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0:06

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0:09

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0:27

wake

0:28

up, everyone it's pleasure to be hi

0:30

tyler hi daniel i sort right away

0:32

what is it talent said you think

0:34

you possess that is underrated

0:36

by everyone else

0:39

and you'll i think that's where you first the

0:43

well opposing before answering a question

0:46

is definitely a rare skill these days but

0:48

i think funding has been helpful for me that i've kind

0:50

of realize they have that i think many people

0:52

have i don't know if it's totally ubiquitous

0:54

is in the process of an interview

0:57

which you know you do in venture a lot

1:00

like you know hundreds and thousands of times

1:02

a year being able to sort

1:04

of build a grid of he knew

1:06

the person who's talking to you who

1:08

they most kind of remind you of and the

1:10

outcomes that those people have had

1:13

his i think a pretty important skill and any

1:15

the pretty important skill for you know anyone in

1:17

a searching for talent but certainly in the venture well that's kind

1:19

of what you're doing when you meet these early

1:21

stage businesses is your kind of trying

1:23

to the like some type of

1:26

search map in your head that's more

1:28

intuitive then it is rational sometimes

1:30

a bit hard to explain why acts might remind

1:32

you of why spot that's a skill i think

1:34

a lot of people have that the benefit i've had his i got

1:36

inculcated in this world that a very young age and have

1:39

had many many hours of wraps

1:41

you know just getting it in and mostly making mistakes

1:43

but occasionally getting it right i don't think i have

1:45

the talent as hesitating before answering

1:48

a question of

1:50

that i think one thing i'm good at is turning

1:52

problems into com been it orioles

1:55

and then within my head very rapidly searching

1:57

for all possible combinations of factor

1:59

that might somehow fit together and

2:02

spitting that out in well under a second

2:04

i'm not even sure that's an underrated talent but

2:06

i think it's a way to think about some of the talents

2:09

i have that if it's an area where i

2:11

can turn it into that i will typically

2:13

do quite well but if it's a try to worked

2:15

a microwave at home i cannot

2:17

turn into some kind of com notorious factorial

2:19

analysis then i'm like way below

2:22

average you're trying to work the microwave

2:24

that's true for daniel

2:26

if you're looking for talent in investing

2:29

of finance how does that look

2:31

different from the talent in the startup

2:33

was

2:34

yeah what makes a good investor is

2:36

very different for one makes a good founder

2:38

end if he would i can of make a

2:40

scatter plot of it some of the attributes are you completely

2:43

diametrically opposed him for example

2:45

i think very good investors are

2:47

the kind of right degree of

2:49

optimistic but also realistic

2:52

whereas founders are too

2:54

optimistic which they should be aiming

2:56

at the end of the day like he asserts are very

2:58

funny activity would you think about it from a probability

3:00

stamp with the most companies fail at almost

3:02

all company sailing it's people team to beat

3:04

seemingly doing this activity over and over there

3:06

jumping off a cliff over and over again you like

3:08

look over the place and like everyone who jumped

3:10

out of the cliff you know is just like on the ground dead

3:12

but people keep on jumping off the cliff and

3:15

so founders a kind of a you know almost too optimistic

3:17

but optimistic think when you're evaluating you're evaluating

3:19

especially at later and later stages

3:21

our i think optimism can be your enemy

3:24

and often you see when a lot of founders

3:26

later on in life and i am such a person who

3:28

started a business sold it and then became

3:30

an investor you actually have to be

3:32

able to were very different kind of psychometric

3:34

cats in one of them as as continuum of

3:36

realism and optimism and a pricey

3:39

that's enough the starkest difference between

3:41

kind of what makes a good start up investor

3:43

in a good founder the probably many others

3:45

but that's kind of the main thing that you look for so

3:48

more likely to drink diet coke the two groups

3:51

that's a good question yeah i'd

3:53

say both i think are pretty

3:55

likely to be as the whatever diet

3:57

coke signals in oughta know some be obviously

4:00

able to do with what you're both are so

4:02

you know twenty five dollar coffee and you know maybe

4:04

the rest america tobacco but both are

4:06

i think in the people that want more stimulants

4:08

as opposed to depressants

4:10

and that depend on the stage which firat

4:12

yeah i think so i think sees

4:14

location whatnot but you know the bit about that very funny

4:16

that have the great gift of reading a book

4:18

with someone like tower cohen on the topic is expansive

4:21

his talent and of course of comes out of it has ever must talk

4:23

to us about soft drinks and so

4:25

yes sometimes i feel like we're like michael pollan

4:27

wrote a book about dieting or something and of and was of about

4:29

diet coke but deficits yeah i think

4:31

it's probably a very common traits across all

4:33

can have acted people investors need more

4:36

red wine don't say the regulate

4:38

the moon maybe

4:40

yeah maybe they're more totally trying totally operate

4:43

their amygdala with supposing you know drugs

4:45

uppers and downers but there's some skills to

4:47

evaluating the line reflect skill

4:50

in evaluating investments more than

4:52

perhaps start up that is probably true

4:54

their start up founder would probably

4:56

be the type that does not care what their drinking

4:59

he knows long the gets them hydrated and in the right

5:01

mood and in the investor definitely has also

5:03

to theories about the colors and the vintages

5:05

and the country on us

5:07

the have to do with disposable income

5:09

you have that the i'm sitting may also have to do the fact

5:11

that one is not free

5:12

i know a both of us are george mason

5:14

you've been a professor there for more than thirty

5:17

years you've been involved in a lot

5:19

of hiring decisions and it's a strange

5:21

place for more reasons than just the

5:23

both of us are there it's a large

5:25

state school it's newish it's

5:28

not an ivy league school but it's had

5:30

an exceptional economics department in

5:32

of these had a couple of nobel laureates with as people

5:34

like you what is the secret sauce

5:37

at george mason that it manages to track

5:39

that kind of talent such other schools

5:41

have comparable level are not able to

5:43

i like to look for people who believe

5:46

something very strongly that

5:48

can't be the only qualification by

5:50

other economics departments tend not to do

5:52

that they look for people who can execute

5:55

flawless ninety page papers with every

5:57

possible robustness tech now

5:59

that too important and useful but

6:01

it's not what we do if you decide

6:03

you will specialize in people who believe

6:06

in something and pursue passionately

6:08

and wanna sit around and argue and talk ideas

6:10

and read books you will end up with

6:12

one of the most interesting economics departments

6:15

and we've built a sufficiently strong consensus

6:18

that we just keep on hiring people who believe

6:20

things so they turn out being

6:22

a little wacky right you're selecting

6:24

for that but that in turn keeps you different

6:27

so how do you know how to screen

6:29

for that what's the question you are likely to

6:31

ask at the a meetings that

6:33

you know that someone is like technically not

6:35

unsound but they're also very interesting

6:37

and they can give

6:38

oh i don't think you have to ask questions

6:40

if they believe and stuff they will ask you questions

6:43

this the sixty just have to show up in the

6:45

room right so that's one case

6:47

where you don't have to agonize over optimal

6:49

interview questions and in fact the

6:51

way we're supposed to rid of you now that supposed

6:53

to but do is were to ask everyone

6:55

the same questions then we do

6:58

but that doesn't matter it's not actually a handicap

7:00

that would be a handicap in almost any other situations

7:03

but you can ask everyone the same questions and

7:06

it will just come out who believes in

7:08

daniel a tiny of one of the things you

7:11

have tried to do is game aside the experience

7:13

rates so when it comes to get a situation

7:16

do competitive games work better

7:18

or the forefront of games book better

7:20

you know to test for ambition and aspiration

7:23

do a pioneer is our i mean principally

7:26

a website but it isn't online startup

7:28

accelerator and of a pre y

7:30

c which i would have to explain in most cities

7:32

bananas once yanzhou as many ways

7:35

in where it's kind of different and unique and one of them is

7:37

that everyone on the platform gets a score of or week

7:39

for the work that they do and say of sort of incentivize

7:41

to make your score go up and so kind of

7:43

broad idea there is trying

7:45

to really address it wasn't somewhat related

7:48

to talon which is why are there more start ups and

7:50

many answer to this question but one of reasons weather

7:52

and more start ups is as we were saying earlier

7:54

the act of sorting accompanies completely rational

7:56

and you tend to get a lot of negative stimulus

7:58

before you get positive to me can i start working

8:00

at a new job? you have a a boss boss kind

8:03

of wants to hopefully make it a good experience for you to attend

8:05

to like build a a map and a game you basic

8:07

gaming quotes here so it doesn't have that and

8:09

suit you know you tend just hear no no and

8:13

then finally might get somewhere but a lot of don't

8:15

crest beyond the j curve really and they

8:17

just drop at the a into gamification

8:20

in a way some way to make something compelling ultimately

8:22

with the the goal of basically creating more startups

