Books read:
📕 1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History by Andrew Ross Sorkin
📕 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkin Reids
📖 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
📖 The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel
📖 The Other Side of Change by Maya Shankar
Posts published:
Small Creator Big World posts and podcast eps:
January 31
🎧 Notes on Being a Man — A Live Conversation With Ben Stiller - Prof G Pod
Scott Galloway argues that the US won World War II because it embraced women in factories, contrasting this with Hitler’s view. He suggests that the inclusion of non-whites and women in the workforce from the 1960s to 1980s was crucial for America’s economic success.
Transcript: Scott Galloway The reality is the reason we won World War II and men got to come home heroes is because we embraced women in the factories. Hitler wanted women to stay at home. And we said, fuck that. Women can make P-51s. Let’s get them in the workplace. Had women not entered the workplace, had we not had the advancement of non-whites and women through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, America’s economy, just on a very economic joy level, would Have crashed. (Time 0:11:43)
There’s a dating disparity: only a third of men under 30 are in relationships, compared to two-thirds of women. This is because women are dating older men who’re more economically and emotionally stable. Many jobs that once helped men enter the middle class have disappeared.
Transcript: Scott Galloway A young man is now, only one in three men are in a relationship under the age of 30, two in three women. You think, well, that’s mathematically impossible. It’s because women are dating older because they want more economically and emotionally viable men. And a lot of the jobs that were on ramps for men into a middle-class lifestyle have disappeared. (Time 0:13:24)
Young men aren’t getting the same opportunities as previous generations but they’re still being held responsible for the opportunities that past generations had. This results in young men dying by suicide at four times the rate of other groups.
Transcript: Scott Galloway The result is a young generation of men who don’t have nearly the opportunities that we had, but are being held liable and accountable for the opportunities we had. And the result is you just would never have a special interest group killing themselves at four times the rate of the control group and not weigh in with programs. (Time 0:13:59)
If you really start looking at the data, you recognize that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. (Time 0:14:42)
We can address issues facing women, like wage gaps after having kids and the negative impact of social media on young girls’ self-esteem. It’s also important to recognize young men are struggling, and the country’s and women’s continued success depends on men not flailing.
Transcript: Scott Galloway But if you really start looking at the data, you recognize that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can still address the problems facing women. A woman, once she has kids, goes to 73 cents on the dollar versus men. That’s a problem. Social media is unfortunately attacking the self-esteem of young girls, and the rates of self-harm and cutting have doubled since social and unmovil. That’s a problem. We can address it. But we can also recognize that young men are really struggling and that our country isn’t going to continue to flourish and women aren’t going to continue to ascend if men are flailing. And what I would offer up, and this is, the conversation has become so much more productive than when I started talking about it five years ago and immediately got this wild pushback, (Time 0:14:42)
Scott Galloway spends about a third of his time writing, a third on media like podcasts and television, and a third on investments and boards. He’s usually teaching but is on leave from NYU, since he’s been in Europe for the last three years.
Transcript: Scott Galloway Kind of three buckets. I spend about a third of my time writing. I write a newsletter. I enjoy writing books. About a third of my time on media, podcasts and television. And about a third of my time, quite frankly on investments where I go on boards. And because I’ve lived in Europe the last three years, I’m on leave from NYU, so I’m not teaching. But typically, one of those things, a third of the time would be teaching. But I consider myself at the end of the day, a teacher. (Time 0:18:24)
🎧 How to Talk About Money, Raise Independent Kids, and Build Real Wealth — Ft. Morgan Housel
Be a poor accountant to have a good relationship. Don’t keep score in relationships.
Transcript: Morgan Housel There’s a quote that I love, which is, to be in a good relationship, you need to be a very poor accountant. (Time 0:03:01)
It’s increasingly common for parents to go line by line through college applications with their kids, even hiring consultants. While it might seem helpful, it sends the message that the child can’t handle it themselves. If they can’t fill out a college application on their own, they might not be ready for college.
Transcript: Morgan Housel It’s very common today, it was less common 20 years ago, but very common today that when the child is applying for a college, when they’re 17, 18 years old, the parent is holding their Hand and going line by line through that application, one line after another and doing everything and hiring consultants to do it. Maybe avantage. There’s maybe data that shows that that is a good thing to do and your child has a better chance of getting into Harvard, whatever it might be. But also what you did to your kid is you say, you can’t do this yourself. You don’t have the skills to fill out an application on your own. I’ve made this joke sometimes when dealing with those people in our own life who are applying for college, that if you cannot apply for college on your own, you’re not ready for college. It’s the first litmus test on whether you can do it or not. (Time 0:07:56)
Instill confidence in your 17/18-year-old so they can be independent. Galloway agrees in theory but thinks it’s tougher in practice.
Transcript: Morgan Housel But I also feel like the greatest thing you can do for your 17 or 18 year old is instill the confidence that they are able to do it on their own. Scott Galloway I agree with everything you’re saying, theoretically. I would like to set a timer for us to have this conversation again when your kid is 17 and a half. I don’t disagree with that. Absolutely. (Time 0:08:46)
Morgan doesn’t view savings as just idle cash or delayed gratification, but as a source of immediate pleasure. Saving isn’t about being overly cautious; it’s about gaining freedom, independence, and flexibility. We damage the perception of savings by associating it only with a rainy day, when it actually offers tangible benefits now, like the feeling of independence.
Transcript: Morgan Housel I’ve never viewed savings money as either idle cash or as delayed gratification. It’s always given me pleasure today, right now, knowing that I have this independence and this backup. And I think a lot of people, the idea of saving money just feels too cautious. It feels like you’re not taking it. It feels like you’re not living enough. I always felt like it was one of my most prized possessions, how much I save so much, because I knew that I had freedom and independence and flexibility. If this job isn’t working out, I can just I can just quit. And even if I don’t find another one for six months, it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. I can live wherever I want. I can go on vacations whenever I want. That level of independence was so huge. And I think we do a lot of damage to the extent, particularly for young people, when we associate savings with saving for a rainy day, when it’s actually giving you something right now, Like very tangible. The feeling of independence is one of the greatest feelings in the world. (Time 0:29:09)
🎧 Humanoid Robots, Building a Service Business, and Why CEOs Won’t Save Democracy - Prof G Pod
Over-serve your first three clients so they become evangelists for you. Make them feel like you would do anything for them to turn them into advocates.
Transcript:
Scott Galloway
You’ve got to over-serve your first three clients. They need to be evangelists for you. I mean, they just got to feel like you do anything for them. You would jump on a grenade for them because you want them to be evangelists for you.
📰 A Simple Question Against Action Bias by Vicky Zhao
Some of the sharpest thinkers and clearest communicators I’ve known across consulting and big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and others ask the most basic questions. Action bias is real, so many teams are consciously asking what part of this chaos is the actual problem?
Here’s the simplest way you can do this in the next meeting: “What do you mean by {X}?”
When someone says “we need to move faster,” ask: “What do you mean by moving faster? Fewer meetings, faster decisions, or quicker execution?” When someone says “we need better alignment,” ask: “What does alignment look like to you in this context?”
📰 Resist and Unsubscribe - Prof G Media
A one-day slowdown is irritating. A one-month slump is terrifying.
Consumers, whose spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, wield enormous power. Few things worry leaders more than a decrease in their purchases. Consumer spending fell 3.4% during the Great Recession — at the time, the most severe year-over-year decline since World War II — and 9.8% during the second quarter of 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. Those events sparked two of the fastest political movements in history, with the U.S. spending huge sums to escape each crisis. In the case of Covid, economic data, not the death toll, was the main driver.
Americans in the top 10% income bracket, who account for about half of all consumer spending, play an especially important role.
Trump put everyone on notice last week with his lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, over allegations that the company stopped providing banking services to Trump and his businesses for political reasons after he left office in 2021.
A senior executive at OpenAI, James Dyett, wrote on X that there was more outrage from tech executives over California’s proposed wealth tax “than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets.” *Exactly.*
Real change always comes from the American people, not from our political parties.
Getting off your couch, taking to the streets, and building community is important, but the most radical act in a capitalist society isn’t marching, it’s not spending.
🎧 The Collapse of American Virtue — With Fareed Zakaria
If you want your book to sell well, start building a social media following before you even write it. Your social footprint is what matters to agents and publishers because the advance size depends on how big your following is.
Transcript:
Scott Galloway
As my social media following has grown, so have my book sales. That’s the bottom line. So if you want to start, before you start writing a book, if you want your book to sell a lot, you need to start building your social footprint. And it’s sort of pathetic to say, but that’s kind of the whole shooting match right now. And I believe the first thing your agent and publishers will look at if they’re thinking about signing up your book in the size of the advance is based on how big your social following Is.
🎧 Economic Protests, Social Media on Trial, and Big Tech Earnings - Pivot
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Focus on the basics like sleep, diet, and exercise. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds with protein debates, but those are just around the edges of optimizing your life. Prioritize fundamental health habits.
Transcript: Kara Swisher One of the main things, oddly enough, you know, sleep is important, obviously. Diet and exercise are important. And there’s lots of things, you know, that everybody understands. Fermented foods, stuff like that, and eating. You know, the protein debate has gotten out of hand. Those are like around the edges of saving you minutes of your life. (Time 0:17:26)
There’s new science indicating hot saunas and cold plunges might be problematic for some people, despite their popularity. Concerns include the shock to the body and other potential issues.
Transcript: Kara Swisher Hot sauna, yes. Cold plunges. There’s a lot new science where it may be really problematic on people. Although I know all the bros love it, but there’s all these issues around the shock and different things. Hot saunas, absolutely. (Time 0:20:18)
Kara mentions friendships are scientifically and causally important.
Transcript: Kara Swisher One of the things, let me tell you the number one thing, both scientifically and both causally and correlation, is friends and family. (Time 0:20:31)
You’ll feel better when you do something with other people, rather than only complaining. It helps you feel like you’re actually makin’ a change.
Transcript: Scott Galloway You feel better when you do something with other people. (Time 0:22:27)
People ask like, what job is safe from AI? And I say, I personally think if I were to bet on one job, that’s only going to increase in importance. It’s things around communication, strategic communications, investor relations, PR, and the two biggest communications mistakes of the last probably quarter happened in the Last week. On a corporate level, whoever the fuck didn’t literally body block Tim Cook from not only going to that dinner, but getting a picture with Brett Ratner. And I’m not going to make a judgment on Brett Ratner’s past. Kara Swisher Please go read about it. Scott Galloway But that’s just not a good look to be at the Melania premiere. (Time 0:39:07)
January 30
🎧 Daniel Pink: How to Write Something Truly Useful | How I Write
Consistency, routine, and ritual are super important for writing. If you’re working on a book or a long article, have a structure. Be rigid. Show up in your office at a certain time. Give yourself a word count and don’t do anything until you reach that word count. Do it the next day and the next day and the next day to get it done.
Transcript: Daniel Pink There’s a certain sense of consistency, routine, ritual that seems absolutely core to your process. No question. When I have something to write, I’m working on a book or a long article, I have a structure. I’m pretty rigid. I show up in my office at a certain time. I give myself a word count and I don’t do anything until I reach that word count. And then I do it the next day and the next day and the next day. Otherwise, there’s no way I would have been able to. And I came to that in a hard-won way with struggling to write stuff and certainly struggling to write my first book. (Time 0:02:00)
Daniel Pink starts his day with the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He then walks 22 steps to his refurbished garage office. He aims for a daily word count, often 500-800 words since he’s a slow writer. He doesn’t bring his phone or check email and writes until he meets the word count, then feels a sense of freedom.
Transcript: Daniel Pink I get the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. So I’ll look at that and then I’ll go to my office. My office is the garage behind my house. So I go out my back door, 22 steps to the refurbished garage behind my house, and I sit at my desk and I have a certain word count for that day. For me, because I’m a pretty slow writer, it’s often not a very high word count. Sometimes it’s 500 words. Sometimes it’s 700 words, 800 words. That’s hard for me. Writing is still really, really hard for me, even though I’ve been doing it my whole life. And so I will have that word count and I don’t bring my phone with me into the office. I don’t open up email. I don’t do anything like that. And then I would just crank until I hit that word count. Then there’s a moment of liberation where I’m like, oh, I’ve done it. (Time 0:03:03)
Daniel Pink recommends focusing on one chapter at a time. He suggests working on a chapter for several weeks to get it right and then dedicating another week to editing and rewriting it. He repeats the writing process for each chapter of the book.
Transcript: Daniel Pink For a book, I will work on a chapter at a time. And so I’ll make sure that I get the chapter right. And so what it might be is I do that for several weeks to get the chapter done, and then I’ll spend another week editing and rewriting and editing and rewriting on that. And then I’ll be in the process again. (Time 0:04:07)
You gotta visualize the structure of your book before you write it. Use whiteboards or post-it notes to map out the skeleton. It’ll help you get a feel for the overall structure ‘cause you can’t write anything until you see the structure of the building.
