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The OKC Thunder are 6 wins away from a title, and GM Sam Presti has been unbelievable over the past several years. Funny enough, he learned his ways from Sam Hinkie, the former Sixers GM who was fired by the league before ever getting to finish his master plan. Based on the current success of the Thunder, could the Sixers copy their formula to get back into contention? In other news, Gillie Da Kid called out Paul George and the entire Sixers team on a recent podcast episode. Lastly, RB provides his Big Board 2.0 for Sixers draft prospects with the 3rd overall pick. Today, we discuss it all!ADVERTISE WITH US: https://forms.gle/BHCmXV9XZs41CKPGACHECK OUT THE NEW MERCH: https://phillytakewithrb.com/Playback: https://www.playback.tv/phillytakewithrbPhilly Take Discord: https://discord.gg/vEXh2AqpVenmo: https://venmo.com/phillytakewithrbCashApp: https://cash.app/$phillytakewithrbSubscribe to Philly Take with RB on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ6xo8_BSzZJVYfWEqEt1GwINSTA: https://www.instagram.com/rbphillytake/TWITTER: https://twitter.com/RBPhillyTake
The Word of the Day is Failure (0:00-7:56) Tyrone believes The Process with Sam Hinkie was a failure. The Sixers are no closer to an NBA championship now than they were almost a decade ago with Hinkie as GM. We as fans were led astray. (8:02 -15:50 ) We pay “Hoosiers” Actor Gene Hackman our respects. Tyrone is not a fan of Hoosiers. The Twitter poll for today asks: “Was the Process a failure?” 89% said Yes and 11% said No. The Sixers have had success, just not enough. (16:00-27:50) Tyrone and Ricky talk PG dropping 25 points last night in MSG. Maxey had lots of energy. Does the team deserve our cheer and applause? Ricky is bothered that Paul George finally decides to take things seriously with only 6 weeks left in the regular season. Tyrone calls for the removal of the Sam Hinkie jersey from Xfinity Live. (28:00-37:05) Ben Simmons was supposed to be the next LeBron James. Tyrone, Ricky and Sylvana recall more of Hinkie and his countless draft mistakes. Follow The Station x.com/975TheFanatic instagram.com/975thefanatic/ https://www.facebook.com/975thefanatic/ Follow The Show x.com/975BestShowEver https://x.com/TyJohnsonNews https://x.com/rickybottalico https://x.com/sylvanakell Support the Show 975thefanatic.com/shows/the-best-show-
The Word of the Day is Failure (0:00-13:22) Tyrone calls on “Hinkie Truthers” to defend the originator of The Process. Tyrone asks Ricky if there was ever a member of the media he wanted to punch for something they asked or said to him during media sessions. (13:33-21: 34) Tyrone does not think Sam Hinkie was a good talent evaluator. Jahlil Okafor over Kristaps Porzingis. Ricky questions the Sixers effort overall, despite a very close near win against the Knicks last night in Madison Square Garden without Embiid. (21:45-34:24) Tyrone and Ricky react to the NFLPA Team Report Card for the Eagles, ranked 22nd out of 31st, all the way down from 4th last year. (34:26-42:30) Tyrone, Ricky and Sylvana discuss renting a forklift to remove the Sam Hinkie jersey from inside Xfinity Live. Return to the Twitter poll, 1600 votes. 87% of voters say The Process was a failure. Follow The Station x.com/975TheFanatic instagram.com/975thefanatic/ https://www.facebook.com/975thefanatic/ Follow The Show x.com/975BestShowEver https://x.com/TyJohnsonNews https://x.com/rickybottalico https://x.com/sylvanakell Support the Show 975thefanatic.com/shows/the-best-show-
The Word of the Day is Failure (0:00-12:30) Question of the Day: What is Your Favorite Sports Movie? Sam Hinkie is STILL the worst and Tyrone thinks he deserve all the blame. (12:35-20:30) Tyrone has some insider knowledge about the Sam Hinkie jersey in Xfinity Live: will it come down?? Tyrone, Ricky and Sylvana discuss burning the jersey afterwards. (20:45-32:40) The Process was a complete failure. More NFLPA Team Report Card discussion. Tyrone, Ricky and Sylvana discuss what it would be like sitting next to the Eagles O-Line on a plane ride. Joel Embiid is going to retire?? (32:50 -42:30) Sixers Youth Gala tonight with Andrew Salciunas and Bill Colarulo. Twitter poll returns. 87.5% say Process was a failure. Flyers talk with Tyrone and Ricky. Follow The Station x.com/975TheFanatic instagram.com/975thefanatic/ https://www.facebook.com/975thefanatic/ Follow The Show x.com/975BestShowEver https://x.com/TyJohnsonNews https://x.com/rickybottalico https://x.com/sylvanakell Support the Show 975thefanatic.com/shows/the-best-show-
The word of the day is curse. The Sixers seem to be cursed. They keep suffering injuries, they off to one of the worst starts ever, and everything seems to go wrong for them. Tyrone knows who to blame. He thinks its goes back to Sam Hinkie, and the people who still idolize him, and has an idea of how to break the curse. Also why is there so little buzz for Eagles-Rams? Are the eagles just so good people are in cruise control? The Best Show Ever discusses the lack of excitement for this game around the city. At (22:00) Andrew DiCecco joins the show to preview Eagles vs Rams.
The word of the day is curse. The Sixers seem to be cursed. They keep suffering injuries, they off to one of the worst starts ever, and everything seems to go wrong for them. Tyrone knows who to blame. He thinks its goes back to Sam Hinkie, and the people who still idolize him, and has an idea of how to break the curse. Also why is there so little buzz for Eagles-Rams? Are the eagles just so good people are in cruise control? The Best Show Ever discusses the lack of excitement for this game around the city.
The word of the day is curse. The Sixers seem to be cursed. They keep suffering injuries, they off to one of the worst starts ever, and everything seems to go wrong for them. Tyrone knows who to blame. He thinks its goes back to Sam Hinkie, and the people who still idolize him, and has an idea of how to break the curse. Also why is there so little buzz for Eagles-Rams? Are the eagles just so good people are in cruise control? The Best Show Ever discusses the lack of excitement for this game around the city.
The Morning team break down the decision made by the 76ers during the 'Process'. The team goes step by step of the mistakes like drafting Ben Simmons and Markele Fultz, forcing Sam Hinkie out and bringing in the Colangelo's or signing Tobias Harris to a max deal.
This week, we are running a replay of my conversation with Daryl Morey from last year. Daryl is the President of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers. Together with my friend and past guest of the show, Sam Hinkie, Daryl pioneered the analytics movement in basketball. He's been so influential his style has its own name, “Moreyball”, a nod to Michael Lewis's book about baseball, Moneyball. I had a blast talking to him about negotiation tactics, systems thinking, hiring, and a ton more. Please enjoy this great conversation with Daryl Morey. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. Listen to Founders Podcast. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. The gold standard for research, the Tegus platform delivers unmatched access to timely, qualitative insights through the largest and most differentiated expert call transcript database. With over 60,000 transcripts spanning 22,000 public and private companies, investors can accelerate their fundamental research process by discovering highly-differentiated and reliable insights that can't be found anywhere else in the market. As a listener, drive your next investment thesis forward with Tegus for free at tegus.co/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:03:15) The basic principles of sports and what makes for a great sport (00:09:54) How resource concentration influences outcomes in various sports (00:13:13) The degree of certainty in predicting sports outcomes based on existing data (00:16:32) Using the concept of KPIs to optimize for certain characteristics to win games (00:18:45) Training teams on specific systems and plays versus leveraging individual talent (00:21:07) Why superstar athletes are key to success in basketball (00:24:02) Dealing with constant expected value calculations to appease stakeholders (00:25:30) Building the organization's back office to find talented athletes (00:28:32) How he and other GMs make organization-level decisions (00:34:12) Why he's involved with basketball as opposed to other sports (00:36:17) How he uses his frameworks to figure out systems outside of mainstream sports (00:37:41) Problems with the rules and economic factors of professional soccer (00:41:53) Suggestions to mitigate huge point spreads that make viewers disinterested (00:42:54) Trends he's observed in the worlds of music, movies, and books (00:45:33) His perspective on developing one's own career path (00:48:22) How challenges in his youth benefited him in the long run (00:49:28) The person he would call for advice if he was stuck in a foreign prison (00:51:01) His emphasis on first principles and why he supports free speech (00:52:31) Takeaways from a Harvard negotiation class he took (00:57:07) The power of refining the terms and definitions of a deal post-negotiation (00:58:51) The four people in the world that intrigue him most (01:01:40) The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.houseofstrauss.comWe are joined by Spike Eskin, friend of pod, Rights to Ricky Sanchez co-host, and WFAN muckity muck. This was a wide ranging one, including but not limited to:* My shaky foray into tweeting, in defense of ratings talk* Spike and I discussing what it's like to have a negative take and how it tilts what you want* NFL writer Bill Barnwell takes a shot at the Eagles fans* A subscriber emails me a Sam Hinkie takedown for Spike to address* Can civilians do real NFL analysis? * A reader agrees with Spike and hates on the Bear.* Would Mad Men be better with New York accents?