8:24

his kind of the theory behind pioneer

8:27

then someone like how you know palatine

8:29

gets more people to cycle in fact i mean

8:31

people in south are literally dying of exhaustion

8:33

cuz they're playing video games death so

8:36

like there is something very about that affect

8:38

whether it's used or negatively, a

8:41

question of creates more goodness

8:44

basically, competition or cooperation,

8:46

we think competition

8:48

rod lake is what creates greatness

8:50

in groups

8:54

that compete against each other know it is true that

8:56

not everyone who signs up for pioneer like

8:59

wants to compete on a global leaderboard

9:01

against everyone else in the world you know very

9:03

good competitors i think tend to have

9:05

even the best most competitive people

9:07

tend to have a predictive model of like i'm only

9:10

going to enter games that can win or at least

9:12

games where i have like maybe a forty percent chance of

9:14

winning and so but i strongly believe whether

9:16

you want to compete globally are not everyone wants to

9:18

improve every single day pins to

9:20

it's very similar to peloton in the sense that you're

9:22

gonna have a score and you could be playing against yourself i mean

9:24

you could just be trying to grow your revenue a week over week

9:26

or the amount of active users you have or any one of you

9:28

know different metrics and keep your eyes or you could

9:30

be competing globally and i think that kind of

9:32

affords us all modalities because i

9:34

i really think they're very few people that don't want to

9:36

improve at least themselves if not

9:39

want to you know compete against others

9:41

but of course every form of competition i mean usually

9:43

willing ten some form of local cooperation

9:45

and i think it's a very good thing because ultimately

9:48

i think a lot of what are free market enables

9:50

is for people to get excited about the idea

9:52

of competing building a better product trying a new

9:54

experience and you know many of those fail

9:56

but occasionally those work in a creates you know the microphones

9:59

that were using the [unk] they know we're in the city

10:01

and and world that we live in so i think

10:03

both are necessary

10:04

on a daily basis though you're trying to create

10:06

a community right so does the leaderboard

10:09

set of creed set off a little bit because

10:11

people are just trying to go further up

10:13

as it turned it into a zero sum game instead of foaming

10:15

at the mean

10:15

it's a good question in would try

10:18

to do is make

10:20

via the game not necessarily appears

10:22

years some so does true that for every ending week

10:24

at the end of the day if he of assorted less seminal be at

10:26

the top someone you know won't but there's

10:28

no direct reward function for being

10:31

number one vs number two if there is the

10:33

glory of it and a lot of our founders loves

10:35

you know just send us and tweet screenshots

10:37

of the position that leave orders whatever

10:39

it's it's great for them but there's no like direct

10:42

reward the guarantee pioneer gives you is

10:44

that if you're in the top decile we will review

10:46

your application spied like you could be

10:49

twenty fifth sir you know thirty

10:51

second it doesn't matter was so review your application

10:53

is it just helps us in that case get a

10:55

broadsword and because the game's not that's

10:58

a zero sum i think people to still tend to

11:00

at least cooperate on non business

11:02

related things anything on business related

11:05

matters like sounders had either mercer companies

11:08

or like compete and not cooperate

11:10

that's totally fine and so you know i think

11:12

we managed have pets are both worlds but i do think you

11:14

know when constructing these universe is and whatnot

11:16

it's quite important for it to not feel necessarily

11:19

zero stuff you know you could go compete with someone

11:21

on of running track and it really doesn't

11:23

like ultimately they're running faster than

11:25

you doesn't eat away at any of your pi so

11:28

to speak and i think that's important because you know like

11:30

everything it's a spectrum and i mean a

11:32

lot of he started communities ultimately in san

11:34

francisco is one for better or worse

11:36

it's basically a h o instead of can't this nice

11:38

marked as do at the and as

11:40

they feel some form of even if it's not

11:42

directly related to their business for some form

11:45

of kinship with each other and that you know silicon

11:47

valley lawyers have lived with stories of

11:49

them personal up sleep on the couch

11:51

one thing led to the next so we're both

11:54

how would you feel or time in his the

11:57

growing up in israel's and sort of watching

11:59

different kind of expect

11:59

the decently community building different

12:02

kinds of communes inform how

12:04

you decided to build a fire

12:05

lemieux be able to answer yes to your

12:07

question that that was somehow extremely informative to

12:09

me i you know i grew up in in in a dark secluded

12:11

corner of jerusalem right at said the old city

12:13

and so i can't really say had to the most expensive

12:16

you but in reality the replace a

12:18

i experience growing up is the internet and

12:20

betty people and now like to talk about

12:22

how can a bad social media's and about

12:24

these online communities are but you know that a very nice

12:27

thing to say when you're kind of looking out

12:29

inches you know the rolling hills of sonoma

12:31

this beautiful war that we live in here today and

12:33

look up as he my so i grew up as is certainly not a third

12:36

world country but if her different an isolating

12:38

to be honest and i think of many people immigrate to

12:40

san francisco california feel similarly and

12:42

the idea of growing up on the internet does lazy

12:45

all sorts of experiments and i grew up in

12:47

the open source community writing code and so that

12:49

you know to me was it an interesting example very

12:51

different organizational model than many different companies

12:53

where the leadership and some of these open

12:55

source project is actually quite undefined you

12:57

really tend to see those struggle vs ones that have

13:00

a define leader and i mean there's an infinite

13:02

variety of you know forms of cooperation

13:04

but i i can really credit israel to that i'd probably

13:07

really credit the time you know fifty six kilobyte

13:09

dial up internet connection at

13:10

speaking of internet connection so funny

13:12

you're an early adopter one of the things

13:15

that you've done which is a little bit nice but very

13:17

fun is the ethnic dining guys that's

13:19

your wheels looking at the world to food you're

13:21

not so good at deserts of you sort

13:23

of go straight for chocolate ice cream you know that's

13:26

that's your go to move is there something

13:28

fundamentally different about people who write about

13:30

food or get a willful critics

13:32

vs people write about desert is there such

13:34

a category to there should be right desert

13:37

i don't quite consider desserts to be

13:39

food so

13:41

i think any town like san francisco

13:43

there will be many dozens hundreds

13:45

of places that are quite good there will be

13:47

very few good desserts so in my

13:50

perhaps backward view there are excellent

13:52

desserts that michelin starred restaurants

13:54

most of all in europe there were suburb

13:56

desserts in india and then there's

13:58

very good chocolate ice cream and all other

14:00

desserts basically are bad and most chocolate

14:03

ice cream is not good including in the city

14:05

of san francisco so the fact that desserts

14:07

tend to be sweet or that was like a decision

14:09

made in western cuisines the french decided

14:12

to segregate as the sweet stuff the make

14:14

it separate from the meal or say arabic

14:16

food or even food still in sicily today

14:19

the swedes are integrated into the main courses

14:21

much more readily part of the middle east as

14:23

well when you put all the sweet stuff in one

14:25

place it's not going to be good unless

14:28

it has a very high level

14:30

of ingredient quality in composition

14:32

it is a different kind of taste ballot

14:34

for someone to be able to appreciate this

14:36

i think i will i don't ever desserts because

14:38

i don't live in kolkata i'm not covering michelin

14:41

starred restaurants and chocolate ice cream

14:43

this not really that much to say about we all know

14:45

where it's good and bad way and it's good

14:47

in italy argentina brazil

14:49

some parts of the you ask most of all the northeast

14:52

forget and france actually specially paris

14:54

but mostly as bad read

14:57

again the only things we went to jos ice

14:59

cream last night it was just awful i

15:02

know i googled best chocolate ice cream san francisco

15:04

one of the top list once you get past the google

15:07

ads it's like well gr delhi's is listed

15:09

three times in the top ten what kind of insanity

15:11

site and then swainson's is in

15:13

the top ten and then there's some place called motor

15:15

which is like not even ice cream and

15:17

then there was joe's which was horrible and

15:19

that was like five at the top ten so

15:21

the internet has failed of san francisco has sailed

15:24

of chocolate ice cream has failed us some

15:26

combination of all those things i'd rather

15:28

eat you know in israel in tel aviv is excellent

15:31

chocolate ice cream that's definitely better

15:33

than in jerusalem i think i don't know

15:35

what people don't get me

15:36

this my explanation for the bad chocolate

15:38

ice cream last night was that

15:40

san francisco doesn't have enough kids like

15:42

not enough people are having enough kids and

15:45

and that's the reason for it aside from the

15:47

benefit of torturing silo and not getting

15:49

the chocolate ice cream one

15:51

of the things i want to learn about is how you

15:54

influenced each other's a one is exercise

15:56

you both have like different ideas

15:58

of exercise

15:59

