039: Knowing What You Don’t Know with William Poundstone
How to Be Awesome at Your Job
How to be Awesome at Your Job
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2016
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author William Poundstone discusses the importance of knowledge in your head the modern era.
You’ll learn:
1. Why it’s important to still have general knowledge in the era of Google
2. Why those who listen to podcasts tend to be the most informed people of all 😉
3. It’s nearly impossible for humans to be unpredictable.
About William
William Poundstone is the author of 15 books, including Fortune’s Formula, which was named Amazon Editors’ pick for #1 Nonfiction Book of the year. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, Village Voice, Esquire, Harpers, The Believer, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review. Poundstone lives in Los Angeles.
Items mentioned in the show:
- William’s latest book Head in the Cloud and Rock Breaks Scissors
- Dunning Kruger Effect
- The Confidence Man by Herman Melville
- Wizard For Statistics
- William’s Website
View transcript, show notes, and links at https://awesomeatyourjob.com/ep39
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the How to Be Awesome at Your Job Podcast, the show where brilliant professionals share how to sharpen the universal skills required to flourish at work. |
| 0:10.0 | Enjoy more career fun, wins, meaning, and money. |
| 0:14.0 | With your host, Pete McKitis. |
| 0:16.0 | Greetings, well, I think this conversation is a real nice brain tickler. It gets you |
| 0:27.6 | thinking about some bigger ideas and concepts and how you're running your |
| 0:31.6 | brain in and of itself. |
| 0:33.4 | And so we're talking with Bill Poundstone |
| 0:36.0 | about why it's important to know stuff. |
| 0:38.7 | So you're gonna learn one, why we still do need |
| 0:41.4 | that general knowledge, even in the year of Google. |
| 0:44.0 | Two, why those people who listen to podcast tend to be the most informed people of all, |
| 0:49.7 | which we could have told you. |
| 0:51.0 | And three, why it's nearly impossible for humans to be unpredictable. |
| 0:55.7 | So if you want to check out the show notes, the transcript of things mentioned here, you want to go over |
| 0:59.7 | to awesome at your job.com slash Epp 39. And if you just want those takeaways really fast, |
| 1:05.0 | while at awesome at your job.com, sign up for the gold nugget email list. |
| 1:10.0 | So here's a quick bit about Bill. |
| 1:12.0 | William Pownsdon is the author of 15 books, including Fortune's Formula, |
| 1:16.0 | which was named Amazon Editor's Pick for a number one non-fiction book of the year. |
| 1:19.0 | He's written for the New York Times Book Review, Village Voice, |
| 1:22.0 | Esquire, Harpers, The Believer, |
| 1:23.9 | the Economist, and Harvard Business Review. |
... |
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