Transcript: Daniel Pink What I will also do is for me, especially for books, the structure of a book is really, really important. I can’t write a book unless I see at least the skeleton of it, the structure of it somewhere. So I’ll spend months doing research and reporting to try to find the structure. And what I will often do is put either a whiteboard or big post-its with my first kind of scratchings about what that structure might be. And I will literally turn in my chair. I have a swivel chair. Here’s my desk. Literally turn and behind me, I’ll have post-its and I will sit there and just look at that to try to get the structure because I can’t really write anything until I see the structure of The building. (Time 0:06:01)
Breaks with other people are more restorative than solo breaks, even for introverts. Make sure breaks are fully detached; walking while staring at your phone isn’t a real break. Start thinking about breaks in a different way.
Transcript: Daniel Pink For writers, a little bit counterintuitive breaks with other people are more restorative than the breaks on your own. This is true even for introverts. It’s important that breaks are fully detached. That is, a break, you go off for a walk and stare at your phone, that’s not a break. And so we know a lot about how to take effective breaks and we have to start thinking about breaks in a fundamentally different way. (Time 0:10:19)
Daniel Pink says when you give a speech, you can see the audience’s real-time reactions such as whether they laugh, stare at their phones, or space out. Pink watches other people’s speeches and positions himself to see both the speaker and the audience to gauge the audience’s reaction.
Transcript: Daniel Pink When you’re giving a speech, you see the audience. You’re getting feedback in real time. Are they laughing at the joke or are they not laughing at the joke? Are they staring at their phone? Are they talking to their neighbor? Are they spacing out? But a lot of times when I watch other people give speeches, I will position myself in a way that I can see both. So I want to see what the speaker is doing, but I also want to see how the audience is doing. (Time 0:11:01)
If you’re speakin’ at an event, especially later in the day, get there early. Scope out the audience to see what they’re into and how receptive they are. It’ll help ya tailor your talk.
Transcript: Daniel Pink This is especially true if I’m going to, say, an event, and I’m speaking at the event, and I’m speaking at like three o’clock, and I’m there at 11, and I want to sort of gauge the audience. What kind of audience is this? How receptive are they? What are they into? (Time 0:11:22)
Always write long book proposals, like 30-40 pages. It’s a test to see if the idea can withstand a long-form treatment. Writing the proposal forces you to think about the core substance of the idea. It also tests your own commitment; if you hate writing the proposal, you’ll hate writing the whole book.
Transcript: Daniel Pink I always write very long book proposals too. I write maybe 30, 40-page book proposals. And the reason I write them is that it’s a test of the idea. Because if this idea can’t withstand a 30-page proposal, it’s not going to be able to withstand a 300-page book. Right. Okay? And also, it forces me to think about whether there is a there there. It’s a test of me as well. Do I like writing this 30-page proposal? If I hate writing a 30-page proposal, I’m going to really hate writing a 300-page book. So it’s a test of that. (Time 0:15:40)
The most important thing in a book proposal? Articulate a totally fresh but also totally familiar idea. Ya wanna have that combo. For example, instead of a how-to book, write a when-to book.
Transcript: David Perell Can you walk me through the structure of a book proposal? Like, okay, so I want to sit down to do this. I have an idea. What is my outline? What are the... It depends. It depends. Daniel Pink The most important thing in a book proposal are being able to clearly articulate what the idea is and also why it is totally fresh but also totally familiar. Right. So what you want is you want to have that combination. Basically, the great pitch for the timing book was we have lots of how-to books. We need a when-to book. (Time 0:17:46)
Make sure the idea’s good, and show why you’re the best person to write it. You gotta establish why no one else has written it and why you’re not only the best, but the only person who could possibly write it. Be the anointed one.
Transcript: Daniel Pink So the idea itself is really important. I think establishing why you are the best person to write it. First of all, establishing why no one else has written it and why you are not only the best person to write it, but the only human being on God’s green earth who could possibly write it. An anointed one. (Time 0:18:30)
Nail down who your audience is. It is never everybody. Then, get a sense of the book’s structure and its contribution. Explain why nobody’s written it yet and why you need it now. Nowness is key: why does this book meet the moment and why is it the right book for the right time? There’re books that are good but timed wrong.
Transcript: Daniel Pink And then figuring out who the audience is. And this is actually really important. Um, um, being able to clearly articulate who the audience is and many writers delude themselves into thinking their audience is everybody and it’s never everybody. Um, and so being able to articulate that and then, you know, giving a, giving a sense of, of, um, what the structure of the book might be. Um, and also kind of what it contributes to the world, you know, like why, like there’s a, why, why has nobody, why has nobody written this and why has, um, and why do you, why do you need It now? There’s also the nowness is really important. Why does this book meet the moment? Why is it the right book for the right time? There are plenty of books that are good books that are in the wrong time. So why is it the right book for the right time? (Time 0:18:46)
Dan says that when he is deciding whether to write a book, he asks himself if he’d wanna read it in its first week. If he wouldn’t read it, he probably shouldn’t write it.
Transcript: Daniel Pink One of my criteria for writing a book is, um, if someone else had written this book, would I want to read it the first week? And, uh, if the answer is no, then it’s probably not a book I should write. (Time 0:35:25)
Develop taste by rating books, movies, and art on a scale of ones and tens. When visiting a place like the Met, avoid a dulled sense of, “Oh yeah, it’s pretty good.” Instead, focus on identifying what you truly love.
Transcript: David Perell The other thing we were talking about taste earlier on and, and, and you had me thinking about how do you develop taste? One of the best things I’ve learned is, I don’t know, you could call it like ones and tens. Like think about books you’ve read, movies that you’ve watched, art that you’ve seen. I think actually art that you’ve seen is a really good example because when you walk to an art museum, you go to the Met, there’s this weird cultural idea that everything in the Met is incredible. This is the paragon of quality for Western civilization in this building, right? And all this is to say that what ends up happening is most people walk around with this sort of dulled sense of, oh yeah, it’s pretty good. Oh yeah, it’s pretty good. Like we’re some sort of like French art connoisseur. Whereas actually, I think the best thing that you can do when you’re an art museum is to think about, okay, what do I love? But also, is there anything that I despised, anything that I loathed? And when you kind of force yourself to reflect on not just what I love, but also what did I hate? I think the process of doing that consciously develops a sense of discernment and discernment is the thing that’s upstream of taste. (Time 0:44:38)
David perell collects good writing examples by dumping them into a giant sheet, categorized into fun paragraphs and good introductions. He does not have a systematic approach.
Transcript: Daniel Pink How do you collect examples of good writing? Do you have a systematic way to do that? I just dump them all in a giant sheet. I have fun paragraphs and I have good introductions. (Time 0:47:31)
Daniel Pink’s been keeping a commonplace book for eight years. Every day, he writes down a sentence, phrase, paragraph, or something he’s encountered that speaks to him, including words whose definitions he didn’t know.
Transcript: Daniel Pink I’ve been keeping a commonplace book for eight years, where every day I write one kind of sentence or phrase or paragraph or something that I’ve encountered that speaks to me. I write down words that I didn’t know the definition (Time 0:48:11)
Daniel Pink thinks that being useful is one of the most important qualities for a nonfiction writer. It’s not enough to be interesting, smart, or entertaining. You win when people think and do things differently because of your writing.
Transcript: Daniel Pink As a nonfiction writer, people might disagree with this, but I actually think that one of the most important qualities in a nonfiction writer is not only are you interesting and not Only are you smart and not only are you entertaining, but are you useful? And so you, you win when not only do people think a little differently, but they do different stuff. (Time 0:51:01)
📰 Netflix’s Crazy Livestream, Explained - Jon Yousheai newsletter
Swallow your pride. Think longer-term. Be like Honnold. If you’re trying to be world class, the world will ultimately notice.
About 33% of YouTube users now pay for their Premium tier where they see no ads.
📰 Notes for When I Overthink by Ines Lee
Honor the momentum window. There’s a brief period after inspiration strikes (48 hours? maybe 72 if you’re lucky?) when action feels electric and natural, before fear and over-analysis calcify around it. This window is sacred. The moment an idea excites you, commit to one concrete action before it closes. Send the email. Book the ticket. Have the conversation. Miss this window, and even the smallest viable action becomes infinitely harder to execute.
Inside that window, if you’re still frozen: borrow someone else’s energy. Think of someone who’s done the thing you’re afraid of—someone specific, someone you’ve actually seen in action. Channel their energy completely as though you were full on method acting for ten minutes. Move like they would move. Then do the smallest action while wearing their confidence.
📰 Do I Secretly Love All the Things I Hate? by Alex Dobrenko`
“Fear is excitement without the breath” - Fritz Perls
January 29
📰 I Went on a Think Week—9 Learnings - Sahil Bloom
Author Derek Sivers has a great line: “Keep earning your title, or it expires…Holding on to an old title gives you satisfaction without action. But success comes from doing, not declaring.”
It’s ok to lean into things that seem wrong to others if they feel right to you.
Look in front of you. Identify a puzzle that seems interesting. Solve it. If you solve enough interesting puzzles, your quest will reveal itself in due time.
mall issues on the ground become big issues in the air. Make sure your rocket is in sound working condition on the ground before you start the launch countdown. That means taking care of the basics in your life. Sleep 7+ hours per night. Eat whole, unprocessed foods. Move your body for 30 minutes per day. Connect with someone you love on a daily basis. Clear your mind. If you take care of the basics, you’ll be ready for the crazy forces that a “launch” places you under.
📰 🚫 Stop Copying Your Competitors - Ali Abdaal (CreatorNotes)
I wanted to talk about a conversation that my YouTube Producer, Becky, had with a dude called Caleb Ralston at the end of last year, who runs his own channel and business helping creators like me scale their personal brands. (View Highlight)
📰 Stop Following “Content Tips” - Caleb Ralston
Here’s how: Calculate your 90-day average for views (or whatever metric matters most to you). Then grade every future post against that number using a multiplier. So for example: If your average is 1,000 views and a post gets 6,500—that’s a 6.5x outlier. Now you can look at your sheet at the end of every week or month and immediately see what to double down on (and what to stop doing).
Super direct CTAs often kill your reach. That’s just how the platforms work. They don’t love posts that push people off-platform. So instead of saying “go buy my thing,” figure out how to make your audience aware of your product without the hard ask (and without a link). If you’re a vlogger selling an energy drink, always crack one open mid-video. If you have a course, reference the frameworks from it in your free content. The more you can subtly weave your paid product into your free content, the better.
Pick 2–3 metrics that matter. For us, it’s conversions, views, and watch time (YouTube-specific).
1. Use Data to Guide the Next Post
Here’s how: Calculate your 90-day average for views (or whatever metric matters most to you). Then grade every future post against that number using a multiplier. So for example: If your average is 1,000 views and a post gets 6,500—that’s a 6.5x outlier. Now you can look at your sheet at the end of every week or month and immediately see what to double down on (and what to stop doing).
2. Remix Your Top Performers
70% of what I post is content I know works. 20% is iterations on that 70%. And 10% is pure experimentation.
3. Innovate Your CTAs (Calls-to-Action)
Super direct CTAs often kill your reach. That’s just how the platforms work. They don’t love posts that push people off-platform. So instead of saying “go buy my thing,” figure out how to make your audience aware of your product without the hard ask (and without a link). If you’re a vlogger selling an energy drink, always crack one open mid-video. If you have a course, reference the frameworks from it in your free content. The more you can subtly weave your paid product into your free content, the better.
4. Tailor to the Platform
Don’t just repost the same clip everywhere. Repackage it.
5. Tracking Everything Isn’t Productive
Pick 2–3 metrics that matter. For us, it’s conversions, views, and watch time (YouTube-specific).
🎧 Davos Drama, DOGE’s Social Security Scandal, and Netflix Goes All-Cash for Warner Bros - Pivot Pod
Pay employees 30-50% above market rate. If you’re able to do this, don’t complain about income inequality and instead be the change. Paying well reduces churn. You won’t get calls on a Friday because an employee is handing in notice. It’s a luxury.
Transcript: Scott Galloway But I try to pay people between 30% and 50% more of the market. And what I find is, well, one, if you have the money, it’s a good thing to do and stop bitching about income inequality and live up to it. And two, it’s like such a luxury because when you pay people really well, I won’t say overcompensate, you have no churn. And it just is so much, it’s so nice not to get a call on a Friday and I’m hexing myself from one of your key employees managing. Kara Swisher I’ll be calling you on Friday. Scott Galloway And saying, oh, I’m giving my, you know, two weeks now. Oh, fuck. (Time 0:30:09)
Esther Perel thinks folks dig Heated Rivalry ‘cause it prepares you for a hit that never comes, makin’ you feel better ‘bout the outcome. It retrains you to think everybody ain’t evil. As a gay person, Kara Swisher notes she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, anticipating rejection or ugliness, but it didn’t happen. She’s gonna watch it again since she was expecting bad news from depictions and life.
