Safi Bahcall — On Thinking Big, Curing Cancer, and Transforming Industries (#364)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“All these things you’re sure are true — what if they weren’t?”
— Safi Bahcall

Safi Bahcall (@SafiBahcall) is the author of Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. Loonshots describes what an idea from physics tells us about the behavior of groups and how teams, companies, and nations can use that to innovate faster and better. It has been selected for The Washington Post‘s 10 Leadership Books to Watch for in 2019, Inc.‘s 10 Business Books You Need to Read in 2019, and Business Insider‘s 14 Books Everyone Will Be Reading in 2019.

Safi received his PhD in physics from Stanford and his undergrad degree from Harvard. After working as a consultant for McKinsey, Safi co-founded a biotechnology company specializing in developing new drugs for cancer. He led its IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years. In 2008, Safi was named Ernst and Young’s New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on the future of national research.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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

#364: Safi Bahcall — On Thinking Big, Curing Cancer, and Transforming Industries
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Want to hear an episode with someone else who likes to ask big questions? — Listen to my conversation with Nick Kokonas, subversive entrepreneur, angel investor, and restaurateur extraordinaire (stream below or right-click here to download):

#341: Nick Kokonas — How to Apply World-Class Creativity to Business, Art, and Life
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This podcast is brought to you by Uber. Uber makes getting around town easier than ever before, and now Uber is introducing Uber Rewards, a new rewards program that helps keep modern life going. With Uber Rewards, you can earn points on Rides and Uber Eats and unlock rewards such as Uber Cash for your next Uber ride or your next Uber Eats order. You can unlock new benefits at every membership level, such as flexible cancellations with Gold, price protection with Platinum, complimentary surprise upgrades with Diamond, and more. For terms and to learn more about all the ways you can earn Uber Rewards, go to Uber.com/Rewards.

This podcast is also brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

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

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Tea Time with Tim — How to Find Mentors, Decrease Anxiety Through Training, and Much More (#363)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Welcome to a special episode called “Tea Time with Tim,” for which I solicited phone numbers and then called a handful of you to field any questions you might have.

Among other topics, we discuss:

  • How to go about finding a mentor.
  • The meaning of life.
  • How to extinguish anxiety.
  • Cocktails.
  • Relationship advice.
  • Training into confidence.

Without further ado, please enjoy this tea-fueled Q&A!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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

#363: Tea Time with Tim — How to Find Mentors, Decrease Anxiety Through Training, and Much More
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Want to hear another episode that had me calling up listeners and answering their questions? — Listen to this one, in which I tackled how to reassess existing projects, how to learn to care less about what other people think, how to ask better questions, and much more. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#330: The Return of Drunk Dialing Q&A: How to Ask Better Questions, Take Better Risks, and More!
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This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

This podcast is also brought to you by WordPress, my go-to platform for 24/7-supported, zero downtime blogging, writing online, creating websites — everything! I love it to bits, and the lead developer, Matt Mullenweg, has appeared on this podcast many times.

Whether for personal use or business, you’re in good company with WordPress — used by The New Yorker, Jay Z, Beyoncé, FiveThirtyEight, TechCrunch, TED, CNN, and Time, just to name a few. A source at Google told me that WordPress offers “the best out-of-the-box SEO imaginable,” which is probably why it runs nearly 30% of the Internet. Go to WordPress.com/Tim to get 15% off your website today!

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

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“Trip of Compassion” — The Most Compelling Movie I’ve Seen In The Last Year

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Written by Topics: Practical Philosophy, Psychedelics, Science

“I felt like I went through 15 years of psychological therapy in one night.” 
– Actual patient featured in “Trip of Compassion”

This post is about the most compelling movie I’ve seen in the last year.

I first watched “Trip of Compassion” about six months ago, when I was sent a link to a private video. The film had been broadcast once on Israeli television, but it wasn’t distributed or available anywhere else. This documentary affected me so deeply (and immediately) that I flew to Tel Aviv, met the filmmakers, and offered to help launch the film digitally worldwide. Everything I am doing for this film is 100% pro bono, and all proceeds go to the filmmakers.

Why am I doing this, and why is this film so exciting to me?

Tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Millions more have suffered from emotional and physical abuse but never get diagnosed. I would put myself in the latter category for reasons I’ll explain another time.

“Trip of Compassion” documents one unusual approach to healing trauma that might astonish you, an innovative treatment involving the psychoactive drug MDMA (commonly known as “ecstasy”). As you will see firsthand, if the therapy is well designed, true rebirth and transformation can happen in a matter of weeks and not years.

If you’ve ever felt held back, felt defective in some way, or felt that you’re not living up to your full potential, this film will give you hope.

This is also the first feature documentary to show actual therapy session footage (to our knowledge), to which the patients consented because of the incredible results they experienced.

Filmed at the Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center in Israel, “Trip of Compassion” provides a rare glimpse into a treatment process that can restore optimism and even the will to live.