Tyrese sits down and gets controversial with the reigning MVP himself, Joel Embiid. Tyrese and Joel talk about the origins of "The Process" nickname, Coach Nurse, what inspires him, their on-court connection, playing for Team USA, dealing with Ben Simmons and James Harden, trolling fans, the importance of the MVP and fighting with the media. Maxey on the Mic is a production of iHeartPodcasts Klutch Sports and the NBASee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this episode, we explore the controversial Sam Hinkie regime with the Philadelphia 76ers. Was he a genius or a fool for his team building strategy and is the franchise and league better or worse off without him? FOLLOW MY TWITTER AND YOUTUBE FOR MORE CONTENT AND IN-DEPTH BREAKDOWNS Twitter: https://twitter.com/jfeltonnn Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnCm4SNtySu-KH67YlWOJeA Instrumental produced by: LCS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OavTX5rmiRo&list=LL&index=1) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LMNmvxuhMQ&list=LL&index=2) WOWA - Piratos [Hip Hop Beat] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCEAll2m8k&list=LL&index=3) 'Jazzaddicts' by Cosimo Fogg
The Lefty Specialists are back to discuss a history of “The Process”… It has now been a decade since the Philadelphia 76ers hired Sam Hinkie as their General Manager and embarked on a radical experiment in building an NBA team. So today John looks back at what the Process was, its material roots in the fight between labor and capital, and whether it could have succeeded. (Further reading: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit undrafted.substack.com
We have an action packed episode of The Old Man and The Three with special guests Andre Iguodala (The Golden State Warriors) and Evan Turner of The Point Forward Podcast. This is a wildly entertaining episode so buckle up. Topics include: What white players like JJ do to get themselves pumped up before NBA games, the way the game has changed since they first got into the league to now, Iggy on weighing out playing or retiring from the NBA, the best NBA cultures they've ever been a part of, Iggy on the good and the bad of Heat Culture, real talk about the Jordan Poole situation in Golden State (with Draymond Green, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson), why 'embracing your role' can be a challenge if you get drafted by the wrong team, Evan's honest assessment on Sam Hinkie and The Process Philadelphia 76ers, the negative impact of the supermax deal, why Iggy thinks Philly should've been fined the same as James Harden, more talk about white players in the NBA, the time a truck crashed into Evan Turner's swimming pool in Portland and JJ gives his take about how Chris Paul will help The Warriors. Subscribe to The Old Man and The Three podcast w/ JJ Redick (ESPN / First Take) and Tommy Alter YouTube channel today for more NBA analysis, player interviews and highlights.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Keith Pompey and John Mitchell dissect former 76ers guard Evan Turner's comments about the organization and former general manager Sam Hinkie on The Old Man and the Three podcast, hosted by former Sixer JJ Redick.Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
Keith Pompey and John Mitchell dissect former 76ers guard Evan Turner's comments about the organization and former general manager Sam Hinkie on The Old Man and the Three podcast, hosted by former Sixer JJ Redick. Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
The Sixers are in turmoil right now. James Harden wants out and there are rumors swirling that Embiid may follow suit! On todays episode Bryan and Aldrin discuss the history of "The Process" started by Sam Hinkie and give their opinions on whether or not "The Process" was a success.Follow us on social media @Picknpopshow on Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok and Facebook!Support the show
How would you define the "Joel Embiid Era" of the Philadelphia 76ers? Has the Process has been a failure so far? The panel breaks down with what went wrong with the Sixers since the team drafted Embiid back in 2014. Why did the likes of Ben Simmons, James Harden, Markelle Fultz, and Jimmy Butler not work out with the team? Has it been the coaching flaws on Brett Brown and Doc Rivers? How about the general managing style of Sam Hinkie, Elton Brand, Daryl Morey... and yes, even Bryan Colangelo? The panel will "roast" the franchise, hopefully for the team to get over its issues, and will recap the biggest mistakes in the "Joel Embiid Era."
Links: David on Twitter Mitchell on Twitter Founders Podcast Stuff mentioned: Jocko Go Drink Capital Camp People mentioned: Jeremy Giffon on Twitter Brent Beshore on Twitter Clayton Dorge - CEO of Capital Camp Books mentioned: Setting the Table by Danny Meyer Becoming Trader Joe by Joe Coulombe In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman Sam Walton: Made in America The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro The Creative Act by Rick Rubin Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda Podcasts mentioned: Jocko Podcast Modern Wisdom w/ Chris Williamson Founders episode 305 - Robert Caro Invest like the Best w/ Sam Hinkie Smart Friends - Kevin Espiritu Invest like the Best with Peter Chernin Acquired - Louis Vuitton Audience of one with Jeremy Giffon Infinite Loops: Billy Oppenheimer Timestamps (00:04:09) David & Jocko Go: a Love Story (00:15:49) Recapping Capital Camp (00:40:35) The power of audio & writing, Sam Hinkie, Podcast recommendations (00:50:37) Finding conviction in your career pursuits (00:56:58) The opportunity for niche businesses (01:06:29) Power Leaking & the HoldCo phenomenon (01:21:47) Favorite moments from Capital Camp (02:00:49) The power of taste (02:09:23) The Climb and the Summit To support the costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners!
We address the reporting that James Harden is returning to the Sixers, bring Andrew Sharp back (Greatest Of All Talk, Sharp Tech, Sharp China) to tell us whether Bradley Beal is still good and if he's a loser, and talk about the new Sixers assistant coaches, and whether Sam Hinkie would trade Embiid. Subscribe to Sharp's pods and even more with Stratechery Plus at: https://stratechery.com/stratechery-plus/ The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings Sportsbook Adam Ksebe is the official realtor of the Process, call or text 302-864-8643 Get your Big Barker dog bed with Process Pup patches at bigbarker.com/ricky Kornblau & Kornblau is the official lawfirm of the process. Stateside Vodka is the official sponsor of the Corner Three Newsletter with Zo --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/spike-eskin/message
Joe DeCamara, Jon RItchie and the rest of the Morning Team discuss the validity of the process on the 10-year anniversary of Sam Hinkie's hiring. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Sixers fired Sam Hinkie. They drafted poorly. They didn't pick Jayson Tatum over Markelle Fultz.
Founders ✓ Claim Key Takeaways Check Out the Founders Podcast Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgWhat I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. ----This episode is brought to you by EightSleep: Get the best sleep of your life and unlock more energy with the Pod 3. Go to eightsleep.com/founders/----This episode is brought to you by Meter: Meter is the easiest way for your business to get fast, secure, and reliable internet and WiFi in any commercial space. Go to meter.com/founders----This episode is brought to you by Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch by emailing hi@tiny.com----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----[3:45] A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree.[4:45] He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.[5:15] Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.[6:05] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294)[9:25] To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing.[10:00] To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all.[10:55] The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.[11:45] The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. — Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299)[12:55] The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.[16:10] The worst way to live according to Napoleon:When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.[17:45] Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)[19:15] He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain, all schemes collapse.[20:15] Napoleon on George Washington: Britain refused to acknowledge either him or the independence of his country; but his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man.[21:15] Washington saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretentions of superiority and won control over half of a continent. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnershipby Edward Larson. (Founders #251)[23:15] If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.[23:45] Warren Buffett: We are individually opportunity driven. — All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)[24:15] Imagination rules the world.[25:00] Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases.[34:52] The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.[35:30] Roots of Strategy: Book 1[38:45] Robert Caro profiled two men who seeds were not high (in a tournament) they were without many advantages. And to get all the way to the top you probably had to sacrifice everything to the effort. The meta lesson is if you are not willing to pay that price presume someone else will.If you want something like the presidency (or being a billionaire) you should presume there is someone out there who will devote all their time, money, relationships, sense of ethics, everything in sacrifice of that one goal. Of course that person would win that race. — Invest Like The Best Sam Hinkie Find Your People [40:45] I do not want be roadkill on the modern-day Napoleon's path to glory.[43:15] The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers.[44:05] A wasted life should be your greatest fear.[46:30] Make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory.[48:55] Paul Graham on Be Hard to Kill:The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. — Paul Graham's essays (Founders #275)[51:30] Winning is the main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing.----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
Founders ✓ Claim Key Takeaways Check Out the Founders Podcast Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgWhat I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. ----This episode is brought to you by EightSleep: Get the best sleep of your life and unlock more energy with the Pod 3. Go to eightsleep.com/founders/----This episode is brought to you by Meter: Meter is the easiest way for your business to get fast, secure, and reliable internet and WiFi in any commercial space. Go to meter.com/founders----This episode is brought to you by Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch by emailing hi@tiny.com----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----[3:45] A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree.[4:45] He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.[5:15] Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.[6:05] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294)[9:25] To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing.[10:00] To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all.[10:55] The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.[11:45] The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. — Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299)[12:55] The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.[16:10] The worst way to live according to Napoleon:When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.[17:45] Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)[19:15] He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain, all schemes collapse.[20:15] Napoleon on George Washington: Britain refused to acknowledge either him or the independence of his country; but his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man.[21:15] Washington saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretentions of superiority and won control over half of a continent. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnershipby Edward Larson. (Founders #251)[23:15] If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.[23:45] Warren Buffett: We are individually opportunity driven. — All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)[24:15] Imagination rules the world.[25:00] Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases.[34:52] The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.[35:30] Roots of Strategy: Book 1[38:45] Robert Caro profiled two men who seeds were not high (in a tournament) they were without many advantages. And to get all the way to the top you probably had to sacrifice everything to the effort. The meta lesson is if you are not willing to pay that price presume someone else will.If you want something like the presidency (or being a billionaire) you should presume there is someone out there who will devote all their time, money, relationships, sense of ethics, everything in sacrifice of that one goal. Of course that person would win that race. — Invest Like The Best Sam Hinkie Find Your People [40:45] I do not want be roadkill on the modern-day Napoleon's path to glory.[43:15] The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers.[44:05] A wasted life should be your greatest fear.[46:30] Make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory.[48:55] Paul Graham on Be Hard to Kill:The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. — Paul Graham's essays (Founders #275)[51:30] Winning is the main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing.----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. ----This episode is brought to you by EightSleep: Get the best sleep of your life and unlock more energy with the Pod 3. Go to eightsleep.com/founders/----This episode is brought to you by Meter: Meter is the easiest way for your business to get fast, secure, and reliable internet and WiFi in any commercial space. Go to meter.com/founders----This episode is brought to you by Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch by emailing hi@tiny.com----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----[3:45] A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree.[4:45] He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.[5:15] Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.[6:05] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294)[9:25] To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing.[10:00] To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all.[10:55] The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.[11:45] The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. — Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299)[12:55] The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.[16:10] The worst way to live according to Napoleon:When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.[17:45] Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)[19:15] He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain, all schemes collapse.[20:15] Napoleon on George Washington: Britain refused to acknowledge either him or the independence of his country; but his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man.[21:15] Washington saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretentions of superiority and won control over half of a continent. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnershipby Edward Larson. (Founders #251)[23:15] If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.[23:45] Warren Buffett: We are individually opportunity driven. — All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)[24:15] Imagination rules the world.[25:00] Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases.[34:52] The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.[35:30] Roots of Strategy: Book 1[38:45] Robert Caro profiled two men who seeds were not high (in a tournament) they were without many advantages. And to get all the way to the top you probably had to sacrifice everything to the effort. The meta lesson is if you are not willing to pay that price presume someone else will.If you want something like the presidency (or being a billionaire) you should presume there is someone out there who will devote all their time, money, relationships, sense of ethics, everything in sacrifice of that one goal. Of course that person would win that race. — Invest Like The Best Sam Hinkie Find Your People [40:45] I do not want be roadkill on the modern-day Napoleon's path to glory.[43:15] The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers.[44:05] A wasted life should be your greatest fear.[46:30] Make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory.[48:55] Paul Graham on Be Hard to Kill:The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. — Paul Graham's essays (Founders #275)[51:30] Winning is the main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing.----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
Trust the Process. On today's episode we talk about the Joel Embiid MVP Award, and how Sam Hinkie's Process now looks like an even more wild story than ever before. Plus, 76ers James Harden dropped 45 points on the Boston Celtics with a Game Winner, putting his career into perspective now that he's in his 7th straight season making the 2nd Round of the Playoffs, and talking about Nikola Jokic cooking the Phoenix Suns. Plus, Chris Paul and Jimmy Butler injuries and MORE!!! CKSAML Productions Subscribe to our new Podcast series. The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty on Apple Podcasts Part 1: The Greatest Dynasty in North American Pro Sports – The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty Part 2: Gregg Popovich – The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty Part 3: Kawhi Leonard – The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty Part 4: What Happened in 2018?? – The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty | Podcast on Spotify Part 5: The Fall – The Fall of the Spurs Dynasty | Podcast on Spotify This show is presented by BetOnline Sportsbook. Use Code “BLEAV50” for a 50% bonus on your initial deposit
Today's episode is a little different. Rather than share a new conversation, I have put together a few of my favourites from the past six and a half years of doing this show. I often listen back to these for inspiration, energy, and their timeless ideas on life and investing. Each of these is a significantly shortened version of the original episode. The first conversation you'll hear is with Sam Hinkie, the second discussion is with Boyd Varty, and the last conversation you'll hear is with Charlie Songhurst. Sam, Boyd, and Charlie are all exceptional in their own way and I hope you enjoy these condensed versions of our conversations. Sam Hinkie - Find Your People Boyd Varty - The Art of Tracking Charlie Songhurst - Lessons from Investing in 483 Companies For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. I'm a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I've been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus' mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus' maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes (00:04:40) - (Sam Hinkie) (00:05:55) - The most amazing thing he's seen from someone he has worked with (00:09:51) - His interest in finding “digital breadcrumbs” on his pursuit of knowing a person (00:13:18) - The impactful story of meeting the assistant GM of the Houston Rockets (00:17:22) - Strategies he has developed to avoid transactional people (00:19:22) - How he shapes his career and optimizes from an investment perspective (00:24:06) - The strangest things he has come across in early-stage investing (00:29:47) - (Boyd Varty) (00:33:04) - His early experiences with tracking wildlife and how it applies to investing (00:44:46) - What can be learned about life goals and paths from the experience of tracking (00:47:59) - The influence of culture on decision-making and goal-setting (00:50:39) - His concept of “the ordering of chaos on behalf of others” (00:54:41) - The importance of moving towards the unknown to start approaching goals (00:57:15) - His most memorable tracking experience (01:12:40) - (Charlie Songhurst) (01:15:10) - His diverse career highlights (01:16:29) - His analysis of why startups succeed or fail (01:21:21) - What founders can learn to enable and maintain productivity in their company (01:25:21) - Nature versus nurture as it applies to adept founders, and the controversial “alien founder” concept (01:30:10) - The importance of good recruiting from an early stage (01:33:32) - How founders can make their companies attractive to prospective talent (01:35:53) - Why he is interested in investing in highly boring and highly complex ideas
Today's episode is a little different. Rather than share a new conversation, I have put together a few of my favourites from the past six and a half years of doing this show. I often listen back to these for inspiration, energy, and their timeless ideas on life and investing. Internally, we call these forever episodes because they'll likely still be as relevant and popular a decade from now as they were when they first aired. The first conversation you'll hear is with Sam Hinkie. Sam worked for more than a decade in the NBA, helping pioneer the use of data and analytics, originally with the Houston Rockets and finishing off as the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. In life after basketball, Sam launched his own venture capital fund, 87 Capital. Sam's approach to everything is about finding great people, and he has taught me more about that topic than just about anybody else. The second discussion is with Boyd Varty. My original conversation with Boyd, way back in 2017, had a huge impact on me and I'm sure you'll hear why. He grew up in the South African wilderness, living amongst and tracking wild leopards. He talks about the art of tracking and how the same strategy for pursuing animals in the wild can be applied to all aspects of our lives. Rather than following well-trodden paths, we should all explore and look for original experiences. He might still have the best answer I've ever heard on the podcast. The last conversation you'll hear is with Charlie Songhurst. Charlie is the former head of strategy at Microsoft, and a prolific investor having personally invested in nearly 500 companies through his career. Within one minute of meeting Charlie, you can tell that his mind is sparkling with ideas and curiosity. It's no wonder he was among the most commonly requested guests. Charlie would always come up when I asked top investors and CEOs who I should have on the show and he often still comes up as people's favourite guest. Sam, Boyd, and Charlie are all exceptional in their own way and I hope you enjoy these condensed versions of our conversations. You'll find links to the full, original episodes in the shownotes. Enjoy and share them with friends and loved ones who you think will benefit from these original thinkers. Sam Hinkie - Find Your People Boyd Varty - The Art of Tracking Charlie Songhurst - Lessons from Investing in 483 Companies For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. I'm a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I've been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus' mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus' maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes (00:04:40) - (Sam Hinkie) - His focus on quality people and talent as a key driver for success (00:05:55) - The most amazing thing he's seen from someone he has worked with, early on in the partnership (00:07:59) - The different leadership styles he has absorbed through his career (00:09:51) - His interest in finding “digital breadcrumbs” on his pursuit of knowing a person (00:13:18) - The impactful story of meeting the assistant GM of the Houston Rockets (00:17:22) - Strategies he has developed to avoid transactional people (00:18:19) - The move he made that most factored in to him getting the GM position (00:19:22) - How he shapes his career and optimizes from an investment perspective (00:24:06) - The strangest things he has come across in early-stage investing (00:25:47) - How listeners can use the proverbial bread crumbs to enable serendipity and prosperity (00:29:47) - (Boyd Varty) - His childhood and his dad's black mamba story (00:33:04) - His early experiences with tracking wildlife and how it applies to investing (00:38:32) - What a full day of tracking looks like, and his Track Your Life retreat program (00:44:46) - What can be learned about life goals and paths from the experience of tracking (00:47:59) - The influence of culture on decision-making and goal-setting (00:50:39) - His concept of “the ordering of chaos on behalf of others” and its impact on life purpose as it relates to the so-called wild self (00:52:13) - How his theories stand up to common objections from skeptics (00:54:41) - The importance of moving towards the unknown to start approaching goals (00:57:15) - His most memorable tracking experience (01:08:43) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him (01:12:40) - (Charlie Songhurst) - His interest in studying people's virtues and vices (01:15:10) - His diverse career highlights (01:16:29) - His analysis of why startups succeed or fail (01:21:21) - What founders can learn to enable and maintain productivity in their company (01:25:21) - Nature versus nurture as it applies to adept founders, and the controversial “alien founder” concept (01:30:10) - The importance of good recruiting from an early stage (01:33:32) - How founders can make their companies attractive to prospective talent (01:35:53) - Why he is interested in investing in highly boring and highly complex ideas