Transcript: Kara Swisher One of the things that was really interesting is Esther Perel talked about the reason people like Hito Ravu, which is sort of the media of the moment, really. Saying that it makes you feel better about the outcome, that you’re expecting the hit and you don’t get the hit. You get the right response from people. And it retrains you to think everybody’s not evil, essentially. Like I know as a gay person watching it, like I was waiting for someone to get beaten up. I was waiting for some rejection or some ugliness. And all the answers are good. And so I’m going to go watch it a second time because I was just sitting there waiting for the bad news as a gay person because it always comes in those depictions and in life. So it was not as much anymore, but definitely in my younger life. So I just thought that was great. That was great, too. I’m (Time 0:53:14)
January 28
🎧 The Cost of Corporate Silence on ICE, Trump’s Health, and TikTok USA - Pivot Pod
Scaramucci draws a parallel between Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler and the current silence of business leaders facing Trump. He argues that collective resistance from CEOs and political figures could deter Trump’s actions, but their fear of individual intimidation prevents them from acting. He uses Jamie Dimon as an example: Dimon spoke out on a few issues and Trump is bringing a lawsuit in response. Scaramucci believes he’ll lose the lawsuit, but it has a chilling effect.
Transcript: Anthony Scaramucci When Chamberlain headed for Munich to discuss with Adolf Hitler his annexation and what was going on there, the German bureaucrats, okay, we discovered this in their diaries 50, 60, 80 years later, the German bureaucrats were with great relief. They were writing to each other and in their diaries, oh, this is great. The British empire is coming to Munich, represented by Neville Chamberlain, and they’re going to flex on Adolf Hitler. It’s going to scare the daylights out of him, and it’s going to knock him out of power. Thank God this last five years have been a disaster for Germany, and he’s going to get tough and knock Adolf Hitler on his ass. Did that happen, Kara? No, it did not happen. He went there and he totally capitulated. And he came back with a sheet of paper and said, peace in our time. And Churchill said, this is ridiculous. You’re allowing him this birth of authoritarianism. And five, six, seven, three years later, two years later, you’re in war. Five, six, seven years later, 60 million people are killed. I’m not comparing Trump to Hitler. I’m just talking about behavior. If these CEOs and these business leaders and political leaders got together and said, F you, we’re not going to take this anymore. They’ll scare Mike Johnson. They’ll scare the Republicans in the Senate. They’ll push back and they’ll flip it. But they won’t do it as long as Trump is intimidating you one-on Cara. He’s going to beat you because he’s got the force of the presidency and the federal government. But you have the economy. If you’re quiet, you see, see, Jamie, Jamie Dimon. Whom he’s suing. Whom he’s suing. Oh, yeah. Well, let’s just talk about this for a second. He said three or four things that Trump did not like. OK, number one, he wants the Fed to be independent. He doesn’t like the lawsuit and the criminal investigation against Jerome Powell. Number two, he said, I’m not giving money to the ballroom because if I give money to the ballroom, the next administration is going to say, hey, jackass, you were trying to blackmail, You know, you were getting blackmailed and you were paying bribe money to the president. So he’s pretty open, pretty honest guy. Full disclosure, I know Jamie personally. I love Jamie. I think he’s one of the more brilliant financial services executives in our history. So he’s pretty honest. And then what does Trump do? He’s going to bring the hammer down on him. He’s going to bring a $5 million lawsuit, which of course he’ll lose. And he’s bringing a lawsuit against Jamie personally and the bank. He’ll lose the lawsuit. But this is a massive chilling effect. (Time 0:13:55)
🎧 Why Podcasts Are the New TV, Careers After 50, and Divorce With Kids - Prof G Pod
Pivot gets about 300,000 audio listens and 100,000 video views, totaling 400,000 impressions. While video CPMs are lower, audio offers greater intimacy and is preferred by advertisers. Pivot’s blended CPM is around $40, with audio at $45 and video at $30. CNN’s CPM, in comparison, is $15.
Transcript: Scott Galloway Pivot is between our audio listens, about 300,000, and our video views, 100,000, so 400,000 impressions. We’ll get a blended, you get a lower CPM for the video views. Audio creates more intimacy and advertisers like it more. We get a blended CPM, probably about 30 to 40 bucks, 45 bucks for the audio. CPM’s 30 bucks for the video. So call it blended of 40. CNN right now is getting 15. (Time 0:05:23)
If you wanna get into podcasting, do it, but see it as a way to market another product. Scott’s videos at L2 raised awareness, leading to a newsletter and media company. So, use podcasting to market another product or for personal enjoyment.
Transcript: Scott Galloway You want to get into podcasting, do it, but use it as a means or start out initially thinking of it as a means of marketing another core product. For example, our videos initially at L2 were meant to raise awareness among our client base. And we did an amazing job of them. And it ultimately led to a newsletter that we turned into a media company, See About Profity Media. But right now, if you’re going into podcasting, you should be doing it for personal consumption or to market another product. (Time 0:07:45)
If you’re feelin’ anxious, remember that action absorbs anxiety. Make a list and then get going by sendin’ emails, makin’ appointments, and callin’ on others.
Transcript: Scott Galloway If you’re feeling any anxiety, action absorbs anxiety. Write down a list and just start sending out emails and making appointments and calling on people. (Time 0:15:07)
Scott Galloway: People remember how people behave in stressful, emotionally charged situations. (Time 0:24:20)
January 27
🎧 Is Alex Pretti Shooting a Turning Point? - Pivot Pod
Kara Swisher: And I know you call for leaders, but we are the leaders, right? Citizens are the leaders, not our politicians. (Time 0:12:28)
Don’t just protest; use economic pressure. If half of Americans delayed an iPhone purchase or 10% of ChatGPT subscribers canceled, that’d have a major impact. Target companies that Trump cares about, like those in the tech economy, which make up 40% of the S&P. Move money from big banks to regional ones, cancel streaming, cancel AI subscriptions, and delay phone upgrades. If they have to disclose this movement in their earnings calls, things will change quickly.
Transcript: Scott Galloway What I’m suggesting is, and again, I’ve struggled with this my whole life, the difference between being right and being effective. And we’re angry, and I get it, protesting is powerful, promising them that there will be an accountability. And I’ve said this, I think there should be something equivalent to the Nuremberg trials after this is all over. And to make it clear that once we’re back in power, which we will be, this is going to happen. And the statute of limitations on murder is never. However, it’s the boring shit that moves the needle. And here’s something really boring that would stop this. If we could convince half of Americans who are planning to buy an iPhone in the next 60 days to not buy it, just put it off, and we could get 10% of existing ChatGPT subscribers to cancel Their subscription, this ends. These are the people that he cares about, and this is about the market. Look at the only time he’s blinked, when the Japanese bond market started taking our 10-year yields up, and when tariffs took the markets this is how he responds. It’s not cinematic. It’s not romantic. It’s not going to be written up in great history novels. But if you could figure out a way to basically kick a small number of companies related to the tech economy that account for 40% of the S&P right now and who are the people he cares about, If all of a sudden, if you took all of your money out of any J.P. Morgan affiliated bank and transferred it to a local regional bank, if you canceled all of your streaming media platforms, if you canceled OpenAI and Anthropic and you said, I am not Upgrading my Apple phone, and there was a real movement, they registered, and they had to disclose it in their earnings calls, this shit would come to an end pronto. (Time 0:21:30)
January 26
📰 This Weird YouTube Advice = 80 Million Views by Creator Startup
20 million new YouTube videos are uploaded every single day.
Here’s Speeed’s 9 Rules of Building a Successful YouTube Channel
1. Start With a Point of View
3. Watch YouTube and Have Favorites
“If you’re going to work in a medium or an artform, you have to be a fan of the medium or the art form” – In our full conversation, James shouts out all of the creators he admires who influenced what Speeed is today.
4. Have a List of Videos You Can’t Wait to Make
5. A Camera and a Computer
Production value should mean value to the audience, not the value of the cameras you use.
6. Define the Vision (Then Let It Evolve)
7. Set Realistic Quality Standards
8. Loose/Optimistic Bookkeeping
9. Prioritize Entertainment Above All YouTube is TV. If it’s not entertaining, it won’t work.
January 24
🎧 Personal Investment Strategies, Effective Public Policies and Should We Tax AI? - Pivot Pod
Kara regrets her mom losing touch with her dad’s parents and reconnected with them in college. She feels it’s important for kids to know their grandparents and relatives on their dad’s side if they’re good people. She wishes she knew more about her dad’s friends and was touched by the stories she heard after writing about him. Kara named her son after her dad to keep his memory alive.
Transcript: Kara Swisher Job. I hate to trash my mom this episode, but it’s true. She lost contact with my dad’s parents, and I reestablished it when I was in college myself. When you’re a kid, you’re a little bit at cross purposes of loyalty. And I thought that was not good. She threw away a lot of pictures, which I recovered, some of which I spent a lot of time finding stuff about my dad. And I right now have a big box of letters of his that I just read one that was wonderful. I think she should have spent a lot more time talking about him. And I don’t think she remembers herself, but I don’t think she was kind to his parents. So that was one thing, is if your grandparents are good people, make sure your kids know them and know their relatives on your dad’s side and they’re his friends. I wish I knew more about my dad’s friends. And I found out later when I wrote a piece in the Washington Post, I got inundated with friends of his that my mother never told me about, that I then went and met and all these stories. I think I’ve said this before, there was a gay couple who my dad was lovely to, and I didn’t know that. It was a wonderful thing to find out. A young African-American woman he tutored wrote me for now she was a doctor and said she wanted to thank him. An ex-girlfriend of his wrote me saying it should have been me that married him, which was funny. There’s a picture of him behind me. I have a lot of pictures of him around. One thing I’m sad is my kids won’t know him. And I also named my son after my dad. So that’s what I would say. That’s nice. (Time 0:20:29)
Don’t pretend loss isn’t happening or downplay it. Read *The Loss That Is Forever* (author unknown). Remember and talk about the person you lost every day.
Transcript: Kara Swisher One of the last things I would say is there’s a great book called The Loss That Is Forever. I forget the author. I would recommend reading it. It’s forever loss. So don’t like pretend it’s not. Like don’t underscore what the loss is. And I think about my dad every day, every single day. And you should let them do that. And you should think and talk about him every day to them. I mean, I think that’s critically important. (Time 0:24:36)
🎧 Disney’s OpenAI Investment, Nvidia Chip Deal, and Australia’s New Social Media Ban by Pivot Pod
Scott joined YEO at 30 and got Bob Swanson, founder of Genentech, as a mentor. Swanson shadowed Scott for a day and pointed out that Scott talked too much and needed to focus on being effective, not just right. He emphasized that great leaders listen more than they talk.
Transcript: Scott Galloway Did you know my big, in YEO, I want to bring this back to me. I know I don’t like to talk about, you know I don’t like to talk about myself, Cara, but there was something called YEO. And I joined when I was like 30 years old in San Francisco, which is supposed to be a feeder into YPO. And you get a mentor. The best part of it is you get a mentor who’s a YPOR. And my mentor was the runner up for, or one of the runner ups for person of the year, a times person of the year. And it was Bob Swanson. Do you remember him? Kara Swisher No, no. Scott Galloway He was the founder of Genentech. Oh, okay. Kara Swisher All right. Scott Galloway And he met me. Kara Swisher I thought that was Craig, whatever you call it. Scott Galloway We met and the loveliest guy, I mean, this is a guy very busy, right? And he said, we met, we had lunch and he said, and I said, I had just started Profit, this brand, this strategy firm. And he said, would you, he goes, how can I be the most helpful? I’m like, you know, I sort of know what I’m doing, but I really don’t. And he said, well, I have an idea. I’ll just, I’ll just shadow you for a day. Yeah. He met me in my office, actually met me at the gym. I worked out every day from seven to eight. He met me at the gym, picked me up, took me to my office, and he just shadowed me for a full day. Meetings, client meetings. And he’s a fairly like kind of quiet, like not, he was sort of like, like, you know, shorter guy, carried a few extra pounds, just sort of kind of, I don’t want to say blended in, obviously A genius. And he just shadowed me the whole day. And at the end of the day, he sat me down and he’d taken a bunch of notes and he said, okay, great leaders listen more than they talk. You are not a great leader yet. You want to impress everybody. You’re talking too much. He said, he had all these things that have stuck with me my whole life. He said, you don’t understand the difference between being right and being effective. He’s like, you’re right a lot, but you’re too aggressive and you’re turning off people. You got to think about how am I effective here? And he just gave me a series of things. Wow. Anyways, that was my mentor story. (Time 1:05:58)
January 23
📰 Subscribing to Newsletters via RSS via Bob Matyas
Beyond subscribing to blogs, I also use NetNewsWire to handle my newsletter subscriptions. To do this, I use the excellent service “Kill the Newsletter!“. It allows you to create an email address (i.e. ) which you use to subscribe to a newsletter. It then generates an RSS feed of everything sent to that email (including confirmation emails). It’s a great way to keep up newsletters without having to resort to email.
