Podcasts about american kingpin

Tigran Gambaryan⁠ spent 8 months in grueling conditions in a Nigerian prison. But that's not what made him famous.Episode 52 of Beyond the Code dives into Tigran's incredible journey. For those of you who don't know, Tigran started off as an IRS special agent, where he used a simple Excel spreadsheet to reverse engineer the Bitcoin blockchain and track major crypto criminals such as those responsible for the Mt. Gox hack, Welcome to Video, Alpha Bay and Silk Road —earning him the nickname, “the man who broke Bitcoin”. After a decade in Government law enforcement, Tigran took up a pivotal role at Binance leading their financial crimes unit and fostering global regulatory ties. Tigran's story is one of innovation and grit, as chronicled in Andy Greenberg's Tracers in the Dark. But things took a turn for the worse for Tigran when he made a trip to Nigeria last February and what was supposed to be a simple training session spiraled into detention, interrogation, and bribes and imprisonment, exposing systemic corruption. After 8 grueling months in Nigeria's Kuje prison, through media pressure and U.S. diplomatic efforts, Tigran's release was finally secured and thankfully he is now home with his family. Links to videos and articles:https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Caa4X7GqTkQ https://www.wired.com/story/tigran-gambaryan-us-congress-resolution-hostage-nigeria/https://fmino.gov.ng/disregard-falsehoods-being-peddled-by-tigran-gambaryan-against-nigerian-government-officials-fg/https://www.wired.com/story/tigran-gambaryan-us-congress-resolution-hostage-nigeria/https://www.cryptotimes.io/2025/02/14/nigeria-used-binance-as-scapegoat-wanted-150-million-bribe-tigran-gambaryan/ https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1832182160918503643 For those interested, you can buy Andy Greenberg's book, Tracers in the Dark, on Amazon: https://a.co/d/3umNV17If you want to do it right (chronologically), start with Nick Bilton's book, American Kingpin (https://a.co/d/hTRVY2C), which tells the story of Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road. These books are imperative to understanding how the space migrated from basically a hub for libertarians, Cypher punks and criminals, into what it is today.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tigran-gambaryan-0852679a/ X: https://x.com/TigranGambaryan

En este episodio exploramos algunos de los temas más relevantes para inversores y emprendedores en 2025. Analizamos la caída de Tesla y por qué su descuento puede ser una oportunidad o una señal de alerta. Hablamos sobre los ataques a las concesionarias y el impacto en la industria automotriz. También debatimos sobre Real Estate como la industria ideal para quienes buscan estabilidad, más allá de la inteligencia o la innovación.Discutimos la reserva estratégica de Bitcoin y su papel en el futuro de las finanzas globales. Además, repasamos los métodos más efectivos de reporting para VCs y las preguntas clave que todo emprendedor debería hacerles antes de aceptar inversión. Por último, exploramos la fiebre del Cold Plunge y por qué se está convirtiendo en un ritual de alto rendimiento entre founders y ejecutivos.Un episodio cargado de insights, análisis y estrategias para emprendedores e inversores que buscan tomar mejores decisiones en 2025.

Episode 680: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Nick Bilton ( https://x.com/nickbilton ), investigative journalist and author of American Kingpin and Hatching Twitter.  — Show Notes:  (0:00) Intro (7:03) Inside a criminal mind (12:57) Getting people to open up (20:49) The real story behind Twitter (29:40) The auras of Trump, Bezos, Musk (33:13) Becoming a journalist (37:24) Steve Jobs' reality distortion field (43:16) Who has it all in Silicon Valley? (49:43) Being a professional asshole (57:56) Nick's next story (1:03:38) Storytelling — Links: • American Kingpin - https://tinyurl.com/yckc6smh  • Hatching Twitter - https://tinyurl.com/3ah2j9ym  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam's List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

By 2012, undercover DEA agents had cracked holes in an underground criminal conspiracy. It was the “Amazon.com of Drugs” – the Silk Road. But to take down its shadowy founder, they'd have to team up with a surprising number of federal agencies – and go to criminal lengths themselves. The audiobook edition of American Kingpin by Nick Bilton is available for Spotify Premium Subscribers in our Audiobook catalog, where you can check it out after listening to this episode. Conspiracy Theories is now on Instagram @theconspiracypod and TikTok @conspiracy.pod! Follow us to keep up with the show and get behind-the-scenes updates from Carter and the team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Secret societies have long been the subject of conspiracy theories. But this one was very real, just a few keystrokes away – if you knew where to click. Carter explores the Silk Road — a “shadow Amazon.com” — and its founder, who used it for a secret double-life. The audiobook edition of American Kingpin by Nick Bilton is available for Spotify Premium Subscribers in our Audiobook catalog, where you can check it out after listening to this episode. Conspiracy Theories is now on Instagram @theconspiracypod and TikTok @conspiracy.pod! Follow us to keep up with the show and get behind-the-scenes updates from Carter and the team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Aspertame bad?: https://www.cnet.com/health/nutrition/aspartame-diet-sodas-and-cancer-risk-making-sense-of-the-new-who-classification/ -BT audio getting another upgrade: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/06/qualcomm-s3-gen-2-sound-platform-portfolio-extended-to-deliver-b -VanMoof declared bankruptcy: https://slashdot.org/story/23/07/18/099236/vanmoof-the-most-funded-e-bike-company-in-the-world-declared-bankrupt?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -A competitor is making VanMoof's software available for customers: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1954394 -Corsair is buying Drop: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/07/17/168213/corsair-is-buying-mechanical-keyboard-maker-drop?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -Honor Magic V2 is the thinnest foldable smartphone: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1953631 -Threads usage drops by half: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/07/18/003225/threads-usage-drops-by-half-from-initial-surge?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -TikTok being banned from govt devices? Here's a compelling argument for that, and maybe the US in general. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/07/11/225202/tiktok-executive-admits-australian-users-data-accessed-by-employees-in-china -Remember that book that James shilled so much he bought a random person a copy of it? American Kingpin? Here's a related followup. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791602/silk-road-variety-jones-prison -Threads says it isn't trying to copy Twitter, but it kinda is… Threads Continues to Copy Twitter's Worst Elements With New Rate Limit Http://gizmodo.com/threads-introduces-new-rate-limits-just-like-twitter-1850650673 -AI in Politcal ADs. Is there a solution? https://gizmodo.com/ron-desantis-unleashes-ai-attack-ad-against-trump-1850650671

-Aspertame bad?: https://www.cnet.com/health/nutrition/aspartame-diet-sodas-and-cancer-risk-making-sense-of-the-new-who-classification/ -BT audio getting another upgrade: https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/06/qualcomm-s3-gen-2-sound-platform-portfolio-extended-to-deliver-b -VanMoof declared bankruptcy: https://slashdot.org/story/23/07/18/099236/vanmoof-the-most-funded-e-bike-company-in-the-world-declared-bankrupt?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -A competitor is making VanMoof's software available for customers: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1954394 -Corsair is buying Drop: https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/07/17/168213/corsair-is-buying-mechanical-keyboard-maker-drop?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -Honor Magic V2 is the thinnest foldable smartphone: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1953631 -Threads usage drops by half: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/07/18/003225/threads-usage-drops-by-half-from-initial-surge?utm_source=rss0.9mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed -TikTok being banned from govt devices? Here's a compelling argument for that, and maybe the US in general. https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/07/11/225202/tiktok-executive-admits-australian-users-data-accessed-by-employees-in-china -Remember that book that James shilled so much he bought a random person a copy of it? American Kingpin? Here's a related followup. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791602/silk-road-variety-jones-prison -Threads says it isn't trying to copy Twitter, but it kinda is… Threads Continues to Copy Twitter's Worst Elements With New Rate Limit Http://gizmodo.com/threads-introduces-new-rate-limits-just-like-twitter-1850650673 -AI in Politcal ADs. Is there a solution? https://gizmodo.com/ron-desantis-unleashes-ai-attack-ad-against-trump-1850650671

I'm delighted to welcome Daniel Doyon to the pod this week, co-founder of one of my favorite software services, Readwise. Every morning while I have my coffee, I look forward to checking out the daily email roll-up of five serendipitous snippets pulled from my entire library of Kindle highlights. In this conversation, we cover: how Dan and his cofounder handled the famous “hug of death” from Tim Ferriss recommending their service in his 5-Bullet Friday newsletter; the perils of premature optimization and why you should do things that don't scale; what to do when you do slam against a scale ceiling; the benefits of running a mission-oriented business; how we're handling the progressive atrophying of our attention for reading books, and our favorite page-turners that spark joy and as Dan says, “whisk you to the end.” More About Daniel: Daniel Doyon is the cofounder of Readwise, a reading tool that helps readers revisit the highlights from their ebooks by synchronizing and then sending a daily email resurfacing the best highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, iBooks, and more. He is also an expert in creative real estate acquisitions and partnerships, bibliophile, oenophile, and sailor.

