a career choice, and a bit on him convincing them to move out west and away from Chicago.   4:56 - What Stanford was like back when Eugene was growing up, how his parents felt about his choice to go there, what things he ended up exploring while there, and what he majored in.   6:55 - How learning with both sides of the brain influenced Eugene after college and how it has been useful for him in the professional context. “I think the general idea of following your interests so that you have an inherent sort of motivator for learning is just super-critical.”   7:54 - Thoughts on underestimating the advantages of a somewhat generalist education compared to an education in a specific field. How having a broad set of skills and a general education has helped him more than if he were to specialize in one field.   9:50 - Eugene on the importance of being deeply intellectually interested in his work.   10:32 - Eugene’s journey towards receiving a job with Amazon in 1997, the choices he made regarding college, and him realizing the growing wave that was the internet back then.   14:11 - Eugene discussing Born to Rebel, an influential book that he read while in high school, and how this impacted him. Also, Eugene discussing fighting the conformist nature that comes with being an older sibling, and some discussion on how the younger sibling likely has a rebellious nature.   15:40 - Further discussion on challenging the conformist nature, pushing yourself into new and challenging areas to grow, and Eugene talking about his decision to leave Amazon and go to film school. “To start over and be a student again forces you into a different frame of mind.”   17:35 - How leaving Amazon to start over and go to film school taught Eugene valuable lessons and positively impacted him.   18:28 - What the second law of thermodynamics is and how it played a role in Eugene’s journey. Some more on him pushing out of equilibrium for growth, as well.   22:01 - What Eugene did for work when he first got into filmmaking and some more thoughts on what the journey did for him. Also, a bit on his next job, which was working for the company that eventually became Hulu.   24:18 - Eugene’s thoughts about the different streaming platforms around that time that he began working for the company that eventually became Hulu.   25:45 - What Eugene learned about how the media and technology industries operate and where they intersect. Some thoughts on media and tech companies in general and thoughts on their futures, as well.   30:16 - Eugene describing the free agent model and its contrast with vertical integration. A bit more on how various media companies have changed and some of the strategies that they use. “In 2013, 18 of the top 25 films were sequels, prequels, or extensions of existing stories or popular streams.” “In box office earnings, sequels make 8 times as much as originals.”   35:10 - The self-perpetuating platforms that a majority of movies are now and a bit on how media companies look to buy story optionality to promote future stories.   37:49 - What it was like working for Amazon in 1997 and working close to Jeff Bezos. Also, what it was like watching a company like that grow and why Amazon originally started with selling books.   41:40 - What Eugene learned from Jeff Bezos himself and a bit of insight on how Jeff worked. Also, the importance of thinking based on first principles, and some guidelines necessary for developing these first principles. “To derive first principles, you need access to raw data or you'll forever be getting secondhand principles from other people.”   43:33 - Eugene further discussing developing first principles, accessing raw data necessary for developing them, and the necessity for failure.   44:58 - The unique ways that meetings are run at Amazon, why Jeff banned the usage of Powerpoint, how Powerpoint distorts people’s thinking, and some more things that Jeff did to improve various aspects of the company and its employees.   49:47 - Eugene on what you should do as a CEO once your company grows larger and more successful, and some thoughts on a few things that make successful and effective companies.   52:04 - How language is encoded in various media, the immense communicative aspects of visual media compared to literal, and some thoughts on us being visual learners. Also, how watching someone do their job is much more effective compared to reading about how to do that job.   1:02:08 - Story and narrative being a very powerful way to encode information in addition to media, and some more thoughts on visual and narrative mediums being the most effective ways to learn.   1:04:12 - The positive benefits that countries gain from gaining widespread TV for the first time and some thoughts on how TV can be beneficial to us.   1:05:49 - What Eugene’s favorite writers have in common and why they are his favorites. Also, a bit on the different style of directing by Terrence Malick. How Terrence uses the visual medium in unique ways to get closer to consciousness and what it’s actually like to perceive the world.   You can support the North Star Podcast by leaving a review on iTunes. Or you can share the podcast on Twitter or Facebook. To listen to other episodes or learn more about the North Star, you can connect with me directly at perell.com and you can always reach out on Twitter at david_perell. And if you enjoyed this episode, you’ll like the episode with Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason with deep interests in food, music, art, and travel.

LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST “The holy grail of design is small things that make a big difference.”  Scott Belsky helps creative people, teams, and networks make ideas happen.  In this episode, we talk about how Scott has merged the worlds of business, technology, and design. Scott shares insights on how to reinvent yourself throughout your career, and discusses the future of media and technology. I love what Scott had to say about design, where he draws from numerous trips to Japan where he was awestruck by the culture, their attention to detail and the care they bring to their craft.  Today, Scott is Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and the Executive Vice President of Creative Cloud. He’s a product design and consumer behavior obsessive and founded Behance to organize the creative world and connect creatives with lucrative opportunities, before Adobe acquired the company in 2012. He's a Venture Partner at Benchmark - a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, an early-stage investor, a Product Strategy Advisor to Adobe and Twitter's video efforts, and is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Prefer, a platform that empowers the careers of service professionals and enables people to find professionals they need from people they know. He’s also invested in many of my favorite companies including Sweetgreen, Uber, and Warby Parker.  Links:  Scott Belsky: Website Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky Tribe by Sebastian Junger Scott Belsky on Twitter Scott Belsky Newsletter Cooper Hewitt Design Museum Seth Godin John Maeda Hyper-Reality Building a Second Brain Connect with Me (I love meeting new people): Twitter Website Email: david@perell.com Please leave an honest review on iTunes. It helps people discover the podcast. 

LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. I felt fear more times than I can remember, but I hid it behind a mask of boldness. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”  Douglas Abrams is the founder of Idea Architects, a book publishing, and media company that works with visionary authors to create a wiser, healthier, and more just world. Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have both survived more than fifty years of exile. Both have endured the soul-crushing violence of oppression. And yet despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet. Doug recognized this and asked two simple, yet profound questions: How is this possible? And what can we learn from their example to cultivate more joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering? In celebration of the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday, Doug traveled to Dharamsala, India, alongside Archbishop Tutu for a five-day conversation on the nature of human happiness and suffering, the two Nobel Peace Prize recipients traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices.  Out of that, came Doug’s new book, The Book of Joy, a New York Times bestseller that probes the very nature of joy itself — the illusions that eclipse it, the obstacles that obscure it, the practices that cultivate it, and the pillars that sustain it.  If you enjoyed this episode, you'll also enjoy the episode with Heather Hartnett, where we talk about eastern philosophies and western ways of living and working.  Links: Book of Joy Idea Architects Dalai Lama Archbishop Desmond Tutu David Perell, Twitter Follow the Podcast Please leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe to the Newsletter

Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor in Etsy and Tumblr. He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted data analytics company. Albert graduated from Harvard College, where he studied economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT.  In this episode, we talk about what it was like to grow up in Germany, where Albert received an Apple II at a young age. As a teenager, Albert visited America for the first time when he stayed with a family in Rochester, Minnesota — the most impactful travel experience of his life.  We talk about how technological progress has shifted scarcity for humanity. When we were foragers, food was scarce. During the agrarian age, it was land. Following the industrial revolution, capital became scarce. With digital technologies, scarcity is shifting once more. We need to figure out how to live in a World After Capital — the title of Albert’s new book — where the only scarcity is our attention.  Links:  World After Capital Future of the Nation State Decentralization and the Knowledge Age Albert Wenger Twitter Books:  Grit Three Body Problem Thinking, Fast & Slow Antifragile Seveneves Beginning of Infinity Please leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one

LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST Ari Paul is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of BlockTower Capital. He was previously a portfolio manager for the University of Chicago's $8 billion endowment. Ari earned a BA in political science from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Chicago with concentrations in economics, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and econometrics & statistics.  In this episode, we talk about Ari’s passion for poker, and what the game taught him about investing, risk, and table selection, a powerful concept that applies to just about every field. Ari recently identified what he calls “the opportunity of a lifetime” — cryptocurrency. It led him to start investing in cryptocurrencies, a decision that was guided by Ari’s commitment to stretching boundaries. Finally, Ari discusses his passions for backpacking and travel, and like so many guests, Japan was one of Ari’s favorites.  Time Codes:  2:30 - 6:20: Background and departure from science.  6:20 - 9:35: Playing poker and complete information. Tilt.  9:35 - 14:25: Table selection. Phil Ivey. Sharp Ratio.  14:25 - 17:40: Childhood/youth. Building skills and transferring them to trading.  17:40 - 20:30: Value investing vs. momentum investing. Path dependency for crypto.  20:30 - 24:00: All heuristics are regime dependent.  24:00 - 28:25: Shorter attention spans. Analogies. Changing minds.  28:25 - 32:30: Backpacking. Consuming information vs. going off the grid. Stoicism. 32:30 - 35:40: Japan/Osaka/Kyoto. Accelerated living.  35:40 - 40:00: Consciously stretching boundaries ("Life is lived at the margins"). Behavioral economics. Internalizing stereotypes.  40:00 - 43:20: Stretching boundaries applied to cryptocurrencies. Principal component analysis.  43:20 - 44:00: Specializing vs. building bridges in your career.  44:00 - 45:30: Moving away from hard skills 45:30 - 49:20: Perspectives and trust building pre and post internet. Signaling. Psychological bias. Overconfidence vs. familiarity.  49:20.- 50:10: We don't know people like we think we do.  50:10 - 53:35: Blogging and personal brand. Blogging as a way to falsify ideas. Cunningham's law.  53:35 - 57:45: Learning > Ego. Power laws. Combined talents out of necessity can create a combinatorial edge.  57:45 - 59:50: The experience of starting a crypto fund.  59:50 - 1:03:50: Agency when there's no roadmap. MBA students.  1:03:50 - 1:08:45: Breaking through natural momentum. Anchoring. Status quo bias. Fat pitch. Crypto as the opportunity of a lifetime. Hard work, burnout, and compounding. Links:  Ari Paul Twitter Blocktower Capital Seth Klarman Benjamin Graham Phil Ivey Sharp Ratio Cunningham's Law Books Mentioned:  Vagabonding The Intelligent Investor Antifragile Connect with David:  Twitter Subscribe to Receive the Latest Episodes Please leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one

LISTEN HERE: iTUNES | OVERCAST Heather Hartnett is the CEO and founding partner of Human Ventures. She leads the Human Ventures team and advises each of Human Ventures’ portfolio companies. Heather brings a fresh new perspective to the technology scene and Business Insider recently featured Human Ventures as the first female-led startup studio in New York City. Heather was also named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in America by Marie Claire. Before Human Ventures, Heather founded a FinTech company incubated within City Light Capital — a venture capital fund that invests in companies making social and environmental impacts.  Heather and I talk about her childhood, and what she learned by traveling the world, focusing on the time she spent in Holland and India in particular. We talk about Heather’s favorite subject: people and the importance of having great energy, a singular vision, and how to get things done.  We also explore the intersection of Eastern philosophies and western ways of living and working. Meditation plays a prominent role in Heather’s life and she serves on the Board of Directors of the David Lynch Foundation, which is dedicated to helping children around the world learn to meditate. Heather and I explore the impact of Transcendental Meditation on her life, her work, and her worldview. This was, without question, my favorite part of the episode.  Links:  Human Ventures Hunter Walk Overview Bob Roth The Autobiography of a Yogi Science of Being and Art of Living Catching the Big Fish, David Lynch Recommended for New Hires at Human Ventures: Hard Things about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Start with Why by Simon Sinek    