📰 Notes on Not Posting by Anu
Consumption alone is a weak drug. Posting is what keeps me sucked in. When I’m not posting, it’s far easier for me to drift away for days, even weeks at a time.
I’ve been consuming less of the media that’s discussed on social media. It’s less interesting without the accompanying discourse. Commentary is half the product, confirmed.
Social media is a surveillance tool. Some people keep tabs on you through your posts. When you stop posting, they notice. You can usually identify their emotions: anxious, annoyed, worried.
Without the micro-dopamine, real-world pleasures register more.
January 22
🎧 4th Egg Retrieval, Capitalism, and the Lost Art of Reading - Staying Up with Cammie and Taryn Arnold
Cam and Taryn advise that couples should spend as much time together as possible leading up to the wedding. Doing so primes the couple to stay together during the wedding itself, where they’ll be pulled in different directions by guests. Plan ahead to create a space where guests are taken care of, so the couple doesn’t have to host them the whole time.
Transcript: Taryn Arnold One cam would always say like leading up to the wedding, I want to stay together as much as possible. And I think that like primed us really well to, to do that and to experience it together because once it’s happening there’s 200 people from yeah all different parts of each of your lives Cammie Scott It’s really people grabbing you to go talk and you’re like you’re hosting a party yeah and I had already seen that when Taryn and I host parties we have our different roles and we are rarely Getting to be together we are like trying to take care of our guests and a wedding is 200 of your well depending on how big your wedding is but it’s it’s like your most favorite guests ever All coming together so you do feel some pressure to properly host them that was one thing but I think a solution for that is like it comes in the planning of the wedding. Totally. Of creating a space where one, your guests are already taken care of. So you’re not having to take care of them the whole time. (Time 0:56:18)
Taryn and her partner had wedding planners who created intimate moments for them. They set aside time after the ceremony but before the party for the couple to enjoy drinks and treats alone while watching their cocktail hour.
Transcript: Taryn Arnold We had wedding planners which was great but life-changing they we talked to them before about this desire to like really experience it together and so that they baked in a couple times That were just us like after the ceremony and before the party like while everyone was at cocktail hour yeah we took 10 minutes to ourselves yeah had a drink they brought us treats and Cammie Scott They asked us like what drink do you want after the ceremony yeah and they had it ready for us and we were in a room where we could see out really clearly but they couldn’t see in very clearly Taryn Arnold So we were watching part of our cocktail hour just like experiencing (Time 0:57:44)
January 20
📰 The 10% of AI Tools That Drive 90% of My Results by Jeff Su
You just finished a weekly meeting. You have a video recording of the call, a 20-slide deck, and a photo of a messy whiteboard session. You can upload all three to Gemini and ask it to summarize the discussion, pull out key decisions, and draft the follow-up email. Gemini is the only tool that can synthesize all three in one go.
When you need diagrams, ask Claude to generate Mermaid code. You can paste that directly into tools like Excalidraw to get clean visuals in minutes.
Specialist AI: Lightning Round A few more specialist AI tools deserve mention, even though they do not get daily use:
Gamma for presentations
ElevenLabs for voice cloning
Zapier and n8n for automation
Excalidraw and Napkin AI for quick visuals
📰 The Best Way to Read the Internet by Austin Kleon
I added the Standard Ebooks URL to my reader so I see every time they add a new ebook to their library.
January 19
📰 My Biggest Mistake With Goal-Setting... by Ali Abdaal
I’ve started asking myself a question whenever I feel the urge to start something new: “What am I already doing that this would compete with?”
January 18
🎧 If You Want to Gain 1 Million Followers in 2026, Listen to This Episode - 505 Podcast
People only see the external numbers, like a $100 million launch. Michael Lim reflects on the behind-the-scenes vlog that showed the immense prep involved in that success.
Transcript: B Figgy Michael, everyone sees the external numbers. They see $100 million made online. But what is the behind the scenes actually look like that makes all of that happen? Michael Lim I’ve been thinking about this a little bit recently. They just released the behind the scenes vlog, kind of like showing all the ups and downs and like the immense amount of prep. (Time 0:01:01)
Michael Lim shares how Alex Hormozi locked his content team in a room for 72 hours to compress eight weeks of work into a single weekend. They wrote texts, emails, landing pages, recorded VSLs, and shot product photography.
Transcript: Michael Lim CEO, urgency, laser beam, time compression, like this, this thing that I think Alex talks about, he locked us in a room for like consensually right but we’re like hey like how would you Guys feel if we just like locked ourselves in a room for 72 hours over a weekend and we we compressed like eight weeks of work into one weekend writing all of the text messages all the emails Test all the landing pages record every single vsl like regular vsl for pre-order, VIP upsell. There was like four or five videos that we needed and then take all the product photography of him holding the books and the bonuses. (Time 0:08:56)
Ramp up ad spending strategically. Start with 20% of the budget a few weeks out, increase to 40% the week before, and then spend big (e.g., $2.5M) in the final 72 hours, as most conversions happen at the end.
Transcript: Michael Lim We ended up running, I think like 2000 or so pieces of ad creative over the course of like the two months. And it was like ramped up, right? It’s like you spend 20% of the ad budget, you know, a couple of weeks out, you spend 40%, you know, the week before, and then like you blow like two and a half million dollars or whatever The number was like in the last 72 hours, because all the conversion happens at the very end. (Time 0:09:54)
A large percentage of sales, 60-80%, happen in the last 48 hours of a launch. This suggests that urgency and scarcity can be significant drivers for conversions.
Transcript: B Figgy We’ve sold 60 to 80 percent comes when it’s two days left there’s 48 hours left check this out yeah we’re not doing it again in the future like did you guys notice when you started running The 48 hour and the 24 hours or day of ads that it was like the conversion started to really come? (Time 0:11:15)
Michael Lim shares that silent retreats and in-person gatherings are underrated and that the world is appreciating compressed work again. He likens it to pledging, where shared struggles create social bonds, resulting in the most fun you never want to do again.
Transcript: Michael Lim Off sites and retreats are super underrated and like the world is kind of coming back to a place where this appreciation of in-person really like compressed work is is notable there’s Also like a social bonding perspective from like it’s like pledging right like you get locked into a basement you’re like like it it’s a fun kind of like struggle thing. It’s the most fun you never want to do again. (Time 0:16:07)
Allocate your ad spend like this:
80% on proven campaigns.
20% on loose adaptations of what’s already working.
10% on net new experiments.
Transcript: Michael Lim Google published their approach to ad campaigns. And it’s like, they recommend 80% of your ad spend goes towards proven stuff. And then I think I’m probably butchering the numbers here, but it’s like, maybe it’s like 70%. Then it’s like 20% is on sort of loose adaptations of the stuff that already works. And then 10% is like totally net new things. (Time 0:17:07)
Always be selling because entrepreneurs have a lot of trade-offs and other priorities.
Transcript: Michael Lim This is like a lesson learned, I think, in working with really amazing entrepreneurs like Alex is like, you have to always be selling, right? Because they have so many trade-offs and other priorities. (Time 0:22:05)
Don’t waste time doing content. Instead, put your energy into building something meaningful and worth talking about. Also, develop a unique skill set.
Transcript: Michael Lim So I just think that a lot of people’s time would be better spent actually building something meaningful and like worth talking about and also just a skill set that makes them unique. (Time 0:26:00)
Don’t do sales ‘cause you don’t know how to do marketing, and don’t do marketing ‘cause you don’t know how to do product. If your product’s good enough, it’ll sell itself through word of mouth and positive brand recognition.
Transcript: Michael Lim The Naval quote, this is like total oversimplification that’s going to make people mad, but like it’s, it’s meant to be a thought exercise. It’s like you’re doing sales because you didn’t know how to do marketing and you’re doing you’re doing marketing because you didn’t know how to do product. And so the idea is that like if your product is good enough, it should ideally get enough word of mouth, positive, you know, brand recognition that it begins to sell itself. (Time 0:28:39)
Do things that don’t scale to understand customer needs. A good exercise is to find a list of prospects and call them to understand their language. It’ll become the foundation for your marketing.
Transcript: Michael Lim The Silicon Valley Y Combinator, like do things that don’t scale is a really good exercise because it forces you to really like get in front of customers and really tight feedback loop. Like finding a cold call list of your prospects and like just getting on the phone with them and trying to do like a hand-to thing, I think is a very like good way to get a product out there Because it forces you to like really hear the language they’re using. That eventually becomes your like sort of foundation for how you market your product. (Time 0:29:26)
Spend an hour each week talking directly to your customers; it’ll be way more effective than any marketing framework. Transcript: Michael Lim If you can commit to just like spending an hour a week, really one-to or face-to talking to your customers, it will do you a lot better than any fancy marketing framework. (Time 0:32:53)
Clarify what winning means for your team and identify metrics that indicate success. Implement a scoreboard to track progress continuously, not just immediately after a viral hit. This ensures you know if you’re on track consistently, like in a basketball game.
Transcript: Michael Lim There’s a thought exercise that I think every team could do just like clarify, what does winning really mean for us? And what metrics would indicate that we’ve actually done this? I think that’s a helpful thing. Then there’s a scoreboard, right? It’s like, every single minute of the game, you know, like, who which team is winning, it’s like not ambiguous, right? But I think you have a lot of teams who are just bouncing between like viral hit to viral hit. And so it’s like for, for 30 minutes after the upload, they have clarity, like, Oh, like we’re doing well because it’s a one out of 10. And then they wait another like two weeks and it’s like, Oh shit, this video is not doing very well. But like, imagine if you had a team just like in a basketball game that like every single minute of every single day, they know if they’re on track. (Time 0:35:45)
Create a content playbook by defining the exact number of content pieces you wanna hit weekly, then categorize them into specific buckets. For example, for Instagram, allocate slots for carousels (including throwback ones), collaborations, podcast reels, content from tweets, and day-in-the-life vlogs. This provides clarity for the team.
Transcript: Michael Lim At Hermosi, we knew exactly how many pieces of content we wanted to hit every single week. And we knew what buckets those content pieces fell into. So we had, let’s just say, 21 slots for Instagram a week. Eight of them are carousels. Of those carousels are throwback carousels. Three of them are collabs between Alex, Layla, Sharon. And then five of the reels are podcast reels. Three of them are like taken from tweets directly. And then two of them are like, you know, day in the life, like, you know, Layla vlog stuff. So it’s very clear to the team, like, this is the playbook, right? (Time 0:36:30)
To run a successful content team, make sure everyone understands what information is shared, how often, and in what formats. Also, define who needs to be included in reports and what communication should be synchronous versus asynchronous.
Transcript: Michael Lim Like Layla is really, really good at helping teams understand like what information is shared, how often and what formats, who needs to be included on these reports, which of this needs To be synchronous versus asynchronous. (Time 0:39:23)
Find ways to build media infrastructure so everyone’s happy. Create systems where the founder, the team, and everyone feels rewarded, motivated, and is learning quickly. This infrastructure and discipline outweigh specific tactics, platform strategies, camera gear, or even individual roles.
Transcript: Michael Lim In the last year of working with Alex and Layla is that you need to find a way to build media infrastructure so that everybody is not miserable. Like you need to find a way to create systems where the founder or the person in front of the camera is happy. The team is happy. People feel rewarded, reinforced, motivated. They’re learning quickly. And it’s a really nuanced soft skill and more so like infrastructure you have to develop, like discipline around. And it supersedes any specific tactic or platform strategy or camera gear or individual role you’re hiring for. (Time 0:42:23)
Make sure everyone on your team feels like they’re a hero in the company’s story. If not, show them how important their role is. Every team member, from the founder to the videographer and scriptwriter, drives value. A good videographer architects the film environment, ensuring everything’s set. The writer crafts words that form the DNA of the video; if they aren’t right, it impacts the speaker, clarity, and conversion.