Nadia Odunayo is the Founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, a new website and app for avid book readers because life's too short for a book you're not in the mood for. The StoryGraph helps you track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood, favorite topics, and themes. Victoria talks to Nadia about coming up with a product based on the concept of mood, what you're in the mood for to read, i.e., this book made me feel this way. How do I find a book that makes me feel similar? They also talk about keeping yourself open to feedback, the ability to flow and change direction, and developing a reviewing system that keeps biases in check. StoryGraph (https://thestorygraph.com/) Follow StoryGraph on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-storygraph-limited/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/the.storygraph/), or Twitter (https://twitter.com/thestorygraph). Follow Nadia Odunayo on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nodunayo/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/nodunayo). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Nadia Odunayo, Founder and CEO of StoryGraph, a new website and app for avid book readers because life's too short for a book you're not in the mood for. StoryGraph helps you track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood and your favorite topics and themes. Nadia, thank you for joining me. NADIA: Thank you for having me. VICTORIA: And you are a repeat guest at Giant Robots. But for those who missed that episode, tell me a little bit about your journey. And how did this all get started? NADIA: Okay. Yeah, so that first time was in 2015, and that was not too long after I had just got into tech. I did a bootcamp in London in 2014, Makers Academy, and that's where I learned to code. My degree was in philosophy, politics, and economics, so rather different. I worked at Pivotal for about a year and a half after I graduated from Makers Academy. And during my time at Pivotal, I got into conference speaking, and my first talk was around game theory. So I took my favorite topic in economics, game theory, and I combined that with distributed systems because that's what I was working on at the time in Pivotal on their Cloud Foundry PaaS. I think I gave it at RailsConf, and I think someone there recommended me to Giant Robots. And so Ben Orenstein interviewed me, and it was all about different types of conference talks and that kind of thing. So after Pivotal, I left and started a hybrid kind of consultancy/product company with a colleague, did that for about a year, left that, worked for about a year with my friend, Saron Yitbarek, on her company CodeNewbie. And then, when that partnership ended, I essentially had five years of runway from money that I got from the company that I started after Pivotal because we did some consulting with a bank. I'd always been entrepreneurial. I'd been doing various entrepreneurial things since secondary school, actually, high school. It was time for me to just have time on my side projects. And so I started hacking away on one of my side projects at the beginning of 2019 in January, and I haven't stopped since. That's what the StoryGraph has developed into. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And yes, I saw that the very early stages of StoryGraph started as a creative writing e-publication. Is that right? NADIA: So what happened was when I was at university, I started a creative writing e-publication, came up with the name The StoryGraph. Because we had won or we were going for some grant funding or something like that, I set up a corporate entity. And when I stopped working on that e-publication, I remember my mom saying to me, "Don't shut down the entity. I really like the name. I feel like you'll use it for something," that was in 2012. And so fast forward to 2019, and the side project that I was working on was called Read Lists. And it was very specifically focused on tracking and sharing progress through reading lists on a dashboard. But when I was doing customer research, and the scope of the project grew, Read Lists didn't fit anymore. And that's when I realized, oh, I can use The StoryGraph thing again. And so it's basically had two different lives or two different forms, the StoryGraph company. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. And I'm reading about StoryGraph and how it's an Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads. Can you talk a little bit more about the product and why people would want to use it? NADIA: So, as I said, it started life as a very specific focused side project. And I just had so much fun working on it and working in the book space. I'd always been a reader since I was a kid such that I said to myself, I need to find a way to make me building a books product a full-time thing. And so that's when customer research came in because the only way that you're going to make sure that you don't build something that people don't want is by talking to people. As I was doing customer research and figuring out, are there pain points amongst readers, people who track their reading? What would happen was the pain points that came up drove me towards building a more fully fledged reading, tracking, and recommendations product. It actually started as a very focused recommendations product. And then, we got to the point where we needed to build more around it for it to be a compelling product. And as it was growing, we never advertised ourselves as a Goodreads alternative or as an Amazon-free alternative to what was out there. But that was clearly a pain point in the market. There were tweets about us saying, "Finally a Goodreads alternative. It's small; it's independent; it's Amazon-free. And so thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people have come to us because of that. VICTORIA: Wow. NADIA: And so it got to the point...mainly when we launched our payment plan, and we were trying to figure out the reasons why people were pre-ordering the plan, it was at that point where we decided to lean into the Amazon-free Goodreads alternative because that was what the market wanted. VICTORIA: Was that surprising for you? Or were there other things that came out of your research on your marketplace that kind of were different than what you thought it would be going in? NADIA: I think the most interesting thing about the product development journey was that I at least originally felt like I was building a product that wasn't for me. So what I mean by that is in my earliest rounds of research, what I was finding was that people still didn't think that they had one place to get consistently good book recommendations. And so then I started to explore, well, how do you even give somebody consistently good book recommendations? And one of the factors that kept on coming up was this concept of mood, what you're in the mood for. This book made me feel this way. How do I find a book that makes me feel similar? And so it got to the point where I said to myself, oh wow, I'm building a product for mood readers right now; that seems to be the gap, that seems to be the thing that nothing out there yet had properly attacked. And I had never considered myself a mood reader. I just thought I'm a planner. I'm an organized person. I typically decide what book I want to read, and then I read it. And so there was a point where I was concerned, and I thought, wait, am I now building something that is not for me? But then, as I started to work and do more research and talk to more and more people and thinking about my reading experiences, I developed the hypothesis or the viewpoint rather that I think everybody's a mood reader; it's just the scale. Because there are probably some books that I may have rated lowly in the past that if I had read it in a different frame of mind, or at a different time in my life, different circumstance, it probably would have resonated with me a lot more. Now, that's not to say that's true for every single book. There are some books that are just not going to work for you, no matter what. But I do think we're all on the scale of mood reading. And sometimes we say a book is a bad book, but we just read it at not the right time. And so I think the most surprising thing for me is going on that journey of realizing that, oh, I am a mood reader too. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: And I ended up building an app that's a lot less focused on just the pure ratings. I was someone who, on Goodreads, if it had less than four stars, I'm not interested. And the ethos of the product is more about, well, hang on; these ratings are very subjective. And someone else's two, three-star could be your next five-star. What are the factors that really matter? Do you want something dark, adventurous? Are you looking for something funny, light? And then what kind of topics do you want to discover? And then it doesn't matter if the five people before you thought it was average; you might think it's excellent. VICTORIA: Yeah, it reminds me thinking about how bias can come in with authors and writing as well. So a simple five-star system might be more susceptible to bias against different genders or different types of names. Whereas if you have more complex numbers or complex rating systems, it might be easier to have different types of authors stand out in a different way. NADIA: That actually relates to what was going through my mind when I was developing the reviewing system on StoryGraph. You can just, if you want, leave your star rating and say no more, but the star rating is lower down on the page. And up front, we say this book would be great for someone who's in the mood for something...and then you've got checkboxes. And how would you rate the pace of the book? And if it's a fiction book, we ask you, "Are the characters lovable?" Is there a flawed narrator? Is it plot-driven or character-driven?" Questions like that because the thinking is it doesn't matter whether you are going to give the book two stars in your own personal star rating. You can still help someone else find a book that's good for them because they will be looking at the summary on the StoryGraph book page, and they'll go, "Oh wow, 80% of people said it's lovable. There's a diverse range of characters, and it's funny. So the topics fit things I'm interested in, so I care less about the average rating being like 3.5 because everything else seems perfect. Let me see for myself." And actually, we've also had a lot of feedback from people saying that "Oh, normally, I never know how to review a book or what to say. And this system has really helped me, almost give me prompts to get started about explaining the book, reviewing it for other people to help them decide if it's for them. So that's great." VICTORIA: That makes sense to me because I read a lot of books, maybe not as much as I would like to recently. But not all books that I love I can easily recommend to friends, but it's hard for me to say why. [laughs] You know, like, "This is a very complicated book." So I love it. I'll have to check it out later. It's been four years since you've been full-time or since 2019, almost five then. NADIA: Yes. VICTORIA: If you could travel back in time to when you first started to make this a full-time role, what advice would you give yourself now, having all of this foresight? NADIA: Have patience, trust the process because I can sometimes be impatient with, ah, I want this to happen now. I want this to pick up now. I want these features done now. I'm a solo dev on the project. I started it solo. I have a co-founder now, but I'm still the solo dev. And there were so many things, especially now that we've got a much larger user base, that people complained about or say is not quite right. And that can be really tough to just have to keep hearing when you're like, I know, but I don't have the resource to fix it right now or to improve it. But I think one of the things is, yeah, having faith in the process. Keep going through the cycles of listening to the customers, prioritizing the work, getting the work done, getting the feedback, and just keep going through that loop. And the product will keep getting better. Because sometimes it can feel, particularly in the first year when I was so low, you sometimes have moments of doubt. Or if a customer research round doesn't go super well, you start to wonder, is this only a nice-to-have? And is this going to go anywhere? And so that's one piece of advice. And I think the other one is knowing that there are several right paths because I think sometimes I would agonize over I want to do the right thing. I want to make sure I make the right choice right now. And, I mean, there are some things that are not good to do. You want to make sure that you're setting up your customer interviews in a non-leading way. You want to make sure that there are certain standards in the product in terms of the technical side and all that kind of stuff, so there's that. But I think it's understanding that you kind of just have to make a decision. And if you set yourself up to be able to be adaptive and responsive to change, then you'll be fine. Because you can always change course if the response you're getting back or the data you're getting back is going in the wrong direction. VICTORIA: I love that. And I want to pull on that thread about being open to changing your mind. I think that many founders start the company because they're so excited about this idea and this problem that they found. But how do you keep yourself open to feedback and keeping that ability to flow and to change direction? NADIA: I mean, I didn't set out to build a Goodreads alternative, and here I am. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: I just wanted to build this specific side project or this specific...it was a companion app, in fact. Like, the first version of the thing I built, the first thing you had to do was sign in and connect your Goodreads account so that we could pull in your shelves and start creating the dashboards. So as a solo bootstrapping founder, building a Goodreads alternative was not something that I thought was going to lead to success. But through years of experience, and just hearing other people's stories, and research, I just learned that it's such a hard space just running a startup in general, and 90% of startups fail. And I just said to myself that, okay, the only way I can kind of survive for longer is if I am open to feedback, I'm open to change course, I'm patient, and I trust the process. These are the things I can do to just increase my chances of success. And so that's why I kind of feel it's imperative if you want to go down this route and you want to be successful, it's vital that you're open to completely changing the product, completely changing your direction, completely going back on a decision. You'll either lose customers or you'll run out of money, whatever it is. And so yeah, you've got to just basically be quite ruthless in the things that are just going to minimize your chances of failing. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And now, I have a two-part question for you. What's the wind in your sails? Like, the thing that keeps you going and keeps you motivated to keep working on this? And then, conversely, what's kind of holding you back? What are the obstacles and challenges that you're facing? NADIA: I think this kind of role...so I'm like founder, CEO, and developer. In general, I think I thrive under pressure and pushing myself, and trying to always be better and improve. So I'm always trying to be like, how can I improve my productivity? Or how can I run the company better? All these kinds of things. So I feel like I'm getting to explore maximizing my full potential as someone in the world of work through doing this. So that just intrinsically is motivating to me. I love books, and I love reading. I think it's such an amazing hobby. And the fact that I get to make other readers happy is awesome. So even just as the product has grown, the messages that we get about if someone got a perfect recommendation from StoryGraph, or they hadn't read for years, and now an easy form of, you know, what are you in the mood for? Check a few boxes, and we'll show you some books that fit, whatever it is. That's just so...it's so awesome just to be able to enhance readers' lives that way in terms of the things they're reading and getting them excited about reading again or keeping them excited. So those are the things that keep me going, both the personal nature of enjoying my work and enjoying trying to be the best founder and CEO that I can and building a great product. It's always great when you build something, and people just enjoy using it and like using it. So I'm always incentivized to keep making the product better, the experience better. I'm currently mid a redesign. And I'm just so excited to get it out because it's going to touch on a lot of repeated pain points that we've been having for years. And I just can't wait for everyone to see it and see that we've listened to them. And we're making progress still like three and a bit years on since we launched out of beta. What's tough? Previously, what's been tough is navigating, remaining independent, and bootstrapped with just personally trying to make money to just live my life. So I had five years of runway. And it was this tricky situation about when I had a couple of years left, I'm thinking, wow, I really like doing this, but I'm going to need to start earning money soon. But I also don't want to get investment. I don't want to stop doing this. I can't stop doing this. We've got hundreds of thousands of customers. And so kind of trying to balance my personal needs and life situations with the work I've been doing because I've been working so hard on it for so long that in the last couple of years, it's gotten to a point where it's like, how do I craft the life I want out of a product that is very not set up to be an indie bootstrapped product? [laughs] Typically, you want to do a B2B. You want to start earning money from your product as early as possible. And I feel like I've landed in a product that's typically funded, VC-backed, that kind of thing. So kind of navigating that has been a fun challenge. There's not been anything that's kind of demoralized me or held me back, or made me think I shouldn't do it. And it's just kind of been a fun challenge trying to...yeah, just navigate that. And we've been doing things like we're currently in the process of transitioning our...we have a Plus Plan. And when we launched it, it was essentially a grab bag of features. We're completely changing the feature set. And we right now have six and a half thousand people who are on that plan. But we don't have product market fit on that plan, and I can tell from when I do certain surveys the responses I get back. And so we're completely transitioning that to focus in on our most popular feature, which is the stats that we offer. And so that's kind of scary, but it's part of making that Plus Plan more sticky and easier to sell because it's going to be for your power users who love data. So they want all the data when they are reading. And then the other thing is, okay, what kind of business avenue can we start which fits in with the ethos of the product but brings in more revenue for StoryGraph? And so, we launched a giveaway segment in our app where publishers and authors can pay to list competitions for users to win copies of their books. And it's essentially a win-win-win because publishers and authors get another channel to market their books. Users get to win free books, and readers love winning free books. And StoryGraph has another revenue source that helps us stay independent and profitable, and sustainable in the long run. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. And there are two tracks I want to follow up on there; one is your decision not to seek funding; if you could just tell me a little more about the reasoning and your thought process behind that. And you've already touched on a little bit of the other ways you're looking at monetizing the app. NADIA: Since I was a teenager, I've always been interested in business, economics, entrepreneurship. I've always felt very entrepreneurial. I've read so many founder stories and startup stories over the years. And you hear about venture capitalists who come in, and even if it's fine for the first year or two, ultimately, they want a return. And at some point, that could come at odds with your mission or your goals for your company. And when I think about two things, the kind of life I want and also the nature of the product I'm building as well, VC just doesn't fit. And I know there are so many different funding programs and styles right now, a lot more friendlier [laughs] than VC. But I'm just focusing on VC because when I was younger, I used to think that was a marker of success. VC funding that was the track I thought I was going to go down, and that was what I kind of idolized as, oh my gosh, yes, getting a funding round of millions and millions and then building this huge company. That was how I used to be, so it's so interesting how I've completely gone to the other side. That idea that you could have mismatched goals and how it's ruined companies, once you take the first round of funding and you grow and expand, then you've got to keep taking more to just stay alive until some liquidation event. That just doesn't appeal to me. And I just think there's something ultimately very powerful and valuable about building a product without giving up any ownership to anybody else and being able to make it into something that people love, and that's profitable, and can give the people who run it great lifestyles. I just think that's a mark of an excellent product, and I just want to build one of those. And then I think also the nature of the product itself being a book tracking app. I think the product has done well because it is run and built so closely by myself and Rob. And so it's like, people talk about how, oh, you can tell it's built for readers by readers by people who care. And I run the company's Instagram, and it's not just me talking about the product. I'm talking with a bunch of our users about books and what we're reading. And it really feels like it's just got such a great community feel. And I worry that that can get lost with certain types of investment that I've previously thought that I wanted in my life. And so, yeah, that's the reason why I've kind of strayed away from the investment world. And then it's gotten to the point, like, now we're at the point where we don't need funding because we've been able to get to profitability by ourselves. So we don't need any type of funding. And we're just going to try and keep doing things to keep making the product better, to convert more people to the Plus Plan. And, hopefully, our giveaways platform grows in the way we want such that our goal is to just stay profitable and independent forever for as long as possible. And we think that way, we're going to have the most fun running the company, and the product is going to be the best it can be because there's not going to be competing incentives or goals for the product. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And it sounds like, in reality, in the real case, you had a team, and you had the skills yourself to be able to move the product forward without having to take on funding or take on additional support, which is awesome. And I actually really like your background. I also have a degree in economics. So I'm curious if the economics and philosophy, all of that, really lends itself to your skills as a founder. Is that accurate? NADIA: I don't think so. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: I love my degree. I get sad when I meet econ grads or econ majors, and they're like, "Oh, I hated it. Oh, it was so boring," or whatever. I'm like, "No, it was so great." I'm a big microeconomics fan, so I was all about...I didn't like macro that much. I was all about the game theory and the microeconomic theory, that kind of stuff. I don't think there's anything that really ties into my skills as a founder. I feel like that's more to do with my upbringing and personality than what I studied. But, I mean, one of the reasons I did love my degree is because there are elements that do crop up. It's such a widely applicable...the subjects I did are so widely applicable, philosophy, different ways of seeing the world and thinking and approaching different people. And then, obviously, economics that's essentially behavior, and how markets work, and incentives, and all that kind of stuff. And when you get to pricing and all those sorts of things, and business, and then politics as well, I mean, everything is politics, right? People interacting. So there are definitely things and conversations I had at university, which I see things crop up day to day that I can tie back to it. But yeah, I think it doesn't really...my specific degree, I don't think it's made me a better founder than I would have been if I'd studied, I don't know, English or Math or something. VICTORIA: Right, yeah. I think economics is one of those where it's kind of so broadly applicable. You're kind of using it, but you don't even realize it sometimes. [laughs] NADIA: Yeah. MID-ROLL AD: thoughtbot is thrilled to announce our own incubator launching this year. If you are a non-technical founding team with a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our eight-week program. We'll help you move forward with confidence in your team, your product vision, and a roadmap for getting you there. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator. VICTORIA: So what made you decide to go to a bootcamp right after finishing school? NADIA: So I'd always been entrepreneurial. I remember...I don't know where exactly it started from, whether I got it from my mom. I know she's always been very entrepreneurial and into business. The earliest memory I have of doing something that was very specifically business-oriented was in what we call sixth form in the UK, which is essentially the last two years of high school before you go to university or college; we had this scheme called Young Enterprise. And essentially, you got into teams of people, small teams, or they could be quite big, actually. It could be up to 20 people. And you started a business, and there were trade shows, and pitch meetings, and all that kind of stuff, so I remember getting involved in all that sort of stuff at school. But I'd always been on the investment banking track because when I was young...so my parents...we come from a poor background. And so my parents were very much like, you know, try and find high-paying careers to go into so that you can pay for whatever you want and you have a much better lifestyle. So I had gotten onto the investment banking track from the age of 14 when I went with a friend...at the school, I went to, there was a Take Your Daughter to Work Day. My dad said, "Oh, you want to go to try and find someone whose parent works in an investment bank or something like that. That's like a great career to go into." And so I went with a friend's dad to UBS. And I remember being blown away, like, wow, this is so fascinating. Because I think everything seems so impressive when you're 14, and you're walking into a space like that, and everything seems very lively. And everyone's walking around dressed sharp. They've got their BlackBerries. So from the age of 14 until 20, it would have been, I was very much I am going to work in an investment bank. And I did all the things that you would do, like all the schemes, the spring programs. And it got to my final internship. And I just remember at the internship being rather disillusioned and disappointed by the experience. I remember thinking, is this it? I was studying at Oxford, and I put so much into my studies. And I remember thinking; I'm working so hard. And this is what I come to? Is this it? And so around the time as well, I was also meeting a lot of people in the entrepreneurship space, social enterprises, people doing their own ventures. And I just remember thinking, oh, I feel like I've got to go down that track. And I ended up winning a place on a coding course. It was set up specifically to help more women get into tech. And it was called Code First Girls. I won a place that started...it was just part-time. What I did was I actually...I got the banking job from Deutsche Bank, it was, but I decided to turn it down. It was a very risky decision. I turned it down, and I stayed in Oxford after graduating and worked in the academic office for a while. And then, twice a week, I would go to London and do this coding course. And during it, on Twitter, I remember seeing a competition for a full-paid place at this bootcamp called Makers Academy. And I just thought to myself, having tech skills, I'd heard the feedback that it's a very powerful thing to have. And I remember thinking I should go for this competition. And I went for the competition, and I won a free place at the bootcamp. If I didn't win a free place at the bootcamp, I'm not sure what would have happened because I'm not sure whether at that point I would have thought, oh, paying £8,000 to go to a software bootcamp is what I should do. I'm not sure I would have got there. So that's how I got there, essentially. I won a competition for a bootcamp after having a taste of what coding was like and seeing how freeing it was to just be able to have a computer and an internet connection and build something. VICTORIA: Oh, that's wonderful. I love that story. And I've spent a lot of time with Women Who Code and trying to get women excited about coding. And that's exactly the story is that once you have it, it's a tool in your toolset. And if you want to build something, you can make it happen. And that's why it's important to continue the education and get access for people who might not normally have it. And you continue to do some of that work as well, right? You're involved in organizations like this? NADIA: Like Code First Girls? No. I did some years ago. I would go and attend Rails Girls workshops and be a mentor at them, at those. And while I was at Pivotal, I helped with events like codebar, which were essentially evenings where people who were learning to code or more junior could come and pair with someone more senior on whatever project they wanted to. So I did a bunch of that stuff in the years after leaving Makers Academy. And I was even a TA for a short time for a couple of weeks at Makers Academy as well after I graduated. But in more recent years, I haven't done much in that space, but I would love to do more at some point. I don't have the bandwidth to right now. [laughs] VICTORIA: And you're still a major speaker going and keynoting events all around the world. Have you done any recently, or have any coming up that you're excited about? NADIA: So before the pandemic, my last talk, I keynoted RubyWorld in Japan. That was in November 2019. And then the pandemic hit, and 2020 June, July was when StoryGraph had some viral tweets, and so we kicked off. And amongst all of that, I was being invited to speak at remote events, but it just didn't make sense for me. Not only was I so busy with work, but I put a lot of hours into my talks. And part of the fun is being there, hallway track, meeting people, being on stage. And so it just didn't appeal to me to spend so much time developing the talk to just deliver it at home. And so, I just spent all the time on StoryGraph. And I remember when events started happening again; I wondered whether I would even be invited to speak because I felt more detached from the Ruby community. Most of the conferences that I did were in the Ruby community. StoryGraph is built on Rails. Yeah, I just thought maybe I'll get back to that later. But all of a sudden, I had a series of amazing invitations. Andrew Culver started up The Rails SaaS Conference in LA in October, and I was invited to speak at that. And then, I was invited to keynote RubyConf, that was recently held in Houston, Texas, and also invited to keynote the satellite conference, RubyConf Mini in Providence, that happened a couple of weeks earlier. And so I had a very busy October and November, a lot of travel. I developed two new talks, a Ruby talk and a StoryGraph talk. It was my first ever time giving a talk on StoryGraph. It was a lot of work and amongst a lot of StoryGraph work that I needed to do. All of the talks went well, and it was so much fun to be back on the circuit again. And I'm looking forward to whatever speaking things crop up this year. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. I'm excited. I'll have to see if I can find a recording and get caught up myself. Going back to an earlier question, you mentioned quite a few times about market research and talking to the customers. And I'm just curious if you have a method or a set of tools that you use to run those experiments and collect that feedback and information. NADIA: Yes. So I remember one of the first things I did years ago was I read "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick. And that's great for just getting the foundation of when you talk to customers; you don't want to lead them on in any shape or form. You just want to get the raw truth and go from there. So that's the underpinning of everything I do. And then, I learned from friends I made through Pivotal about how you put together a script for a customer research. You can't just have bullet points or whatever. You should have a script. And the foundation of that script is a hypothesis about what you're trying to find out in that round of research. And once you figure out your hypothesis, then you can put together the questions you want to ask and understand how you're going to measure the output. So the first ever thing I was trying to find out when I first started interviewing people was just very general. It was just like, are there any pain points? I was just trying to figure out are there any pain points among the avid reader group of people? And then I remember the results from that were, "No place for consistent, high-quality recommendations." And so then I said, okay, how are people finding recommendations now, or what are the factors that lead to people thinking a book was great for them? And that's how I ended up getting to the moods and pace. But when I do my interviews, I record them all. I watch them back. And I condense everything on sticky notes. And I use a virtual tool. And I try to take word for word. When I summarize, I still just try and use their specific words as much as possible. So I'm not adding my own editing over what they say. Every single interviewee has a different color. And I essentially group them into themes, and that's how I unlock whatever the answers are for that round. And then I use that...I might have been trying to find out what to build next or whether we should go down a certain product direction or not. And so, depending on the outcome, that helps me make up my mind about what to do. So that's the high-level process that I follow. VICTORIA: Well, that sounds very methodical, and interesting for me to hear your perspective on that. And you mentioned that you do have a redesign coming out soon for StoryGraph. Are there any other particular products or features that you're really excited to talk about coming up soon? NADIA: Yeah, I'm so excited about the redesign because we're bringing out...it's not just a UI improvement; it's a user experience improvement as well. So there are a lot of little features that have been asked for over the years. And actually, it was trying to deliver one of them that sparked the whole redesign. So people really want a marked as finished button. There's no way to mark as finished. You just toggle a book back to read. And some people find this quite counterintuitive, or it doesn't quite explain what they're doing. And so when I came to deliver the mark as finished button, this was months and months ago now, I realized that the book pane was just becoming so cluttered, and I was trying to fight with it to squeeze in this link. And I remember thinking; this is not the only thing people want to see on the book pane. They also want to see when they read the book without having to go into the book page. They also want to be able to add it to their next queue. And I just said, you know what? I need to redesign this whole thing. And so I was able to luckily work with Saron Yitbarek, who is married to my co-founder, Rob. There's a funny story about all of that. And she helped me do this redesign based on all my customer research. And so I'm just so excited to get it out because the other thing that we're bringing with it is dark mode, which is our most requested feature in history. And it's funny because I've always felt like, ah, that's a nice-to-have. But obviously, for some people, it's not a nice-to-have; it's an accessibility issue. And even me, I'm quite strict with my bedtime. I try and be offline an hour before bed. In bed by 11, up at 6, and even me if I want to track my pages, I'm like, ooh, this is a bit bright. And my phone itself is set on adaptive, so it's light mode during the day and dark mode during the night. And even me, I can see why people really want this and why it would just improve their experience, especially if everything else on your phone is dark. So I'm really excited to get that out, mainly for the UX improvements. And the other thing I'm really excited to do is transition the Plus Plan to being the advanced stats package rather than the random selection of features right now. Because not only will the people who pay us get more complex stats functionalities such that they feel like, wow, the subscription fee that I pay not only does it still make me feel like I'm supporting an alternative to Goodreads, an independent alternative to Goodreads I also get such value from these extra features. But the other thing is what I found from my customer research is that if you're a Plus customer, there's often one or two of the Plus features that you love and that you don't really use the others. But they're all really great features. And so what I'm really excited about is that we're going to make all the non-stats features free for everybody. And so I'm so excited for, like, we have a feature where if you put in a group of usernames, we look at all of your to-read lists and suggest great books for you to buddy-read together. Now, there's a bunch of Plus users who aren't social and don't care about it. But there's going to be a bunch of our free users who are so excited about that feature, probably will use it with their book clubs, things like that. We have up-next suggestions where we suggest what you should pick up next from your to-read pile based on a range of factors. It could be, oh, you're behind on your reading goal; here's a fast-paced book. Or this book is very similar to the one that you just finished, so if you want something the same, pick up this one. And, again, that's behind a paywall right now, and I'm just so excited for everybody to be able to use that. When I remember starting out with StoryGraph, I remember thinking, wow, the way this is going, wouldn't it be so cool if we could just suggest books that would be the next perfect read for you? Because a lot of people have a pile of books by their bedside table or on their shelves, and they're just like, well, which one should I start with? And this tool literally helps you to do that. And so I can't wait for everyone to be able to try it. And so that's why I'm excited about that transition because the Plus Plan will be better, and the free product will be better. VICTORIA: That sounds amazing. And I'm thinking in my head like, oh, I should start a book club with thoughtbot. Because there are some engineering management and other types of books we want to read, so maybe we could use StoryGraph to manage that and keep ourselves motivated to actually finish them. [laughs] NADIA: Cool. VICTORIA: No, this is wonderful. And what books are on your reading list coming up? NADIA: Yes. I am excited to read...I'm not sure...I'm blanking on the series' name. But the first book is called "The Poppy War." I don't know whether it's called "The Burning God" or if that's the third book in the series. But it's this very popular trilogy, and I'm excited to read that soon. I'm doing a slow chronological read of Toni Morrison's fiction. I recently read "Song of Solomon," which was great, really, really good. And so I'm excited to read more of her novels this year. I'm also on a kind of narrative nonfiction kick right now. I love narrative nonfiction. So I just finished reading "American Kingpin," which is about Silk Road. And I've picked up "Black Edge," which is about SAC Capital and Steve Cohen and that whole hedge fund insider trading situation. So I'm probably going to look for more of the same afterwards. VICTORIA: Well, that's very exciting. And it's inspiring that as a founder, you also still have time to read [laughs] and probably because StoryGraph makes it easy and motivating for you to do so. NADIA: Yeah, everyone thought that my reading would tank once I started the company, but, in fact, it's multiplied severalfold. And a couple of reasons; one is it's very important in general for me to make time for me because I'm in a situation that could easily become very stressful and could lead to burnout. So I make sure that I make time for me to read and to go to dance class regularly, which is my other main hobby. But then, secondly, I feel like I can justify it as work. Because I say, wow, me being a reader and being able to communicate with people on Instagram and on Twitter about books, not just the product, adds legitimacy to me as the founder and developer of this product. And so it's important that I keep reading. And it also helps the product be better because I understand what features are needed. So, for example, I never used to listen to audiobooks. I'm a big podcast person; I love music. So between those two, when does audio fit in? And also, I didn't like the idea that I could just be absent-minded sometimes with some podcasts, but with a book, you don't want spoilers. It could get confusing. But I started listening to audiobooks because we had a large audiobook user base. And they would ask for certain features, and it was really hard for me to relate and to understand their needs. And now that I have started listening to audiobooks as well, we made some great audiobook listeners-focused additions to the app last year, including you can track your minutes. So you can literally get you read this many pages in a day, but you also listened to this many minutes. You can set an hours goal for the year, so not just a reading goal or a pages goal. You can set an hours goal. Or maybe you're someone like me, where audiobooks are the smaller proportion of your reading, and you just want it all calculated as pages. And so I've got it on the setting where it's like, even when I track an audiobook in StoryGraph, convert it to pages for me, and I just have my nice, all-round page number at the end of the year. VICTORIA: That's so cool. Really interesting. And I've had such a nice time chatting with you today. Is there anything else that you'd like to share as a final takeaway for our listeners? NADIA: If you are someone who wants to start a company, maybe you want to bootstrap, you've got a product idea, I think it's honestly just trust the process. It will take time. But if you trust the process, you listen to customers and really listen to them...research ways to talk to customers, and don't cut corners with the process. There have been so many times when I've done a whole round of research, and then I say, oh, do I have to go through all these now and actually do a synthesis? I think anecdotally; I can figure out what the gist was; no, do the research. You don't know what insights you're going to find. And I think if you just trust that process...and I think the other thing is before you get to that stage, start building up a runway. Having a runway is so powerful. And so whether it's saving a bit more or diverting funds from something else if you have a runway and you can give yourself a couple of years, a few years without worrying about your next paycheck, that is incredibly valuable to getting started on your bootstrapping journey. VICTORIA: Thank you. That's so wonderful. And I appreciate you coming on today to be with us. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Mastodon at Victoria Guido. This podcast is brought to by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Nadia Odunayo.

Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a contributor to CNBC, a former columnist for The New York Times, and author of American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. [Note: This is a previously broadcast episode from the vault that we felt deserved a fresh pass through your earholes!] What We Discuss with Nick Bilton: How does a merit badge-bedecked Eagle Scout become the head of a thriving online black market worth a billion dollars? What are the costs of maintaining a double life? What’s the real reason Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht was caught? What is Nick Bilton’s unique research process for covering a story like this? Is everyone susceptible to the level of Ross Ulbricht’s mix of ambition, hubris, and self-deception, or does it require a certain personality type? And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/764 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our two-parter with Bridgewater Associates founder and world-famous investor Ray Dalio? Start catching up with episode 389: Ray Dalio | Principles of an Investing Pioneer Part One here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!

Sam Parr is the creator of The Hustle – a media company that has sold for tens of millions by the time he turned 32. In this conversation, we spoke about why Sam was nervous to talk to Ariel Helwani, how he met his wife, some of his spiciest tweets, what he really thinks about psychedelics, how to get rich before your 32nd birthday, and why getting sober was the key that set him free. (0:00) Hasan Minhaj (3:45) Ted Turner (4:37) Sacrifices worth it? (5:44) Anti MBA (first blog) (8:32) Big cities (9:50) Individual sports (11:10) Ariel Helwani (13:13) Cross-country motorcycle trip (16:16) Seeking out new experiences (17:33) How to manifest (19:53) Quitting (20:24) Energy (21:03) Living in Austin/NYC (23:38) Sober (26:45) Almost hired Airbnb (29:03) Chip on shoulder (31:14) Early days of The Hustle (33:33) Copywork (35:28) Hypnotherapy (38:01) Ross Ulbricht (41:20) Crypto (42:50) $10,000,000 by 30 (46:31) Craigslist office (48:50) Manifestation of $20m by 30 (52:49) Online vs. offline balance (53:50) Getting jacked (58:22) Meeting Shaan Puri (1:00:50) Successful people (1:04:19) Sam's weird habits (1:08:01) Psychedelics (1:11:10) Getting knocked out (1:12:29) Modern cigarettes (1:15:20) Big Restaurant Energy (1:16:30) How Sam met his wife (1:19:11) Successful people (1:23:45) Sam as a criminal (1:25:20) The right spouse (1:30:05) Asking questions (1:32:09) Less is more (1:38:36) USA (1:42:40) 80-year-old Sam's advice to present-day Sam (1:45:45) Outro - Resources Mentioned https://trycopythat.com/ https://gracesmithtv.com/ American Kingpin by Nick Bilton – https://www.amazon.com/American-Kingpin-Criminal-Mastermind-Behind/dp/0143129023 Instagram post – https://www.instagram.com/p/sRM0m3g9Ul/?hl=en 30 Lessons For Living by Karl Pillemer – https://www.amazon.com/30-Lessons-Living-Advice-Americans/dp/0452298482 - Sam on Twitter – https://twitter.com/thesamparr Sam's Podcast – https://www.mfmpod.com/ - Continue the conversation with me...

