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I have spoken and written at length how I see our relationship with polluting behavior as qualifying as addiction, a view that I think helps frame the challenge of sustainability. Overcoming addiction is harder than creating new technologies or taxing things. It takes powerful internal social and emotional skills. Just acknowledging one is addicted and harming others is a big hurdle, let alone acting on it.Not seeing the huge challenges of taking on one's addiction and trying to overcome it, facing withdrawal and so on leaves us not doing the hard work and using effective tools like listening, role models, compassion, and so on. Now multiply the number of people addicted by billions. If billions of people are addicted to flying, container ship-delivered goods, air conditioning, and so on, we better start soon.Mattan and I talk about how well addiction describes the challenges of changing culture toward sustainability. He's an experienced professional in the field, but not a licensed or trained professional, though licensing and training aren't necessarily as educational as time spent with people overcoming addiction.Listen for yourself, but I heard him see the comparison as valid. I'm also asking him since this addiction model of polluting and depleting appears in my upcoming book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Regular listeners know I focus on understanding addiction. I see people in my neighborhood and in headlines nearly daily addicted to heroin, fentanyl, meth, and crack. Since our culture promotes craving and dependence as what many would call "good business," I see people on those drugs not as outliers or anomalies from culture. I see them as slightly more acute versions of mainstream America.I see addiction to doof as serious as addiction to illegal drugs. Increasingly medical professionals are recognizing what they would call ultra-processed foods as addictive. Plenty of other polluting things---fast fashion, cell phones, etc---are addictions our culture promotes. The product sells itself! What could be better for the GDP.Mattan cofounded Ophelia, which treats opiate addiction online. He shares the deaths he and people his community experienced that prompted him to start the company. You can see in his bio his entrepreneurial background.He brings a unique, healing, effective, passionate voice to addiction. You can tell the time and effort he's put into understanding the people he helps.Mattan's home pageOphelia: Online opioid addiction treatment that (actually) works Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Learning is not about the outcome, like getting a good grade on your final. Learning is about the journey, the feeling you get when something finally makes sense, the moments of connection you have when studying with friends, the thrill of teaching a concept to another person. Learning is not a perfect process, it's messy and challenging, but it's necessary to adapt to failure or adversity.Mattan Griffel is an expert on the importance of learning as a journey, not an outcome.In his new book, "Python for MBA's", Mattan instills the mental models needed not only to code, but to look at the world with an artist's eye and a craftsman's heart.Mattan is an award-winning faculty member at Columbia Business School, author of Python for MBAs, and two-time Y Combinator-backed entrepreneur. He is co-founder and COO of Ophelia, a company that helps people quit opioids without having to go to rehab. Mattan is also an Innovation Fellow at the Lang Center for Entrepreneurship and was selected as one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 in Education. Mattan advises companies on innovation and technology and has worked with companies like Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, Condé Nast, American Express, NYSE, and JPMorgan. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and the MIT Technology Review. Mattan studied Philosophy and Finance at New York University and wrote his thesis on the metaphysics of consciousness under David Chalmers and Ned Block.In this episode, Mattan and Chris dive philosophically deep into Python, life, and learning.Listen to this episode and learn about:Mattan giving credit and thanks to his middle school teacher (3:22)Teaching things you love (6:54)Developing critical thinking (11:01)Approaches to learning (17:57)Why coding is so essential (23:25)The technological revolution that is coming (27:18)Putting feelings first with code (29:41)Giving people the permission to fail (33:29)Python helping people have more integrity (35:14)What's next for Mattan (42:10)Links:Connect with Mattan on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattangriffel/Python for MBAs - https://www.amazon.com/Python-MBAs-Mattan-Griffel/dp/0231193939Ophelia - https://ophelia.com