Transcript: Michael Lim Does your team feel, does every single person on your team feel like the hero in the story of your company? And if you can’t answer yes to that, you have a little more work to do on helping that person understand how important their role is for the team. And so like an exercise that I’ve done is like, how does every single person on this roster of creatives, like really, really drive value for the team? The founder is super obvious. You’re the face, like you say all the fun stuff, you come up with the frameworks, right? But like an underrated one is like videographers. Videographers, like a really good videographer is not just making sure that like the gear and the recording and SD cards, like everything’s like, that’s really important. But a videographer I think of as like the architect of the environment of the film space they’re making sure that like the right beverages are there they’re making sure that the temperature In the room is set they’re making sure that like they’ve sent a photo of the setup before the day before to the director so the director is not panicking thinking the lighting’s gonna Be fucked up like it was last time right uh in the same way like your script writer your writer, the words are like the fundamental DNA of your entire video. If the words aren’t right, it’s going to trip up the person speaking. It’s not going to communicate ideas as clearly. It won’t be as compelling or high converting to the audience. And so like every single person on the, on the team understands that like how important and how like almost this entire operation rests on them. (Time 0:43:25)
Creating an infrastructure where teammates feel rewarded and reinforced is more effective than salary, free lunches, or fun vacations. Pizza parties are not the answer.
Transcript: Michael Lim The ability for you to create infrastructure that enables teammates to feel really rewarded and reinforced for their work is way more effective than salary, way more effective than Like free lunches or fun vacations or off sites. Pizza parties. (Time 0:45:09)
To avoid discouragement in media, especially with uncontrollable variables like people’s opinions or algorithm changes, work on a micro scale to build resilience. Aim to be like a ‘Buddha archetype’ – happy, generous, and unfazed by setbacks, just keep going.
Transcript: Michael Lim So by doing that on like a really micro scale, you can end up becoming the kind of person who can upload a video and then have it not go very well and not have it discourage you from continuing To do the work. Or you can have a filming experience with like a podcast cast, maybe like, you know, didn’t have a bunch of great answers or you could have done better research. And you’re like, well, we’re going to keep going. We’re going to work on it in post. And I think it’s like a really, really taxing mental process working in media because you’re just subjected to so many variables outside of your control. People’s opinions of you, trends, how the algorithm chooses to bless you or not on a given day, right? And so like the perfect creator, I think, is a sort of like a Buddha archetype that like is happy, positive, generous, warm, and like doesn’t give a shit if things go well because they’re Just going to keep existing and like living in this whatever, you know, elevated state of consciousness. (Time 0:47:48)
Don’t expect external success (money, fame, respect) to bring lasting happiness. Humans are wired to want more due to our evolution in resource-scarce environments. Focus on inner work and satisfaction because contentment is internal.
Transcript: Michael Lim Happiness is an inside job. It’s like a heist that you have to like make happen because like no amount of money or fame or respect or like attention from people is going to like make you feel like everything is right In the world because like just biologically humans are just wired to want more because we evolved in a very like resource scarce environment and now we are resource abundant um and so B Figgy You just have to like work on that have there been moments throughout these super high highs that you maybe have reflected and been like, man, I’m not happy and I feel like I should be happy (Time 0:53:17)
YouTube provides the highest quality attention, allowing for nuanced explanations that build brand affinity and credibility. Short-form content platforms have higher variance, making it more likely for content to ‘hit’ if you post frequently. This enables you to double down on successful content. It’s harder to achieve the same hit rate with long-form content like podcasts because you can’t post as frequently.
Transcript: Michael Lim YouTube is where the highest quality attention is. You also are able to explain topics with a lot more nuance that create really strong brand affinity and credibility. Thing that i would caution you against like or encourage you to maybe figure out how to continue to figure out the short form game in like a way that’s like scalable and financially feasible Is that like there’s this concept like variance and statistics and like short form is just a higher variance platform and it’s actually a good thing like you just if you can post a hundred Times in a month and it’s hard to post a hundred long from podcasts in a month, you’re just more likely to have one or two of them hit. And then once that happens, you can double down on that. And then all of a sudden next month, four hit and then eight hit. Right. Whereas like, if you’re waiting for the two out of a hundred outcome for a podcast, that might not happen. Right. (Time 0:56:14)
Short-form content algorithms treat each piece as a standalone entity, offering more variance and potential for random hits, unlike long-form content on platforms like YouTube, where audience profiles and personalization metrics play a larger role. Therefore, early-stage builders should focus on short-form to ‘roll the dice’ more often.
Transcript: Michael Lim You’re still not benefiting from the variance of the actual short form algorithm itself, which is weighted towards treating every single short as its own standalone thing. I think YouTube channels, long form, you’re beholden a little bit more to like, YouTube has some kind of audience profile. They understand the performance and the personalization metrics of the people who are watching your videos. And so you’re unlikely to have a random hit of new audiences that watch your long-form YouTube content if you don’t already have a large base. Short form, I think it’s totally different because it’s almost like a dice roll every single time. And so I think you just like, when you’re trying to build something early stages um like just roll the dice more I think and even like you also can benefit from clipping old old old podcasts (Time 0:57:43)
Automate content clipping by building a system that identifies key moments during recording. Start with time-coding, then add moment-tagging, live transcription analysis, and AI-driven suggestions. Aim for a workflow where your team can quickly review and approve AI-selected moments, creating briefs for editors, saving time, and ensuring the most impactful clips are used, because you have the most taste of your entire team.
Transcript: Michael Lim Trying to get like cheaper editors to like do stuff if they’re not like on set or like understand english as well as like stephen bartlett has like the have you heard like the ai button No thing the thing the button under the table oh yeah do you know what it does though no it tells them that like this is a moment they should click right and i’m pretty sure it’s set up with A live transcriber and a time code system so it like so i was trying to build this with her mosey team i was like wow okay so mid pod he’s he’s he’s i think so i don’t actually i’ve heard him Talk about that wow so the ideal situation would be one of you has like a thing on one of these ipads you hit a button and there’s a there’s a clod or some kind of mcp related thing that has Access to your transcript and then it like there’s okay so like level one is time code it’s like okay one minute and 27 seconds good moment be like yuli writing this down but that’s not That good it still requires a lot of effort to make that right okay step number two is um it also gets the moment so it’s like when i was asking this question about the NBA thing, that’s a Moment. Step three is the bot has access to the transcription that’s happening live. And it does a query that says at 90 minutes and 45 seconds, the podcast guest was talking about NBA teams. And, you know, like Bradiden asked this question about uh you know what Mr. Beast was like and that’s a moment and then it even has the transcript there so it like has everything that the Clipper needs to be able to make it and then step four would be at the very end Of the podcast you have an agent that then just like you just sit down as a team and you hit a button and it and it lists you the 25 moments from the podcast and you just go yes yes no no no no yes Yes yes yes and then that’s a brief that gets sent to your editing team that just probably cuts down on a lot of because you guys have the most taste of your entire you always have the most Taste of your entire team you can’t outsource that yeah like even if you get a really dope badass editor from LA who’s like been doing this for a while like they don’t have the 200 episodes Of knowledge you guys have of like what clips and what moments hit so these kinds of infrastructure things are things I’m trying to build with my team I’m to save time because like I have Three media team members right now I’m used to like you know Mr. Beast had like 25 when I joined obviously now hundreds Alex and Layla’s media team was like 18 by the time I left (Time 0:59:06)
Prioritize a healthy, focused “LeBron” and clean up their calendar. Build a core group of senior managers, then use vendors. Hire managers for operations (infrastructure, cadences) and content marketing (storytelling, customer knowledge). Add leads for short-form content (hooks, visuals, UGC) and YouTube (titles, thumbnails, ideas). Outsource specific production inputs like videography to contractors to avoid extra headcount. Delay hiring editors, junior strategists, or clippers and instead get agencies to outsource a lot of the specific production inputs if you have enough centralized direction and strategy.
Transcript: Michael Lim Number one, you need your like LeBron to like, just be like healthy, happy, like focus. Got lbj out ways to like clean up their calendar optimize for like batched film sessions you know uh get rid of bullshit that they ideally can get handled by like an ea and stuff number Two my opinion these days and the way that i’m building my team is core group of senior managers and then vendors so like i’ve hired a uh manager for operations who’s going to be building Like infrastructure and a lot of these like cadences for us. And then we have a director of content marketing who actually was at the company before I joined. He’s like a world-class storyteller, went to film school, knows our customers super well, like amazing at creating storyboards and like understanding how to interview people. And then I will hire two more leads this year. One is a short form, like head of short form manager who understands like hooks and visuals and how to pick up a camera and like film UGC stuff. And then I will hire a YouTube manager who’s like obsessed with titles, thumbnails, ideas. And then that’s it for a while. I’m going to wait to hire like a editor or like a junior strategist or like a clipper, because I think that if I have enough centralized direction and like strategy we can we can get like Agencies to to like outsource a lot of like the specific production inputs and that even goes for like all of my videography is right now happening with like a local contractor I would Like to have an in-house videographer but like in a venture backed startup like every bit of headcount is an opportunity cost to hire another engineer. So I’m like, ah, like probably could make the product better. I will, I will wait to hire like my, my editor. (Time 1:01:33)
To build a great content team:
1. Ensure the founder is available and can film regularly.
2. Assemble a core leadership team with experience.
3. Create foundational documents that define brand ethos, desired associations, key messaging, and how to measure success.
Transcript: Michael Lim Number one, you need your founder to be like just super dialed in and like calendar is clear of commitment so they can film regularly. Number two, you need a core group of senior leadership that ideally has been there, done that. Number three, you need really, really clear, I call these like foundational documents. Like what is the ethos of the brand we’re trying to create? What are the associations we want? What kind of messaging do we want people to know or not to receive in our content? And then like, how will we know if we’re winning? (Time 1:03:11)
Create a growth model spreadsheet for your media team. Instead of volatile metrics like impressions, track follower growth per platform. Use baseline percentages from the previous year to project growth. Model different scenarios by adjusting publication rates or other inputs to see how they affect follower growth. Even better, hire a spreadsheet monkey to build these things.
Transcript: Michael Lim Every team in 26 needs this thing that I call like a growth model. So in, you know, investment banking or like management consulting, there’s all these like, you know, we’re basically spreadsheet monkeys. So we make these spreadsheets that project out financial forecasts for companies. And I basically was like, what if we had this, but for a media team, but instead of impressions, which is very volatile, it’s just follower growth per platform. So, and I can send you guys a screenshot of this later, but basically it’s like, I took the baseline percentages of every single platform in 25. So Facebook grew by 4% a month, Instagram grew by 7% a month by followers. YouTube grew by 12%. And then I created a base case of like, if I just multiplied that compounding every single month, where would we end up by the end of the year? And I think it was like, we would go from 100 something thousand followers to like 400. And then I was like, okay, I think if we increase our publication rate from seven times a week, so one time a day on Instagram to 14, I don’t necessarily think that will double the rate of Growth, but I think it could increase our rate of growth by 20%. So you basically can start to map out increases in inputs and then increases in growth rate. And you can hire a spreadsheet monkey to like build these things. (Time 1:03:46)
Michael Lim and Alex Hormozi increased carousel posts after Adam Mosseri (Instagram) indicated it’s the platform’s direction. They posted ~3 times daily and decided to make half the posts carousels. They noticed that carousels featuring both Alex and Leila performed better because of shared audiences and relatable content.
Transcript: Michael Lim When I say Alex and I were paying attention to what Adam Masseri was talking about with Instagram and carousels at the end of 24, he was saying this is the way that the platform is going. We’re like, okay, make more carousels. Well, how many? Well, know that we’re approximately posting three times a day. So let’s just make like half our posts carousels. Within that, then we also noticed in the data that like Alex and Leila carousels did better than individual carousels because they have like, obviously shared audiences. It tends to be more like wide reaching relationship content people can relate to. That’s beneficial for the brand. (Time 1:06:09)
Don’t rely on SOPs; they can easily get lost. Instead, create a lasting artifact like an internal book that documents how to succeed within the company. This makes it easier to locate and reference crucial information.
Transcript: Michael Lim I’d love to just document everything but not so much in these like little one-off like SOPs. I think like SOPs can get lost super easy. Then like everyone’s like, where’s the fucking Google Doc or their filming thing? And so I was like, I want to make an artifact. Like Alex has done such a great job of writing these books. I kind of want to make like an internal book, but it’s going to be about how to succeed at this company. (Time 1:08:58)
Leila recently launched a newsletter, Leila’s Letters, which everyone should subscribe to. She also publicly released an internal memo as part of Acquisition.com.
Transcript: Michael Lim Leila ended up sort of publicly releasing it as she launched her recent newsletter, which everyone should go subscribe for Leila’s Letters. And it’s embedded into one of these internal memos that she released as a part of Acquisition’s history. (Time 1:10:14)
To build media effectively for a business, first, understand the cultural underpinnings important to the team. Second, learn the foundational frameworks of how media makes money for companies. Without this, you’re just making random clips and hopin’ they hit. Third, with that framework, figure out how to grow as a creative professional.