Sony Honda Car, Foxconn Halts Production, The Walking CPU, Mechanical Goat, Exoprimal, iOS gets Xcloud update, Deep Hole Geothermal, Gotham Knights in October, Temp based screen tactile, Covid Booster number 2, Steam on Chromebooks, Steam Deck gets Windows Drivers, New Stadia, Games as a Therapy, EV backup battery, Daylight savings update, American Kingpin, iOS 15.4

Good morning everybody! Welcome back to the Motivated Entrepreneurs podcast. Today we have a book review and it's called "American Kingpin" by Nick Bilton. In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government's watchful eye. It wasn't long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone—not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers—could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site's elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. Hope you enjoy this episode. Please give a listen. Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2VkXGHq Listen on Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/39TYebQ Motivated Entrepreneurs Website: https://motivatedentrepreneurs.co.uk/ Please Like, Share, and Subscribe to Motivated Entrepreneurs Youtube Channel: https://bit.ly/3eA64u5   Cheers, Dean

Shaan Puri (@shaanVP) and Sam Parr (@theSamParr) discuss FarmCon 2022, how Shaan got Covid, tech startup ideas for the farmer economy, how to develop value and a sense of mystique in your personal brand, and much more.  _____ * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. _____ Show Notes: (00:18) - Should babies pick their own name? (02:50) - Shaan gets Covid (08:22) - How to have Slack meetings (10:15) - FarmCon and business ideas for the farm economy (51:20) - How to create personal brand equity (59:00) - Sam's short term rental crew (01:01:15) - Steady.capital (01:06:22) - American Kingpin (01:11:50) - Announcing the winner of the clips contest ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

On episode 89 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss gifted book recommendations, letting employees hire for new roles, and helping your children negotiate job offers.  Listen below (click this link if you don't see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS: 2:30 - Shoutout to JLee's brother-in-law, Eugene! 5:00 - Tim is on yet another vacation with his wife and family to Hawaii! He bought a few books for this trip and he asked the crew if they were going to give a book to someone for the holidays, what book would they give? 6:30 - KD's recommendations include Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday and American Kingpin by Nick Bilton.  8:00 - JLee recommends Plant Therapy for the plant lovers and Act like a leader, Think like a leader by Hereminia Ibarra for the business folk. Tim recommends Living, Loving, and Learning by Leo Buscaglia.  13:00 - Lots of great book recs this episode! KD recommends fiction writer Douglas Copeland 14:20 - Tim recently wrote a blog post asking “what if we let our normal employees make a hire?”. This would involve almost none of the normal application process; no interview, no resumes, no filler.  17:00 - KD says that to an extent, companies already do this with the adage “everyone's a recruiter”.  19:45 - Tim thinks that small orgs can test this hiring practice and do it on a much smaller scale rather than a huge scale at a major corporation.  23:45 - JLee tells a story about her first interview at Marriott. JLee wasn't a typical hire since she didn't come from a huge brand and a prestigious university.  26:00 - Tim says you have to be careful on who you hand this hiring responsibility too but notes that some companies that are struggling to find employees have nothing to lose. 27:00 - Tim's son and podcast producer, Cam, just recently accepted a new job offer. He asked Tim if he should negotiate his job offer and Tim said of course. Tim was super nervous that as soon as he negotiated, that his offer would get pulled.  31:30 - KD asks JLee about how many managers would step away from an offer if someone tried to negotiate with them. JLee thinks less than 10%.  ---------------Jessica Lee, Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett Kinetix HRU Tech Jessica Lee on LinkedIn Tim Sackett on Linkedin Kris Dunn on LinkedIn The Tim Sackett Project The HR Capitalist Fistful of Talent Boss Leadership Training Series

Today I have a unique show covering a topic many of us don't give enough attention to, insurance. Rob Martin and Tori Hoeschler from the Horizon Agency are well versed on most things happening with Outdoor Sports Insurance and have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the outdoor industry, risk management, and challenges facing outdoor brands and shops across the country. Brought to you this month by Grammarly. Facebook Twitter Instagram   The Outdoor Biz Podcast   Please give us a rating and review HERE   Show Notes   How you were introduced to the outdoors Rob?  I grew up in Boulder, Colorado for the most part, and was skiing at a very early age and camping every weekend. And continued on at the University of Colorado. Then left in the Vail Valley for five years after that. So I'm born and raised in the outdoor industry. Tori, how about you? Yeah, I too would have to give all of the credit to my parents. My Dad, who's actually the founder of our outdoor sports insurance program and a former Olympic skier himself, and a major outdoor enthusiast. He would put me in a Jansport backpack as an infant go skiing with me down the hill. So I would say essentially from the point that I started to show signs of walking, I was in a pair of ski boots. It's kind of one of those things where it's hard to be in my family as well and not be an avid out outdoor enthusiast. Did you have an outdoor job, Tori? Not in the retail space. I would say the closest thing I had to an outdoor job was when I was younger, like high school, I was a nanny for a lot of summers. And then one of the summers, I was nannying in a neighborhood where there were a ton of kids and a ton of other nannies. And we basically joined forces and started what was kind of like a summer camp to entertain all of the kids all at once. We would just do all kinds of things, like go on hikes and go out to the lakes and do events like that. So that I think would probably be the closest thing to my first outdoor type job. Rob, how about you? I guess my first outdoor job really was out of college. I had an environmental management degree and worked for a fisheries biologist and got to run all over Colorado doing studies on the river and, shocking the river to do fish studies and those sorts of things. That job ended with some funding issues but I went up to Vail for the rest of one season and stayed five years, managing mountaineering shops. So that was what led to this career path. Rob, how did you actually get into insurance? So my first insurance gig was, was this gig. I met Tory's father, and she's going to talk about Jake here in a minute. But we were at a wedding in California and got paired up on a golf course and I was looking to do something different. He had started what was then the ski insurance, what was the national ski insurance program in Minneapolis. And I took a chance and came up and started working for him. And that was Twenty-five years ago. Tori? It's kind of funny because I really never had any intention of going into insurance. I have to say, you know, it's not necessarily a typical career path that people are like . . . when I grow up, I want to be an insurance broker. But you know, it is a program that I was effectively raised with if you will. And it's one that my dad started back in the eighties. He actually went to school out in Colorado and then went to law school at the University of Denver. When he completed his education he had a ton of friends from that area and also from his skiing days. And he saw that a lot of his friends went into the business side of the outdoor sports in the retail space also, in the manufacturing space, but mainly in the retail space. He was seeing a lot of these ski shops, just getting totally clobbered with these crazy frivolous lawsuits. So he happened into insurance himself kind of by accident. But then he thought, okay, well I have my insurance license. I have a law of degree and I have all these friends who are at the business end of insane suits. So that's where he got the idea for this outdoor sports program. Then I actually got into the insurance side of things about 15, 16 years ago, where I started out as an underwriter on the carrier side. And they say, once you get into insurance, you rarely get out. What types of insurance do you focus on for outdoor businesses? It's commercial insurance or business insurance. The bread and butter of our program are what we do for retailers and brands, so we are helping the retailers. Obviously, they need affordable insurance, they need the right coverages, but they also have unique exposures to things like rentals and demos and special events. And putting people in outdoor recreation gear comes with its own concerns. We also work very closely with them in regards to providing waivers and risk management training and all those sorts of things. Then on the brand side, it really is more product liability focused. We write all lines of coverage, but understanding the product liabilities is what we need to do there. And obviously, we see all kinds of different outdoor businesses from Outfitters to guides, to special events, kind of anything and everything we like to say. We want to help everybody in the outdoor industry, and that's what we try and do. Tell us about the top three insurance-related issues that many of our businesses are missing these days. This is an excellent question and you kind of hit the nail on the head with what I would say is the number one insurance-related issue that a lot of outdoor sports businesses are still not taking as seriously, or it's just not a line of insurance that they feel like they want to add to their insurance costs any further and that has to do with cyber liability. Currently, you are 10 times more likely to have a cyber event than you are to experience any kind of property damage, like a fire or something like that. And I think a lot of these businesses just kind of think of this in the context of those major hackings that are in the headlines where all these credit card numbers have been taken and that's what the hackers are after. And that's really not the case. What has really become quite a plague I would say in any industry sector, is this cyber extortion. And any type of business, if they use the internet in any way, shape, or form, they are exposed to this. And as I said, cyber liability is just not really a policy that people care to talk about. Cause they all say, well, we don't save anything on our servers. In addition to cyber, I would say on the retail side of things typically that we see outside of our OSI program is an outdoor sport retailer could have their standard property as well as their general liability coverage. But what they don't realize is, especially when it comes to the GL side, they actually are probably not going to be properly covered if they are involved with any kind of rentals or any kind of demos, or special events. Those policies very specifically exclude injuries for the people who happen to partake in those types of events. That's what makes the OSI program so amazing is that all of that insurance, all of that coverage is automatically built-in. That's somewhere there's going to be a major blind spot if you don't have the proper third-party liability coverage. Then with the manufacturers, a lot of times what we see is many of these manufacturers, actually make their products outside of the US, and then they import them in and they don't have the proper international coverage. Any insurance policy is going to say that the coverage territory is on a worldwide basis, but all that means is that the injuries can take place anywhere in the world. But typically if a person is going to try and seek some type of damages, they have to bring the suit back here in our country. And a lot of companies don't realize what a massive gap in insurance that is. There are policies out there that can be properly tailored to the international landscape. We don't see those as often as I think we should. And that's where we certainly can step in and, and help out on that front. An event could be anything from a clinic where all your employees are in the shop in the evening, and a rep's giving training to some kind of a swap meet. So people have these sales in the parking lot, where they sell stuff or it could be some kind of an event outside. What is the range of events on that? We have retailers that are obviously trying to compete with direct-to-consumer and Amazon and the rest of the world. And so they're trying to differentiate themselves in their communities and be that go-to shop. And a lot of times they're doing that, whether it's a demo day or a Mountain Fest or an educational clinic, whatever the case might be. And they can do those things in our program. We just want to work with them to make sure that we've got a proper waiver in place and that everybody that's involved, like if they're maybe partnering with a local brewery and serving beer or whatever the case might be. We've just got to walk them through that and make sure that they can go have a good, fun, safe event. And how do these small outdoor businesses handle the cost side of insurance? Because it can be pretty expensive, right? It's a little bit of a difficult question to answer because so many of the reasons why the costs of insurance are so high these days really have nothing to do with the actions of any one policy holder. Basically, it's what's happening in the overall climate and the overall American market overall. Up until 2005, The United States was averaging, I would say anywhere from six to seven catastrophic events every year. That would be like a hurricane or a wildfire or some kind of insane flood. Between 2005 and 2021 however, that average has now increased to over 20 events a year. And when we say catastrophic events, we're talking about events that cause hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. So the insurance carriers have just been shelling out a ton when it comes to property claims. And then even on the liability side, the cost of healthcare just continues to go up. So that's going to make the cost of a third-party injury suit to be expanded as is the cost of these attorneys. So the way that we try to set our policyholders up for some type of success and to help us to manage their insurance costs, is we tell them to do everything that they can to mitigate their own exposure, you know, stay on top of your game, have the proper waivers, have the proper training for your employees, help us help them to showcase them as excellent managers of their own risk. I'll just add too, we've been at this 35 years now. And our program is big enough now we're really unique and don't have a lot of competition out there from the standpoint of we can absorb some of these bigger claims. Whether it be a seven-figure liability claim or a work comp claim or whatever the case might be based on the volume of premium that we have in this program and the relationships with the carriers that we have. We've been with the same carrier for over 30 years on our retail. And there's kind of safety in numbers in a way that we can stick with a client. even if their number comes up and they have a bad lawsuit or they have a bad property loss, we're not going to cancel them. We're going to stick with them. And it's all viewed across that whole program premium, which really puts us at an advantage. I'm sure there is a handful of future law-related landmines business owners should be aware of, what are some of those? We talked a little bit about the ADA piece, right? The ADA compliance and website accessibility have become this kind of new frontier of petty plaintiff lawsuits. What this involves is where an attorney we would otherwise refer to as the ambulance chasers if you will they will have a day job actually, and so they'll hire somebody who has a visual impairment. And then they'll just tell them to go on to a bunch of different websites, effectively to see if the websites have been set up in such a way where there is the appropriate code that can then talk to the computers of people who have a visual impairment. And if the websites in any way can not accommodate that, then these attorneys just send them a demand letter and say you were out of compliance with the ADA laws and you have caused our client to suffer some type of discrimination. We would like a settlement of like 14 or 15 grand. And in some cases that they just will send a super generic form, it won't even be specific to the shop. And they're just saying, we've been able to ascertain that you're out of compliance. So that's really been a landmine. And the thing is that is actually an exposure that is not a covered exposure by insurance. So that's an area where in addition to having really awesome coverages elsewhere in OSI, we really try to educate all of our policyholders and make them aware of these things. Because even though we don't have a solution for you, we still want you to be aware of this and help you sidestep these other exposures, where the insurance won't be able to pick up the tab if you will. And beyond that, Rick, I think, just in general, on the property side of things, we're all watching what's going on with climate change. Right. Our friends, friends in South Lake Tahoe, dodged a bullet, I think last week. We've got a ton of business in that area, but being able to provide affordable property insurance is going to be the challenge in the future. And then on the liability side, the legal climate out there, we've got these very liberal jurisdictions that are given these jury awards that, you know, were unheard of in the past. And so we've really got to be vigilant to make sure that we've got coverage, and we've got the right adjusters and attorneys defending these claims so that we can continue to provide affordable insurance for these outdoor companies we work with. You do a lot of business with industry groups, like the OIA and the SIA. Tell us a little bit about that. What we do with those groups is really just be a partner for them so that their members have a place to go to, to find proper, affordable insurance. And we've worked with OIA and SIA for decades. Now we work closely with the buying groups, whether it's GOA or SMC and SSL on the ski side, recently we started working with the BRA, which is the board retailers association. We really liked working with those industry groups so they know who we are and how we can benefit their members. And they've been great partners for us for years. Do you work with any nonprofit groups, like the Alaska Wilderness League or anyone like that? We do see non-profits that need insurance. A lot of that, again, is circling back to event-based things, whether they are an outdoor education type company, We've got a reasonably big program for the bike share industry. So most of the cities across the country, we'll set up a nonprofit. They want the liability off the city books and we work with those nonprofits.  So we see a little bit of everything in the for-profit and non-profit world. Do you have any suggestions or advice for folks wanting to get into the insurance side of the business? What's that career path? It's a great career, but it's a career that takes a long time to build. When you start off, hopefully, you have a good company behind you that trains you properly and gives you the right resources and support that you need. But eventually, you build a book of business and a book of clients. And hopefully, they're all renewing with you every year and like what you're doing for them. And, and it's a great career in that you don't have to go start from scratch every year as a lot of sales jobs. You've got that renewal book behind you, and then you can hopefully write new business every year and continue to grow. But there's a lot of education in licensing and things like that, that go into it. But I would certainly encourage anyone that's interested, you know, there's not a lot of people to do what we're doing in regards to the outdoor space and we could use more. If you were able to hang a huge banner at the entrance of the OR show or The Big Gear show, what would it say? Rob- We're unique and we're best in class as far as the solution for businesses in the outdoor industry. Tori- Have us do what we do best so that all of our insureds can get back to doing everything that they enjoy doing best. Do you guys have any favorite books or books you give as gifts? Rob- I like the business books and Yvon Chouinard's Let my People go Surfing is a book I've given to a few people that need some encouragement, whether it be in the outdoor space or just taking an entrepreneurial attitude towards life. Tori- I tend to like either real fiction stories or the nonfiction space. I like to do things that have a lot of weird stories in them. So a favorite book that I've been giving out is American Kingpin. It's the story of the guy who founded the Dark website called The Silk Road, which was basically like the dark web Amazon for all things illegal. What is your favorite outdoor gear purchase under $100? Tori- Hand Warmers Rob- Headlamp Follow up with Rob and Tori Website: outdoorsportsins.com email: osi@horizonagency.com Call TOLL FREE: 1-800-491-2858 Snippets 07:01 - 07:41 What types of insurance do you focus on for outdoor businesses? [EP 295] 08:19 - 08:41 Tell us about the top three insurance-related issues that many of our businesses are missing these days. [EP 295] 14:40 - 15:07 How do these small outdoor businesses handle the cost side of insurance? Because it can be pretty expensive, right? [EP 295]

I finished American Kingpin today and it was a wild book. I talk about a huge lesson learned from that book.