What I learned from having dinner with Charlie Munger and rereading The Tao of Charlie Munger.This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ![5:45] The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.[8:48] He has never forgotten the importance of having friends in high places.[9:04] Most people systematically undervalue their time. — Peter Thiel[11:08] Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. Founders #251)[12:23] Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #284)[15:02] Charlie took the excess capital out of Blue Chip Stamp and invested it in profitable businesses.[12:56] Charlie started seeing the advantages of investing in better businesses that didn't have big capital requirements and did have lots of free cash that could be reinvested in expanding operations or buying new businesses.[17:38] Go for great.[21:33] In everything I've done it really pays to go after the best people in the world. —Steve Jobs[27:15] If you're in a good business just know that it's human nature to mess it up. Don't mess it up. Just stay there and let time do its work.[27:34] One truly great business will make your unborn grandchildren wealthy.[28:08] All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)[34:39] I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.[34:54] Charlie Munger on how he made $400 or $500 million by reading Barron's for 50 years.[35:11] One of the reasons Charlie and Warren have never worried about anyone mimicking their investment style is because no other institution or individual has the discipline are the patience to wait as long as they can. [35:47] Wisdom is prevention.[36:50] Only play games where you have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)[38:31] Wise people step on big and growing troubles early.[44:51] I am continually amazed at the number of people who are presented with an opportunity and pass. There's your basic dividing line between the people who shoot up in their careers like a rocket ship, and those who don't — right there. — Marc Andreessen's Blog Archive (Founders #50)[46:28] The most inspiring biography I've read so far: Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung. (Founders #117)[47:11] Invest Like The Best #204 Sam Hinkie Find Your People[42:42] Rober Caro's Books:The Power BrokerThe Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IMeans of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IIMaster of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IIIThe Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV[48:46] We just got after it and we stayed after it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)[52:39] Some brand names own a piece of consumer's minds and they do not have any direct competition.[55:30] We are individual opportunity driven.[57:08] Size and market domination can create their own kind of durable competitive advantage.[56:15] Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)[1:01:57] Extreme specialization is the way to succeed. Most people are way better off specializing than trying to understand the world.[1:04:44] Wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison and there are a lot of them.[1:05:35] Charlie and I have seen so much of the ordinary in business that we can truly appreciate a virtuoso performance.[1:09:00] Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. (Founders #269)[1:10:15] Charlie looks at nearly everything through the lens of history. You aren't changing human nature. Things will just keep repeating forever.[1:13:13] There should be more willingness to take the blows of life as they fall. That's what manhood is, taking life as it falls. Not whining all the time and trying to fix it by whining.[1:14:40] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)[1:17:00] Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiographies and episodes:Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #193)----Subscribe to listen to Founders Premium — Subscribers can ask me questions directly and listen to Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes.----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book----I use Readwise to organize and remember everything I read. You can try Readwise for 60 days for free here. ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
We're very excited for this one. Part of our mission with Making Media is to highlight great content across the internet. Today, we're starting with business essays and to bring some wisdom to the conversation, we enlisted one of our favorite writers, Packy McCormick. Hear us break down our most influential business essays, read them through the links in the shownotes, and let us know what you think on Twitter or hello@joincolossus.com. Enjoy! For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- Scribe is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Making Media and the magic behind the Colossus transcripts. One of the best decisions we made at Colossus was transcribing all of our audio into a searchable transcript library. We had been using another provider up until the summer of 2022 but we were constantly having issues with accuracy if our audio was just the slightest bit impaired. Whether it's training sessions, internal Q&As, or for media purposes, the value of transcripts is huge. And we are not alone. Scribe is the transcription service that powers all of S&P Global - like CapIQ - and the client list includes our friends at Tegus. Go to joincolossus.com/scribe to unlock 150 minutes of free transcription and test their capabilities. ----- Making Media is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Making Media, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @ReustleMatt | @domcooke | @JoinColossus Show Notes (00:02:59) - [First question] - The Not Boring back story and what he learned from his time at Breather (00:05:06) - Aggregation Theory by Ben Thompson (00:09:42) - The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius by Paul Graham (00:13:45) - Letter to a friend who may start a new investment platform by Graham Duncan (00:17:05) - Positional Scarcity by Alex Danco (00:22:23] - The Three Sides of Risk by Morgan Housel (00:26:56) - Salary Negotiation by Patrick McKenzie (00:31:47) - Sam Hinkie's resignation letter (00:37:10) - Increasing Returns and the New World of Business by W. Brian Arthur (00:41:54) - 10 Tips on Writing by David Ogilvy (00:44:46) - The next big thing will start out looking like a toy by Chris Dixon (00:49:08) - The Tail End by Tim Urban (00:53:41) - 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly (00:59:07) - Honorable mention: The Great Online Game by Packy McCormick (01:03:26) - Honorable mention: Excel Never Dies by Packy McCormick (01:05:58) - Packy's closing thoughts and why he thinks people should read more Sci-Fi (01:08:37) - Honorable mention: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
My guest this week is Daryl Morey, who is President of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers. Daryl is a computer science graduate but has become one of the NBA's most successful General Managers during his time with the Houston Rockets and the 76ers. Together with my friend and past guest of the show, Sam Hinkie, Daryl pioneered the analytics movement in basketball. He's been so influential his style has its own name, “Moreyball”, a nod to Michael Lewis's book about baseball, Moneyball. Daryl is also the co-founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which has become the gold standard forum for leaders in sports analytics. I had a blast talking to him about negotiation tactics, systems thinking, hiring, and a ton more. Please enjoy this great conversation with Daryl Morey. Listen to Founders podcast Founders Episode #136 A Success Story: Estee Lauder Invest Like the Best with David Senra: Passion & Pain For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It's all done on a single, modern SaaS platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I've been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:03:15] - [First question] - The basic principles of sports and what makes for a great sport [00:09:54] - How resource concentration influences outcomes in various sports [00:13:13] - The degree of certainty in predicting sports outcomes based on existing data [00:16:32] - Using the concept of KPIs to optimize for certain characteristics to win games [00:18:45] - Training teams on specific systems and plays versus leveraging individual talent [00:21:07] - Why superstar athletes are key to success in basketball [00:24:02] - Dealing with constant expected value calculations to appease stakeholders [00:25:30] - Building the organization's back office to find talented athletes [00:28:32] - How he and other GMs make organization-level decisions [00:34:12] - Why he's involved with basketball as opposed to other sports [00:36:17] - How he uses his frameworks to figure out systems outside of mainstream sports [00:37:41] - Problems with the rules and economic factors of professional soccer [00:41:53] - Suggestions to mitigate huge point spreads that make viewers disinterested [00:42:54] - Trends he's observed in the worlds of music, movies, and books [00:45:33] - His perspective on developing one's own career path [00:48:22] - How challenges in his youth benefited him in the long run [00:49:28] - The person he would call for advice if he was stuck in a foreign prison [00:51:01] - His emphasis on first principles and why he supports free speech [00:52:31] - Takeaways from a Harvard negotiation class he took [00:57:07] - The power of refining the terms and definitions of a deal post-negotiation [00:58:51] - The four people in the world that intrigue him most [01:01:40] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
Today we are on part five of my story. Today's episode talks about one of the hardest seasons as a new realtor. After I got my real estate license, people didn't understand that having the license didn't mean instant success or instant money coming in. It takes hard work, time, and determination. There were a lot of comments from others telling me I was not good enough, I should get a real job, and that I was a failure. Through all this, I learned to trust the process. If you're a Philadelphia Seventy-sixers fan, this is a phrase you've heard before—it was a strategy used by Sam Hinkie when he traded players for assets, and it paid off. Trusting the process is essential in real estate. Having good conversations, connecting with people, establishing a social media presence, and telling everyone I was in real estate—trusting the process. I bought a computer for my real estate business and while I was in the Apple store, I made sure everyone in that store knew that new computer was for my career in real estate. I made sure that people knew I was a Realtor. I continued to trust the process—I knew I had to if I wanted to create success, because I didn't have any clients. I knew the numbers. I knew the statistics. I wasn't going to let myself become a failed statistic. I continued to build relationships and have conversations with everyone I could. My friend Jonathan, who I had worked for at Chick-Fil-A, was one of the first people to contact me with a potential client. His parents were moving to the area and needed a Realtor—he recommended me. It was such an honor that he trusted me with his parents—he told me that he knew I'd take good care of them and do a great job. I remember the stress and anxiety, but also the excitement. I was celebrating Thanksgiving with extended family, and they were asking me about how my business was going, and I didn't really know how to respond. Jonathan's dad called me while I was there and as I talked to him about buying a house. It gave me so much confidence when I didn't scare him off that I felt like if I could have a good conversation and create a relationship with this person on the phone that I could really do this business. If I could do it once, I could recreate that process a hundred times over and I would have success. I've had thousands of conversations since that first call, but Jonathan's dad was my first client, and it was all about trusting the process and getting that first client to work with you. I'll often tell Realtors that I'm coaching, that once you have your first settlement, you'll feel like you can run through a brick wall like the Kool-Aid man. That exhilaration makes you want to do it a hundred times more. That's how I got my first client on Thanksgiving Day. I felt like I had the potential to become successful in real estate now that I had earned a client. I knew I had to continue to put in the effort and work and find another client. I didn't get there overnight—it took from February through November. On the next episode, I'll talk about faking it till you make it, my interaction with that first client, and the power of perception. I appreciate you being along for the journey and look forward to sharing the sixth episode with you. Thanks for listening to the Real Estate Survival. If you enjoyed this episode, we would appreciate it if you'd leave us a review on iTunes.Resources Free social media coaching calls are back! To schedule your free social media coaching call go to: https://calendly.com/realestatesurvivalguide/social-media-strategy-for-realtorsPodcast edited by Kenny Carfagno.Show notes and blog posts are created by Jennifer Harshman and
Today's episode is a special one, in a format that may turn into a series. It is a conversation between Ravi Gupta and Shane Battier. Ravi is a partner at Sequoia, one of our most popular past guests, and a good friend. Shane is Ravi's friend, and one of the most successful basketball players ever, having won championships and awards at the high school, college, and NBA levels. I spent 10 years as a purely quantitative investor, so naturally I was obsessed with data in sports. When I was meeting with prospective investors, Michael Lewis's book Moneyball—which chronicled the data analytics revolution in baseball—was my go-to analogy to explain what I did… “Moneyball, but for investing.” I used that line for years. I've learned firsthand that it's wise to follow your curiosity, no matter how strange or different it may be. The podcast is my curiosity tour, and years ago it led me to Sam Hinkie—who is himself on the Mt. Rushmore of analytics in sports. Sam introduced me to Ravi. Then Ravi sent me Michael Lewis' article written about Shane called “The No Stats All-Star.” I highly recommend you read it. All this serendipity around friends, data, investing, and sports gave me an idea: why not ask Ravi to interview Shane? There were so many valuable ideas in the Michael Lewis article, I thought we'd get even more in a real taped interview with someone that knew Shane well, and that's exactly what happened. Ravi likes the idea of playing for the front of the jersey, not the back. It is hard to imagine someone that lived that more than Shane. Shane shares his story, lessons learned from various coaches, and using data as an advantage. He also explains the four kinds of teams he's encountered, which I found simple, and memorable. I hope you enjoy this great conversation, and if you have ideas for other iconic duos we could bring on in a similar format, DM me on Twitter. Thanks to Ravi and Shane for kicking off Thanksgiving week for us all. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. If you're a professional equity investor and haven't talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com. ----- Today's episode is brought to you by Brex. Brex is the integrated financial platform trusted by the world's most innovative entrepreneurs and fastest-growing companies. With Brex, you can move money fast for instant impact with high-limit corporate cards, payments, venture debt, and spend management software all in one place. Ready to accelerate your business? Learn more at brex.com/best. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes [00:03:53] - [First question] - What people measure in basketball, what matters when it comes to winning, and why he was called a replaceable cog in the No-Stats All-Star [00:08:38] - Some of the plays that impact the overall points during a basketball game [00:11:44] - The role that preparation and understanding game analytics plays in the ability to do something different and succeed at it [00:14:33] - The power of curiosity and obsessing over details [00:16:16] - Embracing his role and how being a role player applies to life outside of the court [00:20:47] - Where his obsession for winning and being a good team mate comes from [00:23:23] - Some of the things great leaders and coaches did to inspire him [00:28:51] - An overview of the four types of teams and fundamental aspects of them [00:34:50] - What a person can do to elevate their team and make it a winning one [00:37:43] - Antifragility and the letter Shane wrote for Ravi when Amazon bought Whole Foods [00:41:08] - Riding the thin line between winning a championship and being irrelevant [00:44:56] - How to get everyone rallied around a long-term shared mission effectively [00:46:48] - Finding a No-Stats All-Star in a company and what to look for in one [00:52:34] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