Transcript: Michael Lim Number one, what are cultural underpinnings that are important to Alex, Layla, and the team so that you can understand the language with which we think about growth and business? Number two, what are like foundational frameworks that you need to understand for how media actually makes companies money? Because I don’t think if you don’t have that, you can’t really build media for a business. You’re just like making random clips and hoping that they hit. And then number three, with that framework, how do you actually grow in advance as an individual, like a creative professional? So I’ll give like the TLDR, you can find it online or something. (Time 1:10:31)
Don’t just create content once; repurpose it! Turn content into internal training, LinkedIn posts, recruiting videos, and even podcasts. Also, integrate content review into existing meetings to save time and avoid scheduling extra meetings.
Transcript: Michael Lim Leverage means everything you do as a media team should ideally be a double, triple, quadruple dip. If you’re making content, find a way to make it into an internal training and also a LinkedIn post and also a recruiting video and also a podcast that’s going to be shared on YouTube. Same with like founder’s time. Like if you’re having a film session, try to fit the content review at the end of the film session or during the lunch break so that you don’t have to schedule an entire extra content review Meeting during the week. (Time 1:11:17)
Volume negates luck. Putting in enough reps helps overcome the natural variance in waiting for things to happen. It’s about consistent effort to mitigate the randomness of success.
Transcript: Michael Lim Volume negates luck. Like it’s like one of Alex’s mantras that if you just put in enough reps, you were able to get over the sort of natural variance of waiting for things to do well. (Time 1:11:44)
If you’ve already got a brand, it’s easier to get folks to buy ‘cause they’ve seen your free content and trust ya more. Organic content gives ya unlimited efficiency ‘cause you aren’t paying more for extra views, unlike paid ads. Use organic content to influence customer acquisition.
Transcript: Michael Lim If you have a brand, it requires less advertising to convince them to hit the buy button because they’ve seen your free stuff online. They have more trust. It also gives you economies of scale of converting more people because if you can put the same piece of content out there and it gets a million views, you didn’t pay more for those views, But you would if it was a paid ad. That’s the advantage of organic content is you can get unlimited efficiency with customer acquisition. And that’s kind of how media influences stuff. (Time 1:12:51)
Content shouldn’t just get views; it’s gotta convince people that your product’s good and better than the competitors’. It has to convince them that the people making the product align with their values and that they aspire to be like them. Use content to make advertising more efficient by pre-handling objections. Structure your content with rotations to make it easier to fill in the gaps and implement a feedback loop, like a weekly report, to share the top-performing posts.
Transcript: Michael Lim Our content can’t just get views. It has to convince someone that like our product is good and better than the competitors. Our product to convince people or our content has to convince people that the people making this product are aligned with my values, that I aspire to be more like them. Our content has to make our advertising more efficient by pre-handling objections that they would need to believe to be able to buy our soda versus our competitor’s soda. And so, you know, at the final, like probably 20 pages of this guide, it was like, how do we do this? Well, one is understanding that within content you need rotations because it makes it easier to fill in the gaps than like making things up every single week. You also need some kind of like feedback loop. It could be like a weekly report that just shares the top performing posts of the week. (Time 1:13:38)
Optimize for followers, not impressions, because follower conversion is the closest thing to someone raising their hand and saying they’re willing to give you money.
Transcript: Michael Lim Third, you probably should optimize for followers, not impressions. So we believe at acquisition, and I believe that now, like with my current company, that growth dashboard that I was saying, that spreadsheet is all follower counts. It’s not impressions because your follower conversion, I think is the closest thing to someone raising their hand and saying, I’m willing to give you my money. (Time 1:14:25)
Followers is *the* most important metric within a media ecosystem, despite its seeming unimportance for distribution. People follow accounts whose content they really enjoy, so they don’t risk missing it.
Transcript: Michael Lim Followers is not a vanity metric. I think it’s the most important metric you have in your entire media ecosystem because like, because, and it is actually because it matters so little for distribution. So right now, why do you choose to follow someone? I at least follow someone because I their content so much i don’t want to risk not being able to find them again so i hit the follow button (Time 1:15:03)
Understand your audience deeply. By the end of the year, aim for your media and marketing teams to know your ideal customer. Strive to know, for example, what YouTube videos a restaurant owner watches, and how it connects to their business goals and cuisine. This enables you to provide much better, personalized service.
Transcript: Michael Lim By the end of the year, our media team and our marketing team will understand a restaurant owner when they come into our pipeline, what YouTube videos do they watch? How does that connect to like what they’re trying to do with their business and their cuisine type and just be able to give them much better service because we have that level of personalization. (Time 1:19:41)
Don’t jump straight into creating broad educational content (level four) without first establishing a foundation. Start at level zero (doing the work), then level one (showing you’re legit with happy customers), and level two (creating content specifically for sales enablement, like customer testimonials). This ensures your content efforts have maximum leverage and impact at each stage.
Transcript: Michael Lim Level zero is you have nothing. You are only doing like, let’s say you’re a plumber. Okay. You’re a plumber. You drive around with your van, you hit houses, you unplug their toilets, whatever. Level one is you have enough stuff to let people know that you’re not a scammer and that you exist. And that there’s like a little bit of like happy customers. You take your phone out after the toilet’s put unplugged and you’re like, look, there’s no more shit. Like whatever, right? So that’s level one. Level two is you have content that is purely used for hand-to combat, like sales enablement. So you’re a plumber, you record a testimonial selfie with your happy client that just says like, hey, like our pipes were leaking, the sink was a mess, Joe, the plumber came and helped Us out. Like, thank you, Joe. And you send it only during sales cycles. So these videos get like 12 views, but they’re super hot leads that are on the fence. And the whole reason why I’m creating this framework is because at every point in the media cycle, you want to be able to pour time and attention into media where it’s having the most leverage And effect in your business. So if you go straight to level four, which is like, I’m going to make plumbing educational content, maybe it’ll hit. Maybe you’re just going to be making plumbing educational content for like six months. And then you’re just like, you could have been focusing the entire time on your business, (Time 1:21:06)
LinkedIn will probably have figured out its video algorithm by 2026. It’s a mess now, but folks are starting to use video on LinkedIn.
Transcript: Michael Lim LinkedIn in 26 is going to figure out their video algorithm it gets a little bit fucked up right now but like i’m starting to see people on my linkedin like video feed (Time 1:23:19)
Apply intense focus to your agencies, akin to Elon Musk’s CEO style. Communicate daily, provide detailed feedback (both positive and negative), and offer more praise than other clients. Express gratitude through personalized gestures like Christmas cards and videos to show appreciation.
Transcript: Michael Lim You have to apply that Elon Musk CEO laser beam to all your agencies. You can message them every single day. Like where’s the video edit? Hey, there were like four or five things I didn’t love about this. And then more importantly, like give them way more positive praise and reinforcement than any of the other clients. Like write them a fucking Christmas card, like send them a personalized video when your first post goes up and be like, thank you guys for taking a bet on me. (Time 1:25:01)
To improve content, examine retention curves on short-form platforms. Develop hypotheses, like testing text hooks with numbers and dollar signs in the first two seconds to boost engagement. Track these tests in a media change log over a month.
Transcript: Michael Lim Look at the retention curves. Every short form platform now has retention curves, just like YouTube did like five years ago. And make some sort of hypothesis. Like we think that if we put up a text hook that has some numbers and dollar signs in the first like two seconds, you know, people are more likely to stay and engage and follow. And then just write down your list of hypotheses on a given week and then just test them for a month. And then I have this document I call like the media change log. It’s kind of like in software development. (Time 1:26:10)
Michael Lim helped MrBeast create Beast Philanthropy from scratch, aiming to make doing good go viral. Lim’s background in social impact and education aligned perfectly with the idea of applying viral video tactics to charitable activities like feeding people, building homes, and donating resources.
Transcript: Michael Lim You can help me start this new like charity. I want to create this thing called Beast Philanthropy and we want to make doing good viral. And so, yeah, I was like, that sounds like aligned with my previous background and like working in social impact and education. Uh, I love this idea of like starting things from scratch. And so did that with him for about a year and a half. And, um, it was amazing just like being able to apply this like viral vector of, of, of like videos and fun, to feeding people and building homes and giving away clothes and laptops to Students in need. (Time 1:32:53)
Create stakes in any content format by painting a picture of what happens if the content’s goals aren’t met. If you’re creating educational content, emphasize the negative outcomes of not following your advice. Frame stories by highlighting what would’ve happened if you hadn’t succeeded.
Transcript: Michael Lim You can create stakes in any content format, right? You have to just like paint the picture of what happens if we do not succeed at this thing, or if you’re doing educational content, what happens if you don’t take my advice or what would Have happened if I didn’t succeed at the story that I’m telling you now? Um, so yeah, I think it’s like packaging stakes volume, like doing more, you know? (Time 1:36:00)
Don’t just say packaging is important; invest time and money into it. Michael Lim spends $13,000/month on packaging consultants for titles, thumbnails, and AI mock-ups. Prioritize this process and force your team to dedicate the necessary time. Packaging and ideation are key to a media strategy.
Transcript: Michael Lim One more note on the packaging that I’ve been thinking about recently is that people can pay lip service to saying that packaging is important and not actually do it. So you have to put not just your money, but your time where your mouth is. So right now I’m spending $13,000 a month on packaging consultants. Like we just like sit down, we go over titles and thumbnails and like AI mock-ups and like, and it’s, I’ve never done this before. All my money has always gone towards like first like editing and making sure that the stuff is polished and the captions look good. It’s like, I just realized I have to force my team and myself to like give this thing the time that it takes. And because I’m spending so much money, I’m not going to skip those meetings. We are, we are absolutely going to sit down and just like beat this title to death. And so I would say like, I can’t stress enough how important it is to really think about that as a process. And I’d say like, they’re not just packaging, they’re like ideation consultants. So like it’s ideas and packaging together that are the tip of the spear for all the value for an entire media strategy. The question was like, what other things are important to think (Time 1:37:20)
Make your content visually congruent. Change at least 60% of the visuals from one piece of content to the next. Ensure the first 10 seconds of your YouTube videos confirm the title and thumbnail, even without audio. Provide early proof points to assure viewers they won’t be scammed, especially for new audience members. Repeat your accomplishments to build credibility and make it easier for others to share your story.
Transcript: Kostas Garcia What makes a YouTube channel successful or a video itself successful? Michael Lim Visual congruence. So like I wrote about this on LinkedIn the other day. Meta had this Andromeda update, which changed the advertising algorithm to prioritize ads that look different more than like sound different or like talk different, right? And so the rule of thumb is 60% of the visual of your ad has to change from creative to creative in order for meta to give it the opportunity to be auctioned against audiences and shown. And I’m like, look, if meta has this, whatever, trillion dollar, you know, advertising machine, and they’re feeling like on Instagram that the most important thing for ads that are Being swiped through is visuals. Well, organic has to be the same way because it’s all in the same feed. It’s the same human scroll and the same thing. Kostas Garcia So are you saying though, person to person, it has to look different. Or if you’re, if you’re creating ads for yourself, 60% of the way it looks needs to be different for each one of the ads that you make. Michael Lim Yeah, and I don’t even mean ads. Like I basically am translating, like, if this is the mandate from ads, it should also be the same for your content. So if you’re making organic short form content pieces, you have to find a way to make the visuals different, which is actually quite hard to do with educational formats because you’re- Yeah, you’re in a student. At the end of the day, you’re talking head in the studio. So you have to find a way to like, this is where like, it just forces a creative exercise. How do I make the beginning of my content look different from my last video? Do I pick up my phone and I start this podcast with a fucking selfie? Do I, do I, do I, I don’t know, change the chairs? Do I like do fun little challenges at the beginning of each of the episodes? And that’s both a long form and a short form thing. It’s more important on long form. And the reason why I say visual coherence or congruence is because the first couple, like people don’t realize that your thumbnail and your title are not just like the thing that people Click on. It’s the whole thing that happens when your video gets auto-played on the YouTube mobile thing. So if you have your YouTube thing, when you hover over a video, it plays the first 10 seconds on mute. So you have to make sure that the first 10 seconds look like they’re confirming the title or thumbnail without any audio. That’s why every single Beast video, you see a tank shooting in the video. Then you see a tank in the actual thing itself. There’s some ways you can get around it. Like I think having like B-roll and credibility are a good way to like convince the viewer you’re not going to like clickbait them. Because what’s happening is like the tank in the thumbnail and the tank in the video is just to let the viewer know you haven’t been scammed. Like you’re going to get what you clicked on. If I make a video titled how to be an eight figure entrepreneur in 2026, I could have like dollar bills in the video. But like, what’s more important is that pretty early on in the story you share or in the video, you share some kind of like proof point to convince the viewer that like, they’re not going To be scammed by you. And that’s why Alex would be like, I’ve done, you know, every single time, every time this exit. And because you have to assume the person who’s new to your audience needs that the person who’s old to your audience doesn’t mind. Yeah, they’re just like, whatever. Yeah. And it makes it easier for people to evangelize you. If like they know what you’ve done. I can pretty easily articulate what Alex has finished because or accomplished because he’s repeated it to the team and in public so many times in a row. (Time 1:38:41)
📰 Mozi Media’s Guide to Success at Acquisition.com - Michael Lim
Leila gave a great analogy of how we balance the two: Impressions is like your revenue, but followers is like your profit (how much is “captured” from that).
