Eric Jorgenson - GP of Rolling Fun - Information Dealer Extraordinaire - The Michael Girdley Show Episode 37

Hey, Michael here. Welcome to the Michael Girdley Show, uh, episode number 35, believe it or not. Pretty exciting. Uh, today I spent a bit over an hour talking with my buddy Erik Jorgensen. Uh, he is a Kansas City resident, uh, author of, uh, a pretty famous book called The Navalmanak, uh, which is, uh, the accumulated writings of a guy named Naval Ravikant. Uh, he's working on a new book and he and I just talked about a lot of really cool stuff. Uh, he spent time with the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, as did I. Um, talked about generational differences as especially some of the stuff you saw Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talk about in some of their answers during that whole process. Um, talked about why he takes photos of sandwiches and puts them on social media, uh, and then talked about a lot of stuff around his career and how he's transitioned to really become somebody that's just a dealer in interesting information and learnings. So, um, went a lot of really cool places. I hope you enjoy this. I learned a lot from Eric, definitely an engaging personality. and somebody that I enjoy talking to. So with no further ado, here's the episode. Hey, Michael here. Uh, today's sponsor, uh, is Harbor Capital. Uh, so Harbor Capital is a firm located up in Austin, uh, and they are a real estate private equity firm that focuses specifically on light industrial assets across the state of Texas. So, uh, Levi and his team, I've got to know them pretty well, uh, having worked with them as an advisor over the past several months. And excited to have them sponsor today's episode. So, you know, what they do is basically, you know, acquire these real estate assets using their own money and investor money as well, and then they manage them over time for cash flow and appreciation, hopefully with everybody winning throughout that process. So they're excited about what's going on, and I've seen what they're doing, and they're also building a portfolio designed to weather both the ups and downs of the economic cycle. So thanks to Levi, thanks to Harbor Capital for sponsoring today's episode and helping me on my never-ending quest to make the Michael Girdley Show a break-even podcast. I'm so excited to do that, and thanks again to those guys. Check them out at harborcap.com. Uh, and here, back to the episode. Eric, uh, thanks for being here. So excited to visit with you today.

Um, I can already tell we've already been having a good time. We just decided to start recording it. So yeah.

Yeah. Well, the cool— you know, it's one of the things about doing podcasts, especially like this with cool people, like the moment I know we start doing the podcast before we do the podcast, that's when we need to click record. So you and I got into the podcast in like 4 seconds, which was awesome. You were just like, hey, I know how to do this, I've been around the block. And I was like, oh great, like I don't have to explain, you keep your, keep your face close to the microphone.

And there's some like, there's some pure energy that happens when like two longtime Twitter mutual follows actually start talking for the first time, I feel like there's just like a dam that breaks and just starts rushing of like, oh my God, we have so much to talk about. And I feel like that's, that is what's happening here. And we're capturing that, uh, that initial energy, which is beautiful. And we're doing it on a Friday afternoon and Friday afternoon podcasts are just always a good time.

That is a good point.

Yeah.

We usually record for Acquisitions Anonymous. We record Friday mornings and then this one I record just whenever people are available. So this is a great time.

Perfect.

Are you drinking a beer now? This is the best podcast ever.

I thought it's implied with a Friday afternoon podcast, right?

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I've still got 2 more meetings after this, so all good. So I thought let's start talking about something you and I just both went through, which we went to both the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. My first time there, like, I'm glad I did. I kind of felt like for me, like, I didn't get to see Jerry Garcia with the Grateful Dead, like, before he died. And it was like, it's one of those things in life that I'm like, oh, I regret doing that. Like, like I didn't go travel the world when I was younger as much as I want to, and I didn't see Jerry Garcia before he died. So it was like my first time there, and it was like super fun.

It is a spectacle unto itself, and it feels just like kind of paying homage in a way. Like I tweeted after going there, like there's something about even if you don't get anything new, it is like a touchstone with all the principles that all of us appreciate that they brought into our lives over the last 50 years, which is amazing. But you had an insane hilarious tweet thread throughout. It was like— so I went to the Berkshire meeting and I didn't— I was organized enough to get passes ahead of time and I was like, "Oh, I'll just go. We'll hang out at the Hilton. We'll go to the after parties and we'll see everybody, but I don't actually need to go to the meeting because I've done that a few times." And then I saw one of your tweets. It was like, "No, you just walk up with a stock certificate. They let you in." I was like, "Oh, I think I have a photo of an account statement." And then they just like give you a pass and let you in. I was like, oh, this is amazing. So we ended up going and your, your tweets were absolutely hilarious. Uh, and I can't believe we missed each other there, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was a good time. Uh, yeah, a lot of, a lot of pleated khakis.