On episode 48 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee come together once again to discuss having to go to the bathroom during a video call, fake commute routines, and what to do for a one year WFH anniversary! Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS: 3:20 - JLee tells the crew that her sister was born in MI, where Tim lives.  She can’t remember where in the state she was born so we’re going to need an update on that! 5:45 - JLee brings up the Air Force Ones appearance at the Inauguration a few weeks ago. Tim says that those shoes went for $5,000 on StockX! 6:30 - First topic of the episode: you’re on a Zoom call and you have to go to the bathroom. What are you supposed to do?  7:30 - KD thinks best practices are having all cameras on but that complicates the bathroom issue. 10:00 - JLee sometimes gets ready for the day in the bathroom while on a video call. Can you hear the echo from people that get ready in the bathroom? 12:00 - Are you experiencing Zoom fatigue? Tim thinks it’s BS because there are just as many calls as before but some were not video. KD thinks that the number of video calls has declined since the earlier days of the pandemic.  13:30 - JLee mentions the rise of “fake commutes”. She misses the transition she used to get from being a parent to work life throughout the morning.  16:00 - KD spends his “commute” time sleeping in instead of trying to recreate his work commute. 19:00 - Second topic: Silkroad Technology conducted a survey among office workers and executives and found ⅖ office workers plan to resign because of how their companies handled the pandemic. 22:00 - KD thinks Silkroad is the Dark Web. Tim and JLee don’t know how to access the Dark Web and we want help! Tim and JLee are interested ;) 23:00 - KD recommends reading the book American Kingpin by Nick Bilton about the creation of the Dark Web! 24:45 - KD and Tim are a little confused by the 40% of people who want to quit their jobs because they can’t think of that many companies that have really fumbled a COVID response. 28:00 - JLee thinks there needs to be some humility and grace for those trying to handle ‘unprecedented’ times. 31:00 - It’s coming up soon that we’ve been working virtually for a year. An employee on JLee’s team mentioned celebrating the one year anniversary and maybe getting a WFH gift for their teammates. JLee asked Tim and KD what ideas they have for a WFH gift. 36:00 - JLee’s brother-in-law went through a Gary V rabbit hole and found that he is bringing value to old sports cards. 

Let's explore ten of the best business-related books to give as gifts for birthdays, new years, Christmas, or any other special event you might be celebrating. For this list, I've focused on compelling books that are FUN to read and are often entertaining. They relate to business, but can be enjoyed by almost anyone so they make great gift ideas.CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE, BOOK LINKS, AND MORE:

Recently I was asked by Rachel Pedersen what my favorite books are and why. So I wanted to share three that I’m loving right now. On this episode, Russell gives you his top 3 book recommendations and explains why they are so important to him during the phase of life that he’s in right now. ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I'm going to drop on you some of my favorite books that I'm reading right now. Hey, everybody hope you guys are doing awesome. So we're getting closer and closer to Halloween, depending when you're listening to this. Halloween was my favorite holiday for basically my entire life. I went trick-or-treating until I was 21 years old. And those who are like, "Wait Russell, weren't you on a mission when you were at 19 and 20? And the answer is yes, and yes, I dressed up as a Mormon missionary going door-to-door, because I already had the costume on. I got free candy. It was awesome. Oh, it was the good old days. Anyway, I love trick-or-treating. I love Halloween, love everything. In fact, when my kids were born, I was like, "This is the greatest thing in the world. Halloween was amazing before, it's even more amazing now." And went trick-or-treating every single year until about three years ago. Three years ago was when I bought my Batman suit. We launched Expert Secrets, our affiliate prize was to give away these Batman and Iron Man suits. I got my own custom-fitted, it was so cool. And I was so excited because that Halloween I was going to be Batman, legit Batman. And I was going to put on the suit and I was just so excited for it. And I remember it was a long day at the office, I got home as quick as I could, and I was trying to… oh, and the kids had wrestling practice. We got wrestling practice and come back. And kids gets home and I'm getting them all ready, giving them dinner, because I have to race back to the office to get the Batman suit on, which is an hour long project to get that suit on. I'm so excited. Feeding the kids, about to race back to the office and all of a sudden doorbell rings. And I go to the door and it's one of Ellie's friends. And friend's like, "Hey, is Ellie here?" I'm like, "Yeah, but what are you doing here?" She's like, "I'm coming to go trick-or-treating with Ellie." I was like, "What?" I'm like "I trick-or-treat with my kids." Ellie runs over, "Oh, bye Dad, I’m heading out.” I'm like, "No, you can't." And Collette is like, "Why not?" Because this is my holiday, you can't take my daughter trick-or-treating. And Ellie took off with her friends, she was gone. And a few minutes later the boys got calls from their friends and they're like, "We're going, we're going trick-or-treating." And they took off. And I remember, I wasn't ready for it. I don't know, it's like the kids leaving home, only worse. I wasn't ready for it. And I remember they were all gone and it was Aiden and Norah. Norah was tiny at the time, she was maybe two at the time. And so I didn't get my Batman suit on. We go out to the car and got Norah's suit and everything and put her in the car seat. By the time we got in the car she passed out and she was out cold. And so it was Aiden, me and Collette. So we drove to this neighborhood. Aiden got out with Collette, started trick-or-treating, and I passed out in the car. And that was the saddest day of my life. I miss Halloween. Anyway, I come to grips with it now. My kids are awesome. They can have friends. It was just, I wasn't ready for it. You know what I mean? You're planning your kids are going to leave the house someday, and then all of a sudden they just leave, without any preparation. Anyway, so Halloween was my favorite holiday until that year. And now my favorite holiday is 4th of July, because I spend more money on 4th of July than any sane human. And so because of that, everybody comes to me. And I'm doing that to compensate for Halloween being stolen from me by kids. Anyway, that's how I really feel. I'm just joking. Anyway, that's a true story. So 4th of July is my new favorite holiday, but it always was Halloween. And so as Halloween gets closer, I still get excited. I'm not going to lie, I love the leaves falling and the seasons changing and pumpkins and candy and just all the things. So anyway, one of our family traditions is every year for Halloween we go to Albion, Idaho, where there's this old college campus. It's in early 1900s, there was a thriving college here. In 19, I don't know, 1920 or something, it went out of business. So it's been vacant for 100 years. And a couple of years back, this family bought it and they renovate the whole thing and turn it into, one of the dorms they turned into a bed and breakfast. And then the rest of it, they turned to haunted houses. There's a zombie house, a clown house, and it's these old creepy buildings from the early 1900s. And anyway, it's insane. So we go every year. This year we took two of our friends, Rachel Peterson and her husband, Paul, and they came with us, which was really, really fun. So anyway, on the trip down, Rachel asked me, says, "What are your favorite books you're reading right now?" Everyone time someone asks me that question about books, I always freeze, because there's so many. I'm obsessed with books. I have more books than anybody I know. And I buy them every day and tons more. And I don't read most of the books, I listen to most with audio. But I buy the physical book too, because I like having physical books. Anyway, all sorts of turmoil. I sat there like a deer in headlights thinking. I kept thinking and thinking and I realized right now ... And it's tough, because you know how it is, different seasons of your life there's different books and all those kinds of things. So anyway, I'm in a season of my life I'm actually really excited for. I'm preparing, not really, I'm mentally thinking about my next book. I think I told you guys before, my next book. I bought the domain bootstrap.com. So the book's going to be called Bootstrapped, and it's going to be the ClickFunnels story, how we did it. It's going to be different, because all my other books have been how-to books, right? How to get traffic, how to build a funnel, how to write copy, things like that. But this book's not going to be how-to, this is the story of it. And so I've been obsessed, listening to books about companies and people telling their story about how they built the company. And so I've been listening to a lot of those lately just to understand how to write that way and how to tell stories that way that's different, right? It's different than how I've typically done things. So for me to be able to write this book, I'd have to change my skillset. And this hopefully is a side lesson for everyone. A lot of times when we have to do the thing we want to do, we have to learn something completely different, right? A lot of you guys, if you were a business before and you come into our world, you're like, "Oh my gosh, business is different online." We have to change how we think. And so for me it's the same way. For me to write this next book, I have to learn how to write differently. And I understand that and respect that. I'm paying attention to it, I'm trying to learn it. So anyway, so I've been listening to a lot of books about companies, about their stories, because I want to hear how people tell their stories. And so my three books I want to recommend to you today are all books about people with companies. And they're good for a couple reasons. Number one, they're fascinating books. Number two, they're really good storytellers. The way they tell their story was fascinating, where I was sucked into the book and I couldn't stop. In fact, two of these books I've listened to twice, and one I will probably listen to again. I just finished it yesterday, so that's why I haven't listened to it twice yet. That's rare for me. I don't normally read things twice, because I have so many books coming in. But two of the three books I have already listened to twice, which is a testament of how good of a story that they actually are. So with that said, in no particular order, I'll give you my three books. Number one book. And this one I'm nervous to tell you guys about, because it's the dark side of entrepreneurship, okay? A lot of times you hear stories about, "Oh, here's how so-and-so built their company." And it's this positive thing and there's ups and downs and trials and tribulations. But for the most part it's a positive experience, right? This is actually a book about a website called The Silk Road, which is a website that's on the dark web that sold illegal drugs. And so it's the negative side of entrepreneurship, but it's one of the best stories ever. So the book is called American Kingpin, okay? American Kingpin. And the premise of it is there was this kid, think he's 22, 23 year-old kid, he's libertarian and he felt that people should, if they want to do drugs, they should be able to do drugs. If they want to do it themselves they should be able to do it, right? And so he talks about that a little bit, and then he had this idea for a website where it's the type of site where people can come and buy and sell drugs on the dark web and he'd take a commission of every single sale that happened, right? And so that was this idea. Now the problem is that he didn't know how to code and it was illegal to make what he's trying to make, so he couldn't go hire coders on Script-Lance or oDesk like we would, it's illegal. So he had to teach himself coding. Then he started building the site. And it's crazy. I don't want to ruin the story, but it is amazing. He basically ends up building this empire. And he had every government agency coming trying to take him down, from DEA, FDA, FTC, all of them were trying to come and get him and none of them could figure out who he was. And so the story is just so fascinating. The way it's told, oh, it's so good. And one of my favorite parts is there's a scene where he's in downtown San Francisco, he's walking around, he's looking at all of the tech buildings, right? These huge companies worth billions and billions of dollars. And he's walking around by himself with a backpack on looking at these buildings and realizing that his company was worth more than any of these buildings, but if he told anybody about it, he'd have to go to jail. How cool is that? Even though everything he was doing was illegal, he was still an entrepreneur, went through the same trials and problems and ups and downs that we have to go through. And so I love this book. It was amazing. It's called American Kingpin. And it is the first one that I wanted to recommend. Also, the writer who wrote it is ... I literally, I tried to message him like, "Hey, would you want to write my book for me? Because you are such a good writer." At the end of the book, he tells about how he did it and talks about the tens of thousands of hours of research and all the papers and documents and court cases he had to go through to write this book. And he went on to say that on top of him just going and actually writing the book, he didn't just be like, oh… he looked at, what was the weather in San Francisco on that day? What was happening here? Happening here? When he's telling the scenes of the story, it was actually like what was really happening at the time. Oh, anyway, it's so good. I listened to it twice. I'll probably listen to it again, it's that good. I think they're going to make a movie out of it. Apparently there's a documentary made about it, but the documentary is horrible. Don't even watch the documentary about Silk Road. Just read the book, because it is insane and it's worth your time. So there's book number one. All right. Before I open up to book number two, I've got a secret message here about a cell phone number. And I want you guys all to text here in a few seconds. So I'm going to take a pause and do a really quick promo for the community, my texting community, and how you can get on it right now. All right. By the way, I'm having fun with the texting community. I've been sending out cool stuff every day, at least I think it's cool. Audio messages every morning, giving motivation ideas, inspiration. So if you're not on it yet, go and get in there. All right. Book number two. You guys ready for number two? Number two is a book called Lost and Founder. And this is a book by a guy named Rand Fishkin. And I love this book for a couple reasons. Rand started a company called SEOmoz, and he started about the same time I was getting started. So I had a chance to watch what he was doing. And Rand, I have so much respect for him. I think we both look at the world differently. I think he would disagree a lot of things I believe, I disagree with things he believe, from how to run businesses. But man, I have so much respect for him. And I remember watching, because I went the whole, bootstrapped, build a company through ads and funnels and things like that, and he went the other way of building a really good product and raise money and things like that. And it was interesting because looking at the outside, I never knew if I was right or if I was wrong, "Should we be taking out money? What should we be doing?" And in fact, in my book, Bootstrapped, there was this chance meeting where Rand actually came to Boise and spoke at an event. I showed up to the event. He told the story about Moz, how he took on money, his whole thing. And I remember listening to the story. In my head I'm like, "Okay, the next step for ClickFunnels is for us to take on money." And when he got done, normally I would leave something like that, I'm too introverted and shy, but one of my friends, BJ Wright, was there with me. He was like, "Let's go talk to Rand, let's go talk to him." I'm like, "Oh, okay." So BJ pulled us up there and BJ asked him, basically said, "Hey, you took on money, was it worth it? Tell us the real story." And Rand was very raw and honest and like, "No, it ruined everything." He went on, he's like, "I suffered depression." He's like, "I had to quit from CEO." He's like, "I don't even have my own car. I don't make that much money." And just going into the whole things. I remember when he got done telling me this whole thing, I remember getting in my car and voxing Todd and everybody on my team, "We are not taking on money no matter what it takes." He literally diverted me from taking on money. If it wasn't for him saying that, the next phase for ClickFunnels was to take on money. And so, because of that we didn't. And it was interesting, because publicly in his presentation, where he's telling the story about taking on money, but then privately, he literally told us don't do it. And I remember always thinking about that and wondering how he felt. And after he left Moz, a couple of years later he wrote a book called Lost and Founder. And Lost and Found founders is him telling a story. And in his book he explains the dangers of VC money at a level that I have never understood before. It was so clear and concise and oh, I'm so grateful for that book. Grateful for Rand, first off, for steering us in a different direction. But second off, the book is such a good illustration of why. And I hope you guys, especially my world, where we're talking about how do you go funnels, bootstrap things, man, that book was one of the best to show the opposite side of that, what happens when you do take on money and the scary side of business that a lot of us aren't aware of until it's too late. So Lost and Founders is book number two, super well written. Rand's an amazing writer, and just someone I have a ton of respect for. So that's book number two. All right. You guys ready for book number three? My third and final choice today is the book I finished last night, which is called Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. And a Shoe Dog is the story about Nike. And I've had so many people who told me to read this book over and over and over, and I kept fighting it, fighting it. And finally, it was actually interesting, Dean Graziosi told me I had to read it. And I was like, "Oh yeah, I've heard that by a lot of people." He said, "No, you need to read it for a different reason than everybody else." And I was like, "Why?" Dean and I talk about our kids a lot, and Dean and I both have children that we had butt heads with and struggled with sometimes. And he said that there's this part in Phil Knight's story where he had two children and he said that one of the kids he never could figure him out. It's like this puzzle, could never figure it out. And he always just struggled. Said his son would not wear Nike's. His son, whatever his dad wanted, he wanted to do the opposite and just, it was really hard. He said eventually, I think his son was 28 years old, he ended up passing away in a tragic accident. And one of the things he said in the book, he said, "Man, if I can do my life over again, I would've focused more energy on trying to understand the puzzle of my son". Oh, I'm getting emotional. Anyway, so that was the reason why ... After Dean told me that, he's like, You should read it, because I think for both of us ... " He's like, "We need to spend more time trying to understand our kids that we struggle with." And so I said, "Okay." And so I started to read the book and oh, so glad I did, for so many reasons. Number one, just helped me to understand that and put more focus on my kids, which I think is so important. And number two, it's just a fascinating story of the story of Nike. I didn't know all the story, how it happened and all the things he went through to make it possible. And anyway, it was such a good book, and I hope you guys have a chance to read that one as well. So there are my three books. Number one, American kingpin, number two, Lost and Founder, number three, Shoe Dog. All amazing books. Again, it's so hard to have a comprehensive list of all the amazing books in the world. But I thought three that are telling stories of companies, they will inspire you, they will motivate you to get you ready to build your company or give you ideas for the next steps in your company. And then also, how it relates to your life and your family and things like that. I think those books are amazing. Hope you enjoy them. With that said, I appreciate you guys all. Please, take a picture. If you enjoy this, take a picture of it, post it on Instagram or Facebook, wherever you post it, and then tell me your favorite books in the comments and tag me. And I'd love to hear what books you're reading so I can decide what to read next. Thanks everybody. And I'll talk to you soon.