Listen Here: Overcast | iTunes Josh Wolfe is the co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, which invests in the intersection of science and technology at the outermost edge of what is possible. He partners with innovators challenging the status quo and even the laws of nature. The more ambitious, the better. Josh is a published scientist himself. He's a founding investor and board member with Bill Gates in Kymeta, a company that makes cutting-edge antennas for high-speed global satellite and space communications. And before Lux Capital, Josh worked in investment banking and capital markets. Afterwards, Josh co-founded Kurion, which used advanced robotics, engineering, and chemistry to clean up nuclear waste. In 2016, the company was bought for $400 million.  In this episode, we talk about it all: Biology, randomness, finance, consciousness, space, Brooklyn, investing, art, risk, and basketball. We start with what he learned growing up in Coney Island, a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Josh then shares his investment philosophy and why he likes investing in industries like lots of intellectual property, high barriers to entry and a limited talent pool. And finally, we talk about biology and the history of it— from single-celled organisms to the nature of consciousness — and Josh draws from his experience as a board member at the Santa Fe Institute. I hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation as much as I did.  Show Notes:  0:00 - 1:45: Growing up on Coney Island. Science, finance, and The Cyclone 1:45 - 3:15: Josh Wolfe's research background, the importance of persistence, introduction to capital markets 3:15 - 6:45: Learning new ideas. Identifying and avoiding BS. Risk and the value spectrum. Killing failure to find paths to success.  6:45 - 9:10: Science fiction novels and the pursuit of truth. Gap between science fiction and actual science is closing.  9:10 - 12:30: Competitive edge is paranoia and a competitive desire to have an information edge. 100-0-100 investing philosophy. Importance of humility and ambition.  12:30 - 17:00: College and early career epiphanies. Embracing randomness and optionality. Avoid boring people. Dinner with Jim Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA. Appreciation for scrappy underdogs.  17:00 - 20:00: A lot of fictional influences including TV, movies, and comic books. Avid consumer of information and any and all information. Curiosity born from information anxiety and overall competitiveness.  20:15 - 21:45: The relationship between art & science 21:45 - 25:05: Mentors are a portfolio of the best ideas and role models such as Richard Feynman.  25:05 - 29:10: Founding story of Lux. Henry Truman Quote: "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." Competitive edges in investing. Intellectual honesty at Lux Capital.  29:10 - 32:40: In history, there is no linear starting point. Red Queen effect and information consumption. Intellectual honesty, non-obvious ideas, and vigor.  32:40 - 36:50: Consciousness, complexity. Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris debates. Bayesian updating.  36:50 - 40:00: Complexity is chaotic phenomena with universal emergent principles. Lots of parallels with Entropy and the rest of the world.  Links: Josh Wolfe on Twitter Lux Capital Santa Fe Institute Coney Island Cyclone Rollercoaster Bill Conway Jeff Hawkins Sam Harris - Daniel Dennett Debate Books: Poor Charlie's Almanack, Peter D. Kaufman Malicious Resplendence, Robert Williams How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman The Minds I - Dennett, Hofstadter Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson Connect with David: Twitter Thanks to Conor Witt for producing this episode. 

LISTEN HERE: ITUNES | OVERCAST | PLAYERFM Shane Parrish is a partner at Syrus Partners and the mind behind one of my favorite blogs, Farnam Street. The blog is devoted to helping you develop an understanding of how the world really works, make better decisions, and live a better life. Shane writes about mental models, decision making, learning, reading, and the art of living. He draws from both the sciences and the humanities, expanding the intellectual horizons of his readers, helping them connect ideas, think in multidisciplinary ways, and cultivate meaning in their lives.  I first discovered the blog in college and credit Shane for so much of my intellectual curiosity. He writes a weekly newsletter called Brain Food that covers all that he’s learned in the week beforehand. To help you cut through the noise, he includes his favorite books and articles with a high signal-to-noise ratio. He also hosts a podcast called The Knowledge Project. I recommend this episode with Rory Sutherland.  In this episode, Shane reveals counterintuitive secrets to learning history through the lens of his recent trip to France. We also dissected one of my favorite mental models — why the map is not the territory. It’s a fascinating one that changed the way I see the world. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.  Links:  Farnam Street Syrus Partners The Knowledge Project The Map is Not the Territory Connect with Shane:  Twitter Farnam Street Connect with David:  Twitter Website