“This wise old whiskery fish swims up to three young fish and goes, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' and swims away; and the three young fish watch him swim away and look at each other and go, 'What the fuck is water?' and swim away.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. This is a huge novel taking time in a fictitious 2010 characterized by a non-conventional timeline and a lack of a plot. Despite it’s challenging structure and the fact of being a fiction, it has a lot of philosophical nuggets about particularly on the activeness vs passiveness way of living. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Hitting goals and sense of satisfaction Letting life happen to you while watching TV Accurate visions of the world in 2020 Best porno-like book titles How Nat & Neil broke and got back together 1-on-1 sports and their secondary effect on us And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, another book that critics how media and TV are ruining our lives, and The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, another book that shows how tennis is not just about hitting balls with a racket. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Kindle (link Amazon) [8:06] iPad [9:10] Netflix [17:50] The Office [18:36] BoJack Horseman [19:50] Cup & Leaf [40:44] A Crash Course in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cryptocurrency (crypto episode) [42:57] AA - Alcoholics Anonymous [50:30] Ad Blocker [1:05:56] The Trouble With Facebook by Sam Harris [1:06:25] Snapchat [1:07:26] Skype [1:09:10] Mushroom Coffee [1:14:50] University of Arizona [1:18:39] The College Dropout by Kanye West [1:32:20] (album episode) The Matrix [1:33:07] Primer [1:33:14] Books mentioned Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter [2:25] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Ulysses by James Joyce [7:16] Finnegans Wake by James Joyce [7:17] The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus [37:59] (book episode) Cleveland is King by Brendan Bowers [38:20] The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz [45:12] Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [46:37] (book episode) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [46:47] (book episode) 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan Peterson [46:55] (book episode) Strange Loops [47:07] (book episode) Mastery by Robert Greene [47:10] (book episode) Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman [47:16] (book episode) The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey [52:05] (book episode) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell [58:55] Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [1:15:19] (book episode) Elegant Complexity by Greg Carlisle [1:15:50] Hamlet by William Shakespeare [1:22:44] People mentioned David Foster Wallace Quentin Tarantino [18:10] Michael Schur [18:58] B.J. Novak [19:36] Kyrie Irving [38:15] LeBron James [38:50] Taylor Pearson [42:57] Trump [1:04:20] Sam Harris [1:06:25] Mattan Griffel [1:19:26] David Perell [1:28:23] James Joyce [1:30:00] Martin Scorsese [1:32:00] Kanye West [1:32:20] (College Dropout episode) Joe Rogan [1:35:41] Show Topics 0:00 – Spoiler Alert: it’s a fiction book, there will be spoilers. However, this is not a normal book. There is not much of a plot, so to say. This is probably a book intended to be re-read. It’s self referential, once you reach the end it intends you to go back to the beginning. 2:50 – The book doesn’t follow the timeline of events. If you are confused, congrats! That’s the point of the book :). The “missing” year is where most of the action takes. 3:35 – “Fiction is about what it’s like to be a f**cking human being”, David Foster Wallace. The central plot of our lives is just a narrative fallacy. The book gives a sense that it’s like life, in a weird way. Life is extremely complex, but we try to give it a narrative with sequential events. The characters don’t suffer a major transformation. The book ends right before all the crazy stuff is going to happen, but nothing happens yet. 6:26 – DFW intended the book to be an active work of fiction as opposed to just something you seat back and read. There are more than 350 endnotes with essential information to the plot, so you can’t skip them. It’s highly suggested to read it on a Kindle because of them. 9:45 – There are no dates to anchor yourself on. The 10 years where the story takes place, they stop using numbers for the years, but a company’s name that sponsors or subsides that year (“subsidized time”). 11:23 – One of the central characters (that is barely referenced btw) created a movie that is so entertaining that people would watch it till they die. This movie is called “Infinite Jest”. Again, the book is chaotic and focus on the characters details rather than a story. Some parts start getting boring (eg. a kids tennis play) but you don’t want to skip them because something important is said in a couple of sentences. Random passages are really beautiful essays. 13:29 – It’s such a weird book to even talk about. It seems we are talking about a dream that we had. Supernatural characters (a ghost, a guy that levitates) may confuse you and make you doubt about your comprehension. 