Thank you for watching this film (just click here to stream) and, if you find it as powerful as I did, thank you for sharing it or this post.

***

In addition to helping launch this movie, I am supporting broader access to MDMA-assisted therapy in the USA and elsewhere by donating to MAPS.org, a non-profit dedicated to making this treatment available to those who need it (e.g., phase 3 trials, regulatory work, scholarships for low-income patients).

If you also decide that this work is important, please consider visiting MAPS.org to donate. NOTE: Be sure to specify the following in the donation form (there is a field for this, as they have many initiatives): “Funds are restricted to MDMA phase 3 trials.”

***

Thank you so much for reading this far. I couldn’t be more excited to share this film.

And remember as you watch: this is possible now. To quote William Gibson, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Let’s help make this treatment more evenly distributed.

More to come,

Tim

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Graham Duncan — Talent Is the Best Asset Class (#362)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Photo by Heidi Gutman/CNBC

“Everyone’s genius is right next to their dysfunction.” — Graham Duncan

Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multi-family office investment firm that manages $2 billion for a small number of families and their charitable foundations.

Before starting East Rock 14 years ago, Graham worked at two other investment firms and started his career by co-founding an independent Wall Street research firm. Graham graduated from Yale with a B.A. in ethics, politics, and economics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as co-chair of the SOHN Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.

Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy who served as the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, calls Graham “the tip of the spear in the realms of talent tracking and judgment of human potential in high stakes mental arenas.”

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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

#362: Graham Duncan — Talent Is The Best Asset Class
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Would you like to hear another episode with an investor who understands the value of quality time? — Check out my conversation with Peter Mallouk, in which we discuss illiquidity as a feature rather than a bug, when the risk of being out of the market is greater than the risk of being in, and much more. (Stream below or right-click here to download.):

#356: Peter Mallouk — Exploring the Worlds of Investing, Assets, and Quality of Life
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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.

With a community of more than 575 million professionals, LinkedIn is gigantic, but it can be hyper-specific. You have access to a diverse group of people all searching for things they need to grow professionally so you can build relationships that really matter and drive your business objectives forward. LinkedIn has the marketing tools to help you target your customers with precision, right down to job title, company name, industry, etc. Why spray and pray with your marketing dollars when you can be surgical? To redeem your free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com/TFS!

This podcast is also brought to you by 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love. Its creative process has become the go-to solution for businesses, agencies, and individuals, and I have used it for years to help with display advertising and illustrations and to rapid prototype the cover for The Tao of Seneca. Whether your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99designs.

You can work with multiple designers at once to get a bunch of different ideas, or hire the perfect designer for your project based based on their style and industry specialization. It’s simple to review concepts and leave feedback so you’ll end up with a design that you’re happy with. Now 99designs also offers custom video and will match you with the right video professional to help you explain your product, spotlight a service, and bring your brand to life. Click this link and get a free $99 upgrade.

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

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Jim Collins — A Rare Interview with a Reclusive Polymath (#361)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Photo by George Lange

“I’m not really a business author; I just happen to have used companies as the method to study human systems because there’s great data.” — Jim Collins

My guest for this episode is the incredible (and somewhat reclusive) Jim Collins.

This was a rare treat, as Jim rarely does any media or interviews. I’ve wanted to speak with him for more than a decade, and it was worth the wait. This conversation overdelivered on every level. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

So, who is Jim Collins?

Jim Collins (jimcollins.com) is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick, and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. He has authored or coauthored eight books that have together sold 10+ million copies worldwide, including Good to Great, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Built to Last, How the Mighty Fall, Great by Choice, and his newest work, Turning the Flywheel.

Driven by a relentless curiosity, Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. In 1995, he founded a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

In 2017, Forbes selected Jim as one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.

Jim is also an avid rock climber and has completed single-day ascents of El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite Valley.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.

#361: Jim Collins — A Rare Interview with a Reclusive Polymath
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Want to hear an episode with someone else who likes to ask big questions? — Listen to my conversation with Nick Kokonas, subversive entrepreneur, angel investor, and restaurateur extraordinaire (stream below or right-click here to download):

#341: Nick Kokonas — How to Apply World-Class Creativity to Business, Art, and Life
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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn and its job recruitment platform, which offers a smarter system for the hiring process. If you’ve ever hired anyone (or attempted to), you know finding the right people can be difficult. If you don’t have a direct referral from someone you trust, you’re left to use job boards that don’t offer any real-world networking approach.

LinkedIn, as the world’s largest professional network — used by more than 70 percent of the US workforce — has a built-in ecosystem that allows you to not only search for employees, but also interact with them, their connections, and their former employers and colleagues in a way that closely mimics real-life communication. Visit LinkedIn.com/Tim and receive a $50 credit toward your first job post!