In Alex’s own words: the biggest risk of Media is him not enjoying content enough to want to do it for decades. This is why we place so much emphasis on…
Positive reinforcement during shoots
Strategizing content that is exciting to Alex Leila and Sharran
And making the filming schedule as efficient as possible.
Rotations also keep Alex and Leila more bought into our strategy. They don’t always have time to review every single piece of content, but they can understand general buckets of content that we are producing. It’s easier for them to understand ‘UGC Collab carousels” and “GRWM clips” are doing really well than “Mondays 9AM post was an outlier” and feel reinforced by that.
On YouTube, rotations create what we call CTR adherence. By branding videos in a recognizable but varied way, audiences learn to trust the format while staying
curious about each new version. They know it’s an Alex Brutally Honest video when they see the thumbnail and “Brutally Honest” in the title
Rotations also ensure we touch all parts of the buyer journey. Wide, motivational content for new viewers who just discovered us. Deep tactical content like training a sales team for advanced audiences who’ve been following for years. Both matter. Both serve different purposes. And we need volume in both categories to keep the funnel full.
You have to consume the platform daily to understand its culture, its trends, and what works. Important note: If we are not doing well on a certain platform, do not blame the platform. Blame our inability to understand what trends and specific formatting works. Then put in more volume.
the test for every metric is: does this help us make better creative decisions? If not, DO NOT TRACK IT
An important distinction to make here is the difference between leading and lagging indicators. CTR is a lagging indicator because it is the end result of the production process. The platform telling you how many people clicked for a certain number of impressions. But the more valuable, useful, and actionable data point here might actually be: how many thumbnail variations did you have prepared for a particular idea?
ps thats a good idea YouTube team we should make make a dashboard for packaging variations
Visibility into your work is one of the best things you can do on this team.
It can be as simple as celebrating a piece of content that performed above average and screenshotting the view curve. It does two things immediately:
It reinforces Alex and Leila for making the content in the first place.
It gives other teams on that same platform a chance to copy what’s working (ie Sharran IG can just YEET something from Alex IG given the right visibility into top performers. Common factors analysis strikes again!!)
Visibility increases trust, speeds up feedback, and makes it easier for people to positively reinforce you.
Automate. Once something is repeatable and been simplied, THEN build a system to automate components of this. If you do this too early, you automate steps that shouldn’t even exist
It’s why we talk about “doing things that don’t scale here”. For the Media team, the product is the content. As we add layers of management, there’s always the risk that the quality of the content gets diluted. Adopting “Founder Mode” is how we prevent that from happening
📰 The ‘Vcel’ Movement by Scott Galloway
Having an impressive person who could date other men choose and love you is profound.
Nobody is entitled to reproduce, nor obligated to serve another group. Women are ascending; it’s a collective achievement. Men need to level up.
📰 the Retention Killer Ignored by Most YouTubers by George Blackman
I’ll show you how to 2x the number of videos you make per month to generate more leads… without spending hours brainstorming new video ideas.” How did that feel by comparison? To me, I found myself imagining much more specific imagery:
By *showing* what we meant in the first sentence, we leave the viewer in no doubt what we’re talking about.
I can picture a viewer being “hooked” by a video, and there’s now a specific timeframe as well.
I can *feel* the pain of “not making sales”.
I can picture making “2x” the number of videos per month.
I can picture the stress of having to spend hours I don’t have “brainstorming new video ideas”.
A “setup” is effectively a *re-hook* every 1-2 minutes as you begin discussing a new topic.
January 16
🎧 Snuggling, Dog Shelters, and Women’s Health - Staying Up with Cammie and Taryn Arnold
Taryn read ‘Careless People’, a book about the folks at the top of Facebook/Meta. Some high-performing advertisers found ways to use Meta to target young girls, due to their emotional and impressionable nature. She thought the listeners would be interested in this info.
Transcript:
Cammie Scott
What happens with fucking meta now?
Taryn Arnold
I read this book called Careless People. And it’s about like the people that are at the top of Facebook. And, um, one of the things that I wrote down, cause I was like, dude, the peepees are going to eat this shit up cause it’s so fucked up and they like the stuff that we think is interesting Is they, so obviously companies use meta for advertising. Okay. They can buy different packages for different levels of how granular the targeting gets um early on some really high performing advertisers from different companies found ways to Target so granularly that they would target mostly young girls because of very emotional and very like
🎥 How to Get on RuPaul’s Drag Race! | Trixie’s Top Tips
I’m going to tell you basically some golden rules that I think apply to casting across the board, especially with something like reality television where you’re not auditioning for an existing character. You’re sort of auditioning yourself as your own character as an option
I just started taping everything. If I was doing a show, I would run while the drag queen was on stage, you know, barely blind drunk, being like, “Up next, we have this girl from, you know, like, whatever the drag queens are saying.” I remember this one drag queen used to always say, “She’s your baby sister. She’s my baby sister. She’s everybody’s baby sister.” And I never got that. Maybe it’s because I’m from the country; everybody thinks I’m inbred. That’s okay. They would be announcing me as Trixie Mattel. And I would run out into the audience in my outfit. Imagine me ducking like, “Hi. Can you just tape this?” I would give it to some drunk guy to hold the camera and film me. And then after my number, I would walk out. And take my camera and go backstage. I mean, I was handing this camera to strangers left and right and be like, “Can you film me filming me walking across the street filming me anytime I was in drag? I just gave it to random people and told them to film me.”
when Brandon told me when I was 23, 24, do not film the Drag Race audition tape. Film the Drag Race audition tape in the style of the pilot for your own reality show. Everything clicked
Nick just gave me four good keywords: bright, big, soft, and head-on. You do not want side sources when you’re in drag. You do not want overheads. You do not want upshots. You want the Oprah lighting. You want the view. You want the Rupaul lighting. And I’m telling you, basically create a wall of light.
The day I decided I might audition, I started filming everything. That way, when the casting started and I downloaded like the application and it was all the things I needed to do, I already had hours of footage. Because what you don’t want, let’s say you’re a drag queen. What you don’t want is closets full of looks that you’ve worn over the years and then when you have to audition for Drag Race, you got to spend a day in front of a ring light putting them all on and walking around your living room. Wouldn’t it be better to have footage of you in drag in these looks working? There’s the spotlight, there’s the audience, there’s something real about it. Like, start filming now. You never know what video footage you might need later. And make sure you film every look, every performance, everything interesting that happens in and out of drag. Let’s say you have a boyfriend and it’s your birthday and it’s like footage of you having like a family event. You never know what if in your audition later you talk about um your boyfriend who means so much to you. It’s a better video for you to have footage to to fil to throw to
Brandon taught me this when I auditioned. He said, don’t think of your tragic backstory, but think of the levels of your life. If you are also a competitive ice skater, that’s cool. Make sure you include that. If you also are a twin or what are the cool or different parts of your life? Because when we’re making a 44-minute television show, we’re going to need to get to know you as a character in a few sentences
Construct yourself as a reality character, using only the parts that came in the box.
January 13
🎧 Ali Abdaal: How to Build a Life of Freedom, Fulfillment, and Success - Corey Wilks, Psy.D.
Don’t just solve small problems based on existing skills. It’s better to tackle a big, painful problem, even if you have to learn new skills along the way. Solving bigger problems is what helps you build a big business, even if it brings up imposter syndrome because you don’t yet have all the skills.
Transcript: Ali Abdaal Do some more work to learn more skills and figure out the system such that you’re actually able to solve a more painful problem for the business or for the customer that you’re serving. That will actually, that’s the thing that helps you build a big business. And so this is where the imposter syndrome really comes in because these guys genuinely do not have the skills yet to be able to solve the big problem. But what I’m encouraging them to do is I would rather you solve a big problem and learn the skills than you solve a smaller problem purely based on the skills you already have and just not Get anywhere with it because like it’s too small a problem for someone to pay for.
Instead of saying “I don’t know how to do that,” reframe it to “I’m learning how to do that.”
Transcript: Corey Wilk One of the reframes I had heard was rather than say, I don’t know how to do that, say I’m learning how to do that.
Ali signed up for $200,000 worth of coaching programs and masterminds. He consumed their content at triple speed, transcribed everything with software, and used AI to take notes. He then used a notebook LM to compare the approaches of various experts like Cole Gordon, Taki Moore, Alex Hormozi, and Charlie Morgan, focusing on offer design. All this while rereading books and doing prep work.
Transcript: Ali Abdaal Was I signed up to like literally $200,000 worth of coaching programs, mentorships and masterminds from other people who are in that space, consumed all of their content at triple Speed while I was on a run, transcribed the shit out of everything using transcription software, got the AI to give me the notes for it, got the, you know, turned it into a notebook LM to Ask questions around like, okay, let’s look at all of Cole Gordon’s stuff, all of Taki Moore’s stuff, all of Alex Hormozy’s stuff, all of Charlie Morgan’s stuff. And like, talk to me about how they think about like designing offers and stuff. Rereading the books and doing all that kind of like prep work, all the book work, as it were,
Theory crafting can be addictive. It gives you a dopamine rush from planning and strategizing without the risk of actual failure. You feel like a master strategist who can solve anything, playing out scenarios in your head and creating the illusion of winning without risking loss.
Transcript: Corey Wilk Theory crafting is so compelling and almost addictive sometimes for people because you get so much of the dopamine, I guess, for lack of a better word, of doing the thing without actually Risking failure, right? Because when you’re theory crafting, you are the master strategist. You have all the answers, no matter what happens, you can figure it out. And you just play all these like mock battles and scenarios in your head. And it gives you the illusion of playing the game and winning the game without ever having to risk losing the game.
Don’t overwhelm your team with too many new ideas at once; introduce them gradually. Explore new ideas yourself initially, and get feedback from mentors, not your team. Only introduce them during quarterly planning. Bigger companies operate in longer cycles because of their size. As a beginner entrepreneur, take advantage of being small and agile. Don’t operate like a big corporation when you’re just starting out.
Transcript: Ali Abdaal There was a quote I saw from Jeff Bezos where he’s like, every day I have a dozen ideas that could kill Amazon because it’s not at a certain scale. It’s not about coming up with more ideas. It’s about drip feeding new ideas into the organization at the rate that the organization can handle. Because if I were to come up with like a bunch of new ideas and just throw them at the team, then the business would actually crumble. And so what I need to do is have the restraint when I’m coming up with a new idea to actually just do the exploration by myself. Not talk to the team about it, talk to coaches or mentors or friends about it, but not talk to the team about it because they’re actually busy executing all the stuff that we’re already Doing. And only when it comes to quarterly planning that we’re like’re like okay let’s now do this as a q3 thing or as a q1 thing or as a q2 thing so like if the business was still smaller and i had The idea of like oh let’s do an online business school i probably would have just done it but at the scale we’re now at it’s like actually waiting six months to make sure this is the right Thing to do before we do the thing at our scale now is actually quite a sensible thing to do um and this is why even bigger companies operate in like three year cycles. It’s like, oh yeah, we’re going to do this in 2029. It’s like, and it’s very easy to look at that and laugh at them and be like, lol, they’ve lost the agility they once had as a startup, but also they’ve got thousands of employees. So it’s like, it’s just a different game that you’re playing at that point. But the thing that I would always say for beginner entrepreneurs is when you are small, you have the benefit of not having that many costs. You have the benefit of not having a big team. You have the benefits of, it doesn’t really matter if the thing doesn’t work because no one gives a fuck. So like actually leaning into that energy and taking advantage of it rather than operating like a big corporation when you’re a one man, a one man solopreneur.
Figure out how many 5-year units you’ve left, given the average life expectancy is around 80 years. This’ll help clarify your choices and focus on the big things you wanna do.
Transcript: Corey Wilk Kevin Kelly, but he’s like quoting one of his friends. And his friend is like 65. And he says, five years is what any project worth doing will take. From the moment of inception to the last good riddance, a book, a campaign, a job, startup, whatever, will take five years to play through. So he asks himself, how many five years do I have left? He can count them on one hand, even if he’s lucky. So this clarifies his choices. If he has less than five big things he can do, what will they be? So if we assume average life expectancy is around 80, how many five-year life units do you have left?
Ali Abdaal’s stress manifested physically, even to the point where his girlfriend (now wife) could see his face twitching or signs that he was about to cry, even when he himself wasn’t fully aware of feeling triggered.