15:12 – Each chapter is made up of many subchapters, that can have from one sentence to 30 pages. Usually, the point of view is changed for any new subchapter, like into a different character who might be in a different place or even year or day. Sometimes you don’t know what day or character you’re getting drop in to until you’re a couple of pages into it, so it’s moving around a lot. 17:05 – What would the book like if it was written knowing Google exists? What would a movie about Infinite Jest be like? Tarantino could direct this movie. Michael Schur, co-producer and actor of The Office TV series owns the movie rights to Infinite Jest. There are many reference to the book and the author in The Office. Other TV show, BoJack Horseman, seems to be loosely based on this book. Addiction component in the book, and addiction issues that the author had. Psychological addiction to marijuana. 21:52 – Broader context of the main characters. There are basically three or four groups that have their own separate stories and those main groups intersect throughout the novel. There is the tennis academy. A particular family with 3 brothers, Hal, Orin and Mario. The addiction home next to the tennis academy. And the groups of terrorists together with those who are fighting them. The book is hilarious at many times, including laughing out loud funny and horrible tragic things at the same time. There are some absurd parts of the book, that are also very funny because of the way they are written. 26:04 – Weird plots. The wheelchair terrorists that want to kill Americans with a movie. The undercovered anti-terrorist agent that dresses like a woman. The male character enamored with “her”. Kid with his forehead stuck in a glass. The way Jim commits suicide sticking his head in a microwave. Hal tricking the psycho therapists having a major breakthrough. The list of people dying watching the film at one guy’s house. Death by passivity. Examples of characters that stuck between an easy passive life and the will of doing something bigger. 36:12 – Beautiful nonfiction parts. Discussion of kids hitting their goals: “one is that you attain the goal and realize the shocking realization that attaining the goal does not complete or redeem you, does not make everything for your life “OK ” as you are, in the culture, educated to assume it will do this, the goal. And then you face this fact that what you had thought would have the meaning does not have the meaning when you get it, and you are impaled by shock.” “It is more invigorating to want than to have”. Kyrie Irving, the basketball player, pissed off after winning everything with the Cavaliers. Finding new hills to climb instead of contenting of reaching the top. Happiness comes from the climb, not much from the achievement. Boredom aversion. Losing the impetus to perform after hitting your goals. Veterans missing the war. “If you’re worried you can feel safe, and if you feel safe you should be worried”. Books with porno titles. 47:34 – Infinite Jest is the fictional version of Amusing Ourselves to Death. Heavy critic on TV. Avoiding letting life happen to you, instead of an active life. Effects of the addiction phase, and breaking through it. Cleanse from addiction hero journey. Self improvement and infinite games found in 1-on-1 sports like tennis, box, or martial arts. Yes, you’re fighting against another player, but mainly the fight is against your brain. 53:53 – Transcending own limits. The opponent is yourself. Most characters are fighting an internal battle throughout the novel. Relationship between DFW and his editor. All typos were intentional. First and third person narrators through the book, and the relation to typos. 1:00:53 – The author sees irony almost like a safety valve that people use to avoid feeling real things. Mario, one of the characters, says (or thinks) “there is some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn't happy.” Laughing to avoid deep conversations. In the book, the author takes serious things and wraps them in absurd and funny incidents to make them tolerable or digestible. 1:05:06 – Predictions of the internet. Advertising invading every surface and communication. Snapchat filters. The rise and fall of video calls: “the amazing things about phones is that you can be paying half attention while assuming the other person is giving you their full attention”. The problem of video calls. 1:12:48 – We broke. No, we haven’t, but we missed the opportunity. 1:15:01 – The support of the reading companion. Getting through the first pages of the book. To read or not to read Infinite Jest. Is it worth it? Signaling. Perceptions about the book, what they liked and what not. Nat: “it’s one of the most incredible books I’ve read that I never ever want to read again”. Neil compares this type of difficult to read books with beers. Endurance and feeling of accomplishment. 1:28:23 – The Infinite Jest Reader’s Club. Writers that want to prove how smart writers they are. Fashion designers showing off. Impressing your peers and justifying your professional existence. Kindle reading time estimation. DFW use of psychotropics. Worsts things of the book. 1:40:26 – Stay tuned if you want to listen to a more spoilered version of this book. Find us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and let us know your version about what happened in the book. Leave a review and share it with your friends if you like the show. Join the email list at Made You Think Podcast, which is the best way to stay up to date on future episodes and things that are going on with the show. Check out ways to support the show at madeyouthinkpodcast.com/support.