What I learned from reading Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush.Support Founders' sponsors: Tiny: The easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders. andCapital: Raise, hold, and spend capital all in one place. and Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by founders, investors, and executives. It's incredible what they're building. Try it for free by visiting Tegus.[7:15] Pieces of the Action offers his hard-won lessons on how to operate and manage effectively within complex organizations and drive ambitious, unprecedented programs to fruition.[8:54] Stripe Press Books:The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell WaldropThe Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 by Jordan Mechner.[9:24] Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary[10:40] Any exploration of the institutions that shape how we do research, generate discoveries, create inventions, and turn ideas into innovations inevitably leads back to Vannevar Bush.[11:26] No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush.[12:23] That's why I'm going to encourage you to order this book —because when you pick it up and you read it —you're reading the words of an 80 year old genius. One of the most formidable and accomplished people that has ever lived— laying out what he learned over his six decade long career.[14:38] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)[15:12] Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini[15:48] I don't know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug Engelbart's ideas. — The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #157)[18:54] Bush points out that tipping points often rest with far-seeing, energetic individuals. We can be those individuals.[20:36] I went into this book with little more than a name and came out with the closest thing to a mentor someone you've never met can be.[20:58] We are not the first to face problems, and as we face them we can hold our heads high. In such spirit was this book written.[24:38] The essence of civilization is the transmission of the findings of each generation to the next.[29:00] This is not a call for optimism, it is a call for determination.[31:12] It is pleasant to turn to situations where conservatism or lethargy were overcome by farseeing, energetic individuals.[31:34] People are really a power law and that the best ones can change everything. —Sam Hinkie[33:46] There should never be, throughout an organization, any doubt as to where authority for making decisions resides, or any doubt that they will be promptly made.[34:32] You can drive great people by making the speed of decision making really slow. Why would great people stay in an organization where they can't get things done? They look around after a while, and they're, like, "Look, I love the mission, but I can't get my job done because our speed of decision making is too slow." — Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos by Jeff Bezos and Walter Isaacson.(Founders #155)[38:36] Rigid lines of authority do not produce the best innovations.[38:42] Research projects flowered in pockets all around the company, many of them without Steve's blessing or even awareness.They'd come to Steve's attention only if one of his key managers decided that the project or technology showed real potential.In that case, Steve would check it out, and the information he'd glean would go into the learning machine that was his brain. Sometimes that's where it would sit, and nothing would happen. Sometimes, on the other hand, he'd concoct a way to combine it with something else he'd seen, or perhaps to twist it in a way to benefit an entirely different project altogether.This was one of his great talents, the ability to synthesize separate developments and technologies into something previously unimaginable. —Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Founders #265)[40:56] He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. —Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. (Founders #135)[42:22] Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143)[45:35] If a man is a good judge of men, he can go far on that skill alone.[46:00] All the past episodes mentioned by Vannevar Bush in this book:General Leslie Groves: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)J. Robert Oppenheimer: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)Alfred Lee Loomis: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143)J.P. Morgan: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139)The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. (Founders #142)Orville Wright: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. (Founders #239)Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone. (Founders #241)Edwin Land: Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #263)Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66)Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125)Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bellby Charlotte Gray. (Founders #138)[48:21] Difficulties are often encountered in bringing an invention into production and use.[48:47] An invention has some of the characteristics of a poem.It is said that a poet may derive real joy out of making a poem, even if it is never published, even if he does not recite it to his friends, even if it is not a very good poem.No doubt, one has to be a poet to understand this.In the same way, an inventor can derive real satisfaction out of making an invention, even if he never expects to make a nickel out of it, even if he knows it is a bit foolish, provided he feels it involves ingenuity and insight.An inventor invents because he cannot help it, and also because he gets quiet fun out of doing so.Sometimes he even makes money at it, but not by himself. One has to be an inventor to understand this.One evening in Dayton, I dined alone with Orville Wright.During a long evening, we discussed inventions we had made that had never amounted to anything. He took me up to the attic and showed me models of various weird gadgets.I had plenty of similar efforts to tell him about, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.Neither of us would have thus spilled things except to a fellow practitioner, one who had enjoyed the elation of creation and who knew that such elation is, to a true devotee, independent of practical results.So it is also, I understand, with poets.[51:28] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)[52:21] When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry—the founders of the important companies in the industry—are still alive and actively involved. — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen. (Founders #50)[57:18] If a company operates only under patents it owns, and infringes on no others, its monopoly should not be disturbed, and the courts so hold. An excellent example is Polaroid Corporation. Founded by Edwin Land, one of the most ingenious men I ever knew (and also one of the wisest), it has grown and prospered because of his inventions and those of his team.[1:00:46] I came to the realization that they knew more about the subject than I did. In some ways, this was not strange. They were concentrating on it and I was getting involved in other things.[1:01:31] P.T. Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson. (Founders #137)[1:05:53] We make progress, lots of progress, in nearly every intellectual field, only to find that the more we probe, the faster our field of ignorance expands.[1:11:41] All the books from Stripe Press—Get 60 days free of Readwise. It is the best app I pay for. I couldn't make Founders without it.—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
What I learned from reading Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux.--Support Founders' sponsors: Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by founders, investors, and executives. It's incredible what they're building. Try it for free by visiting Tegus.and Sam Hinkie's unique venture capital firm 87 Capital. If i was raising money and looking for a long term partner Sam is the first person I would call. If you are the kind of founder that we study on this podcast and you are looking for a long term partner go to 87capital.comand Get 60 days free of Readwise. It is the best app I pay for. I couldn't make Founders without it.--[8:00] Thread of highlights from Cable Cowboy by @Loadlinefinance[8:31] Malone was stalwart about building long term value through leveraged cash flow. Earnings didn't count. He wasn't constrained by quarterly expectations.[8:53] Malone built the pipes, then bought the water that flows through them.[9:12] Malone took spartan operations to another level. Absolutely no bureaucracy. No waste. We don't believe in staff. Staff are people who second-guess people.[9:40] Malone averaged one M&A deal every two weeks over 15 years. That's insane. These guys were slinging billion dollar deals like bowls of breakfast cereal.[10:02] One of the best parts of the book is Robichaux's exploration of Malone's complex personality. It's not just a fawning glow piece.[10:46] The beginning of industries are always filled with cowboys, pirates, and misfits.[12:05] This book— by far — has been the most requested book for me to cover on Founders for years.[12:51] Founders episodes on Andrew Carnegie:Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73)The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #74)Founders episodes on JP Morgan:The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow (Founders #139)The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield (Founders #142)[14:37] Mavericks Lecture: John Malone[15:04] Two Rockefeller podcasts:Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248)John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254)[18:45] Bob when recruiting John: You've got a great future here. If you can create it.[19:32] Malone's top executives were rough riders.[20:49] In 1972 TCI had $19 million in annual revenue and its debt load was an obscene $132 million.[21:49] Magness learned to listen instead of talk.Successful people listen. Those who don't listen, don't survive long. —Michael Jordan Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil (Founders #213)[24:41] That $2,500 loan turns into hundreds of millions of dollars for his grandsons.[25:47] New employees were asked can you walk 10 miles in 10 below zero weather?[26:42] The cable companies hardly paid any taxes because of the high depreciation on the equipment.[28:24] He skimmed the company's numbers, looked up at Betsy and blurted out, I'm gonna hire the smartest son of a bitch I can find.[30:55] Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher (Founders #242)[32:26] Once you make a guy rich don't expect him to work hard. Very unusual people do that.[33:24] You can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks.Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson (Founders #267)Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr (Founders #258)[35:24] 1. You raise money so you can increase production. 2. Use your increased production to get better rates on transportation than other refiners. 3. Use your increased profits —because you have better transportation —to buy your competitors. 4. You continue to find secret sources of income. — John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254)[36:40] Malone thinks about his industry more than anyone else.[38:07] He blundered early by suggesting in a meeting that Amazon executives who traveled frequently should be permitted to fly business-class. Jeff slammed his hand on the table and said, “That is not how an owner thinks! That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard.” — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179)[38:58] Our experience has been that the manager of an already high-cost operation frequently is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add to overhead, while the manager of a tightly-run operation usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs, even when his costs are already well below those of his competitors. — Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders 1965-2018 by Warren Buffett (Founders #88)[40:24] FedEx was fearful the bank would try to seize the mortgaged planes. The bank had a young officer keeping track of the situation. Every time he showed up at the airport, we would radio the planes not to land. It was all very touchy. — Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble (Founders #151)[41:14] How John described this point in his career: I'm the head of a little pipsqueak company in debt up to its ass, a couple million dollars in revenue, and not credit worthy to borrow from a bank. We're barely making it.[42:25] Malone like the mathematics of it. Tax sheltered cash flow could be leveraged to land more loans, to create more tax sheltered cash flow.