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Lessons from Warren Buffett, Bobby Fischer, and Other Outliers (#219)

  • Tim Ferriss

    • Adam Robinson and Warren Buffet

    “Geniuses have very limited toolsets — they have a hammer, and their genius is in looking for nails.”

    – Adam Robinson

    Adam Robinson (@IAmAdamRobinson) first appeared on this podcast in the “Becoming the Best Version of You” episode (#210) alongside Josh Waitzkin (chess, jiu-jitsu, investing) and Ramit Sethi (personal finance, entrepreneurship).

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    By popular demand, this is a dedicated episode of Adam’s stories and life lessons.

    Adam Robinson has made a lifelong study of outflanking and outsmarting the competition. He is a rated chess master who was awarded a Life Title by the United States Chess Federation. As a teenager, he was personally mentored by Bobby Fischer in the 18 months leading up to his winning the world championship.

    Then, in his first career, he developed a revolutionary approach to taking standardized tests as one of the two original co-founders of The Princeton Review. His paradigm-breaking — or “category killing,” as they say in publishing — test-prep book, The SAT: Cracking the System, is the only test-prep book ever to have become a New York Times bestseller. After selling his interest in The Princeton Review, Adam turned his attention in the early ’90s to the then-emerging field of artificial intelligence, developing a program that could analyze text and provide human-like commentary. He was later invited to join a well-known quant fund to develop statistical trading models, and since, he has established himself as an independent global macro advisor to the chief investment officers of a select group of the world’s most successful hedge funds and family offices.

    In his spare time, he’s also become pen pals with Warren Buffett.

    This is a wide-ranging conversation (aka conversational parkour) with lots of takeaways. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it!

    You can find the transcript of this episode here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

    #219: Lessons from Warren Buffett, Bobby Fischer, and Other Outliers

    Want to hear another podcast with Adam Robinson? — In this episode, we discuss a variety of topics on business, wealth, and happiness, and are joined by Ramit Sethi and Josh Waitzkin (stream below or right-click here to download):

    #210: Becoming the Best Version of You

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    QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

    Scroll below for links and show notes…

    Selected Links from the Episode

    Website | Twitter

    Show Notes

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