Today, we are talking with Mattan Griffel (@mattangriffel) about how to learn Python. Mattan teaches code to MBAs — at Columbia Business School. He also teaches the Learn Python course here at One Month. Why learn Python? Python is one of the most popular languages for data analytics and web development "Python is the new Excel" being used in business school finance classes. Google, Instagram, Uber and many more companies are using Python. “Forget Wall Street lingo. The language Citigroup Inc. wants its incoming investment bank analysts to know is Python” — Bloomberg, 2018 (that quote says it all). In this episode, we discuss: * How long did it take Mattan to learn Python? * What is a great first project to build in Python? * What is the best programming language to learn first? * What are some free Python resources? Learn Python with Mattan at www.onemonth.com — that's also where you can find all the transcripts and shownotes from this episode.
Hi everyone, today's interview is with Mattan Griffel, CEO and founder of One Month (formerly One Month Rails), a company that helps you learn career-based, applicable skills in as little as one month. He's been named as one of Forbes' 30 under 30, and has some great insights on how to piggyback for traction until you can stand on your own two feet. Click here for show notes. Leave some feedback: What should I talk about next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, leave a short review here. Subscribe to Growth Everywhere on iTunes. Get the non-iTunes RSS feed Connect with Eric Siu: Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @ericosiu
#001 — Four reasons why we decided to start a podcast, and why we need new stories of work, parenting, pregnancy, and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship and parenting are filled with deep, difficult, and joyful lessons about what it means to be a person and make work in the world. “We are just trying to figure it out one day at a time—one sleep-deprived, coffee-fueled, bleary-eyed day at a time.” No matter how much prep work you do, there is no way to anticipate the singular experience of having a baby or starting a business. In fact, there are a number of parallels between pregnancy and startups, and this podcast explores those intersections with the hope of learning what the two worlds have to teach each other. Along the way, we’ll talk about reinventing the way we think about parenting and work. In today’s episode, I give you a bit of the behind-the-scenes about who I am, and why I started this show. In 2014, I interviewed with One Month, the Y Combinator venture-backed startup focused on teaching people tech and coding skills, to join their rapidly growing team. While I interviewed, I was transparent about my plans to start a family. Eight months in I was promoted to VP. One month later, I realized I was pregnant. So today, two years later, I bring One Month founder and CEO Mattan Griffel on the show to discuss the perceived risks of hiring women who want to start families, and why he realized that this false cultural narrative is actually limiting himself in the search for great talent. This desire to start a new story about what it takes to grow businesses and babies — and the overlap between entrepreneurship and parenting — was the impetus for starting this podcast. In today’s episode, I talk about the main four reasons I made this podcast a reality, including The flawed narrative of what it means to be pregnant as portrayed in popular culture, The backwards methodology of startups that are self-described as disruptors, Why it’s important to create new ways of working, and Why I ultimately needed to find and listen to other women’s stories to root myself into the place and sense of what it meant to be a pregnant entrepreneur, and then later, to become a working parent. I share the highs and the lows: Vomiting into a grocery store at Whole Foods. Feeling my little one kick for the first time. The sense of isolation both at work and in the company of moms-to-be. Using this as a springboard for launching my next project, then company. Reckoning with colleagues and city-dwellers who didn’t pay attention or notice made me dislike the city’s seeming lack of empathy. This podcast is the start of a conversation about the overlap between entrepreneurship, pregnancy, and parenting. Listen in to why we got started, and I’ll also tell you about some of the inspiring people you’ll meet in the first series to come up ahead. The goal of this podcast is to interview 100 women in a rich tapestry of stories. Along the way, I hope you’ll enjoy