what's a regular samuels you run

16:02

marathons i believe on every continent and

16:04

you've run one in antarctica

16:06

the great but i mean are you in a city like

16:08

san francisco where you know it's hard

16:10

to go at a nazi someone running and on a particular

16:13

remarkable to be a runner but yes i think

16:15

we're very different philosophies on a comes as as i said

16:17

as a fair statement

16:18

okay the last time i went on a hike with tyler he

16:21

brought his book bag along

16:22

it will

16:24

lot of books so have you influenced

16:26

each other and exercise at all these talk

16:28

have you changed your for loss at what is your stated

16:30

philosophy and exercise i very much

16:32

enjoy games as skill

16:34

that was just tennis and basketball bright and those

16:36

are exercise is it's sheer exercise

16:39

i'm bored

16:40

but youtube plus peloton to the rescue

16:43

that works for me okay well i very much like

16:45

peloton that's your influence and palatine

16:48

with youtube is great so you can watch magnus

16:50

carlsen and pedal away the

16:52

magnus is highly entertaining it's

16:55

definitely know what i do but i assist assist

16:57

assist received the sentiment

16:59

persisted through much

17:01

the think the game it's occasions

17:03

in exercise and like sort of the personalized

17:05

customized version of exercises

17:08

help you or from the way you think

17:10

about running

17:10

yeah i mean a definitely it's form

17:13

into the way or product is built i think

17:15

everyone who works in our team is either

17:17

kind of want to be that it

17:19

is athlete or want

17:21

to be competitive chess player and

17:23

so everyone is in away you know

17:26

getting scores in their hobbies all the time

17:28

and want to improve and do you know that up see

17:31

drives products ideas in forward so i think

17:33

palatine was an interesting case study and

17:35

it's an ongoing case study i guess it's being

17:37

evaluated everyday in the market positively but

17:39

it is using a setting how much the mythic isn't kind

17:42

of matters at all it does seem

17:44

like people are actually quite motivated by like

17:46

whatever leaderboard and power mechanics they have

17:48

out there and on the contrary

17:50

sides to release the sting the totally flop

17:52

that that is fascinating that it didn't work upper your

17:55

if i were dispatched to describe to hear some type

17:57

of thing you can use on an exercise bike and

17:59

what it does the response the music

18:01

that you're listening to and and you know as

18:03

the tempo of the music increases you pedal

18:05

faster and as the tip of the music degree

18:07

whatever it's all synchronize in it's fine like

18:09

i was getting not and like a venture from i think

18:11

people take wow sounds great out on built

18:14

this and they launched in this particular think

18:16

totally flopped so i think people tend to

18:18

really over complicated i mean i think there are psychometric

18:21

personalities i imagine like mine that are

18:23

like relentlessly interested in improving

18:25

and for that the getting uptight feedback loop

18:27

with any type of numerical score is

18:29

very good and very simple think the people that

18:32

really care about that in one wants you to been

18:34

he know get the work in and move on so but

18:36

ultimately yeah i think it probably helps a certain

18:38

type a personality

18:40

using this kind of game it's occasion would have made

18:42

you a different chess player when you were young

18:43

i think one significant difference between

18:46

daniel and myself stereo are

18:48

i see as much more competitive than i am

18:50

and i think i'm somewhat more obsessive the

18:52

he is so he's quite obsessive so

18:54

the areas i operate in for better

18:56

or worse i'm never asking myself

18:59

where i am on the leaderboard for instance

19:01

there's no other person or i could tell you how

19:03

many twitter followers i have i just have no

19:05

idea but i can wake up every morning

19:07

do my thing practice at it try

19:09

to progress and just relentlessly

19:12

endlessly do that forever

19:15

as i've actually done now for the last basically

19:17

forty six years that's the kind

19:19

of obsessiveness but i'm not competing

19:21

very much at all and i don't know what my leaderboards

19:24

are

19:25

and i'm fine with that you could describe

19:27

yourself better than i could you but i

19:29

think your experience is one

19:32

the world of gaming more fundamentally

19:35

and i quit us when i was fifteen

19:37

isn't a way i found competing

19:39

a little boring

19:40

actually it wasn't obsessive

19:42

enough in a funny way and the things

19:45

always comes to an end where is what is do now

19:47

it never comes to an end it's like it

19:49

a true extreme of relentlessness

19:51

that makes sense to you via via definitely

19:53

definitely do think if you were

19:55

kind of starting out in the era

19:58

of the internet where things much more

20:00

inter connected and reflexive double

20:02

just things just much more in your face didn't you

20:04

to play chess longer nor think i

20:06

would have quit sooner interesting because i would have accelerated

20:09

to the point of frustration and board and centers

20:11

more rapidly and like quitted thirteen rather than

20:13

fifteenth so

20:15

the because when you were growing up there was still a chance

20:17

that humans out against computers while

20:19

playing chess and now that's just it's over

20:22

no i never thought about that computers

20:24

didn't worry about there was a just play computer

20:26

back then cause tinkerbell people love

20:28

get around to tournament's it was quite large

20:30

like you had to pull on it was on a cart you

20:33

needed more than one person to pull on the car

20:35

it's it was a standing joke you had the

20:37

option of not playing it but you know that

20:39

if you play that he would beat it so very different

20:41

mentality at the time i thought just

20:43

playing computers was at a very far

20:45

off thing that they would ever be good obviously i

20:47

was totally wrong i didn't understand

20:50

how they would manage to copy intuition

20:52

in different ways but i think that kind of

20:55

for hayes no sense of the infinite

20:57

on ending system in

20:59

of the incident library there's what

21:01

really appeals to me and with the

21:03

internet i would have found that more quickly indeed

21:05

in the internet itself

21:07

the by having a sense now bent is no go

21:09

once made to me the interesting points

21:11

i'm the last generation to have lived in both

21:13

worlds and a significant way with

21:15

internet and without internet and i've

21:17

lived twenty two twenty three

21:19

years with a lot of internet and

21:22

then i lived well over thirty years without

21:24

any internet at all and that's just not

21:26

gonna be a thing anymore i feel very

21:28

privileged actually to have grown up in libraries

21:31

and not the internet but tend to have had the internet

21:33

the one of the things i want to ask you is

21:36

since when san francisco and everything is elon

21:38

musk and get over always talking

21:40

about what we're going to do when we end up on mars

21:42

is how do we scream or select

21:45

for the first group was settlers voter

21:47

the interview questions we should austin

21:49

the great question by the way author add a

21:51

few ideas i think you

21:53

know i think this sorta interesting question

21:55

for martian settlers is

21:58

to and in any form is settler i'm

21:59

anyone who wants to do that is saying a lot by

22:02

self selecting into know i think has been the case

22:04

for people that have gone to new continents and to

22:06

settle new nations and existing continents

22:08

and what not to sturgeon to get a lot of free

22:10

selection effect by virtue of person

22:12

wanting to be an astronaut let alone need or a

22:14

interplanetary settler but

22:16

the linked in an i think that interesting

22:19

broader question for that colony will

22:21

be what's going to keep people together during

22:23

the hard times and if you look at like successful

22:25

countries that were settled that were very strong

22:28

religious ties that built that

22:30

lore that helped create sabra and

22:33

conditional be so harsh that

22:35

alone will create ties but us i'd sort of be looking

22:38

and asking for groups of people

22:40

i the i would make an okay some kind of what form

22:42

of religion is the best groups of people that are very connected

22:45

on some very deep level because otherwise

22:47

i think you can end up with something that to sort of blows

22:49

up but tyler what do you think dot

22:51

coke drinking is not a sully i'm an american

22:54

and i personally very influenced by puritan

22:56

culture and my country's own background

22:59

so i would look first and foremost for religion

23:01

but it's a bit like the gm you hires if

23:03

you have to ask some on now i do believe in some

23:05

idea is already a bit hopeless

23:08

either you need to know that they already do before you

23:10

have to ask them so in that sense it's not

23:12

an internet questions but i think simply whether

23:14

the person is american is to me

23:16

of critical import for settling mars

23:19

i think americans are fairly well situated

23:21

to settle mars pretty high level of trust

23:23

frontier mentality a lot of us are

23:25

crazy were relatively religious

23:28

the notion of settling also territory

23:30

obviously is intercultural dna

23:32

israelis possibly the little

23:34

more complicated because for israel it's

23:36

a bit more that settling a specific place

23:39

which mars is not new but nonetheless

23:41

this a sense of raising the hostel elements

23:44

religious americans and israelis would be

23:46

my first call that a new and i would even

23:48

consider you know lds mormons

23:50

who tend to have beliefs about other

23:53

worlds and that human beings should have some

23:55

role and colonizing other worlds

23:57

that might have

23:58

i dunno if that's the strongest tell [unk]