Listen Here: iTunes | Overcast "Everything you wear is a costume of some kind. Everything speaks to what you're thinking about, what you're feeling, what you represent, and where you're from - so it's very personal." Greg Rosborough is the co-founder and design director of Abasi Rosborough. As a fashion designer, he thinks about the interaction between anatomy and functionality. He designs in juxtapositions, combining ancient with modern, minimal with monumental, and interesting with ease.  Greg grew up in Tucson, Arizona where he attended the University of Arizona and worked for the men’s basketball team. Following Arizona, he moved to New York to study Menswear Design at FIT, where an internship at Ralph Lauren landed him his first job as a designer. He also founded UGallery, a curated online art gallery which now represents 500 artists and sells artwork in over 60 countries.  In this episode, Greg tells the story of his first trip to New York as an 18 year old, his visit to Bergdorf Goodman, and how it inspired him to become a designer. We talk about his travels to Japan, Istanbul, and Morocco, his favorite books, and how he's fused ideas from various disciplines including architecture and the US Military to redefine the men’s suit. Greg was a 2017 LVMH (Louis Vuitton) Young Fashion Designer Prize Nominee. This conversation will give you a glimpse into the thinking and creativity behind Abasi Rosborough. Links:  Zaha Hadid Meditations Man's Search for Meaning UGallery FIT Rick Owens Understanding Media About Abasi Rosborough: Greg Rosborough Neil Patrick Collins - Episode Producer  Greg Rosborough

My guest today is Mark Broadie, a Golf Statistician and Professor at Columbia Business School. I first found Mark through his book Every Shot Counts, which transformed golf statistics and analytics forever. Marcus worked with many of the world's best golfers, including Francesco Molinari, and Justin Rose, who became the world's number one golfer as a result of their work together. In this episode, we explore the nooks and crannies of golf statistics, we talked about how different kinds of grasses influence players, why approach shots play the biggest role in success for top golfers. We discussed the math behind the drive for show and putt for dough theory, and dive into the reasons why Tiger Woods was so dominant for so many years. Now I live for conversations like this. I love them. And spending an afternoon with Mark talking about strategy, statistics, and golf, the so called greatest game ever played is about as good as it gets for me. And we begin the conversation talking about the strokes gained measurement system which Mark invented, and which dispelled many of the myths and misconceptions about the game of Golf. I hope you enjoy this episode. SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST. SHOW TOPICS LINKS: Find Mark online: Twitter Columbia Business School Profile People mentioned: Tiger Woods Francesco Molinari Justin Rose Phil Mickelson Tommy Fleetwood Rory McIlroy Steve Stricker Other mentioned: Every Shot Counts by Mark Broadie PGATour.com SHOW TOPICS 1:45 Why drive for show, putt for dough is not really true, an elevator pitch of Mark’s strokes gained statistic, and which information on shots would Mark want access to that he doesn’t already have 10:25 Surprising conclusion about player performance around straight vs. dogleg holes, how does perception line up with statistic when it comes to player reputations, and correlations between birdies, bogeys, and driving distance 19:01 Is closer to the hole always better and what the exceptions to the rule, how the NBA changed it’s mind about three pointers, how Mark thinks about introducing changes to the way things are done in a sport, and the effect that different courses have on player psychology 32:12 The effect of different species of grass on the green on player performance, how some variants of grass are better for worse players, the horses for courses effect, and Mark’s counter-intuitive idea of which are the key holes on a course 40:51 How game theory affects driving decisions in 1:1 situations, what really separates the best players from the just good ones on a particular day among the pros, the TV highlight reel effect for long putts 53:54 How different golf course architects effect how players change their game, how ridiculously good Tiger Woods’ approach shot game was in his prime, and diving deeper into spin rates 1:05:00 How has being a golf statistician changed Mark’s own game, what the biggest mistakes that amateurs make, the most rewarding experiences that have come out of his work, and David and Mark piece together a story about the 2013 US Open 1:15:19 The next phase of Mark’s research that he is excited about