Well, thank you for, yeah. Well, I mean, the, you had different like demographics. Like there was like the, the pleated khaki crowd, you know, like I met up with my, one of my buddies there who has gone like every year with his buddies. They go to Omaha for the meeting. And it's like a 20-year thing. Like every year they go and it's like their deal and they know the restaurants they want to go to, the hotel they want to stay in, and exactly how they want to do it. So it's like a reunion for them and they're like one group, like this Gen X kind of like allocator, you know, Ivy League East Coast kind of crowd. But then you have this other crowd that like rolls in and like, like recreational vehicles, like Winnebagos, like it's like the NASCAR side of like wealth creation. And like these people, like they're in there, like, I mean, if you haven't been to the, the thing for people listening, like you can go buy Justin Boots, like the Reba McEntire edition. Like Dairy Queen is like throwing ice cream at you. Like, like you can do the whole, the whole shtick and like, it's like a NASCAR. I mean, it felt like what I'd imagine. It's like a pop-up.

It was Berkshire Mall. Yeah. There's like a, a NetJets booth. Yeah. And the Brooks thing always has like a Brooks running shoes and Fruit of the Loom. There's just people like wandering around with giant shopping bags and like, oh, sees candy. And like, yeah, it's hilariously like— it's also extremely Midwestern. And there's also the culture of like the Wall Street finance crew that like rolls in with like interns saving them seats and they're all wearing suits. And like, it's just, yeah, this totally weird culture clash that these two dudes bring together. And it's still— everything is so '90s. Like the decor has not changed probably in 20 years. They just like the blue curtains and the Berkshire Hathaway backdrop. It is hilarious. It's timeless.

So two things I noticed, and I don't know if it's always been this way, but, you know, one of the guys is 91, Warren, and then Charlie's 98. They schemed it that the guys didn't actually walk out like you were watching a video every time they walked out, or it was dark, which made me believe like— and every time I see pictures of Charlie, he's in a wheelchair. So, I mean, he's 98, he's probably not mobile, but like, I thought that was really creative when I was like, oh, like, they're really like— the guys would just appear. On stage. The other thing that was super crazy was Warren, like, quoted— and I did the math— he quoted that they brought 11 tons of See's candy to sell at the thing. That was 1 ton per hour that they sold. That was— I did the math. I was like, oh, they're open for 11 hours basically of sales. It comes out to about a ton of candy per hour. Like, it's just unbelievable. And then I was also impressed with Charlie, the 98-year-old. He ate 3, maybe 4 pounds of peanut brittle. Like, all he did was eat peanut brittle.

I brought some peanut brittle to this podcast.

Oh, you're like the Charlie.

I wanted to get like Charlie and just like crunch it like right into the microphone.

Yeah. Well, was there anything that comes to mind as things you liked that they, they talked about? I mean, look, the nuclear war thing was a little weird. Like it was the most like, like greatest generation thing like I've ever heard where these guys were like born, grew up through the Red Scare and like the Cuban Missile Crisis and they're like, okay, we're now going to talk for 30 minutes about the potential impact of nuclear war on our business lines. And I was just like, where did this come from? Like, nobody, nobody of our generation talks like that. So I don't know what, what do you think?

That one was interesting. I thought similarly, like, the inflation— like, he got asked about inflation like 4 or 5 times. I feel like by the 3rd or 4th time, he was actually like, all right, fine, let me do a 40-minute talk about inflation. And that's one of those topics that I think is just you can study academically, but it's hard to go through the, like, second and third order effects until you've lived through it. And they have seen so many different, like, macro environments that I, I think that they have a really good bead on it, um, or at least a unique perspective on it. There's not that many people with the length of careers that they have. The other— I mean, I am like a much more of a tech person than a diehard value fan, and I'm always, um I'm just kind of disappointed in their Bitcoin takes. I'm not like— or crypto takes. I'm not surprised by them, but I just wish they were a little more honest about the— like, as an intellectual hero, I wish they were just kind of like, too hard pile might be dangerous. Um, and they kind of rail against it in a way that I feel like is— I remember a few years ago hearing at the meeting, hearing them say like, I'm 20 years late to recognize this, but Google's an incredible business. And I can imagine if they were around for 20 more years that we might be talking about the same thing with some of the crypto protocols. And it's just a new paradigm. But they're so antagonistic about it. And I actually don't feel like— I always loved Munger's, like, the iron prescription of being able to argue the other side's points better than they can before you take an opinion. And I don't actually feel like I have heard that from them. They're just kind of like, addition on it. Um, so that's a bummer, which kind of continues to be, but that's not news, and people just kind of want the headline at this point, I think.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's— their argument is basically like, because Bitcoin— which they only pick on Bitcoin, which is like, okay, well, here's the first sign you don't really understand this whole universe— but they only pick on Bitcoin, and then they're like, okay, this has no utility. It's actually like, well, that's actually— let me give you the other side of the argument, which is Bitcoin is a relatively low-friction way of transferring, like, value, like, between places just across the internet with no intermediaries. No government gets in the way, none of that stuff. Like, so there is a utility there, but like, it's disappointing, as you're saying, like, they didn't really get it. And then they don't even understand, like, the L1s, like Ethereum, right? It's like, okay, well, there's utility here. Like, somebody wants to build something on top of this global—

we shouldn't be surprised that they don't get it. Munger has never even really liked gold either. Um, I don't know if Buffett's stance is the same, but stores of value that aren't cash-flowing equities or hard assets that have never really been their thing.