[43:52] Stay in the game long enough to get lucky.[47:05] Bowerman's response to other coaches: “As a coach, my heart is always divided between pity for the men they wreck and scorn for how easy they are to beat.” —Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore. (Founders #153)[49:27] "Forget about earnings. That's a priesthood of the accounting profession," he would preach, unrelentingly. "What you're really after is appreciating assets.”[50:23] If you control distribution you get equity in return.[53:04] My Life and Work by Henry Ford (Founders #266)[54:49] Call Me Ted by Ted Turner[1:06:33] When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry—the founders of the important companies in the industry—are still alive and actively involved. — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50)—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson.--Support Founders' sponsors: Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by founders, investors, and executives. It's incredible what they're building. Try it for free by visiting Tegus.and Sam Hinkie's unique venture capital firm 87 Capital. If i was raising money and looking for a long term partner Sam is the first person I would call. If you are the kind of founder that we study on this podcast and you are looking for a long term partner go to 87capital.comand Get 60 days free of Readwise. It is the best app I pay for. I couldn't make Founders without it.—[8:00] Podcast starts [8:26] He had known how to gather interest, faith, and hope in the success of his projects.[9:31] I think of this episode as part 5 in a 5 part series that started on episode 263:#263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.#264 Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. #265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli#266 My Life and Work by Henry Ford.[11:20] Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger[11:54] Warren Buffett: “Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they'd gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.' And Bill said the same thing.” —Focus and Finding Your Favorite Problems by Frederik Gieschen[12:46] Focus! A simple thing to say and a nearly impossible thing to do over the long term.[15:51] We have a picture of the boy receiving blow after blow and learning that there was inexplicable cruelty and pain in this world.[19:49] He is working from the time the sun rises till 10 or 11 at night. He is 11 years old.[19:58] He reads the entire library. Every book. All of them.[21:52] At this point in history the telegraph is the leading edge of communication technology in the world.[23:01] My refuge was a Detroit public library. I started with the first book on the bottom shelf and went through the lot one by one. I did not read a few books. I read the library.[23:21] Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill GurleyBlake Robbins Notes on Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You LoveGreatness isn't random. It is earned. If you're going to research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet — that's the good news. The bad news is that you now have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want because it's right there at your fingertips.[29:00] Why his work on the telegraph was so important to everything that happened later in his life: The germs of many ideas and stratagems perfected by him in later years were implanted in his mind when he worked at the telegraph. He described this phase of his life afterward, his mind was in a tumult, besieged by all sorts of ideas and schemes. All the future potentialities of electricity obsessed him night and day. It was then that he dared to hope that he would become an inventor.[31:29] Edison's insane schedule: Though he had worked up to an early hour of the morning at the telegraph office, Edison began reading the Experimental Researches In Electricity (Faraday's book) when he returned to his room at 4 A.M. and continued throughout the day that followed, so that he went back to his telegraph without having slept. He was filled with determination to learn all he could.[32:38] All the Thomas Edison episodes:The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross (Founders #3)Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes. (Founders #83)The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Tripby Jeff Guinn. (Founders #190)[32:57] Having one's own shop, working on projects of one's own choosing, making enough money today so one could do the same tomorrow: These were the modest goals of Thomas Edison when he struck out on his own as full-time inventor and manufacturer. The grand goal was nothing other than enjoying the autonomy of entrepreneur and forestalling a return to the servitude of employee. —The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross[40:54] Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258)[48:00] It's this idea where you can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks.[49:17] Edison describes the fights between the robber barons as strange financial warfare.[54:35] You should build a company that you actually enjoy working in.[55:47] Don't make this mistake:John Ott who served under Edison for half a century, at the end of his life described the "sacrifices" some of Edison's old co-workers had made, and he commented on their reasons for so doing."My children grew up without knowing their father," he said. "When I did get home at night, which was seldom, they were in bed.""Why did you do it?" he was asked."Because Edison made your work interesting. He made me feel that I was making something with him. I wasn't just a workman. And then in those days, we all hoped to get rich with him.”[57:26] Don't try to sell a new technology to an exisiting monopoly. Western Union was a telegraphy monopoly: He approached Western union people with the idea of reproducing and recording the human voice, but they saw no conceivable use for it![58:07] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)[59:42] Passion is infectious. No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin. (Founders #24)[1:01:23] For more detail on the War of the Currents listen to episode 83 Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes.[1:03:05] From the book Empire of Light: And so it was that J. Pierpont, Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison but a decade earlier, now erased Edison's name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call to the great inventor.Edison biographer Matthew Josephson wrote, "To Morgan it made little difference so long as it all resulted in a big trustification for which he would be the banker."Edison had been, in the vocabulary of the times, Morganized.[1:06:03] One of Thomas Edison's favorite books: Toilers of The Sea by Victor Hugo[1:08:26] “The trouble with other inventors is that they try a few things and quit. I never quit until I get what I want.” —Thomas Edison[1:08:35] “Remember, nothing that's good works by itself. You've gotta make the damn thing work.” —Thomas Edison[1:12:04] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana Kingby Rich Cohen. (Founders #255)[1:12:58] He (Steve Jobs) was always easy to understand.He would either approve a demo, or he would request to see something different next time.Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next.He was always trying to ensure the products were as intuitive and straightforward as possible, and he was willing to invest his own time, effort, and influence to see that they were.Through looking at demos, asking for specific changes, then reviewing the changed work again later on and giving a final approval before we could ship, Steve could make a product turn out like he wanted.— Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda (Bonus episode between Founders #110 and #111)[1:15:48] Charles Kettering is the 20th Century's Ben Franklin. — Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125)—Get 60 days free of Readwise. It is the best app I pay for. I could not make Founders without—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
Adio Royster and Dave Early to the summer of 2014. This draft is incredibly important to Philadelphia 76ers fans and history. It is the draft when the Sixers took Joel Hans Embiid third overall. The Cleveland Cavaliers took Andrew Wiggins with the first overall pick. The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Duke forward Jabari Parker second overall. That left the Sixers and general manager Sam Hinkie to take Embiid with the third pick. There was a back injury. There was a face injury. There was a foot injury. None of that mattered. Hinkie and the Sixers were happy to take Embiid third, and Embiid was happy not to go to a 'corny' city (his words) like Milwaukee. What if things happened differently? What if David Griffin and the Cavaliers had the foresight to take Embiid and (maybe) pair him with Lebron James and Kyrie Irving down the line? What if the Bucks were patient with Embiid allowing them to pair him with Giannis Antetokounmpo? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TBT Director of Player Personnel Jake Pavorsky joins the program to discuss the tournament's success, how the Elam Ending and its merits at the NBA level, reflect on days covering Sam Hinkie's Sixers, and take listener questions. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com
ESPN's Pablo Torre joins Drew and Roth about the demise of the Phoenix Suns, the 76ers Sam Hinkie era, 2022 Eastern Conference Finals, Phil Mickelson and the inner workings of sports media. Plus, Guy of the Week and the Funbag! Visit Defector.com.
No, Vince Lombardi is not back from the dead, but it looks like we have the dreaded glass ceiling in the NBA playoff standing. So Adam Murray and Andrew Riche, Place To Be Nation's NBA-Team, are going to dive into the playoff/play-in scenarios. Why is Riche so excited about the new-look Pelicans… and Adam is suspicious about the sudden return of Zion Williamson? Is the Harden Honeymoon in Philly going to swoon all the way into June? They also discuss the Lakers, Kevin Durant's return not being on national TV, and the Wizards trying to get back in the play-IN, and the future NBA Champion Detroit Pistons?! Finally, Adam and Riche have another fiery debate about the most important team of our generation: Sam Hinkie's 76ers. So suit up and take it out in episode 228 with the NBA-Team!
Locked On Celtics - Daily Podcast On The Boston Celtics With Rainin' J's
Jake Fischer is the author of "Built To Lose" a book about tanking in the NBA and how it re-shaped the league. John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal has Jake on to talk about his new book, the Sam Hinkie's extreme tanking in Philadelphia, the Boston Celtics landing Jayson Tatum, and how the future of the league looks as tanking teams risk losing players after their rookie contracts thanks to an influx of television money and other factors.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15” and you'll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chad is joined by Bleacher Report's Jake Fischer author of “Built to Lose: How the NBA's Tanking Era Changed the League Forever" to discuss the role that the draft lottery and tanking has played in the NBA. They go in-depth into the scouting processes of several tank era teams including the 76ers, Celtics, Suns and Kings and discuss Sam Hinkie's legacy for good and for bad on the NBA Draft with some poignant lessons for this year's draft and the NBA as a whole. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are back talking NBA and Sean goes off on Ben Simmons and the disappointing end to the Philadelphia 76ers season. Sean points out that the team was built on a losing mentality and that Sam Hinkie deserves to burn in hell. The guys preview the Eastern Conference Finals Atlanta Hawks vs Milwaukee Bucks series and Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix Suns, giving out their NBA picks for 6/22 and 6/23.Podcast Timecodes0:01:03 - Intro/Welcome0:03:36 - Philadelphia 76ers and Ben Simmons Outrage0:13:50 - Los Angeles Clippers v. Phoenix Suns Game 1 Recap and Game 2 Preview0:20:17 - Los Angeles Clippers v. Phoenix Suns Series Prices0:22:41 - Chris Paul Availability for Game 20:24:35 - Atlanta Hawks v. Milwaukee Bucks Game 1 Preview0:28:38 - Atlanta Hawks v. Milwaukee Bucks Series Prices0:33:21 - Prop Swap Stories0:35:27 - Lock, Dog, and Spicy PredictionsDownload the SGPN app - https://sgpn.appFollow - Twitter | InstagramWatch - YouTube | TwitchListen - Apple | SpotifyRead - SportsGamblingPodcast.comDiscuss - Slack | RedditSupport for this episode - WynnBet | CoorsLight | PropSwap.com code “SGP” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Locked On NBA Draft - Daily Podcast On The NBA Draft And College Basketball
Bleacher report NBA writer Jake Fischer joins Rafael Barlowe from NBADraftjunkies.com to discuss his new book Built to Lose: How the NBA's Tanking Era Changed the League Forever.Barlowe and Fischer cover the Sam Hinkie era in Philadelphia, the 2014 NBA draft and the role agents play in the draft process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Greg tries to make us remember just how far the Sixers have come since Sam Hinkie gutted the roster in 2013. Cliff & John join in the fun as always as the guys get ready for a big playoff run.
In this week's Basketball Buds, Zach, Tray, Jay and Dave contemplate a probable play-in between LeBron's Lakers and Steph's Warriors. Then the Celtics are struggling and what is wrong with Marcus Smart. Some hypothetical matchups in the East and the return of South Beach Zach. Finally, is Zion getting unfairly officiated? And has anyone noticed the Thunder are worse than Sam Hinkie's 76ers? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sam Hinkie once said to "trust the process." Well, just like the 2013-2014 76ers season, this pod may look bad now, but we have a plan in place to make it better... maybe one day we can achieve a level of greatness on par with the 2014-2017 Warriors seasons. Anyway, enjoy Episode 1!