Seira Wilson, Vannessa Cronin, and Chris Schluep talk about their favorite true crime books (and some shows, podcasts, and Audible Originals). Books include: “The Stanger Beside Me” by Ann Rule, “Shot in the Heart” by Mikal Gilmore, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” by Michelle McNamara, “The Bloody Alphabet Coloring Book,” “American Kingpin” by Nick Bilton, “The People Who Eat Darkness” by Richard Lloyd Parry, “Helter Skelter” by Vincent Bugliosi, “Zodiac” by Robert Graysmith, “Party Monster” by James St. James, “Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe, “Bad Blood” by John Carreyrou, “Killers of the Flower Moon” by David Grann, “The Death of Sybil Bolton” by Dennis McAuliffe Jr., “MS-13” by Steven Dudley, “The Organ Thieves” by Chip Jones, “Dancing with the Octopus” by Debora Harding, “We Keep the Dead Close” by Becky Cooper, “Furious Hours” by Casey Cep, “The Feather Thief” by Kirk Wallace Johnson, “Nut Jobs” by Marc Fennell, “The Book of Atlantis Black” by Betsy Bonner, and “Dopeworld” by Niko Vorobyov.

Two cool ways to help you read faster, and actually remember and implement the things that you learned. I was at this mastermind recently and I was talking to a good friend of mine, Alex Hormozi (who used ClickFunnels to help grow his GymLaunch business from Zero to over $50 Million in just a few years), and he said… “Russell, I don’t read a lot of books. I read a few books multiple times.” And I thought that was so profound.  (He’s read my book “Expert Secrets” 9 times). So for retention, Alex reads just a few books many times. It gets better! I recently discovered something where you can read books quickly AND retain way more information. And I mean WAAAY more! I’ve taken a few speed reading courses in my life and nothing seemed to work. But this technique I stumbled upon is AMAZING! And it’s so simple… So check out this episode if you want to become a super speed reader AND comprehend more of what you read! ---Transcript--- What's up, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. So excited to be with you guys today. In fact, right now I'm actually on the location at a secret film shoot. Well, I guess it's a secret now, won't be secret after the video goes live. Hopefully billions and millions of people see it, but we filmed some really cool ads today and had a quick break and thought I would jump on and say hey to you guys. Last week I was actually up in a mastermind group up in Northern Idaho at Priest Lake with a bunch of cool guys. And I had two big epiphanies, two takeaways, two cool things I want to share with you guys about reading. The first is so that you can actually read more. So if you want to get more books done, you got a whole bunch of books you want to get through or you just got that one book you're stuck on, you can't figure how to get through it. This will help you to be able to read faster and the second one is to help you actually retain more. That way, the things you're reading, you're actually able to use them and implement them as opposed to just reading just to hear stuff and keep moving on like most people do. So those are the two things we're talking about when we get back from the theme song. All right, so like I said, I was up this mastermind group up in Northern Idaho, a bunch of really cool people there. But one of my favorite people hanging out with is Alex Hormozi. And I had so much fun with him up there and I'm not going to lie. Part of the reason why I wanted to tell you this is because it inflated my own ego, so I am going to take that because it feels good. So I was talking to him and we were talking about books and stuff like that. And he looked at me and he told me, he's like, "Russell, first off, I understand that the new hardbound versions of Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets are a million times better than the originals." I was like, "Thanks, man. I appreciate that." He's like, "No. No. Really. I don't think you understand how many times I've read these books." He's like, "I don't read a lot of books because of that what I do is that I start it and I read it and I read it slowly and when I get to the end, I flip it over and I start over again." He's like, "I read Expert Secrets." I think he said like nine or 10 times since it came out, which is crazy. He said Dotcom Secrets probably five or six times and Traffic Secrets, same thing, like five or six times. And he said, "Most people they try to read a lot of books. He said, "What I do is I try to read one book a lot of times," and I thought that was so profound. I think there's this thought or this belief in society especially in the entrepreneurial world that you have to read a book a week and stay on top of and have all this information inside your brain, but I don't think that's true. In fact, I remember Steven Larson funnel hacking live two years ago. We talked about that. I said, "You hear all the time that CEO reads a book a week." He said, "The problem is that none of us are CEOs right now. We're entrepreneurs. Our job is not to try to learn this broad, vast knowledge about lots of things. It's figure out this one thing, like how do I get this business into orbit right? That's the only thing we should be focusing on." And I remember Steven talking about that said, "Look, we're not CEOs at this point." He's like, "Russell's maybe a CEO, but not even there yet. We're entrepreneurs. There's a difference. We should not be reading a book a week." And then when Alex said this, he said, "I don't read a lot of books. I read a book a lot of times." That was like this big takeaway. I think for so many of us, we try to read a lot of books. I think that if we start shifting our thoughts like Alex's, you'd have more success, and to put in perspective, Alex is probably one of if not the fastest growing companies on the Click Funnels platform right now. It's insane how much they've done, how big they've grown. And it comes from reading one book lot of times. And then I asked him, "So what's your favorite book of all three?" And he's like, "Well, what's your favorite book?" I told him, "I think my favorite, I think is Dotcom Secrets." That was my foundational to the funnel world. He told me he's like, "My favorite is definitely Expert Secrets by far," as his favorite. And I ran a poll on Instagram and asked him, it was crazy because most people liked Expert Secrets the most, but Expert Secrets is one that sells the least of the three books, which is interesting. Dotcom Secrets, well, I think Traffic Secrets would probably end up selling the most because it's the most general. Dotcom Secrets is probably number two and Expert Secrets is the hardest to sell, but that's his favorite. And most people who respond to the survey say that Expert Secrets was their favorite. Another thing I want to kind of re-stress this, he said that the new updated versions are way better. Dotcom Secrets is laid out better. It's more thought through. Expert Secrets moved to a whole new level of frameworks and it's a lot more in depth. So anyway, if you don't have the new updated hardbound versions, this is my challenge to you to go get the new ones. They are that much better. They're a lot better things. Trust me on that. If you don't have all three, if you go to secretstrilogy.com, you can get the entire box that you can just pay for it once and get the whole box shipped out to you. So secretstrilogy.com. Anyway, so that's the first thing. If you want to retain more stuff, the key is not to read a lot of books. It's read one book a lot of times, okay? Again, Alex said as soon as he gets to the end of the book, he flips it over and it starts over. So that was cool. The other side of this, this is not how I gave to Alex, actually when I was reading the Traffic Secrets books, there were a couple of books I needed to read out of research because I was like, "I know there's something in here I want to make sure I understand before I finish writing these books, but I didn't know how to get the stuff in my brain fast enough." You know what I mean? I was like, "I can't sit down and read these books and take forever." And so instead what we did is I sat down and took the book and I don't know if you've tried to speed read before. I've taken a lot of speed reading courses and I can read pretty fast. So I was trying to speed read the book. I'm like, "I'm not going to finish this book." It's hard to keep pace when speed reading. So I got the audio book. I put it like 4X speed, but then I couldn't keep up with it because it's like going so fast. And I had this idea. I was like, "What if I did them both at the same time? What if I have the book, by listening to the audio version on like 4X speed and then reading along my hands," it was crazy. When I did that, I'm able to... first off, you can read way faster if someone's reading it to you, right? So I can cruise through it, like with my hand in the book. But the second thing is like, if something in the audio goes too fast, I see the words as well as your brain picks it up more. And so I can retain and I can understand so much at 4X speed when I'm listening and reading it same time. A couple of these books I was trying to get done in during my research phase, I read the entire book in less than 90 minutes, which is crazy. Normally it would take me, I'm not a fast reader, so it probably take me a day, day and a half, to get a book like that done and a little over an hour it was done. In my head, I understood it and comprehended it and had it at a deep level because I saw it as well as hearing it like dual modalities. Right? And so for me, I understand there's something like I need to get this in my brain or I have to get through a lot of heavy reading. I get the audio and the text and I do it together. In fact, some years I've been geeking out Atlas Shrugged, which is like a 1600 page book. And the first, I don't know, two or 300 pages is kind of heavy to get through. I knew I wanted to get through it so I could get to the good stuff. That's exactly what I did. I was on my vacation on the house. I had my big old fat book, I had my audio book, cranked up to 4X speed and I was reading it with inside the book as I was listening to it. And it got me through the hard part of the book, to get me deep into the part where I was like enjoying it and loving it and I just listened to the book at normal... well like 2 and a half speed the rest of the book after I got past the first two or 300 pages. And so this is the trick. I told her. I told Hormozi that and then he... I told him I had my favorite book right now. It's called American Kingpin. If you guys haven't read it yet, it's so good. It's my gift to you right now to go read that book. I told him about that book and it's a big book and he jumped on the plane and then he downloaded the Kindle version of the book and then the Audible version. And on his flight home, he got through the entire book, which is a huge book that took me like two or three weeks to get through. And he messaged me, he's like, "I finished American Kingpin. That was amazing." I'm like, "You finished? I saw you like 12 hours ago." He was like, "Yep, it's done. I never get through books fast." And he's the one that I told you earlier just flips over and keeps reading. And the fact that he was able to get that entire book in his brain that fast was pretty cool. So anyway, I thought those were two really cool reading hacks. Number one is instead of reading a lot of books, read one book a lot of times. And number two, listen to the audio while you read it and then you can go a lot faster. You can increase it to double speed, 3X speed, 4X speed and still remember and retain and understand it. And that way as you're going through it, you can really get more information to your brain. So I hope those two reading hacks help. I hope you get more done. I hope you get more ideas in your head, help you get through some books and help you really master the things inside the books you need to understand and actually learn. So that's all I got for you guys for today. I'm going to go down and finish this video shoot. We got some funny scenes coming up with Mentos and Funnels and Coke and a bunch of other cool stuff. So you have to wait to see the video. It's going to be amazing. All right. Appreciate you all. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a screenshot here on your screen and then tag me on it @RussellBrunson on Instagram and use #marketingsecrets. And tell me what book you're either reading more than once and or the book you listen to with audio literacy with the book you guys are reading. And if for some reason you don't have the box set yet, go to secretstrilogy.com, get my box set, get the audio books there as well as well, and then you can go in and listen and read at the same time. All right, thanks you guys. Appreciate you all and I'll talk to you all again soon. Bye everybody.

Selected clips from ep24: [0:00] Kickstarting the Silk Road Marketplace | [3:29] Finding an invisible and anonymous master criminal | [7:46] The slow decay of ethics as power increases. These are Clips taken from our chat about American Kingpin by Nick Bilton. We tell the story of the ultimate free market, launched by a 26-year-old programmer. It is both an incredible manhunt and a look at the inner workings of a global criminal business. Show notes, books mentioned and all episodes can be found at http://abstractable.co/ We hope you enjoy. --- Subscribe to receive new episodes weekly. Watch video of episodes on our YouTube channel - Abstractable.

See more We tell the story of the ultimate free market, launched by a 26 year old programmer. It is both an incredible manhunt and a look at the inner workings of a global criminal business. Today's episode is inspired by book American Kingpin by Nick Bilton. [34:52] Kickstarting the Silk Road Marketplace - Below a threshold of participants, networks and markets don't work. So how did the digital silk road kick owner build its traffic to kick start the engine, whilst still remaining anonymous? [1:02:55] Finding an invisible and anonymous master criminal Finding criminal master minds takes some serious problem solving. What better way to solve a problem than to think laterally and look for similar cases. The answer, in this case, comes from a curious IRS agent - and it's not for tax fraud! [1:22:14] The slow decay of ethics as power increases - This story fits the historical mould for someone becoming what they set out to stop. History continually repeats itself and this is no exception - what happens in the relentless pursuit of idealism. See more As with each episode, we pluck out what most resonated from the book and how we would like to bring it into our lives. Show notes, books mentioned and all episodes can be found at: http://abstractable.co/ We hope you enjoy. --- Subscribe to receive new episodes weekly. Watch video of episodes on our YouTube channel - Abstractable.