Transcript: Ali Abdaal Even to the point where my then girlfriend and our wife, we’d be talking about something and she’d be like, oh, your face is twitching right now and it seems like you’re about to cry. What’s on i’ll be like really oh because i actually couldn’t feel that um but like someone else could see it on my face that like this thing has triggered me or affected me in some way i was Like oh that’s very interesting
Ali saw an Instagram reel that said, “bills are paid, wife is hot, kids are cute.” He reflected on it.
Transcript: Ali Abdaal There’s an instagram reel i saw the other day that was like um bills are paid, wife is hot, kids are cute. What more do you need? And I was like, oh, literally, bills are paid, wife is hot, kids are cute.
📰 My 2025 Annual Review by Tiago Forte
Our average clickthrough rate (a measure of how many people see our thumbnails and decide to click on them) was 4.3%, which is low compared to a target benchmark for best-in-class educational channels of around 8%.
Lead magnets are also becoming much less effective, I assume because AI now allows you to create something similar in seconds. Every single source of traffic to our website shows a 40-94% decline in subscription rates, regardless of whether traffic went up or down. This means that organic email subscriptions are way down over the last few years: from 237 per day in 2022 to 115 per day in 2025, a 50% drop. We’re becoming more dependent on “events” such as webinars, viral YT videos, and partnerships and having to work harder to convince people to join our newsletter.
ncredibly, in 2025 the average time someone was on our email list before purchasing was only 3 days, which reveals that they don’t necessarily need a lot of nurturing first. The smaller number of people who sign up are also more committed. The total conversion rate from our email list to all products was a healthy 2.75% – which means 1 in 36 people who join our email list end up buying something.
📰 Weekly Habits of YouTubers Making $100k/Year by Tintin Smith
By the end of this week, always have AT LEAST next week’s videos & emails scheduled.
This is a rule I try stick to. So you wake up on Monday and it’s all sorted. How nice. If you can get 2 weeks ahead, then I salute you 🫡
Schedule time every week to get help on your channel. Don’t go it alone.
So here’s what is actually in my calendar every week:
1. YouTube - Prepare to film at least 1x YouTube video (often I’ll film 2) on Thursday mornings.
2. Email - Write 2x emails, they are often part of the prep for the videos I’m filming (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings)
3. Sell, deliver and improve my programme (late mornings and afternoons, every day)
Email is a (powerful) bonus if you have the time and headspace. If you don’t, just make sure to collect email subscribers with lead magnets. The top entrepreneurs and YouTubers ruthlessly remove items from their to do list.
List the 1-5 most important things you need to do next week, and schedule when you’re going to do them.
Then every day, review your to do list and ruthlessly cut it down so you’re only left with the essentials (YouTube, email and offers).
January 10
🎥 How to Make a Video Every Single Day - Matti Haapoja
It’s also my theory why YouTubers are some of the best storytellers in the world right now because they are learn make repeat. They’re doing this all the time. Whereas like Hollywood filmmakers, they’re making one big project every couple years, for example.
🎥 Why You Have a Personal Brand, but Get Zero Results - Caleb Ralston
Although you might be somebody who would feel awkward calling yourself an expert, but if you have multiple W’s on your resume, if you are the person who your audience wants to become or you have done the thing that your audience wants to do, then you are the expert and is your job to teach in public. The student is learning in public, but you are teaching in public.
🎧 114: Holidays, Goals, and Breakups - Staying Up with Cammie and Taryn Arnold
To boost your chances of achieving a goal like exercising more, write a letter to your future self far down the road (e.g., 30 years). This makes you feel more responsible for that future self’s well-being compared to writing to a near-future self (e.g., six months). It works ‘cause you’re more inclined to protect a version of yourself that feels distant and whose health you want to preserve. [[essay idea]] letter to Becky in 30 yrs
Transcript:
Taryn Arnold
They did a study many moons ago where they had a bunch of people that said that they wanted to exercise more and they had them write letters to themselves in the future Half the group wrote Letters to themselves like six to nine months into the future. So who you would be in six months, nine months. I think up to three years. The other group wrote letters to themselves 30 years down the road. Super far down the road. They measured both of those groups. The group that wrote letters to themselves further down were way more successful with exercising they exercise way more more consistently whatever whatever after they had written To like a very far farther future version of themselves yeah so because they felt like they could change that future version more than their six month or whatever it was yeah and like
Cammie Scott
The things this is actually impact i have to protect this person because that person almost doesn’t feel like you yes future you feels unrealistic six months from now is like basically Present you yeah you’re like we’re the same bitch yeah whatever what you do i do but 30 years from now you’re like oh is she going to be proud of the work i put in to preserve her health?
Taryn Arnold
And, like, your body’s going to be a lot different. And it’s, like, what you’re able to do in 30 years, unless you’re zero, is not the same than what you can do now.
January 5
📰 Five Things: A Simpler Issue - Paul Millerd
I finished The Other Side of Change by Maya Shankar. This is a book of stories about people who went through changes in their lives. If you like the kind of reporting style non-fiction books that interweave a bunch of stories about people, you’ll like this book. The writing is down-to-earth, and it doesn’t come with an agenda of any kind. The best part, by far, was the final chapter in which Maya detailed her own challenges trying to build a family, which, given some of our own recent challenges, was relatable and powerful.
And I also finished Unhinged Habits by Jonathan Goodman. This was GREAT. I loved it so much that I am going to be writing about it next week. I think this will be a great companion for people on a pathless path who can’t quite commit to one thing or one habit forever.
January 3
🎧 Our 2026 Creator Economy Predictions by Colin and Samir
Clips from a CEO’s podcast are outperforming the full episodes, even at 12-20 minutes. This raises the question of shorter podcasts, maybe even 2-minute formats. Kareem suggests making a podcast of just the best parts. Creating weekly video podcasts that have diehard fans will be tough in 2026.
Transcript: Colin Diary of a CEO, great example, started a clips channel. Some of those clips are outperforming the episodes, and the clips are in the 20-minute range or 12-minute range. And obviously, it’s been a strategy forever, but even with us as we’ve been experimenting in short form with this in or out, the question is, what does a two-minute podcast look like? Or is that even a podcast? What is that? And a lot of that driven – if you’ve been listening to the show, you’ve heard us ad nauseum talk about Kareem and subway takes. But he has a quote where he says, what if I made a podcast with just the best parts? And I think we are at that moment where to get to a weekly video podcast that people are diehard about, I think will be challenging in 2026.
Audiences might get tired of long podcasts and won’t stay loyal to them. Instead, they’ll choose podcasts based on the guest, topic, or if there’s a controversy. This loyalty to the video podcast format mainly exists in comedy, because comedy provides a consistent group hang experience.
Transcript: Colin When we look at the long term view, I do think the audience in general is going to have fatigue over like the two hour podcast and won’t be loyal to the two-hour podcast. That’s what I think is the most important thing, is that it will be guest dependent. It will be topic dependent. It will be like if there’s a controversy and you can hear someone talk about what’s going on. Or like after Jake Paul fought Anthony Joshua, you know, the next morning he’s on Logan Paul’s podcast and a lot of people wanted to hear him talk about that. So there you go. That podcast did really well. So I think it’ll be event-based and topic-based and guest-based, but the loyalty to the video podcast, I think just remains in comedy right now, in comedy podcasting. Samir Because comedy consistently delivers on that group hang sort of experience. Yeah. Colin And it’s a it’s a way to learn about the news. That’s fun. Samir With entertainment. Colin With entertainment.
Summarization changes the content landscape. Information alone isn’t interesting anymore because it’s readily available. Perspective and entertainment value are what matter now. People are more loyal to comedians.
Transcript: Colin What this means when you can summarize content. It changes the dynamic of like information is not that interesting. Like why would information be interesting now? You can get information anywhere. You can just get it. So now it’s like perspective and entertainment value. And again, why I’m starting to notice that when I ask a lot of people who they are loyal to, it’s mostly comedians.
In-real-life (IRL) events still matter despite people saying they don’t have time for them. These events are more interactive, engaging, and resistant to summarization by AI. When evaluating content, consider if it can be easily summarized or if it provides a real, emotional, and entertaining experience that justifies people’s time.
Transcript: Colin Back to the Ain’t Nobody got time for that. I think there is a group of people who like definitely has time for the IRL event. And that’s, that’s crazy to say, because that is a way higher lift than watching a hour long podcast, but, but it’s way more interactive. It’s way more, it’s, it’s way more engaging and interesting. And like, think that’s what we have to think about is if we’re making something, kind of have to take a step back and go, can this thing be summarized really easily by Gemini? Does anyone have time for this? Does this mean anything? Is this entertaining? And when I think about all those things, events come to mind as something that answers the question of, yeah, I think this matters. This can’t be summarized. This is a real experience that has real emotional impact on you. And it’s entertaining. It’s fun to be with other people in a similar context. So it’s harder, actually, in my opinion, to find the videos that match that criteria right now than it is to find an experience that matches that criteria. Okay, so we’re both in. We’re both in.
🎧 Are We Reliving 1929? Parallels to Today’s Market Mania — Ft. Andrew Ross Sorkin - Prof G Pod
The 1920s saw huge technological change with automobiles, telecommunications and radio. Access to credit and loans for consumer goods (like cars and appliances) fueled this boom, but Wall Street extending credit for stock purchases turned stock trading into a national pastime.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin The 1920s, people talk about the go-go 20s and this sort of remarkable period. It was probably one of the most transformational generations of our time from a technological perspective, automobiles, telecommunications, radio. And the other magic ingredient was credit, the opportunity for people to get loans to go buy stuff. And originally it started with buying cars and appliances from, you know, all sorts of different stores and things like that. And then Wall Street caught on and started offering people loans so you could go buy stock. And that was really what changed everything in terms of how stock trading in America became almost like a national pastime.
Sorkin got into the story of 1929 by exploring the characters involved. He wanted to recreate the immersive experience he had while reading books like Barbarians at the Gate and Den of Thieves where he felt he was in the room with the people involved.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin I’d read a lot about the period, but I’d never gotten inside the story, the characters, who they were. I loved books like Barbarians at the Gate and Den of Thieves and, you know, books that Eric Larson had written where you felt like you were in the room with these people. And I thought, could I go do that?
When you’re young and before you’ve got kids, do everything you can. Juggling a professional life with being a dad is complicated and hard.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin Professionally when you’re young, before you have kids, do everything. Do everything you possibly can do. Because I do think one of the great conundrums and challenges of being a dad and being a father and having a professional life is the complication of trying to do both well. And it’s hard.
Successful people often show more kindness. A key to opportunity is being thought of well when you’re not present. Achieve this by being kind and helping others without expecting anything in return. Remember to note when you want to help someone in the future.
Transcript: Scott Galloway Exceptionally successful people, generally speaking, over-index on kindness. They’re generally good people because one of the keys to success is being put in a room of opportunities when you’re not physically in that room. And the way you get there is through kindness and doing things for people where there doesn’t appear to be any expectation of reciprocal benefit. And you just kind of memo to yourself, I’d really like to do this person a solid someday.
John Raskob conceived the five-day work week, which changed America by boosting the consumer economy. He believed an extra day off would drive purchases of cars, gardening equipment, and more.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin John Raskob very cleverly came up with an idea that actually, I would argue, changed America in a large way, which is today we work only five days a week. Back then, we worked six days a week. The stock market was open on Saturdays. And he had this idea that she wrote about in November of 1929 that, you know what, we should have a five-day work week because, not because he wanted to be nice to people, because he thought That if you actually had an extra day during the weekend, it would create a bigger consumer economy. More people would have to buy cars. They’d have places to go. They’d buy gardening equipment and everything else.
Andrew Ross Sorkin often chases what’s interesting, which can mean chasing failure. He believes that’s where the most drama is.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin I’m always chasing interesting, which oftentimes means chasing failure. And no, because I oftentimes think that’s where the most drama is.
Sorkin explains his extensive research process for his book. Unlike typical historical research that focuses on a few key archives, he had to search through many different places to find relevant information. He had to guess who key figures might have contacted and then sift through their archives, hoping to find a letter or some piece of evidence. Sometimes, he was successful; other times, he wasn’t.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin Most historians sort of find two or three or four archives and then they excavate the archive and they really just go deep in the archive. The challenge in this case was there really wasn’t like one or two or three places you could go. It was you had to be like needle in a haystack situation with, you know, 15, 20, 30 different places. And you’d almost have to guess. You’d almost have to say, OK, well, I don’t have an archive for this character, but he might have called somebody or talked to someone after. Well, who are the 12 people he might have talked to? OK, I’m now going to go to their archives and then pray to God that I’m going to find some letter there. And sometimes you would, and sometimes you wouldn’t.
ARS found it fascinating that even though people knew things were getting out of hand, the human condition is to want more.
Transcript: Andrew Ross Sorkin And it was just so fascinating to see, I don’t want to say greed, but I think that the human condition is to want more. Everybody wants more. And people knew that this was getting out of hand. It wasn’t that nobody was saying, you know, this isn’t crazy.
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