23:59

the believe but it's not gonna hurt any i want to

24:02

double down on the americans and not

24:04

say the belgians nothing against the belgians

24:06

say of amazing chocolate ice cream

24:10

and french fries and some other things

24:12

but i'm but i'm really gonna send

24:14

them to mars i'm sorry

24:16

is there like a screening questions one

24:18

screening question for me would be like to the

24:20

wanna have kids have the they think about how many

24:22

children they want to have and raise them i think that would

24:24

be like a t question rates anything

24:26

else we should screen for the fall league soccer

24:28

mom

24:29

i think is probably a lot of physical stamina

24:31

would be necessary just good old

24:33

like can you do ten pushups

24:35

or what not like i think it's probably non trivial

24:38

physically to get to mars little on settle

24:40

it so that by the an important one

24:42

people who are careful with airlocks would be

24:45

high on my last yes but

24:47

just not making very stupid

24:49

mistake

24:50

the physical items yeah for people

24:52

who are like bad at operating the vacuum cleaner

24:55

i wouldn't take them are here certain type

24:57

of like almost like a carpentry skills that

24:59

would be very useful no know you don't need them

25:01

to build things maybe the robots do that

25:03

that you don't want them really pressing the wrong

25:06

button very much yeah you need a kind of

25:08

macgyver skill

25:10

the told a little bit like selected condo

25:12

association

25:12

board or something right like you don't want really

25:15

annoying people for instance or like

25:17

people just want to be contrarian for the sake

25:19

of in congress i mean it's sort of also the same

25:21

movie you hire for ten your in an

25:23

econ department so you have lunch for these people

25:25

the rest of your life

25:27

the puritan somewhat annoying spike

25:29

my intuition is you actually would want a lot of

25:31

annoying people because slanders

25:33

from the simpsons basically yeah basically

25:35

that friction would somehow keep them going there

25:38

and it's the people who don't argue with each

25:40

other could end up very badly

25:42

off track on mars that

25:44

you need people who are arguing everyday i

25:46

think yeah

25:47

the you didn't ask like a we going or just

25:50

they go after them in one of them feel like said well

25:52

i'm not going anymore off the answers

25:54

you cannot has given me all

25:56

these annoying cough and those who know

25:58

how to run a vacuum

25:59

i'm fine on earth

26:01

chocolate ice cream aside

26:02

i don't find space that interesting aliens

26:05

i find interesting but just to put me

26:07

somewhere empty where most prices are infinity

26:09

in all say no to that

26:12

coming back to the talent market do

26:14

you think tyler it isn't disequilibrium

26:16

are there some kind of market sales or

26:18

there's different kinds of talent markets and summer

26:20

and disequilibrium some has a failure

26:23

this book sounds like there's disequilibrium

26:25

in the foreign markets and a lot of the suggestions

26:27

that you have given contain a push

26:29

it towards that equilibrium

26:31

i think there's massive market failure in most parts

26:33

of the talent markets but it's worth asking

26:35

which parts work very well and i think

26:38

actually many parts of gaming doesn't

26:40

cost that much to access not

26:42

that everyone in the world can play games that

26:44

really a considerable number of people

26:46

can performance can be measured there's

26:49

a leaderboard to serve obvious how well you're

26:51

doing if you want to learn there's a lot of ways

26:53

you can learn and get better i think chess

26:55

is a pretty efficient markets especially

26:57

now that many more people in india and china

26:59

are playing well you play with computers

27:01

you can become as good as quickly as as you're able

27:03

to but when it's intangibles

27:05

i think there's a common situation

27:08

where when the time comes to make a higher

27:10

you feel rather stock excellent

27:12

a hardly anyone is doing all the right

27:14

things in terms of either investing

27:16

in pre existing networks honing their own

27:19

abilities making themselves sufficiently

27:21

inspiring sort of figuring out

27:23

how to attract the talented people

27:26

to come to them those are the more difficult

27:28

tasks not like you sit on your throne

27:30

and three candid it's show up and you point

27:33

to the won and you're only going to get so much better

27:35

at that you can get better at that i

27:37

don't view that as a way to think about the market

27:39

failure in most general terms

27:41

if you find a great person you make them a lot

27:44

better but they capture a lot of that value

27:46

so you under invest in doing that

27:48

that's the fundamental problem so whoever

27:51

first spotted ilan musk has

27:53

basically no share any laws reaches you

27:55

could say well peter to yell at some modestly

27:57

later stage spotted he lawn and you know earn

28:00

some money for spotting ilan but that's the actual

28:02

problem you can help people a lot and get

28:04

nothing for

28:05

how much of the sort of insights in

28:07

the books have either of you managed to

28:10

implement in

28:10

the on organizations well when you

28:12

write a book with a title challenge you certainly

28:15

walk into every interview you do in your life

28:17

realizing that guy's thinking

28:20

he's chatting with the guy wrote a book called

28:22

talent so you might want to be on point in

28:24

the interview so i think look we

28:26

obviously already experience and heightened awareness around

28:28

and acid which most people think

28:30

are not sufficiently focused on which is

28:32

the interview itself and so that only increases

28:35

i think after something like the book comes

28:37

out think we have always kind

28:39

of been trying different interview questions i'm in

28:41

the book is really just like a cut from

28:44

a very long list that keeps on growing

28:46

and so the globe we continue to

28:48

kind of it a raid on that overtime

28:50

but i'd say that the biggest cyst

28:53

in my thinking in town and as a byproduct of working

28:55

with tyler has been on the value

28:57

of things like energy

28:59

and sturdiness and industriousness

29:03

overall intellect and i q which

29:05

i'd i don't think is properly certainly

29:07

wasn't in my mindset couple years

29:09

ago and i still don't think is kind of in the global

29:11

mindsets and you know we're certainly

29:13

not saying that horse power and i to

29:16

you know don't matter they certainly do but

29:18

there is a clearing bar at

29:20

which point for most roles of people tend to overvaluing

29:23

kind of don't realize the logarithmic nature

29:25

of the curve and assume it's kind

29:27

of linear but facts having more early

29:29

that many people realize he sort of wanna switch to

29:31

caring about

29:32

just a vigorous and now energetic that

29:35

person is i think that might

29:37

be because i'd be curious if you'd agree that is because

29:39

for most task doing

29:41

cleans far more information than sinkings

29:44

exactly yeah and so you'd rather have someone

29:46

that will just do much more they're learning rate

29:49

should be much higher i'm speaking for myself

29:51

i hired you right so you are

29:53

in academia i think in academia

29:55

is quite a few people who are significantly

29:57

undervalued you can't wait too long

29:59

they're just totally ruined but if they're given

30:02

the freedom to operate and actually do

30:04

things is already in a reasonable

30:06

positive selection for smart site

30:08

and there's some people who really are thirsty

30:11

to do things and and run things and create

30:13

and make a difference and those people are

30:15

trapped in academia is a lot of

30:17

them can't see a way of supporting themselves

30:20

doing a different things so if you can set up structures

30:22

were they have that support you can

30:24

define a lot of people who can become like

30:26

fifty one hundred x more productive

30:29

by simply not just being academics

30:31

all the time you're exhibit whatever

30:33

i don't know what letter but that's you

30:35

the random m you know emerging ventures india

30:38

and you identify people in india

30:40

and give them for poor and get them going with

30:42

their own start ups and projects and intellectual

30:45

endeavors and that's like phenomenally

30:47

way more productive and like are you

30:49

smarter now than than well

30:51

probably summer but that's not the difference

30:53

the difference is this ability

30:56

to see like there's a difference

30:58

you can make and really want to do it and be

31:00

in a structure that allows that to happen first

31:02

as an example of how like the market for

31:04

talents can be way more efficient

31:06

not by like two acts but by like

31:09

a hundred acts or more in many many cases

31:11

yeah but i actually using insights in the

31:13

books for what i do so

31:15

did it before you as a book to so

31:17

some asking if you do the same like

31:19

outside of easy is it easy to

31:22

bring insights like this to like a university

31:24

system the way we hire i mean

31:27

not just sneak on at george mason or a murky

31:29

this because these are institutionally

31:31

kind is set in their ways

31:33

alan to choose i think about all the time

31:35

i said before i'm an obsessive person

31:38

of i'm waiting in line for my chocolate ice cream whatever

31:41

i'm thinking about like as the staff organize

31:43

do doing a good job why why not it's

31:45

a sort of pointless and away but

31:47

, can't help but do it and it some form

31:49

of practicing his sister always be on

31:52

and processing

31:53

and thinking through like how is this working and

31:55

why and i find that useful but

31:58

i know it's it's weird like that

32:00

make a person happy i'm not unhappy

32:02

doing the being offensive and

32:05

daniel how do you think this interview

32:07

or condition

32:07

going author you were asked to assist

32:10

assist us it's going well

32:12

going appreciate the questions are very

32:14

colorful a better than some the questions

32:16

we've gotten questions think known as to date asked

32:18

us had asked screen from human martian

32:20

settlers so i've been enjoying it

32:22

what about you

32:23

better than i thought slept with scissors

32:26

yeah i have this whole secret plan when they

32:28

were flogging the might have some lose

32:30

by as and as little come in handy things are

32:32

going badly so so so we're

32:34

all still here's how do you think

32:36

about immigrants and talent

32:38

so the more specific question is how

32:41

are immigrants different from children of immigrants

32:44

is there anything that differentiates them