We've all heard stories about the dangers that can lurk on the internet, but have you heard about what's on the Dark Web, a corner of cyberspace that needs a special browser to access? After today's episode, the way you think about shopping online will never be the same. For more information on this week's case, check out these resources: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/silk-road-and-buying-drugs-online-a-q-and-a-with-nick-bilton.html https://online.pointpark.edu/criminal-justice/silk-road-busts/

Today using funnels for conversions seems like a vital part of marketing your products but so much of that is thanks to our guest for today, Russel Brunson. Russel is the CEO of Click Funnels, a SaaS product that provides everything you need to market, sell, and deliver your products and services online through funnels. Click Funnels is approaching $200 million in revenue and they haven't raised a cent in venture capital, so our conversation with Russel today is mostly about the funneling strategies they use to make this possible. First up though, Russel tells the story of Click Funnels’ conception, which involves his initial entrepreneurial ambition of selling DVDs containing instructions for making potato guns. After learning about sales funnels through this venture, and then developing Click Funnels, Russel found that nobody even knew what sales funnels were. We hear from him about how this problem led him to write all his books, which both act as instruction manuals for using and optimizing funnels but also behave as funnels for his company. This leads Russel to speak about the other clever ways he converts people into customers and keeps Click Funnels growing, such as webinars and challenges. Other interesting tidbits from today’s episode are the stories of how Russel made $3.2 million selling Click Funnels to the audience of Grant Cardone’s 10X event, and how Apple completely blocked his number one podcast. As you’ll find out in this episode, Russel’s love of storytelling is a key feature of his success, so make sure you catch this interview.  TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:22] An intro into Russel, Click Funnels, and their revenue despite raising no venture dollars. [00:57] Potato gun sales funnels and how that led to Russel’s partner coding Click Funnels. [02:24] How Click Funnels makes money through tiered SaaS subscriptions. [03:04] Russel’s use of funnels in such a way that Click Funnels doesn’t pay for growth. [04:24] Funnel shelf lives and how Russel rotates through different funnels to keep fresh. [06:29] How Russel’s books guided customers to see they needed his product. [06:30] Using, optimizing and getting people into funnels: Russel’s three books. [10:16] Marketing Click Funnels to different communities through Funnel Hack events. [12:09] How customers’ need for Click Funnels informs Russel’s view on giving free content. [13:46] Why Russel shut down his lucrative mastermind at the top of his funnel. [14:28] Russel’s love of storytelling and why he wants Click Funnels to be worth $1 billion. [15:15] Storytelling over techno-babble: learning how to sell your product. [17:11] How Russel sold $3.2 million worth of SaaS on stage one year and failed the next. [20:13] Russel’s confusion around why his podcast got choked by Apple. [17:11] The top three funnels that work the best: books, webinars, and challenges. [21:57] Timeframes for when Russel makes new funnels. [22:26] Russel’s must-read books and favorite business tools. Resources From The Interview: Click Funnels Russel Brunson   DotCom Secrets Expert Secrets Traffic Secrets Unlock the Secrets   Funnel Hacking Live Gabe Schillinger 10X Growth Con Traffic Secrets Website Expert Secrets Website Secret Funnel Strategy Webinars One Funnel Away Salesforce Opidis Joovv   Must read book: Behind the Cloud, American Kingpin   Leave Some Feedback:   What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed   Connect with Eric Siu:    Growth Everywhere Single Grain Eric Siu on Twitter    

"The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom—and almost got away with it."

First...the AWESOME news... Tanya heard from her doctor and she is officially CANCER FREE!!!! Thank you all sooo much for your love and support.  Second...this story gets more bonkers from here. We kick off with an intro of the cops and government agents that make up the team that ultimately pulled off the capture of this piece of work. If I got something wrong, FACT CHECK ME! I will read those fact checks at our first chance. Enjoy! Love your faces and smooches! 

Check out our first deep dive episode into the book "American Kingpin" by Nick Bilton (links for the book on Amazon below). This story is different than our normal deep dives. We have covered scams and business scandals before. However, this is about a criminal enterprise. I chose it, though, because the central figure in this story, ran that enterprise like a legitimate business. I don't want to spoil anything, so I will just say he treated it like the Amazon of Drugs. Setting it up and running it as if it were totally kosher. This story is WILD! So buckle up bitches! PS: Tanya will be having her double mastectomy tomorrow. Her brother is going to be keeping all of us updated throughout the day and I will be passing along that info on our Facebook page. Check out our page with the link below! Thanks for all of your support through this really hard time. We all appreciate it!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143129023/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_7IojEbC0MAJVN https://www.facebook.com/QasinCucumber/

Today, we're re-releasing an old episode about how hard it is getting to decipher fact from fiction. Because next week, we’ll be putting out a story showing what happens when certain reality-altering tools get released into the wild.  Simon Adler takes us down a technological rabbit hole of strangely contorted faces and words made out of thin air. And a wonderland full of computer scientists, journalists, and digital detectives forces us to rethink even the things we see with our very own eyes.  Oh, and by the way, we decided to put the dark secrets we learned into action, and unleash this on the internet.    Reported by Simon Adler. Produced by Simon Adler and Annie McEwen. Special thanks to everyone on the University of Southern California team who helped out with the facial manipulation: Kyle Olszewski, Koki Nagano, Ronald Yu, Yi Zhou, Jaewoo Seo, Shunsuke Saito, and Hao Li. Check out more of their work pinscreen.com Special thanks also to Matthew Aylett, Supasorn Suwajanakorn, Rachel Axler, Angus Kneale, David Carroll, Amy Pearl and Nick Bilton. You can check out Nick’s latest book, American Kingpin, here. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Twitter: @twpwkPatreonIn the news this episode we talk about the City of Tomorrow, more California fires, the unit economics of Uber Eats, Supermarkets where customers aren't allowed, and rodent driven cars.And our main topic this week is cryptocurrency. Featuring Bitcoin, Ethereum, the Blockchain, the Ledger, and other similar buzzwords.NewsToronto's City of Tomorrow Is Scaled Back Amid Privacy ConcernsCali Fires and the nation's technical debtUber Eats Hopes Drones Can Lift It to ProfitabilityWhy supermarkets are building 'dark stores'These Rats Drive Tiny Cars … for ScienceBonus NewsShort video profile on “Memo” a Mexican-American building porter in NYC who is the #2 marathon runner in the world for his age groupThe Internet at 50: ‘We Didn't See the Dark Side Emerging'Main TopicBitcoin invented in 2008 by Satoshi NakamotoDecentralized currency - trust in the system/algorithm rather than a central intermediary (good timing given the 2008 financial crisis)Overviewhttps://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cryptocurrency.aspNetflix Explainedhttps://www.netflix.com/title/80216752RecommendationsBook: How to Change Your Mind by Michael PollanBook: American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk RoadShameless PlugsFor coffee drinkers:Mike's coffee company: Bookcase CoffeeFor equity investors:Jeff's software: FolioFollow UsTwitter: @twpwkiTunesSpotifyStitcherGoogle PodcastsPocket CastsOvercast

The creation and aggregation process… On this episode Russell talks about what it means to aggregate information and turn it into something different, and how that is not the same thing as ripping somebody off. Here are some of the awesome things in this episode: Why taking pieces of information from different people and compiling it into something you make your own is different than stealing. Why studying information from several sources gives you a better overview of an entire topic. And how aggregating all the information you have learned, helps others who are learning from you. So listen here to find out how Russell aggregates information on different topics. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. This is actually an episode I started recording a couple of days ago in my car, and I couldn’t, there was a word, I couldn’t remember the word. So I got halfway through and I was like, “what is that word!” and I stopped it and I deleted it and now I remembered the word. So I am back to do a re-do of this episode all about your job and your role and your responsibility as an aggregator of information. So I am, it’s Friday here, today’s a meeting day and then next week we have inner circle all week, then I’ve basically got like 2 weeks to get all the updates done for the Dotcom secrets book. If you haven’t been listening along, obviously I submitted the final manuscript for the Traffic Secrets book last week, so it’s out of my hands. But then we’re republishing the first two books with a new publisher, so I had this little window of opportunity to update them. So yesterday I spent all day going in, I was like, “I’m just going to tweak some stuff in Dotcom secrets, you know, polish it a little bit.” But after I got into it I was like, “Oh my gosh I need to change everything.’ I want to rewrite the entire book. It’s funny because I’m 5 years in now, since my first book, with my third book I’ve become a better writer, I tell a story better, all the things like that, and none of the first book, at least the first one, I’m not sure about Expert Secrets, I’ll find that out next. But the Dotcom Secrets book is missing all that. There’s not good story and good things, so I want to weave those things back in, so it may turn that 58,000 word book into a 100,000 word book, who knows. But that’s what I’m doing right now, then I’m going to do the same thing with the Expert Secrets book, and then put them out into the world. And I’m so excited about that. As I was thinking about this whole thing, I started thinking about my role, and probably a lot of your guys’ roles, as an aggregator of information, and an aggregator of content. If you think about this, the Dotcom Secrets book isn’t my own thoughts, there’s some of my own thoughts in there, there’s  insights I’ve found and things I connected and correlations I’ve seen, stuff like that. I take my own personal experience, but none of the information is new. I didn’t invent it. I was out there and I was trying to learn this stuff, and I started aggregating information from a lot of sources. IF you read any of the intros to the books I’m always like, “I learned from this person and this and this and this.” Here’s like 50 people I studied and then I took all those things and I aggregated them together, and from there I came up with my own framework, my own process. It’s aggregating these people’s ideas into a process that’s simpler for me to understand and hopefully it will be simpler for you as well. And I think about for any of us content creators, that’s kind of what we’re doing. The difference between aggregating information and ripping somebody off is you rip somebody off, you’re taking from one person and just ripping them off. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about looking at a whole bunch of sources, and from there coming up with your own ideas, and then always giving credit back to where you learned the original concepts from, which I always try to do. I remember, this was probably 5 or 6 years ago, I had a chance and I was hanging out with Howard Berg, the world’s fastest reader, and I asked him his opinion on religion and a couple of other things. I’m like, this dude’s read 30,000 books. And I still remember what he told me, “It’s interesting, most people will read one book on a topic, on a religion, or on whatever the topic is, and then they read that book, and then that becomes their reality, that lens of that book becomes that reality. What I do instead when I want to learn a topic, I’ll find 10, or 20, or 30 books around that topic, all from different angles. I’ll read them all, and then from that I have a different perception of what reality is. I’m able to see things from different directions and different angles that nobody else could do.” And I feel like as a content creator, as a producer, as an influencer, whatever you want to call yourself, an info product marketer, or whatever, that’s really our job to go out there into the world and seek solutions for our own problems, things we’re trying to figure out how to solve. So we’re going out there and reading books, listening to podcasts, trying this and testing that, going to this event, going to this mastermind, talking to this person, all these things because you’re trying to clearer picture in your mind, to make it make sense to you. So you aggregate all this information from that and then you come back and build your own framework saying, “Based on my understanding of the world and what I’ve experienced, this is the truth.” So that’s what I’ve tried to do in these books and in my podcast and other things. You know, my role is aggregate information, it’s not to create new information. I wish it was. I wish I was the guy who could sit there and be like, “You know what, blah.” But I don’t typically have that. At least not often, maybe I do sometimes. But the most part, it’s me just connecting dots. I see this and this and this and by themselves maybe they’re not that cool, but if you plug these things like this, look how cool this is. I was thinking about the Dream 100 concept I learned from Chet Holmes. Dream 100 was cool, I learned it from Chet Holmes, but I was like how does it work for me? And then I started thinking that my dream 100 aren’t customers the way that Chet taught. My dream 100 are affiliates. And if I can do a dream 100 with affiliates and they say yes, it opens up this thing to a thousand people. So I took his concept over there, but then I had an insight over here. I have this framework of affiliates and how they work, and if I apply dream 100 to affiliates, boom, this whole thing opens. And then when paid ads started coming I was looking at paid ads and looking at how we do our interest and our targeting and all the sudden I was like, “Wait, if we apply the Dream 100 to affiliates to influencers on the platforms, all the sudden that becomes this new framework.” And boom, that framework became Traffic Secrets. So it’s like, that’s our job. It’s not just to learn and study and follow one thing, but to go out there into the world and look at all the different options. Here’s the topic you want to learn about, go study from 10, 20, 30 people so you get this more whole-istic view of the truth, what the reality actually is, and then your role in this equation and my role, is then to aggregate information, as I see it, and try to produce and assimilate and give back the truth of the thing I’m learning. So for you it could be whatever, let’s say you’re in weight loss, so you’re like, ‘Okay I’m going to go out there.” and instead of saying, “I’m 100% ketogenic,” study ketogenic and paleo, and meatetarian (there’s a meatetarian diet now where you only eat meat), and then vegetarianism, and fruitetarianism, and then there’s …. Blah. Just study all of it and then from there you get a more whole-istic view. “Hey, this is based on what I’m understanding and what I’m seeing, and this is my belief, it’s not just one or the other, it’s a blend of things.” And that’s when you create this new category, and that’s where you find your spot, your prolific zone where it’s like, these things I’m sharing are unique. They’re not unique to the world but it’s my aggregation of them that makes them unique. Anyway, so that’s what I wanted to share with you guys today, and I hope that it helps because a lot of times I think that we’re out there trying to figure out our thing and we’re confused because we’re like, “Well, this person says this, and they’re both kind of true, but they’re both different, what is this?” There’s probably truth in both those things, so study and look at them, find the truth in both and come back. I think that’s one unique view I have religion. I definitely have my beliefs but I also believe there’s truth in all religions. I think they’re all based on truth. So I don’t just go and close off my eyes, I have friends in other religions and things, and I respect them and I enjoy it. I figure out what’s the truth that they bring that maybe I’m not able to see or I miss it because of whatever thing. When we were in Fiji we went to this Pentecostal church and it was so much fun. The dude is up on stage preaching and sharing scriptures. And I don’t agree with 100% of the doctrine of what he shared, but there was definitely truth, I definitely felt the spirit, I definitely got good things. I’m like, I’m going to take these pieces of truth and then I’m going to apply it, and bring it back into my world, now it’s mine. I have this truth, I have assimilated that information, I’ve aggregated it, and I can bring it back and I can share it. So it gives me the ability to respect people, not reject them. I think the world we live in now, the Facebook society, if somebody doesn’t believe exactly what we believe we reject them, we fear them, and we hate them and all these things, and it’s like, that’s insane. But instead look at that and be like, “Okay, I don’t agree with that, but in that lens, that’s interesting.” You know, it’s funny, I don’t know how many examples of this I should give, but I was reading my new favorite book called American Kingpin, it’s so good. But it’s this story of the dark web, and it’s the story of the dude that started the Silk Road, which is this drug trading website. And I’m listening and they start talking about his beliefs and why he believed that. And the guy was super libertarian, he believed that the government shouldn’t have control over people’s bodies and things like that, people should be able to do what they want. And I was listening to this and I was like, man, there’s some really good truths and really good points in there. But then he took it to the extreme of like, “What that means is that everyone should be able to do drugs, therefore I’m going to build this drug super highway and give everyone access to any drug they want.” And it’s like, “Whoa, you went way too far off the deep end.” But I can respect the truth of some of these statements. Wow, there’s truth in there, let me take that piece of it and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let me take that truth and bring it back to what I have and then as I’m teaching my kids or my friends, or I’m at church or whatever, I’ve aggregated this information from a lot of spots and I can now share what my truth is. So you can respect other people and not want to blow them up on Facebook and things like that. Anyway, I hope that helps some of you guys. But it’s, I look at what’s my job for the next 100 years that I’m here on this planet, maybe longer, who knows, depending on what things I learn about health, maybe I’ll live to be 200 years old. But it’s funny because I remember as I wrote the Dotcom Secrets book, I was like, “I’ll never write a book again.” Then I did Expert Secrets and I was like, “I’ll never write a book again.” And about that time I went and met with Brendon Burchard and Brendon’s like, “I write a book every two years.” I’m like, “What?” He’s like, “so do you.” I’m like, “No I don’t.” He’s like, “You wrote one two years ago, you’re writing this one, and you’re writing one two years from now.’ I’m like, “I don’t think I will.” He’s like, “No dude, that’s what you do, you spend two years and you go out there and you pick a topic you’re excited about and you study it, aggregate the information, geek out on it, and then from there you take all your research and then you turn it into a book that you can now give the world. ‘I’ve spent two years on this journey, here’s the Cliff notes, hope it helps.” And when he said that I was like, oh my gosh. That’s really, really cool. And I decided at that point, I’m going to write a book every two years. And it’s just going to be a thing that I do until I die. Because how fun is that? You wake up every morning knowing, I got two years to go out there and aggregate all this data, this information, bring it back and give it back to the world, the truths that I found. I’m not going to do it seeing from one viewpoint. I’m going to look at a whole bunch of viewpoints and find the pieces I feel are truth, bring them back and present them to my world, my audience, my people. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but it gets me fired up as a creator. So for those of my creators who are listening out there, I hope this helps inspire you and give you ideas and give you a plan and a vision and hopefully see it through my eyes, kind of what I’m looking for and hopefully it helps you as well. With that said, appreciate you all. Thanks so much for everything. If you enjoyed this episode please take a screen shot on your phone, post it on the Instagram and the Facebook, and tag me on both platforms, and then do #marketingsecrets. And I’ll see it in my feed. It’ll show up there and I’ll be so excite to hear what you thought about this episode. Thanks again for everything, appreciate you all. Talk to you soon. Bye everybody.