discovering the similarities between starting a business and starting a family, and together, we can transform the way the world looks when it comes to working and parenting. About Sarah K Peck, host of the show Sarah K Peck is an author, startup advisor, and yoga teacher based in New York City. She’s the founder and executive director of Startup Pregnant, a media company documenting the stories of women’s leadership across work and family. She’s a registered yoga teacher (RYT-200), a 20-time All-American swimmer, and an entrepreneur. Her writing has been featured in more than 70 different blogs and publications, and she’s spoken at Harvard, Penn, Berkeley, the University of Virginia, and at conferences around the globe. She’s currently writing a memoir of working in the tech startup world while pregnant with her first --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startuppregnant/message
Mattan Griffel wasn’t prepared for his first job. After he graduated college, a startup company asked him to be their marketer, but he didn’t know how to be a marketer. Mattan had studied philosophy and finance, but despite years of delving into the life of the mind and the management of money, he couldn’t snag a job in the financial sector. So he sat there, tasked with an entirely different field: marketing. Griffel really wasn’t prepared, so he decided to fix that. He charged into the challenge, devouring books on marketing, consuming online classes, doing everything he could to eat up as much knowledge as possible. In just a year and a half, he says, he learned more about marketing than four years at university taught him about finance. Learn voraciously. A passion for new skills can expand your opportunities and multiply your successes. Griffel’s drive to be good at whatever he did gave him the ability to successfully manage a marketing budget of half a million dollars. Now, that same drive has put Griffel at the helm of One Month, a Y Combinator-backed education startup aiming to provide what he calls a “no-BS first month of learning.” The company has created a contingent of lightweight courses that each teach the basics of a topic—ranging from Ruby on Rails to HTML to growth hacking and more—in 15 minutes per day for 30 days. It was his endeavor to gain marketing skills that exposed Griffel to entrepreneurial education outside the brick walls and stone pillars of formal schooling. Having learned from platforms like Udemy and Skillshare, he eventually began teaching for them. While instructing an in-person class on coding at General Assembly, Griffel met Chris Castiglione, with whom he would one day found One Month. In this interview you will learn: - Epic growth hacking strategies - Key lessons from a Y-Combinator backed startup - Mattan's experience at Y-Combinator - Key Entrepreneurial lessons learned along the journey - How to create powerful and valuable courses that sell - & Much more! I Need Your Help! If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below. It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people! Leave a review for the Foundr Podcast!
As an NYU undergraduate, Mattan Griffel had aspirations for a career in finance. But getting rejected from over 100 jobs he applied drastically altered the course of his career ultimately leading to the launch of the Ycombinator startup One Month. Separating your self worth from experiencing rejection Using self education and online learning to accelerate your career pathWhy we have to make our own ideas happen How a series of blog posts turned into an online class with over 2000 registrants The problem with experts and the internalization of knowledgeCultivating the ability to see opportunity when you hit roadblocks Designing your life around serendipity A framework for accelerated learning that you can apply to any new skillA look inside the Ycombinator experience QuotesOnce something is actually useful to you, you're much more interested in learning it Resources General AssemblyOne Month See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Mattan Griffel, growth expert and founder and CEO of OneMonth, talks about customer acquisition and activation. He discusses what metrics you should be tracking and tweaking, and common mistakes he sees people make time and time again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
October 14, 2014 Crowdfunding & Customer Service Danita Harn & One Month Mattan Griffel
Mattan Griffel is a self-taught web developer and the founder of One Month Rails. Reuben and Mattan spoke about learning to code in one month, motivation, YCombinator, and much more.