32:46

i see lot of differences in the indian community

32:48

but i'd like to know more from from have you think that

32:51

either i'm a big fan of immigration

32:53

for countries that can manage it for

32:55

me that definitely includes the united states

32:58

i think immigrants bring more energy there's plenty

33:00

of data they do start ups have higher

33:02

rates but immigrant parents often

33:04

are and difficult positions they come without

33:07

networks they're starting all over

33:09

immigration , be much harder for men and

33:11

women as a literature on this because

33:14

if the woman is raising children her position in

33:16

the family more or less remains intact but

33:18

the man is starting all over again and

33:20

very likely is under placed in some significant

33:23

weight and spends quite a few years

33:25

just working to achieve like a decent

33:27

middle class income but if

33:29

you see persistence within families whether

33:31

you think it's think our genetic her upbringing or

33:33

social cultural whatever but i whatever but

33:35

believe in persistence and families

33:38

the children of the immigrants or start

33:40

off like usually and decent enough schools

33:43

often in the suburbs could be northern virginia

33:45

could be ontario will develop sort

33:48

of normally north american networks

33:51

will be completely fluent in english and

33:53

a very useful way

33:54

then you can just be full speed ahead they're still

33:56

not taking prosperity for granted

33:59

spare pair the often are you know kicking

34:01

their bought like you gotta succeed his

34:03

use although not always happiness inducing

34:05

there's just a general group of people i'm extremely

34:08

bullish upon and i think there's a lot of

34:10

good reasons both sort of intuitively but

34:12

it also show up and plenty of actual data

34:14

and research studies why we should be bullish

34:17

on immigrants and try as a nation

34:19

to take in more immigrants and what we're doing right now

34:22

to what extent is the kind of positive effect

34:24

of immigrants true of people

34:26

that emigrate within the united states i

34:29

don't think it's very true anymore i think it was

34:31

a long time ago say people who went to california

34:34

for people who settled utah but

34:36

now to move across the united states there's

34:39

always internet supermarkets are the same

34:41

they're definitely different things politically

34:44

but if you're a dentist who lives in denver

34:46

rather than columbus ohio doesn't

34:49

feel that brave to me like fine

34:51

maybe there's some very modest positive selection

34:54

is weekend considerably it's quite weak quite

34:56

think maybe people who never move but

34:58

if a person only moves ones are not

35:00

that far i don't feel that's negative selection

35:03

like i grew up in new jersey moved to northern virginia

35:06

which is like what's for our carted

35:08

away it's not really such a

35:10

race thing to do i moved to more trees but

35:12

still that seem signed a marker

35:15

going into thinking that i seem the indian diaspora

35:18

is sort of the first generation immigrants

35:20

especially probably the ones you familiar with in the

35:22

bay area stay are not very risk

35:24

taking an entrepreneurial in the sense of they're not

35:26

doing start ups and stuff like that but the very

35:29

good at doing very well

35:31

in big tech firms and

35:33

sort of you know like very good at navigating

35:36

a particular system it's the next

35:38

generation sort of america

35:40

born from

35:41

in families who end up being very they

35:43

the paranoia

35:44

that a good way of thinking about all

35:46

children of immigrants or there's something

35:48

funky going on with the indian immigrants

35:50

most literal the of immigrants just aren't that

35:52

was taking

35:53

i think there's something interesting going on with

35:55

indian immigrants a particular she look at the

35:58

executive leadership pants

35:59

i'm a hacker

36:01

the massive overrepresentation of indian

36:03

immigrants or children of indian immigrants and i

36:05

don't really know of him a view but the something

36:08

interesting going on there i think that's an

36:10

interesting effect someone on a study and certainly

36:12

with startup founders which is maybe the area most

36:15

studied and he didn't as a first generation immigrants

36:17

but these are people that come to the united states usually

36:19

not out of can of sheer desperation

36:22

to have some basic form of economic success

36:24

there are some of the press in their origin country but

36:26

more people in search of some

36:28

sort of spiritual belonging that

36:31

they believe they sound and whatever technology

36:33

that working on the look much more like

36:35

ton of religious migrants i think

36:37

than your kind of typical immigrants i'm trying to

36:39

make it sounders as he said i

36:41

me to come out of san francisco and seven i'm actually

36:44

in our american just emigrating from

36:46

you know firewall to assess obviously

36:48

many of them international to

36:50

the best ones are not necessarily

36:52

dad worried about making a buck tomorrow

36:54

their technical they sounded interesting

36:56

scene and they were kind of want to belong

36:59

i think is actually quite different from

37:01

the can immigrant persona of can

37:04

we took our whole family to the u s we

37:06

have to quito screaming crying

37:08

babies and we're just trying to survive

37:10

think those people for a very obvious reasons are

37:13

very risk averse i'm strongly

37:15

of the view that right now is a kind of golden

37:17

age for the indian diaspora and also

37:20

india so if you look say of florence

37:22

during the renaissance are you look at central europe

37:24

in the early decades of the twentieth century

37:27

you see remarkable truly remarkable

37:29

levels of achievements that don't happen before

37:31

don't happen after you know it's not some kind

37:33

of genetic thing but somehow

37:36

everything is coming together just right and

37:38

i think part of talent is to realize when you

37:41

hit these motherlode and then to figure

37:43

rally we're we're just gonna try to do a lot here

37:45

as much as we possibly can to investing

37:48

in seen a potential mathematicians and hungarian

37:50

high schools and nineteen sixteen was

37:52

a really good thing to do you don't even have

37:54

to be that good at picking talents so

37:57

today for whatever reason i do think

37:59

it's the or possibly south asia more broadly

38:02

see the potential for parts of nigeria

38:05

kind of joining that club it's it further

38:07

away maybe still contingent but

38:09

for whatever reason right now something

38:11

remarkable is happening combination

38:14

of level of aspiration internet is good

38:16

enough enough people with a nothing less

38:18

fluency some kind of underlying

38:20

flexibility of worldview but i think

38:22

has made indians relatively well suited

38:25

say to be ceos and american companies

38:27

and away we might not have expected say thirty

38:30

years ago so i think something extraordinary

38:32

is going on and it won't last forever

38:34

and it was not the same say forty years

38:36

ago maybe it started twenty thirty

38:39

years ago but now or is seeing it all blossom

38:41

so to me it's very exciting

38:43

i would agree even there's a lot of fun

38:45

for those who are investing are thinking

38:47

of investing in india a lot of law i

38:49

mean fruit lot of the people

38:51

the be picked for easy india if the

38:53

for in the united states or canada see would

38:55

have been an incubator programs and accelerator

38:58

programs and magnet schools and

39:00

see sellers ship or something like that

39:02

but none of that exists and india the scouting

39:05

or the intubation infrastructure doesn't

39:07

exist so as to be tyler an iron

39:09

competition usually and i get far

39:11

better quality of applications

39:14

a higher average and a lot variance

39:16

than the ones that tyler get some from the rest

39:18

of the world's but that's my simplex

39:20

some for what's happening in india

39:22

the one of the things that both start

39:24

ups and economics departments have an ominous

39:27

savior and in start of it's fairly

39:29

obvious but in economics you know most people

39:31

who saw that each do you don't finish or even

39:33

the people who you know before the tyler's

39:36

hirings as processes lee kuan department

39:38

the midst of publishing what they make give up at

39:40

some point what is a good

39:42

way to screen for who will handle

39:44

see leo well

39:46

or what he's better than the others in the

39:48

running

39:49

i think in science we've allowed

39:51

institutions to evolve to the point

39:54

where people have options of not failing at all

39:56

society and sought to be more like start ups

39:59

like most ideas

39:59

do fail even published research

40:02

papers and top journals if

40:04

, asked researchers who really

40:06

now and they're willing to speak honestly with you

40:08

like what's the chance that papers actually true

40:10

he'll get answers like twenty percent thirty

40:12

percent you don't get answers a

40:14

fifty percent but we've created is

40:16

funnier or cloak of if

40:19

you do all the right things in terms of process

40:21

will sort of all pretend to take this paper seriously

40:24

you'll get tenure somewhere maybe not at harvard

40:26

or mit but like it it some tier

40:29

one research university and

40:31

you've you'll be given all these theocratic duties and

40:33

you have to referee a lot of papers and hire other people

40:36

and it's and self replicating seeing

40:38

that insulate people from truly

40:40

sailing but also means that fewer

40:42

people than ever before pursue true

40:45

success and i think it's an example of

40:47

gross talent misallocation and

40:49

it is and better lifestyle

40:51

if you become an academic and if you work

40:53

hard enough and you're smart enough you can't

40:55

sail but we're doing ourselves a gross

40:57

disservice and i think a lot of our

41:00

sciences or badly out of whack for

41:02

this reason and they should be com more

41:04

like startups again but structures

41:06

tend to ossify in academia certainly

41:09

is no exception to that

41:10

look who's gonna classical answers

41:12

your question of you know how do you feel look

41:14

for stories early on in someone's life a

41:16

failure and whatnot and all that stuff is true

41:19

there is i think a great a motion to be

41:21

on the lookout for in an interview

41:23

in particular when assessing sounders

41:25

is year and sometimes you meet

41:28

people and you just get their it kind

41:30

of naked ambition is so large

41:32

and vast that i don't feel fear for

41:34

my life but life definitely feel a little bit of fear

