The Brothers Who Live One Life — The Incredible Adventures of David and Daniil Liberman (#689)

“It’s not failure. It’s an attempt. 60 percent, 70 percent of those attempts are going to end up with zero, so just move on. Start the next one. You’ll be successful later.”

David Liberman and Daniil Liberman (@DaLiberman) are visionary entrepreneurs and investors with a close partnership spanning 16 years. They gained valuable experience at Snap, contributing to projects involving avatars, bitmoji, animation, and product operations. They are currently based in Los Angeles, where their primary focus is on building Product Science, a service dedicated to optimizing mobile apps.

Moreover, the Liberman brothers have established The Libermans Company, referred to as a People Company. Through their commitment to the Founders Pledge, they have allocated all future earnings and economic value for the next three decades to LibermansCo, including founder shares of Product Science and potential returns from future investments.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

Brought to you by AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Protekt’s REST sleep supplement.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#689: The Brothers Who Live One Life — The Incredible Adventures of David and Daniil Liberman

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Want to hear another episode with someone who runs their business with the symbiotic assistance of a sibling? Listen to my conversation with Patrick Collison (who started payment company Stripe with his brother John), in which we discussed great books, the importance of giving ideas time to fail, succeeding in an oversaturated market, driving organic traction, developing a mindset resilient to inevitable downswings, growing up free-range, equalizing happiness around the world, making quicker decisions, and much more.

#353: Patrick Collison — CEO of Stripe

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

Connect with David and Daniil Liberman:

SHOW NOTES

[06:59] Childhood.
[09:46] The influence of scientist parents on curious kids.
[12:42] The perils of pursuing anti-corruption innovation in post-Soviet Russia.
[18:09] Building a business with cables and crossbows.
[23:21] Lessons learned by bankrupting a gaming studio.
[29:42] Moscow-style investment recovery.
[31:07] A lucky break in the darkness of debt.
[32:07] Streamlining production through decentralization, parallelization, and a DJ connection.
[35:00] When playing the fools is the smart move.
[41:04] Coming to America.
[44:46] Building momentum with animation in Los Angeles.
[46:19] Divorce lawyer power dynamics.
[47:10] Another unforeseen financial hurdle.
[49:02] To Silicon Valley and nonprofit transparency.
[52:21] How are David and Daniil able to pivot between different ideas so quickly?
[58:12] The formation, advantages, and drawbacks of the Liberman hive mind.
[1:07:18] Separation pros and cons.
[1:08:56] How does external romance fit into this arrangement?
[1:12:12] The Dalai Lama, Jerry Murdock, and Snap.
[1:19:28] Reversing Snapchat’s 2018 decline by adapting to data and fixing real problems.
[1:27:40] Applying principles of compound growth to life.
[1:33:23] How working with family has helped with logistics.
[1:37:11] The value of interdisciplinary synthesis.
[1:45:46] How the Libermans might teach people to code.
[1:52:55] A data-driven look at our current financial crisis.
[2:04:21] What’s the Liberman solution?
[2:06:46] Incentivizing adoption of such a solution.
[2:10:33] A real-world test.
[2:14:08] Who/what makes for a good investment in this model?
[2:19:35] Do we reduce or elevate the potential for success by minimizing suffering?
[2:27:33] How to invest in people (and why you should).
[2:37:52] Parting thoughts.

MORE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The struggle will come. It doesn’t matter if you have millions of dollars, you will always be struggling because you strive to achieve more.”

“If someone just claims something and you cannot really prove it for yourself with data, probably something is missing and you need to dig deeper.”

“Previous generations got a lot from society … almost-free college education. New generations are being hammered with student debt. They don’t really feel that society gives them much, but they still donate the same portion.”

“We will all win. The market will win, society will win. Humanity will win from the fact that we will use this power law for wider groups of people to invest in them, provide them capital, and provide them a chance to get a higher education to try to start a business.”

“It’s not failure. It’s an attempt. 60 percent, 70 percent of those attempts are going to end up with zero, so just move on. Start the next one. You’ll be successful later.”

“Competition is always a struggle, and there will always be competition.”

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That's how we're gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you're rude, we'll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration.)

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Nathalie

2 years ago

I enjoyed this episode. As always, thanks for your original, thought provoking content, Tim. Definitely unique, this Liberman superhuman duo! Listening to the podcast required my full attention. I am glad I made it to the end and am inspired by the idea of investing in people who can have a positive ripple effect on future generations.

James Maslen

Hey Tim,

Great episode, thank you.

I wanted to use this opportunity to bring your attention to Charity Entrepreneurship (CE). They are an organisation based in the UK that are currently running another Incubator Program shortly (applications now open). It would be great if you could promote CE or Effective Altruism on TFS. I wish I heard about this space earlier.

Apologies for being spammy. It was worth a shot.

Keep making great content, I’m a massive fan.