Podcast Reviews

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Podcasts#

This was my favorite material for learning while I commuted, back when that was a thing before COVID. But it is still what I like to do if I'm forced to walk for exercise or getting my 42 steps for the day. In particular, it's because there is no other way for me to access this material. With audiobooks, I can still read the visualbooks versions of them. But, finding good podcasts is hard. So hard, that I actually haven't found very many that are useful at all. So, I'm going to list them here, with the episodes. This is actually a great forcing function for me, because now I'll have to go back through the ones that I said to myself "Oh shit, this is important" and re-listen. From there I'll try to make notes of what it was I thought was important here. This will also let me check if I just liked them because I was drinking at the time.

A quick metric for me on the quality of a podcast: Do I have to listen to it at less than 2.0X? If the information is so dense that I find myself dropping to 1.8 or even gasp 1.6, I know that either there is some real information density in here, or someone is really good at snowing me.

note

I no longer really make detailed lists about every podcast, so these podcasts have some great episodes that aren't listed here. Too much content, not enough time.

Favorites#

Invest Like the Best - Patrick O'Shaughnessy#

Yes, this is an investing podcast, so certain episodes I only find interesting because it's a space that I have alot of interest. But the real value is in the exploration of ideas from people in investing. So there are a ton of leadership and growth discussions that have little to do with investing. This is probably responsible for 25% of the books that get added to my reading lists.

I think the original episodes are great, but over time they've gotten more specific. The result is that I'm more selective about which ones I listen to now, and I find that I get fewer high level ideas out of them, and instead get mroe nuggets.

Must listen to episodes#

  • Discussion on activism

Dan Egan#

Joe Mansueto#

Summarized bullets. More details are over in References

  • Discussion on "float". How can you use money you have today to fund your business tomorrow.
  • Preference of of repurchase over dividend. I think this is a key discussion. Do you have discipline in understanding what the impact to your shareholders is, or not? Simple answer is not the correct answer.
  • Management style:
    • Hire great people
    • Surround yourself with great people
    • Delegate to those people
    • Give people autonomy
    • People get more job satisfaction if they can make decisions in their domain
  • What are common traits you look for in hiring?
    • People who like to learn
    • Demonstrated record of success. There are a lot of bright people who are idle.
  • Are there negative screens?
    • Job hoppers. People who don't stick with things over 18 months.
  • Innovation is never the job of one organization
  • Be willing to say "No."
    • You need to realize that as you move on in life, you want to help, but by doing one thing you can not do another.
    • People are generally pretty receptive to it, as long as you are thoughtful about it.
    • Don't try to satisfy all comers.

Boyd Varty#

  • Boyd Varty - The Art of Tracking
    • Ok, this one is a bit out there. I think Patrick is a little too caught up in the mystique, and I think it's a little too "soft" for me. But still, there are things here that are important.

Danny Moses#

  • Danny Moses - The Big Short and Beyond Summarized bullets. More details are over in References

  • What are the most common traits if you were going to hire a 20-23 year old?

    • Be an out of the box thinker
      • It's not so much being cynical as being skeptical
        • Don't just rely on people to tell you that you're right. You want people who tell you when you're wrong.
      • People who want to succeed because they're "smart" as opposed to people who just want to learn and do. Focus on people with hunger versus goals.
    • Integrity
      • You can't judge meeting someone for the first time, but you can see it in their life

  • Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital by Lowenstien

    • No trade is as good as it appears
    • Leverage will always bury you in the end