41:36

being fear being room with them and it's and think that's a very promising

41:39

sign when one feels that emotion and

41:41

that i think is a good proxy towards you know it

41:43

will the person handle failure i think

41:45

a lot of the best sounders i've had the

41:48

pleasure of working with don't even really experience

41:50

like setbacks and failure the same way most people

41:53

do or

41:53

the degree of bad news at the news for

41:56

something to register in their minds a true failure

41:58

is much higher than

41:59

for most people a lot of bad news is

42:02

immediately misinterpreted as great news you

42:04

know markets down great you know

42:06

a lot of talent you know be fired and will be able

42:08

to hire them are creative destruction

42:11

one not so sick a lot of that com the

42:13

kind of out of just a general

42:15

sense as vigorous news and vitality

42:18

that vigorous think is somewhat correlated with

42:20

a scan of sense of ambition to so

42:22

i think about that a lot generally i think about

42:25

kind of for flexibly i tried to think about how

42:27

flexibly feel when feel interview someone

42:29

in it in imagine actually everyone's doing that

42:32

some awareness of the process is quite helpful

42:34

yeah resilience is is somehow

42:36

hard to test for he

42:39

just needs to be observed it's one of the things you consider

42:41

of fairly quickly so i just don't know says an

42:43

interview question to figure it out

42:45

yeah i mean one of the reason sounders i think we're

42:47

not strictly economically motivated

42:49

and are motivated by some deeper police

42:52

or federer is the

42:54

underlying barometer of what they're going to be

42:56

resilient about is much greater

42:58

than the local game of like oh

43:00

this fundraising round fell through is

43:03

a much deeper game going on is basically our

43:05

basically never felt like felt like fit into anywhere in life i

43:07

have now gone around told all my friends family

43:09

that i'm doing this company thing for like a

43:11

doing the company think the company thing cannot

43:14

fail and every single great start of has had

43:16

these dark moments of death or near death

43:18

on obviously a fronts talking about spacex in

43:20

a famously sale through launches contempt forth

43:23

but like every start of has that narrative

43:25

and see you often need someone that's powered by

43:27

a deeper reserve currency than like

43:29

dollars in order to see through that

43:32

your office messy are

43:34

neat and but when you walk into

43:36

someone's officer workspace

43:38

do you judge them one way or another

43:41

on fall silent they are depending

43:43

on how messy this

43:44

the steve jobs famously said

43:46

someone asked that question he said you know everyone

43:48

says organized ask is an organized mind

43:50

the most deaths that a scene that organized are

43:52

empty so would you say an empty desk

43:54

is

43:55

what mind he famously at a very messy

43:58

desk so

43:59

do think zoom has created this kind

44:02

of although it has reduced

44:04

the amount of entropy your information you're getting for

44:06

someone in an interview i think everyone here can properly tested

44:08

a zoom interviews not as in

44:10

fighting exciting revealing are interesting

44:13

as a real world and if you bought it does reveal

44:15

other information net you're still getting less

44:17

be suddenly getting this new interesting information

44:20

of the background know where they are

44:22

there's like at the casino wandering

44:24

around okay that's interesting and and

44:26

i don't know you know i don't know that are all of our mental

44:29

models in a built around you know decades

44:31

of calibrating on real world and don't

44:33

get that information now suddenly have to be readjusted

44:35

than so i think it's a good question

44:38

is generally the desk is a reflection

44:40

of the conscientiousness i think of an individual i

44:42

think for some rules conscientiousness

44:44

to the extent it moves at

44:46

a continuum that pulls down openness

44:49

which he know this pic psychometric

44:51

theories would disagree with you meaning they would say the big five

44:53

aspects scalar totally independent of each other but

44:55

you do really sort of wonder the person

44:57

who's hyper conscientious who really dot

44:59

every i and crosses of a t it's exceedingly

45:02

rare i think to find someone that is

45:04

really really conscientious

45:06

and also really open and

45:08

, i kind of do tend to believe that they've

45:10

kind of affects each other a bit more than

45:12

we realize and so he know i think that

45:14

can be are revealing thing in either direction

45:17

i mean i don't know that you would necessarily want say

45:19

your product designer to have the most

45:21

organized ask that unit to steve

45:23

jobs parlance is also quite empty i

45:25

don't know that i would want to see my accountant have

45:28

an incredibly disorganized death with all

45:30

sorts of returns and posted around

45:33

so much depends on the role

45:35

about your quarter and tyler you know

45:37

why i'm asking you this list

45:38

i like him as he desks now

45:41

i'm biased to be clear but when i see

45:43

the desk isn't messy it just looks to

45:45

me like there's an input that slot being used

45:47

that there's a lot of slack in the system and

45:50

that the person tolerate slack without

45:52

thinking well how can i put this desk

45:54

to better work and i get suspicious or

45:56

what what other inputs is there a lot

45:58

of flak on their only

45:59

their own efforts their own intelligence

46:02

i don't know i do know some very successful

46:05

people with very neat desks and

46:07

it it rubs me the wrong way and

46:09

i think of the messy desk is quite organized

46:11

of course there's like what's the average quality

46:14

of organization

46:15

versus what's the total amount of organization

46:17

that went into this event of the desk

46:20

and the messy desk of going to have more total organizations

46:22

almost always even if the average

46:24

quality has higher variance it be the inefficiency

46:27

in the symmetry required of a perfectly

46:29

organize death meeting like

46:31

everything can only fit into squares that

46:33

which means if you have less total space sort

46:36

of like a been packing problem try

46:38

and to me it's also a sign

46:39

then there's the floor which tyler

46:41

use it already well for the sacking

46:43

them but there's a sign

46:45

they're not using the physical dimensions

46:47

somehow and they're thinking i'm

46:49

a big fan of the physical dimensions they are

46:52

sort of thinking with your body thinking with

46:54

what you put on the floor to ceiling out

46:56

at like every computing device available to

46:58

you space is a computing device and

47:00

if you're not using space your computer

47:02

is is lying there passive fallow who

47:05

on said

47:08

nine and what you think when you walk into my own

47:10

says because there's nothing on

47:12

any such as

47:13

pretty neat but i assume at home at some

47:15

huge sprawling mess right now

47:19

yeah and i don't walk into silence off as

47:21

because there's no room to walk into when the door

47:24

doesn't for leo for men and other

47:26

such thing snot the one thing that dial his office

47:28

does reveal his the obsessiveness like

47:31

everything that is being read or worked

47:33

on in that moment as right this suit is very

47:35

much like

47:35

picture of what you're doing up that time

47:38

and it's like asking for people like how will you react

47:40

to this unbelievable mess and you'll

47:42

see things that don't even seem like they

47:44

should belong in an office like a voodoo flagged sea

47:47

seafood you flag in an office in what is the person

47:49

say what are they saying that's useful to

47:51

right to the even notice it i'm

47:53

always interested always interested who don't seem to

47:55

notice the mess at all the repeat

47:57

visitors like may not notice it anymore

48:00

the people go there for the first time it's talk

48:02

to me like i'm a normal human being that fascinating

48:04

strike watches am i having

48:06

any

48:07

do you like a normal human being but it has

48:09

nothing to do with the message

48:10

the owner is a simple one

48:13

of the things that i'm curious about is

48:15

a lot of us are looking for good mentors

48:17

what is a good way to figure out

48:19

a someone will be a good mentor specially

48:22

long films is are we to interview for

48:24

a good mental

48:24

i grew up outside of silicon valley

48:26

and i was very interested in tech in there weren't

48:29

really i'm in my father dot computer science

48:31

for a living so in british medical but he

48:33

set up a home with a lot of coding bucks nauseum thing

48:35

to read so does what i did but that aside

48:38

i remember a time before you tube some

48:40

old enough to say that am but i'm also young

48:42

enough to say that i remember

48:44

once you tube came on line i just

48:47

never stopped and of watching content

48:49

and lectures on it into a fine

48:51

it's sort of interesting a lot of people

48:54

here want you know the best real

48:56

world mentors but we do have this amazing

48:58

products that you know i think fifty years

49:00

ago know people could barely dream of where

49:02

we have

49:03

effectively an infinite amount of

49:06

content from the world's best teachers

49:08

investors mathematicians

49:11

in for me you know when i was running

49:13

my business is actually very helpful

49:15

in specific ways like humans civic tricks

49:17

but also in ways that just like watching you

49:19

know very charismatic leaders

49:22

talk is definitely a great thing to

49:24

do the night before you have your all hands and

49:26

so i think that the amazing thing about

49:28

the reality we live in today's yes you can interviewed

49:30

literally millions of mentors on you tube

49:32

for free basically anywhere in the world and

49:35

i sound for me that was a huge thing i

49:37

you know silicon valley in particular is obviously

49:39

very porous place and people are generally

49:42

very helpful to each other and so you didn't have i wouldn't commenters

49:44

but you know people who take a step of

49:47

in of goodwill based on limited information they have

49:49

on you they got out of their way to help you in someone

49:51

did the same thing to them and in many ways

49:53

i wouldn't be here without someone taking a bad and

49:55

funding me and you know numb and trying to pay

49:57

it forward to others and so does things and your

50:00

lap i do worry a little bit when i meet people

50:02

who are overtly searching for mentors

50:04

for the sake of finding mentors and sort of wondering

50:07

whatever you're looking for like i don't think that's

50:09