The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom - and almost got away with it In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free of the government's watchful eye. It wasn't long before the media got wind of the new website where anyone - not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers - could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site's elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. The Silk Road quickly ballooned into a $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a loyal crew of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he got wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himself - including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren't sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet. Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times best-selling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks, and unbelievable close calls. It's a story of the boy next door's ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized web advocates and the old world of government control, order, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it's all too real.

Paul Ciolino and Lupe Aguirre of The Chicago PoPo Report (Saturdays 7-9 p.m. on WLS-AM 890) jump in my car to talk about crime and punishment. Discussed this week: We got breaded steak sandwiches from Freddie's on 31st, a "total cop restaurant." Paul and Lupe are trailblazers. The seemingly-imminent legalization of marijuana in Illinois. Is Chicago the violent dystopia we see reported on the news? "You go to the east of the Cell, you've got a problem." What do people get wrong in their perception of the police? "It's easy to escalate a situation." What moments stand out as most positive in their police work? "Every day, you get a chance to be impactful." Lupe has a very calming influence, to the point where I wanted to tell him where I buried the bodies. Paul was described as an "all-around pain in the backside" by Chicago Magazine. How "Chicago" is Paul? We should test his blood. "You never know what's on the other side of that door." "ALWAYS look at people's hands." "No one's ever gotten shot with a foot." Are things worse now than they were when Paul and Lupe each started in law enforcement? "Gangsters are going to get guns." "We could drive six blocks and buy... a nice gun." The only difference between the PoPo Report on WLS-AM and the PoPo Report on Car Con Carne: Profanity! Paul and Lupe should have done a ride along with me. Paul took a shot of marinara to the hoodie. Good thing he was wearing a vest. Lupe is "Hollywood Handsome." The parallel universe that is Aldi. "Most criminals are stupid shits... I've never met a criminal who retired rich." The book "American Kingpin": I HIGHLY recommend it. Car Con Carne is presented by The Autobarn Mazda of Evanston. Google Play Music iTunes Stitcher

Keith discusses three astounding and true tales, as well as internet privacy and manners, and audio books + Springsteen

Nick is a prolific writer/reporter and his books, Hatching Twitter and American Kingpin are two of my favorites.  Nick and I chop it up GOOD and talk about everything from why you need to pick fights you can win, why social media is hurting our brains and why driving a Honda Civic doesn't make you any less of a billionaire douche.

Encore de gros sujet chaud cette semaine. Pat change d'idée pour son Jeux de l'année lors de notre précédent épisode. Frank nous un peu du livre American Kingpin de Nick Bilton. On parle de la descente au enfer de Fallout 76. JP nous parles encore avec passion de The Walkind Dead. Il nous parle ensuite de ses achats du Black Friday. Sylvain sermonne JP

Ashley and Susan discuss American Kingpin, gin, and Pee Wee Herman. Special guest: Nashville-based Americana artist Ron Pope

Eric and candra go deep into the silk road and ross ulbricht. They also discussed Eric and candra's personal history with the sight. Follow on instagram @mindmeltpodcast and email @ mindmeltpodcast@gmail.com

Should it be legal to sell mild drugs, like weed and magic mushrooms, on the Internet? What about heroin? Handguns? AR-15s? Even murder-for-hire? Nick Bilton sits down with Tom Conrad, former product director of Snap and co-founder of Pandora, to discuss Nick's book, “American Kingpin;” if Silicon Valley CEOs are moral at heart, or more concerned with their profits and their legacy; and if Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road website, is any different from other CEOs in tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Radical New Approach To Sales That Will Revolutionize and Scale Your Business With Justin Roff-Marsh. Episode 39: Show Notes. Today on the show we welcome Justin Roff-Marsh, Founder of Ballistix and author of The Machine: A Radical Approach to the Design of the Sales Function. When was the last time you thought about sales? About how it is managed and who does what job? And whether the method you’re using is really the best method? As water treater’s, our job is to go out there and sell what it is that we do. But if you really look at the way we do sales and the systems in which we do sales, it hasn’t changed all that much since the dawn of time! Yet everything else has... Justin is someone who has re-designed the sales process by taking a whole new approach to the way in which companies sell. In his book, he delves deep into the world of sales functions; looking at how and why we’ve been approaching sales in the same way for so long and how you can break these models a part and improve them to benefit of your own sales practice today. In this episode, we chat to Justin about the key concepts in his book, about some of the things we take for granted in sales and what we can do better in this field. [0:03:40.0] Key Points From This Episode: The problem with the traditional sales model. [0:05:50.0] Why there is a more efficient way to operate sales. [0:07:50.0] Removing sales people from customer service and prospecting. [0:10:20.0] Find out what an ideal sales department looks like to Justin. [0:11:23.0] Hear Justin’s advice on how to sell to the right people. [0:13:00.0] Measuring customer service within this new sales philosophy. [0:19:54.0] The actions Justin would like people to take after reading his book. [0:24:45.0] Why your salespeople need to be either independent or part of a team. [0:28:10.0] Find out how Justin came up with the concept for his book. [0:31:31.0] How Justin discovered that salespeople don’t like money as much as he thought. [0:33:40.0] The outcome from companies who have implemented the new sales process. [0:35:25.0] Find out the last three books that Justin has read. [0:38:00.0] Leathermans, test-kits and copper: Questions from the listeners. [0:42:30.0] And much more!  Tweetables:  “The first thing that we should take away from sales people is customer service.” — @justinroffmarsh [0:10:20.0]  “The approach that we are advocating is absolutely chalk and cheese compared to standard practice.” — @justinroffmarsh [0:19:15.0] Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: The Machine: A Radical Approach to the Design of the Sales Function – http://scalinguph2o.com/salesbook Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley – http://scalinguph2o.com/39book1 The American Kingpin by Nick Bilton – http://scalinguph2o.com/39book3 Justin Roff-Marsh on Twitter – https://twitter.com/justinroffmarsh Justin Roff-Marsh Website – http://justinroffmarsh.com/ Justin Roff-Marsh on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinroffmarsh/ Ballistix – http://ballistix.com/ Test Kit Light: http://scalinguph2o.com/light  

It’s a crypto special! With our BTC holdings crashing, your hosts instead turn to the blockchain. Are there many practical applications for this new technology, and might it even return us to the decentralized idealism of the early Internet? Next (8:17), we review “American Kingpin” by Nick Bilton, which recounts the rise and fall of Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road. For the uninitiated, the Silk Road was an anonymous online marketplace primarily used to buy and sell drugs…while also being one of the first uses for Bitcoin. We breakdown how Ross’s unusual background empowered him to found the site, and how some early mistakes would lead to his eventual downfall. Check out this episode and more on the Random Talkers YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RandomTalkers. Peruse our old segments, leave an Internet comment, or maybe just admire Matt’s amazingly consistent outfit choices. Thank you for your support!

Critically acclaimed journalist and Vanity Fair Special Correspondent Nick Bilton has been exposing the inner-workings of the technology sector for years—from breaking stories for The New York Times, to unearthing the betrayal behind Twitter's creation story in his book "Hatching Twitter," and beyond. He joins David-Michel Davies to discuss his latest work which traces the manhunt for Silk Road's founder ("American Kingpin"), how he reports on Silicon Valley, and more.For more from Nick, grab a copy of "American Kingpin" and "Hatching Twitter." They are both impressive works of journalism that take readers through two true stories of Silicon Valley and its complexities. Follow Nick on social media at @nickbiltonFollow us on social @TheWebbyAwardsKeep up with David-Michel @dmdlikesOur Producer is Sebastian AdeOur Editorial Director is Nicole FerraroResearch and writing by Jordana JarrettMusic is Podington Bear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

En este episodio: (01:56) Abe se dio a la tarea de buscar el libro de American Kingpin y nos extiende el review de Bookchoice donde encontró la jiribilla. (10:02) Fofo busca patrocinadores de manera desesperada y nos trae la nueva Pepsi Salted Caramel. (16:30) Airbus, el gigante constructor europeo se mete de lleno al desarrollo de un avión eléctrico. (21:10) La IFT aprobó la homologación de la marcación de 10 dígitos. (31:00) En la sección de Star Wars, Daisy Ridley se sube a la nube voladora y se aleja del futuro de la franquicia. (40:26) Facebook ahora solicita (solicitará) una selfie para identificar al usuario en lugar de captcha. (44:38) ¡Detengan la imprenta! Abe nos trae una recomendación de Netflix, la serie The Sinner. (53:45) Memo del Toro confesó en una entrevista que su único arrepentimiento profesional hasta ahora fue no aceptar el Dark Universe de Universal. (59:35) Warner en otro acto súper random ahora quiere lanzar el Universo Cinematográfico de Hanna-Barbera. (64:50) DC está haciendo bien las cosas con sus series televisivas, Fofo nos recomienda un episodio donde se juntaran Arrow, Flash, Supergirl y Legends Of Tomorrow. (68:05) Justice League supero la barrera de los 500 millones de USD, debatimos porque odiamos a Zack Snyder y algunos lo aman (y defienden). Síguenos:TwitterFacebookSuscríbete:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyRSSContacto

Nick Bilton is a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair and author of 3 books, including Hatching Twitter and his latest, American Kingpin, which chronicles the rise and fall of the Silk Road and the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, a contributor to CNBC, a former columnist and reporter for The New York Times, and author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal and American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road. "I don't believe we have crossed the line. I think we've just moved it." -Ross Ulbricht The Cheat Sheet: How does a merit badge-bedecked Eagle Scout become the head of a thriving online black market worth a billion dollars? What are the costs of maintaining a double life? What's the real reason Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht was caught? What is Nick Bilton's unique research process for covering a story like this? Is everyone susceptible to the level of Ross Ulbricht's mix of ambition, hubris, and self-deception, or does it require a certain personality type? And so much more... SmartMouth is the only activated oral rinse clinically proven to eliminate existing bad breath and prevent it from returning for a full twelve hours per rinse. Visit SmartMouth.com to get an in-depth, scientific analysis of how SmartMouth is able to deliver such incredible results! Want to wash two loads and dry two loads of laundry at the same time? The new Wi-Fi enabled Samsung FlexWash and FlexDry washer and dryer pair can do it -- and you can get it now at The Home Depot! Save money on travel and get a free Amazon gift card every time you use Upside! Enter the code FORBES at checkout here and you're guaranteed a free $200 Amazon gift card your first time (minimum purchase required)! To truly thrive in all areas of your life, you can't ignore the importance of good health. Try Organifi Green Juice for 20% off using code "charm" when checking out at organifi.com! Does your business have an Internet presence? Now save a whopping 50% on new webhosting packages here with HostGator by using coupon code CHARM! Free yourself from typing notes, reports, and documents by going with the transcriptionists we trust here at AoC: TranscriptionOutsourcing.net -- 99% or higher accuracy guaranteed! Find out more about the team who makes The Art of Charm podcast here! Show notes at https://theartofcharm.com/624/ HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! If you dig the show, please subscribe in iTunes and write us a review! This is what helps us stand out from the crowd and help people find the credible advice they need. Review the show in iTunes! We rely on it! http://www.theartofcharm.com/mobilereview Stay Charming!

Tatiana Moroz joins the show to talk about the sensationalized hit piece "American Kingpin" an intentionally deceptive take on Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. Then Tiana Laurence of Factom and author of "Bitcoin for Dummies" discusses her new book and her work in the Blockchain space. Brian Deery also of Factom joins in on the discussion.

Journalist Nick Bilton talks with Recode's Jason Del Rey about his new book, "American Kingpin." It tells the story of Ross Ulbricht, the programmer and "criminal mastermind" who founded the Silk Road, a notorious online black market where everything from drugs to guns could be bought and sold anonymously. Bilton, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, also talks about why he left the New York Times in 2016 after more than a decade there, saying he didn't feel challenged by the newspaper's predictability and rigidity. He also argues that, contrary to what the Facebook CEO claims, Mark Zuckerberg is likely running for president — or perhaps planning some other major change that necessitates a heavily photographed tour of the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It looks as though we found the perfect way to close out our tribute to Cannabis month with none other than Lyn Ulbricht the mother of Ross Ulbricht the creator of the website "The Silk Road". While Ross may have created this site, an Ebay for the Dark Market if you will. He how ever was never proven to have committed any murder for hire as was maliciously alleged recently in some sensationalized hit piece called American Kingpin by someone who deserves no mention. Lyn and Cody Wilson elaborate on the fallacy of the aforementioned book. The last 30 minutes is very light-hearted and fun as we counsel Chris on his love life.