Selfish Experiment
I agree with David Senra, “Podcasting is a fucking miracle.”
I’ve been listening obsessively for over a decade and I’m convinced you can build a world class education on any topic you’re interested in.
I remember Tim Ferriss launching his show in 2014 by drinking too much with Kevin Rose and slurring his words by the end. He followed it up with an n-of-1 conversation with Josh Waitzkin.
I remember Patrick O’Shaughnessy catapulting out of the gates in 2016 with his ability to curate the most interesting minds in finance and surface their genius.
And I never miss a segment of Parent Corner with Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal.
But I don’t have a great system to track my favorite episodes. This will serve as my public journal to capture and catalog the weekly listens that resonate.
Recent Favorites
Justin Mares on The Danny Miranda Podcast
David Coggins on Making Media
Isaac French on The Fort with Chris Powers
Founders #322 Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)
Sam Corcos on The Tim Ferriss Show
Justin Mares on The Danny Miranda Podcast
There’s a guy in town, Joe Lonsdale, who apparently around graduation time has his assistant line up conversations with 45 or 90 of the most entrepreneurial college graduates in the country. He then schedules calls with each of them in three-minute increments and has his assistants handing him two or three phones. Basically it’s just like, ‘Hey Danny I’m Joe. How can I help you?’ and just has his team go to work for some of the most talented soon-to-be graduates in the US. And he has funded these people. He started companies with these people. That is insane. It’s so amazing.
David Coggins on Making Media
My dad's an artist and my mom is an interior designer.
And we were taken, as you'd expect, to museums, to bookstores, we traveled to Europe. And we lived with many objects—I come from a family of book stackers. There is no shelf that is not covered with books, no surface that's safe from my father's collections. And it didn't occur to me until much later when friends came or I went to my friends that this was not necessarily normal. I think a lot has to do with having wicker furniture, that's a dividing line, either you have wicker furniture and you don't have cable TV or you have the reverse of that, like a comfortable couch.
That was a great thing though. My sister and I were close with my parents' friends who are actors. My dad was the head of a theater group that would come over to our house every Monday night. It was incredible. A lot of them were French. It was their night off and they would cook and drink and tell stories, and it was an incredible environment.
And how could it not be influential if you're around people like that? And also, I think the expectation as a child to talk to adults, interact, and I don't know if it makes you more mature, but I think it makes you used to interacting with people, which is, of course, a good thing.
Isaac French on The Fort with Chris Powers
Our first year we grossed over one million dollars on seven keys. We net over $550,000. We had over 100,000 social media followers. And 80% plus of all bookings are direct through our own website. So we’re not dependent on Airbnb and the other OTAs because we’ve created this movement, we’ve created a platform around what we’ve done. So that’s Live Oak Lake in a nutshell.
There’s always been exceptional hotels, there’s always beautiful architecture. But it’s something special about bringing together and creating this emotional connection with your guests. And that’s really to the core of what hospitality even is. Hospitality is so much more about emotional intelligence and delighting your guests than it is about excellence in terms of executing in some kind of a rote way.
[Pairs well with Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara]
Founders #322 Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)
‘Do not worry about market share, worry about profit. I told everybody. If they mentioned market share, I'd punch them in the nose, just look at what's going on in the industry. These big industries -- these big companies are fighting over market share and they are losing money. They were firing their employees. Let's focus on profits. If we have 4% of the market and we are profitable, that is better than having 90% of the market and being unprofitable.’
Sam Corcos on The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss: How do you choose your books?
Sam Corcos: A lot of them are through recommendations. I host these salon dinners, maybe once a month, and the intros are always your name and the last book you read. That’s my hack for getting good book recommendations
[A few years back I sat down for breakfast at Capital Camp with two strangers. One of them looked at me, skipped all the pleasantries, and asked what I was currently reading. I was over my skis the entire conversation bouncing around from parenting to board games to company building. Afterwards I looked up Sam C. in the directory and have been a fan of Levels ever since. I’ve now stolen his intro question which is a great way to pre-filter and get below the surface as quickly as possible.]
Here for this. Fantastic recap and thanks for sharing with the world.