quite going to satisfy it and to the extent

50:11

one once just like good mental models

50:14

of like what is like a really good salesperson

50:16

look like or what is a really good math professor

50:18

look like

50:19

that's available online in unlimited

50:21

fashion subtler with i don't have you have a different

50:23

view but

50:24

if you want to find good mentor is i would say

50:26

focus on yourself don't focus

50:28

too much on finding the manner so if i'm

50:30

thinking of someone i might usefully manner

50:33

they would in turn into teach me things but

50:35

i would wonder well as this person is curious

50:37

as i am something like that would be a starting

50:39

point and i do figure they can't

50:41

fake that and they can even like set

50:43

out to become more curious to something

50:46

a little forest about that but it's they actually

50:48

are very curious and just allow that to grow

50:51

they will end up in a position where maybe

50:53

i will end up having a connection with them so

50:56

for it to happen organically and figure out

50:58

what your strengths are and now let

51:00

those blossoms and then just be out there

51:02

but again don't try to force the mentoring thing

51:04

too much because potential mentors

51:06

can sniff that out and that to them is

51:08

very boring someone who wants to

51:11

be mentored is like the most boring thing you can

51:13

imagine someone who wants to learn something

51:15

can be very interesting however sorry

51:17

very good mentor and i think that has something

51:19

to do with how generous you are how do

51:21

you read generosity on the on

51:24

the scale of for a good mental

51:26

i don't know that i'm generous i think of myself

51:28

as pretty selfish and like people

51:30

i met her in some ways mentor me and

51:33

i learned from them and i'm like

51:35

i always try to think obsessive least how can

51:37

i learn from them

51:39

hi i'm open to the notion of kind

51:41

of selfishly a bit exploiting them

51:43

and like for me to stay inside show like

51:45

stay by another you're on an organization that gives

51:48

out money to people around the world

51:50

yeah how would you square that with the idea

51:52

of you purporting to be selfless hyper

51:55

that he was fun yeah second it is

51:57

a source of social capital which

51:59

is very bad the herbal i'm not paid

52:01

at the margin to do it but i learn

52:03

it really an incredible amount and i get

52:06

some sense of where the world is going anatomy

52:08

as exciting

52:10

i feel i have a higher like living standards

52:12

than just about anyone i know i know a

52:14

lot of people with like very high net wealth

52:16

i don't really think of them is richer than i am in

52:18

terms of like time usage memories

52:21

i have like art music consumption

52:24

of desserts whatever i think of myself

52:26

as like

52:27

wealthier than am a human capital terms

52:29

for the most part so i'm pretty self

52:31

assign and i think i'm good at it at being

52:33

selfish

52:34

well for me wasn't the fact that you give money away

52:37

it's the time i mean it's an extraordinary

52:39

time invest then bought in the

52:41

and everyone you know as the easy

52:43

family grows more and more time

52:45

is spent solving the problems and hoping

52:48

that i'm sick of their life out

52:49

but people are fun right and

52:51

i certainly have enough time on my

52:53

own in a locked in closets reading

52:55

books and the like so i'm not

52:57

giving that up if anything i still have

52:59

too much a that and should spend more time with people

53:02

well

53:03

the here we are

53:04

i think that the time to show some

53:07

questions from you if you have any you

53:09

can just come up to the might as one on

53:11

either side and to state

53:13

your name and asked your question we also

53:15

have questions on the i pad overly

53:17

i o n evans from oxford

53:20

going to give a science fiction type scenario the

53:22

maybe has some relevance to talent imagine

53:25

that say half of all people had an

53:27

identical twin some people

53:29

have like ten identical twins the

53:31

wind is very different world

53:33

the have an identification in some senses much

53:35

easier what kind of impact would that have

53:37

on say start ups or like maybe other

53:39

spheres were talent is important

53:41

i think there's somewhat less

53:44

information contained him identical

53:46

twins than many people in the bay

53:48

area would suppose i think maybe

53:50

like america as a whole might under

53:52

a the role of genetic factors

53:54

in talent but the people who think about it

53:56

at all i think tend to overeat

53:59

significantly how much it matters

54:01

and there are plenty of identical twins with

54:03

like very different outcomes is

54:05

quite a few of them while they're both law partners

54:08

in cincinnati but at the highest

54:10

levels those very small differences

54:13

as like a multiplicity of model you need

54:15

to have like eight or nine very definite

54:17

things go to an a or a plus level

54:19

for you and it might happen for you and not

54:21

fear identical twin so i think

54:23

at the highest levels of achievement identical

54:26

twins do not contain a lot of information

54:28

and they would not be that useful and talent search

54:31

and i wouldn't go around like oh elected

54:33

someone clone bill gates sort of i

54:35

can identical twins were is like the

54:37

eight year old who was the clone bill gates

54:39

i want to support that person with some v

54:41

c money is still a better than average bad

54:44

obviously but that would not be my

54:46

obsession absolutely not to some weird

54:48

confluence of environment and

54:50

jeans and circumstance that

54:52

maybe you know it when you see it but exon day

54:55

trying to predict that by looking at any one

54:57

of the factors i don't think you'll get very far

54:59

i can deal i'm andy from

55:02

emergent benches doesn't want us to many

55:04

you talk you talk about energy and vigor and

55:06

i'm really struck by that it makes me wonder where

55:08

do you think that comes from why does so variable why so different

55:11

between people how plastic

55:12

that's an awesome question isn't it you know there's all

55:15

those like toy studies about gate you

55:17

know i walk engaged in all other

55:19

health chino telemetry with people generally

55:21

correlates with longevity and whatnot and i

55:23

don't know that anyone from the regression on that an income but

55:26

i think would be interesting i don't know i

55:28

mean i think it is a sort of his energy plastic

55:30

talent and of he'd have a different view as it was a things and

55:32

awesome question is sort of a bit of a nature nurture

55:34

biology ask a question like

55:36

there is some basic

55:39

you know mitochondrial factory

55:41

thing going on that seems more

55:43

efficient in some people than others and

55:46

and so i think that just leads to more hours

55:48

in the days of work more chances

55:50

take in you know if you assume the batting

55:52

averages roughly evenly just tired fans of

55:54

home run but but when you really interviews

55:56

of paul mccartney or the documentary

55:58

and he's just like

55:59

there's in his like again we have to go against

56:02

like had the am again and is thousands

56:04

of the story in a steve jobs will not have of just

56:06

people that are more shots on goal in

56:08

so i think that sort of must compound

56:11

started eating energies plastic

56:13

i've never read a serious research paper

56:15

on this questions but my intuition is

56:18

that energy and that kind of

56:20

i target he is one of the most heritable

56:23

of characteristics i'm not saying he will be a copy

56:25

of your parents but whatever was

56:27

plugged into you at birth is

56:29

what you have if i think of myself

56:31

or the other people i've known their entire lives

56:34

which is not that many people but i just don't

56:36

see that must change and the way i am

56:39

my senses i was that way it three or four

56:41

at age two i don't remember my

56:43

mother always told me that always

56:45

kind of and see wanting the next book something

56:48

and something just don't think it's something it's taught myself

56:50

once you're that way learn how

56:52

to use your environment to make yourself

56:54

better at that and get the genes

56:56

environment interaction going and

56:58

that is very much something you learn rather

57:01

than something you're born with had are like multiply

57:03

your interaction effects but that core

57:06

something core other paul mccartney was composing

57:08

songs at age fourteen refinish

57:10

capital are now he's eighty the doesn't

57:12

need the money

57:14

out an album every two years takes on

57:16

massive projects art books

57:18

everything incredible you just read

57:20

biographies a fall is is clearly seems

57:22

he was born with

57:24

what you think human core body temperature is dropping in

57:26

and twenty eighteen is the same as said he put

57:28

out by the united states think military

57:30

army has kept her to him and core body

57:32

temperature longitudinal a over time and

57:35

the u s core body temperature at least as like

57:37

dropping know you could say it's some type of our measurement

57:40

effect thermometers have changed since the nineteen

57:42

thirties or whatnot but to the extent

57:44

of like an odd proxy towards energy is

57:46

i think we are declining in energy as a country

57:48

putting immigrants decide which is gonna

57:51

be a complex story as own and may not be

57:53

the same from all other places of the country

57:55

to me seems to have much less energy

57:57

and even it it earlier in my lifetime to

58:00

anecdotally so i worry about that

58:03

censor what if anything do you think

58:05

for doing wrong at a national level with

58:07

our town evaluation of politicians

58:10

where we going to acidity see than me so

58:12

i don't know where to start with that i have to say

58:15

in my basically you of politics the main

58:17

problem usually as to voters not

58:19

always but typically it's typically voters

58:21

i think resigned talking about this before in the green

58:24

room in think senators as a whole are

58:26

actually fairly impressive it doesn't mean impressive

58:28

agree with what they do or say

58:30

or changes they push for the just

58:32

a river or studies and talents

58:34

they seem to be pretty good i live right outside

58:37

of washington d c i know

58:39

or have met really very large numbers of people

58:41

in politics chiefs of staff military

58:43

agencies people i on the board of the said

58:47

i , our talent in those slots

58:49

is pretty good not perfect but

58:51

that is not our national problem in

58:53

my opinion at all i

58:55

can name plenty of individual politicians

58:58

who politicians think artist absolute train wrecks

