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Founders

#31 Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Founders

David Senra

History, Entrepreneurship, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2018

⏱️ 166 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What I learned from reading Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future --- Culture Eats Strategy [1:45] Conspiracy as a metaphor for a company [3:56] It is a story of poetic justice on a grand scale plotted silently for nearly a decade [6:02] Something in these pages planted itself deep into Thiel's mind when he first read it long ago [15:25] It was ruthless efficiency and hyper-competence. [21:40] You were driven to entrepreneurship because it was a safe space from consensus and from convention. [34:36] What if I do something about this? What might happen? What might happen if I do nothing? Which is riskier, to act or to ignore? [38:52] Sometimes these books teach us what not to do. [59:06] Unknown unknowns > known knowns [1:11:10] How you do one thing is how you do all things. [1:25:47] He had always been aggressive. He wouldn't have gotten where he was in life if he wasn't. [1:30:35] Companies routinely focus on silly things. [1:32:38] The greatest sin of a leader.[1:37:17] How resourceful is Peter Thiel?[1:41:37] Just keep asking why.[1:47:29] Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you for the laws too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt. [1:53:37] Brilliant thinking is rare but courage is even in shorter supply [1:58:50] The business version of our contrarian question is: What valuable company is nobody building? [2:01:39] This Twisted logic is part of human nature, but it's disastrous in business. If you can recognize competition as a destructive force instead of a sign of value, you're already saner than most. [2:16:11] Steve Jobs saw that you can change the world through careful planning. Not by listening to focus groups feedback or copying others success. [2:19:53] You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of chance. [2:21:05] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0

All the way back in 2019 I received a message that changed the direction of this podcast forever.

0:04.6

It was from Tristan who is one of the co-founders of Reed Wise.

0:08.0

He said, hey, I love the podcast and he told me about the Reed Wise product.

0:12.4

I responded, thanks Tristan, love the idea behind Reed Wise. and he told me about the Reed-Wise product.

0:12.5

I responded, thanks Tristan, love the idea behind Reed-Wise,

0:15.2

I will definitely check it out.

0:16.3

I had no idea that I would become a super user of his product.

0:20.8

And so over the years, I've added my highlights and notes for over 300

0:23.7

books I have over 20,000 highlights and notes for the books that I read for the

0:28.3

podcast and because I can search every single thing I've ever done I use ReedWise every day. I never

0:36.1

close the browser tab. The tab on ReedWise is always open because as I'm

0:40.5

reading, as I'm thinking, as I'm researching researching I'm constantly going in

0:44.7

and re-reading all my notes and highlights.

0:47.3

And you might already know this because every other podcast I go on I talk about

0:49.5

Reedwise, I tweet about it, I post about it

0:51.6

constantly, I've been saying for years it is the best

0:53.9

app that I pay for. And because I go around shouting about how great it is from the mountaintops,

0:58.8

I get a bunch of messages. Nearly every day people have asked me, hey is there a possibility that I can actually get access to your readwise?

1:05.6

And this happened so much for so long. And I thought it was like a superpower of mine.

1:09.3

So I was like, no, no, no, no. And then I started thinking, it was like, well, why is everybody

1:12.3

want this? Like like why do they keep

1:13.7

asking for this and I thought about it's like well if you think about this is like has anybody else in the world

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