About Lucky MaverickAbout Jonathan BalesAt one point in my life, I thought that in Pizza Hut's “Makin' it great” ad campaign, they were actually saying “Brickin' a brick.”I mean I was a toddler, but still. Brickin' a brick. I believed this for years, even when I was old enough to logically understand “brickin' a brick” doesn't make any f*****g sense.I always thought it would be funny if a big company ran a huge ad campaign with a slogan that was totally meaningless just to see how it would perform. That's what I'd do if I were in charge. “McDonald's: Ready for the lightning?” Then we'd spend millions of dollars on it, maybe changing the classic ‘M' logo to add in lightning bolts, and then I'd get fired.It didn't matter that I believed Pizza Hut's slogan was “Brickin' a brick.” I got by. Even if I believed it today, it probably wouldn't change much for me. It's okay to have beliefs that are wrong. Most thoughts—and even actions—don't matter.The majority of what you think you know is probably wrong, and most of what's right doesn't mean s**t anyway. Sometimes, though, you come across an idea that's truly impactful to your life. It might still be wrong, but at least it's useful for you, which is better than being wrong and useless I suppose.I think the value of knowledge probably grows exponentially such that most of it is basically worthless but a small percentage is overwhelmingly valuable. This has been my experience, anyway, as a few basic ideas capable of shifting my worldview have been more valuable than everything else I know combined, so I've tried to prioritize finding this rare knowledge that actually makes a difference, blocking out almost everything in search of the truly scarce stuff.With that said, I thought it might be cool to talk about the most impactful ideas that have changed my life thus far. The main criteria I used for selecting these is that each idea is something with which I at some point either disagreed or didn't even really comprehend. It's really important to get adequate sleep, but everyone knows that. These are all ideas that at some point I didn't grasp, but ones that made profound impacts to my life once I did.The Big ConceptsConvexityErrors, randomness, and “the unexpected” should help you, not harm you.If you've read my articles for more than 10 minutes, you probably know I've learned so much from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. From black swans to antifragility to being a giant dick to anyone who disagrees with you on Twitter, I'd say I owe more of my success to Taleb than anyone else I've read.The main idea that's changed my worldview is convexity, and specifically the concept of acquiring more benefits than harm from chaotic events. Whereas most people focus on improving prediction accuracy—and sometimes in areas in which that's nearly impossible—few properly focus on the payoffs, which are more easily controllable and offer a larger usable edge in terms of competition.I applied this to DFS by focusing on ownership and lineup composition instead of projection accuracy. That is, maybe this player or team that everyone thinks will do well actually will, but maybe they won't, and if they don't, how can I benefit to the greatest degree?One way to apply convexity to your life is to mimic evolution:Don't suppress chaos.Natural selection is what Taleb would term “antifragile”—the opposite of fragile—because not only is it not harmed by chaos, it benefits from it. A species can change for the better fairly quickly in evolutionary terms from a single random genetic mutation.Even natural disasters are positives for most species as a whole, assuming they're not entirely killed off, because they end up coming back stronger and more prepared than before. Humans, too, are hopefully more prepared for the next pandemic; COVID has been devastatingly brutal, but “good” and “bad” are designations that often change based on your time horizon. What's bad in a static environment can often be one of the most beneficial things when viewed long-term.“Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.”By embracing chaos in all aspects of life, you're set up for more sustainable long-term success. That's one reason I tweeted this:Not all jobs are the same and every person is different; there's no one-size-fits-all plan for everyone. In fact, most people are probably best off in the employee role.Generally speaking, though, one of the biggest misconceptions about being a salaried employee is that it's safer than something like an independent contractor. Being a contractor isn't always a great solution—it's not feasible in some areas and takes a long time to build a customer base—but who do you think is more susceptible to a sharp change in income: someone making $70,000 a year from one employer or someone earning the same amount from eight clients in two different niches? The latter is more volatile, but the former is riskier.Evolution embraces chaos, and in exchange eventually delivers the best results. Without that volatility, there could be no progress.“Nature builds things that are antifragile. In the case of evolution, nature uses disorder to grow stronger. Occasional starvation or going to the gym also makes you stronger, because you subject your body to stressors and gain from them.”Don't deprive yourself of life's shocks; they're what allow for your personal evolution.Think long.Evolution needs time to operate. This is a characteristic of things that like chaos; they love time. The more time, the better, which runs in opposition to most things, which eventually break down over time.Many people are doing things—whether professionally or personally—that, unbeknownst to them, will not survive over time; they're eventually going to go busto, as we say in the gambling world.If we're being honest, most people can't even calculate expected value in static environments. A much smaller percentage know how to do it over time, choosing what's optimal in arenas in which the first order of business should be eliminating risk of ruin, i.e. “not dying.”Natural selection does this better than any business in the world; it's built into the system. Species maximize their chances of survival as a whole above all else. Survive, then optimize.Build systems that embrace volatility and are meant to survive and improve with time.Via negativaAddition by subtractionThis is a simple concept, which is that to improve basically anything in life, first look at what you can take away before adding anything. Unhealthy? What are some things you can remove from your diet or lifestyle before adding something like supplements? Unhappy? What can you remove from your life before taking antidepressants?The ‘via negativa' concept is related to an approach I've discussed when it comes to winning games, which is to reverse-engineer a strategy by starting with what success looks like, then working backwards by removing the paths that don't lead to winning.Think of how a sculptor creates a statue from a slab of concrete; the “truth” of the statue is already there, hidden and waiting to be realized, but only after removing that which isn't necessary.LeverageBig wins require big leverage.I used to make the majority of my money as a freelance writer. I liked it and hated it at the same time. I liked that I was in control of how much money I made (sort of), and I disliked that I was broke and forced to write all day long to get by. Still, I can write pretty quickly, so once I got rolling and had some companies paying me, it was a decent income.But in terms of making short-term money, I had no ability to apply leverage. What I mean by that was I got paid for what I produced, and that's it. I was paid for my time, which can become quite tempting if you can quickly create things of value.However, I almost always tried to write evergreen articles I thought could live for a long time. I wasn't sure why I wanted to do that; it just felt right for some reason. It was one of the best decisions I made because writing in that way was a form of leverage. That's actually the idea behind what I'm doing right now with this newsletter—building up long-term equity (in the form of trust) that can be cashed in at a later date. I'm not charging for it and I don't have immediate plans to do so, but my guess is that writing things that (hopefully) help people will always be a valuable use of my time.Traders are of course familiar with leverage, which can make smart men very rich and dumb ones very poor. The same is true outside of markets. I recently wrote about leverage in Sam Hinkie, Leverage & Dynamic Decision-Making. The key to finding real success is to figure out what works and apply leverage. Fundamental to this idea is understanding and accepting today's wealth is not created by how hard someone works.You'll have a difficult time becoming wealthy by getting paid for your time. You have to get paid for the value you provide others through your unique knowledge, multiplied by the leverage you place on it. The returns from this sort of work—amplified by the internet—are compounding. This increases the importance of logical decision-making. When the results of your decisions are non-linear, it amplifies their impact.If you consider yourself a sharp decision-maker and you have unique knowledge or skills, there's never been a better time to get rich. The theoretical bounds of the value you can extract are nearly limitless.Acquire specific knowledge or develop a unique skill. This is a form of permissionless leverage—meaning no one can stop you from acquiring it—and it's easy to unlock with the internet. You probably already have a lot of specific knowledge in areas of interest to you. The intersection of those areas is likely where you have the most unique knowledge.Apply leverage to your distinct knowledge through media or code, i.e. leverage your knowledge to create online content or software. You can use labor and money, too, but they're no longer required.Focus on “evergreen” work; put time into things that have no theoretical limit for how much they can earn and require no additional work from you—things for which the cost of replication is zero or near-zero. And “earn” can mean money, but it can also mean trust or respect or some other output that can be monetized at a later date. I'm not currently making money from this newsletter, but it's still providing leverage.In the age of near-infinite leverage, you don't get rich based on how hard you work. You get rich by having specific knowledge, creating something of value to others, and applying leverage to it.This is a great synopsis of the age of infinite leverage. Expected Value (EV)How to calculate the value of a decision over timeI talk a lot about Expected Value, which is Probability multiplied by Payoffs. It's a fairly straightforward concept with a wide array of uses, yet I don't regularly see non-gamblers making decisions in terms of EV.You don't need to make perfect EV calculations to get use out of this way of thinking. Here's the key to letting EV thinking change your life: measure decisions based on the amount of EV you can generate and not the outcome of the decision. Your job is done at the moment of the choice; what happens after that is effectively irrelevant. From the About section of Lucky Maverick:Payoffs change the name of the game. If I bet on the roll of a die and get paid only when a ‘six' comes up, it might be an awful gamble if I'm betting straight up or the bet of a lifetime if I'm getting paid, say, 10-to-1 (meaning for every $1 I bet, I get $10 when a ‘six' is rolled). The EV in the latter scenario is 16.7% x $10) + (83.3% x -$1) = 0.837, meaning if I were to make this bet 1 million times, I'd earn around 84 cents per roll for every $1 bet.The EV before and after the roll of the die is 84 cents. Most people think of the value of the roll after the fact as either +$10 or -$1. You have to avoid this trap. The value is 84 cents no matter what happens. The result doesn't change the EV. It has zero impact on the quality of your decision to make that bet.This isn't just academics. In reality, many situations—the most lucrative of life's opportunities, in my opinion—possess way more luck than people realize, meaning they're closer to a coin flip or roll of the dice than it naturally seems. As such, you see the equivalent of intense analysis of a coin's properties and how weighted it is toward heads and what the air conditions are at the time of the flip—all in an effort to improve prediction accuracy of a coin toss to 50.1%—with little regard given to the payoffs.Utilizing EV as a tool to quickly calculate payoffs is also a great way to build convexity. And once you're comfortable calculating EV, you can move to what I call “dynamic EV,” or decision-making over time. As Taleb has said, “Your grandmother viewed smoking as an activity, not an event.”Risk-taking is an activity completed repeatedly over time, not a singular event. When assessing risk and calculating dynamic EV, you should (usually) act as though you'd need to make the same decision repeatedly and let it play out millions of times.When you think in terms of EV, results don't really matter (in the short-term), which can be sort of freeing in a way.Opportunity costThink about something's value not just in terms of what is gained, but also what is lost.I order delivery food all the time. I used to order almost every single meal