David Salem#

Top 10 Lessons#

Tim Urban#

Summarized bullets. More details are over in References

  • Cook versus chef (cooks follow recipes, chefs experiment and create them)
    • Objective of Tesla's existence: Accelerate the advent of a sustainable energy world
    • Objective of SpaceX's existence: Reduce cost of space travel so humanity can be a spacefaring race and make us a multiplanetary civilization
    • Objective of Neuralink: Prevent AI from becoming the "other". Humans become AI. It will be a a third system in your brain that works with the existing limbic and frontal cortex systems. High bandwidth between your brain and machines.
    • Why is it that Elon is able to do what he can do?
      • It's about how he thinks and reasons. It is not about being smart and rich and driven, because there are thousands of people who fit that criteria.
        • Reason from first principles instead of reasoning from analogy
          • Most people reason from analogy because it's an evolutionary adaptation to create a shortcut
        • Because he reasons from first principles he will push through all the reasons that people think things can not be done because the first principles say it can be done.
        • People want to fit in, but that's something that you can easily reason past. The key is just the self-awareness to understand your own tribal psychology and the delusion that comes along with it and realizing that conventional wisdom is now wisdom for a reality that doesn't exist anymore.
          • Conventional wisdowm is normally wrong.
  • To have a plan to succeed long term you need to pretend that everyone is going to be selfish forever and make it so that is part of the key to your success. In other words, don't plan on people changing for you to be successful. Rely on them staying the same.
  • "Grand Theft Life" - People would be more successful and happier if they could breakaway from the fear of consequences that are more tribal than real
  • Knowledge is a tree. If you don't have the trunk when you get knowledge that is a leaf or a branch it will simply fall, because you don't have context to anchor it

Pater Attia#

Michael Recce#

Eric Balchunas#

Elad Gil#

Cliff Asness#

Maureen Chique#

Annie Duke#

I ended up listening to two Annie Duke podcasts pretty close to each other (even though they were recorded roughly a year apart). I expected to hear a lot of repetition. I was pleasantly surprised, which is why you now see two Annie Duke episodes on my "Must Listen" list.

The Knowledge Project - Shane Parrish#

This spans a wide range of people and topics, but I find that, more often than not, there are things that really make me think, and perhaps make me consider things in a different light. Also responsible for about 25% of my reading list.

Must listen to episodes#

Morgan Housel#

Samuel Arbesman#

Roy Sutherland#

Susan Cain#

Chris Voss#

  • 1/3/18 - [Chris Voss - The Art of Letting Other People Have Your Way](https://fs.blog/2018/01/chris-voss/)

William MacAskill#

  • 7/11/18 - [William MacAskill - The Science of Doing Good](https://fs.blog/william-macaskill/)

Annie Duke#

Atul Gawanda#

  • Atul Gawanda - The Path to Perpetual Progress

  • Cultures of improvement. He discusses how we as people are bad at doing things that we can measure as being better and how hard that is. He's a surgeon, and talks about the amount of mistakes in our systems that can kill people. It is inevitable, but how do you work to improve that. I think it has a huge benefit to a company.

  • The discussion of end-of-life healthcare and goals is something everyone should listen to.

  • Differences between coaches and mentors

Jennifer Garvey Berger#

  • Jennifer Garvey Berger - The Mental Habits of Effective Leaders

  • There is a lot here. I'm going to have to spend some time either re-listening or reading the material discussed. She has (several books on Amazon)[https://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Garvey-Berger/e/B005GY5EG0], and sadly none of them at my digital library. I'll need to think on it a bit.

  • The discussion is around how it is that you continue to grow. What are the mindsets and how do you work through those. Given that's really what I'm trying to do with this, I might just have to invest in it.

Good, Not Great#

Masters of Change - Reid Hoffman#

Reid Hoffman is one of the founders of PayPal. And then LinkedIn. This means that he gets access to have interviews with luminaries in the tech world. But, the fact that, even though he's probably worth a couple of billion, he has advertisements in the middle of the podcast annoys me to no end. I'm fine with sponsorship, but it interferes with the message. Also, the habit of doing abbreviated epsiodes of the interviews, and then the full things, is also frustrating. I feel like it almost forces me to listen to material more than once for no good reason.

Still, interesting subjects and perspectives. I can't bring myself to listen to it very often.

99% Invisible - Roman Mars#

A ton of very short episodes. I find them really interesting, but in a trivia kind of way, not in a "that will force me to rethink things" kind of way. Still, entertaining, well produced, interesting episodes. That's what you want sometimes.

Must listen to episodes#

Dr. Gary Kaplan - The Blue Yarn#

  • Dr. Gary Kaplan - The Blue Yarn

  • Incredibly short analysis of how using lean to evaluate the patient journey improved a hospital. Not just the patient experience and outcomes, but the profitability of a hospital. If you can't spare the 7-15 minutes, skip a few minutes of Netflix and listen to this instead.

Work Life#

  • Good series of podcasts from Adam Grant. I haven't kept up, but have enjoyed them in the past.

Niche#

Science of Ultra#

  • Although this is largely focused on ultra running (distances of greater than 26.2 miles), it covers a lot about exercise and physiology. I especially like to listen to it too and from races.