59:01

that again i would think in terms of the main problem

59:03

being the voter i think our political system

59:05

does better at bring in some talent than

59:07

you would think and it's striking to me if you

59:09

live in the dc area and how many families

59:12

almost every family to some notion

59:14

of like doing national service

59:17

that i actually find strikingly absent in

59:19

the bay area maybe in the whole us it's

59:21

weakest here and strongest where

59:23

i live but that sense of obligation

59:26

to national service it kind

59:28

of actually works i think

59:30

a new us government still has done a whole bunch

59:32

of things properly we did operation warp

59:34

speed that would be one example we had

59:37

a lot of talent they are the economist

59:39

heading it michael kramer nobel laureates

59:41

one of the very best economists a live

59:43

on planet earth and he was running that

59:45

side of operation warp speed while how that

59:47

happened like we're doing something

59:49

right but at the end of the day

59:51

you know the voting inputs i don't know i

59:53

really do worry

59:55

the two years two or three anecdotes

59:57

from the to the you on like specific moments

59:59

what you've really made a difference and somebody is

1:00:02

ambition or aspiration you talk about that

1:00:04

of the the back end of the book and i'd

1:00:06

love to get a couple case studies of like how you did

1:00:08

it ice zip dinner

1:00:10

i think it's important not to self to see i've

1:00:12

had like really quite a large number of people

1:00:14

i know some of whom are in this room tell

1:00:16

me i made a big difference i'm quite convinced

1:00:19

they're sincere but i'm not sure

1:00:21

as a now and i think there's something quite

1:00:23

useful to just being obsessive and continuing

1:00:26

and almost not try to see your out too

1:00:28

much there's some odd ways in which i think

1:00:31

our society is to data driven and

1:00:33

just keep on trying to do it and repeat and

1:00:35

try to be a good example and

1:00:38

if you're trying too hard too measure your marginal product

1:00:40

you may be and up conforming to much

1:00:42

are doing too many things that are measurable and

1:00:45

at the margin maybe margin way to have an impact as

1:00:47

tonight

1:00:47

worry too much about measuring your success

1:00:50

i don't think that answer can work for everyone but

1:00:52

it i've approached the problem i sort of seal

1:00:55

without measuring it that it's worked pretty well for me

1:00:57

they're adding that is a very good philosophy

1:01:00

i mean oddly i think the simplest thing at

1:01:02

a nobody v but certainly i find i've done

1:01:04

of course my career that people seem

1:01:06

disease been useful for them is just other

1:01:09

funding or at least encouraging people

1:01:11

to move to silicon valley ideally

1:01:13

if they're intact but even just a new city they

1:01:15

tend to like miss proper get that at me

1:01:18

like going to cause that is actually i think like

1:01:20

a puzzle any one hopefully would have nots them at some

1:01:22

point but it's really just that that movement and

1:01:24

that immigration pattern as i think really important

1:01:27

trudy what's your answer

1:01:28

don't have a very good one

1:01:30

one of the answers the people give me

1:01:32

when i

1:01:33

talk to them and tell them or you'll receive

1:01:35

the be drawn in india is

1:01:38

this

1:01:38

or you believe me like

1:01:40

not believe in me but they can't

1:01:42

even believe that someone actually trust

1:01:44

them with the money and like really trust

1:01:47

the story that the a selling to me and and

1:01:49

so on and the first thing they say

1:01:51

is i won't let you down sit that's

1:01:53

like the only thing i can pinpoint

1:01:55

like a moment when i feel like something

1:01:58

is changing here either

1:01:59

the number one

1:02:00

i think it would have happened anyway someone

1:02:03

else would have given them funding or believed

1:02:05

in them for pretty much almost

1:02:07

all of them see that i mean that as you

1:02:09

more about how broken things are in india in about

1:02:11

me race but i can think

1:02:13

of that as a tangible thing when my

1:02:15

seats in some one is somehow

1:02:18

such a big signal to them that you know

1:02:20

even if it's marginally higher says

1:02:22

if a perfect

1:02:25

the i'm an israeli parliament you accomplish

1:02:27

with marc andreessen and us why peter thiel

1:02:29

but town so well and he countered

1:02:32

that is is considered that signal you know

1:02:34

he throws a bat signal people com then

1:02:37

you have room bat signal and when you have known

1:02:39

that signals there's a put the live idealist your blog

1:02:41

books with pioneer might be discussed

1:02:43

certain aspects a gaming whatnot and

1:02:45

here's what components that that signal

1:02:47

you think are the most effective people come to in this manner

1:02:50

really loves this about your portfolio

1:02:52

really love this about painter

1:02:54

i think the bigger and more globalized for network

1:02:57

the world gets the higher the returns to

1:02:59

the bad signal and bad signals are

1:03:01

still one of the most underrated ways

1:03:03

to be effective that we have some kind of weighted

1:03:05

average of how effective they were in the past

1:03:07

and we apply the weighted average bathroom

1:03:09

poor insist rising very very

1:03:11

sharply i think even over the last

1:03:13

five years so i think the world

1:03:16

like some kind of authenticity and bad

1:03:18

signals so like don't think

1:03:20

too hard about your bad signal maybe

1:03:23

now it's too bad to begin with and you don't think too hard

1:03:25

i guess so stay bad that like that's

1:03:27

great then more people like my that signals

1:03:29

and maybe like they should becoming a mates i don't

1:03:32

know i try not to over think about signal soon

1:03:34

if i write a blog post like i was working on

1:03:36

a post earlier today like

1:03:38

what's the difference in the eighteenth century

1:03:41

scottish enlightenment and irish

1:03:43

and like that makes no sense

1:03:45

as a topic like maybe someone in

1:03:47

ireland will read it like okay but

1:03:49

there's no way you could come up with an

1:03:51

argument that that's what i should be sending out as

1:03:53

my bad signal but like that will be the that

1:03:55

signals and i actually think it's fine

1:03:58

the one thing i'd add to that is there's people

1:04:00

are ones that view you as

1:04:02

a way to gain advantage for themselves

1:04:06

and so the not attracted to like use

1:04:08

the bat signal cause they

1:04:10

like want to be near you they're going to step

1:04:12

on you to get somewhere else and

1:04:14

that's great i think is important nuance the

1:04:16

some people miss when they set out there about signals

1:04:19

i would say tyler bad seduce not

1:04:21

the difference between irish and scottish

1:04:23

enlightenment oh that's interesting i think it's consistency

1:04:26

i just recently signed out that he's logged every

1:04:28

single day on marginal revolution for nineteen

1:04:31

blasio is so i think that's the bat

1:04:33

signal right

1:04:34

that part of a yes and no day has

1:04:36

that been hard i think it gets to the authenticity

1:04:38

point there's no day where i've said

1:04:41

i have to blog today are all break the streak

1:04:44

hey i'm josh thank you for speaking

1:04:46

this is an awesome conversation one

1:04:48

big topic in sf especially is

1:04:50

on automation are there any parts

1:04:53

of your talent process it's but you think could be

1:04:55

automated obviously a t s

1:04:57

as a thing and with the rise

1:04:59

of automation maybe it's pretty industry

1:05:01

specific but are there any changes

1:05:04

in how people see talent

1:05:06

that will com as things get more and more

1:05:08

automated i run a company that you know principally

1:05:10

has that think for our little corner

1:05:12

of talent meaning venture tried everything

1:05:14

under the sun in order to automated and i

1:05:16

think you can like many process he

1:05:18

is he better be split things into to

1:05:21

there's basically be spam filtering process

1:05:23

of busy be weeding out people that

1:05:25

don't make any sense for us for whatever reason

1:05:28

like what they're working on his non economic

1:05:30

or they don't have the policy like that you

1:05:32

can probably do with software

1:05:35

as a second step of it a bit of the okay

1:05:37

it's like imagine this is jim alber it's you've got rid

1:05:39

of the span and else like as what

1:05:42

any inbox is important that a much harder

1:05:44

task i'm sure it can be done

1:05:46

in software applied i think it's a bit

1:05:48

more nuanced and like

1:05:51

with the really tricky thing and kind of inventor

1:05:53

in particular is regressing

1:05:55

on successes pretty hardness because the data points

1:05:57

a pretty sparse liquid great founders look like like

1:05:59

maybe what and thousand which is another unhelpful

1:06:02

machine learning feel but also because everything

1:06:04

changes over time sue like

1:06:07

the psychometric makeup of

1:06:09

a great founder in say twenty

1:06:11

fifteen sas era is someone

1:06:13

like you know frank lady who started service now

1:06:16

is basically a sales machine sturdy

1:06:18

sales empire is very

1:06:20

different from who's going to be a very good founder

1:06:22

say working on transformer models

1:06:25

who's going to be much more like was then steve

1:06:27

everything kind of is shifting constantly so it's

1:06:30

tricky it's assume i assume of automation can

1:06:32

be done for that first step i think that second

1:06:34

step you could but the final

1:06:36

thing i'd say is i guess in venture in particular

1:06:38

you are rewarded so aggressively

1:06:40

for making the right calls that

1:06:42

you will be able to always you

1:06:45

know afford the salary for people to review it in

1:06:47

your penalized of course very aggressively by errors of

1:06:49

omission not commission so i think you're going

1:06:51

to always end up with an economic model

1:06:53

where you can have people is obviously very different

1:06:55

if you're like you know mcdonalds and whatnot and

1:06:57

you're trying to figure out okay like who's going to

1:06:59

be able to flip burgers a year in and but i don't

1:07:01

know enough about that failed to a point

1:07:04

thank you for attending thank you tyler thank

1:07:06

you

1:07:07

thank you shooting thing

1:07:15

thanks for listening to conversations

1:07:17

with tyler you can subscribe to the

1:07:19

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1:07:34

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1:07:36

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1:07:39

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