This podcast is also brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

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…

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Caterina Fake — The Outsider Who Built Giants (#360)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Credit: Richard Morgenstein

“I really am a big believer in people’s creativity flourishing when they come at things from a different direction and see things in a different way.” — Caterina Fake

Caterina Fake (@caterina) is a long-time Silicon Valley pioneer. She is a co-founder of Yes VC, a pre-seed and seed-stage fund investing in ideas that elevate our collective humanity. Previously, she worked at Founder Collective as a founder partner, served as chair of Etsy, and was a co-founder of Flickr.

At Flickr, Caterina and her team introduced many of the innovations — newsfeeds, hashtags, “followers,” “likes” — that have become commonplace online. Caterina went on to found several more startups (Findery, Hunch) and became an active investor, advisor, and board member, helping to build companies like Etsy and Kickstarter from their beginnings. (Other investments include Stack Overflow, Cloudera, and Blue Bottle Coffee.) Caterina is an early creator of online communities and a long-time advocate of the responsibility of entrepreneurs for the outcomes of their technologies.

Caterina sits on the board of Public Goods, the Sundance Institute, and McSweeney’s. She was given the Silicon Valley Visionaries award in 2018 and has received honorary doctorates from both the New School and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

Caterina is also the host of the new podcast Should This Exist?, which asks the question, “What is technology doing to our humanity?” Should This Exist? can be listened to on Apple Podcasts, at shouldthisexist.com, or anywhere podcasts are found.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.

#360: Caterina Fake — Lessons from Flickr, Kickstarter, Etsy, and Much More
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Want to hear an episode featuring another early Silicon Valley startup legend? — Listen to this episode featuring investor, Masters of Scale host, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, which features the 10 commandments of startup success. (Stream below or right-click here to download):

#248: The 10 Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman
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This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. As a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you’ll get a free 20-count travel pack (valued at $79) with your first order at athleticgreens.com/tim.

This podcast is also brought to you by Uber. Uber makes getting around town easier than ever before, and now Uber is introducing Uber Rewards, a new rewards program that helps keep modern life going. With Uber Rewards, you can earn points on Rides and Uber Eats and unlock rewards such as Uber Cash for your next Uber ride or your next Uber Eats order. You can unlock new benefits at every membership level, such as flexible cancellations with Gold, price protection with Platinum, complimentary surprise upgrades with Diamond, and more. For terms and to learn more about all the ways you can earn Uber Rewards, go to Uber.com/Rewards.

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…

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Tobi Lütke — From Snowboard Shop to Billion-Dollar Company (#359)

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Written by Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“Feedback is a gift.” — Tobi Lütke

Tobi Lütke (@tobi) is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shopify. In 2004, Tobi began building software to launch an online snowboard store called Snowdevil. It quickly became obvious that the software was more valuable than the snowboards, so Tobi and his founding team launched the Shopify platform in 2006. He has served as CEO since 2008 at the company’s headquarters in Ottawa, Canada.

Tobi is an active advocate for computer literacy and education, and serves as a board member of Canada Learning Code, an organization working to give all Canadians access to digital skills. In 2014, Tobi was named The Globe and Mail‘s CEO of the Year. He served as Chair of the Digital Industries Table, an advisory board commissioned by the federal government to provide recommendations on how to turn Canada into a digital leader.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Castbox, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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

#359: Tobi Lütke — The Oracle of Ottawa
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Want to hear the story of a go-getter who launched his now seven-figure business on Shopify? — Listen to my conversation with SpyGuy’s Allen Walton in which he describes how he made the switch from overworked and under-appreciated employee to entrepreneur (stream below or right-click here to download):

#351: Real 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies — Allen Walton and SpyGuy, The Path to Seven Figures
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This podcast is brought to you by Peloton, which has become a staple of my daily routine. I picked up this bike after seeing the success of my friend Kevin Rose, and I’ve been enjoying it more than I ever imagined. Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right to your home. No worrying about fitting classes into your busy schedule or making it to a studio with a crazy commute.

New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite NYC instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world’s best instructors, or find your favorite class on demand.

Peloton is offering listeners to this show a special offer. Visit onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM at checkout to receive $100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. This is a great way to get in your workouts, or an incredible gift. Again, that’s onepeloton.com and enter the code TIM.

This episode is also brought to you by LegalZoom. I’ve used this service for many of my businesses, as have quite a few of the icons on this podcast — such as Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame.

LegalZoom is a reliable resource that more than a million people have already trusted for everything from setting up wills, proper trademark searches, forming LLCs, setting up non-profits, or finding simple cease-and-desist letter templates.

LegalZoom is not a law firm, but it does have a network of independent attorneys available in most states who can give you advice on the best way to get started, provide contract reviews, and otherwise help you run your business with complete transparency and up-front pricing. Check out LegalZoom.com and enter promo code TIM at checkout today for special savings and see how the fine folks there can make life easier for you and your business.

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…

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