through GrubHub. Now I've grown up, though. So I use DoorDash. When people have questioned me in the past, I just repeatedly mentioned ‘opportunity cost' until they left me alone. Basically, this was me… The most important things to understand about opportunity cost are that 1) discussing it while referencing the value of your time is a surefire way to get people to leave you alone, and 2) it's an awesome way to justify laziness. “Oh yeah, no, I didn't complete even the most basic of life tasks today because of opportunity cost, definitely not because I'm lazy as s**t.” The math on getting delivery, for me, includes what I give up: the need to cook. A lot of people love to cook. I kind of wish I did because it seems like an awesome lifelong hobby, but I don't. I hate to cook and I hate to clean up. Ordering delivery can be expensive, but I don't need to pay for groceries (with a hidden spoilage cost that many underestimate), nor do I waste time cooking/cleaning. The delivery life ain't for everyone, but for me, it's very clearly +EV. I don't need to use my extra time to make money to justify the cost; just being able to have more free time to do something I enjoy is worth it long-term. I did this when I was broke, too; there are plenty of good lunch deals out there and you can just stock up at those times.Every decision you make to do one thing means not doing many other things, and you should have at least a surface level idea of what you're giving up with each choice. Usually, what you give up is time. To determine if something is worth your time, ask yourself what you'd need to be paid per hour to complete a task you don't enjoy. It should really be an aspirational rate—where you want to be financially rather than where you are—but let's say it's $100. Now let's say you see an item at a supermarket that costs $25 that you know is $15 at another place across town. Should you go get the cheaper one? Well, not unless you can do it in six minutes or less (assuming you don't need to go there anyway). As much as you possibly can, you should pay to get your time back; even if it's small to start and you can't always afford to put time ahead of money, this general mindset will unlock max long-term freedom.They say you always need to do things you don't want to do. Maybe, but I'd at least prefer to be able to choose my points of pain rather than having them forced upon me.Pareto principle80% of results come from 20% of causes.The Pareto principle (or 80-20 rule) is seen throughout the world in both natural and man-made systems; the top quintile of causes produce four-fifths of the effects.As a thought experiment, applying the Pareto principle to itself leads to this sort of Russian doll situation in which, to generate the greatest rewards, you should work in the tails. I wrote about this concept in How to Get Better at Anything ASAP in relation to how to learn things as quickly as possible:But why would we stop at 80/20? Why not apply the 80/20 rule to the top 20%? That's 64% of effects from just 4% of causes. And how about again? 51.2% of effects from just 0.8% of causes. And again, again, and again? Just over one-quarter of effects from over 1-in-15,000 causes.Okay, you get the idea. Regardless of the exact numbers, if most of the benefits of something come from a much smaller percentage of your efforts, as long as you can properly identify which efforts are “working,” you can acquire incredible leverage by continuing to apply the 80/20 rule—by taking your beliefs and hypotheses to their logical end, then working back from there.Basically, it's much simpler and more effective to start at logical extremes and work inward than to be general and move toward the tails. This applies to everything from starting a business to learning a new subject to finding a romantic partner.Truth filtersThere are various lenses through which to view the world—and find truth—and we should use as many as possible to assess reality.Author Scott Adams is an awesome example, for me, of why it's important not to dismiss information simply because of the source. I believe Adams is wrong about a whole lot—and he's borderline insane—but there are some insights in his book How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big that I think are outstanding.Side note: when reading, it doesn't matter how much an author is “right.” I've read lots of books that are probably highly accurate but don't really provide me with anything uniquely valuable to live my life. When reading, I'm searching for rare bits of knowledge that can help shift my worldview. In that way, the frequency of informative nuggets is far less important than the profundity of the few truly useful parts. I don't really care to acquire knowledge for the sake of it; I'm seeking scarce wisdom, in which case you have to read people who go out on a limb to be both right and non-consensus.In his book, Adams lays out six filters for truth, or how we typically go about figuring out what's fact and what's fiction—personal experience, experiences of people you know, experts, scientific studies, common sense, and pattern recognition. I'd add two more filters for truth to the list: logic/math and “what works.” No matter the exact filters proposed, the idea is there are various ways to go about determining what is true.As an example, let's broadly apply these filters to betting a sporting event. How do you know which side of game to bet? Well, you could build a model (science). You could poll smart people and take the average (wisdom of crowd, or experience of people you know). You could get information from pros (experts). You could search for historical trends that might be of use (pattern recognition). You could trust your gut (personal experience).You get the idea. There are many ways to go about searching for what is true. We should be open to using any and all of them at any given time. If my model is the only thing pointing toward playing a particular guy in DFS, my assessment of reality is probably not as likely to be accurate as if he's high in the model and other pros in my circle like the same guy and there are historical predictors of his success and my gut is telling me he's a smart high-leverage play.One of the strongest skills you can develop is this ability to cultivate different lenses and utilize specific ones as needed. Sometimes you should trust in data, but sometimes your gut and natural pattern recognition will lead to better results. Most people view the world in one or two very specific ways and can't really move outside of that way of thinking. At the very least, you should be open to the idea that other people see a fundamentally different world than you, and their experience is real and shouldn't be dismissed. Developing a cold rationality is vital to this, as it will always feel as though what you believe is right; logically, though, you should accept that not only do people see the world differently from you, but many times, their view will be more accurate (or more useful) than yours. The easiest way to come to grips with your fallibility is to look back on what you used to believe to be true that you no longer do, which I presume is a whole lot. If our past selves have been so consistently wrong, why would we think our present selves are anything more than slightly better?In previously newsletters, I've mentioned the book The 5 Love Languages. The main thesis is that there are various ways in which partners give and receive love: words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, gifts, and acts of service. When I realized the power of recognizing my own and others' love languages (and not just in romantic relationships) as fundamentally different lenses to view the world, it was life-changing.The more lenses you can develop, the better you'll be at both assessing reality (and thus making quality decisions) and seeing others' viewpoints.Hidden rulesThe game within the game If you haven't yet read it, check out my first Lucky Maverick post How to Win Games: Find the Hidden Rules.Basically, you'll start to find success when you approach life as a game and find the “hidden” edges others are overlooking—when you begin playing a different sort of game than what your competitors realize you're playing.When you become a true long-term winner, you'll know exactly which hidden rules you're exploiting and you'll see others overlooking the real game you're playing.More Important Ideas I'd Tell My Younger SelfDownside works to motivate more than upside. If you want to improve in a certain area, create a situation in which failure leads to negative consequences.You won't know what people really think until they bet on it. You won't know what you really think until you bet on it.First find specific and unique knowledge. Then become indispensable. Then apply leverage. Once you have leverage, the most important skill to possess is good judgement.Accuracy matters the same as payoffs in theory, but much less in practice because the former is what everyone else focuses on and the latter is easier to directionally predict.You have to be okay being wrong and being thought a moron. If you're not okay with people thinking you're an idiot—sometimes because you make giant mistakes and sometimes because they're the morons not seeing what's obvious to you—you can't achieve unconventional success.Your starting point matters, but making quick choices and continually iterating matters more. Work to speed up your trial-and-error cycle.Be early. If you're first, you don't need to be that good. The easiest way to win is to limit competition, and the easiest way to limit competition is to be first.Good negotiations don't meet in the middle. Obtain things “outside” the negotiation that are more important to you than to the other party.When a measure becomes a target, it loses its quality of being a good measure (Goodhart's Law). If you want to lose 10 pounds in an effort to become healthier, focus on what leads to good health rather than setting a goal weight.Process > results short-term, results > process long-term. If after a little while you still suck at something, it's you, not variance.Almost everyone else is faking it. Overconfidence wins and wins and wins…until it doesn't. It's a house of cards. Put yourself in position to benefit when the cards topple.When you don't know something, say “I don't know.” Pretty simple, but you'll end up doing it a lot. Few actually admit when they don't know something, and it erodes others' trust in them when they feign knowledge. You can't possibly know a lot about more than a few topics, so don't pretend.Making firm decisions is important. Maintaining optionality is important. Doing both at the same time is an incredibly rare skill you should cultivate. Make decisions with conviction but be willing to change your stance at any point that it's warranted.Don't let your high-energy self write checks your low-energy self needs to cash, i.e. don't let your best self create future obligations you won't live up to. Being data-driven is incredibly important, but most high-consequence decisions are a combination of art and science. Let data inform your gut.Turn anything you want to learn into a game and solve it the same way you'd go about winning Checkers or Monopoly or poker.The most stable possible life will stem from being able to withstand and even root for chaos. Accept worst-case scenarios to become free.It's better to be sometimes wrong on your own than right with everyone else because occasionally you'll be right on your own, which is the most rewarding (and fun).The best leaders lead without anyone knowing it.Set up meritocracies. Don't submit to hierarchies and avoid interacting with people worried about status or power.Avoid ruin first, then worry about EV.Use emotions as a trigger for logic. You'll always be emotional, but recognize when and why it's happening, then jump right into rational thinking.Work for free.Short-term balance is overrated.Don't plan much and change course often. Traveling is the most effective way to foster creativity.Great writing is the most obvious sign of a clear mind. Writing isn't solely a way to communicate what you think; it's also a way to figure out and crystalize what you think.Other people see the world in a fundamentally different way than you do. Their experience is just as authentic as yours, even when it seems like you're right.What people say is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what they do.Many of life's truths seem paradoxical, or at least counterintuitive. Tao Te Ching is one of my favorite books and it simultaneously says nothing and everything at once. When you take core truths to their logical end, even concepts like time or the ‘self' become paradoxical. Never stop searching for life's paradoxes.Luck isn't real. But some people keep getting luckier than others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit luckymaverick.substack.com
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Yaron Weitzman, B/R contributor and author of "Tanking To The Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports," discusses The Process, Sam Hinkie's Philly tenure, Brett Brown's tough gig, the Joel Embiid-Ben Simmons partnership and what their future may look like, Philly's Finals prospects, and the fates of Markelle Fultz, Jahlil Okafor, and Nerlens Noel. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.