So yeah, dude, they're 91 and 98. And they were like, I was pretty worried for the first hour and a half with the 50% of the talk from Warren was like ums and ahs and trying to find the word regardless. It would take him 10 seconds to find that word in his mind, but then he would come back. It would, It sounded like, you know, of the 3 hours in the morning, like the first hour, hour and a half was a struggle. And then I don't know if it was the Coca-Cola or the peanut brittle or whatever, but like then he came, came back and it was like the Warren Buffett from like the, you know, like the '90s, like Solomon hearings, right? Like just super coherent, cogent, logically oriented. Like he got into his groove, which made me really happy. Otherwise, you know, you know, I fell asleep like right after lunch, which is very Girdley. I could fall asleep anywhere. But, um, Like he, you know, I would've probably fallen asleep before, before lunch and literally during the ums and ahs, I was like, oh, if this is a podcast, I'd be on 1.5x right now.

I'm pretty sure Charlie did fall asleep after lunch on stage like that. I kept watching him, his, his head just like dip a little lower. I was like, yeah, he's probably heard this one before. He is just checking out for a few.

He, he totally, he totally should. Okay, so switching, switching topics a little bit. So I wanna understand, like your website has a bunch of sandwich photos. And like you put them on Twitter. So like, what's up with you and sandwiches? You're welcome to ask me about chilis whenever you want.

I don't know. It's a thing that I love and find an endless joy in. And it's just like, I like bringing my whole self to the internet in like a weird way. Like I don't, I feel like there's people who have very successfully crafted like extremely precise, like sort of 2D brands in their social. And I just want to treat mine much more like a scaled version of my living room. And if you were like sitting in my kitchen, we'd be like talking about the things that we're talking about, but also I'd be like feeding you and making sandwiches and messing around. And it's just like it became a fun shtick. I know like wherever I travel, I always like ask for recommendations for these things and like find fun places to go. And I just like sandwich culture and it feels sort of like international and Universal. And part of my onboarding email is asking people what their favorite sandwich is and I get recommendations for places all over the world and then actually try to go to them. And this is a fun way to connect with people and close the loop that isn't all, I don't know, ideas or nerdiness or anything like that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I dig it. Well, I noticed they're often over-the-top sandwiches. You seem to like the fatty— not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just like, oh, You know, there's not like the 1,200-calorie like finger sandwich that you get. You know, I did go to a party last weekend and they served like those super, you know, like you're— I don't know. I don't know how old you are and I'll ask in a second, but there's like super bland white bread, like maybe just one slice of bread with mayonnaise, like tea sandwiches that grandmothers used to serve. Like we go to this party and literally nobody eats these things. Like they're all just like all the other— it's a bunch of Jim Hicks parents. And, uh, and I'm just like, I'm over there just like standing in front of the thing just pounding like 4, 4 full sandwiches.

Stack them on top of each other.

Yeah, yeah. And they're all like, do you like those? I was like, these are amazing. Look at this one, chicken salad. You got tuna salad, like they got the seafood salad, the ham, like it's just like the best thing ever. But all the, all of my snobby, always snobby friends were like, what's wrong with you? But I noticed none of your pictures of Sandwiches are like the boring 80-calorie ones that I pounded at this party. So do you have an affinity for kind of the over-the-top sandwiches?

I have an affinity for them. They tend to be the ones that I make myself. They're also the ones that I share. Like, I don't share every sandwich if I feel like I'm being repetitive. But sometimes I'm real hungry and I really go for it. And like, I'm a giant Midwestern dude who just like grew up as part of the Clean Plate Club. And then San Francisco had amazing sandwich culture. And so I feel like I fell in love with all these sandwich shops there. And then I moved back to the Midwest and there's not, there's just like not the same here. So I started kind of working more on like home chefing and stacking stuff up and sharing it and getting ideas. And it just has become a really fun thing. But, but I don't discriminate. I'll eat some tiny little sandwiches. I'll eat a cucumber like tea sandwich. That's, that sounds delightful. I'll eat 97 of them.

But when you come to my house, I'll serve you some cucumber sandwiches. So, so you lived in the Bay Area for how long?

6 years, maybe.

6 years. And now what? You're in the middle of Kansas City. Kansas City. Okay. All right. Uh, so do you feel like, do you feel like you're still trying to live a California lifestyle but in Kansas City?

Uh, no. I mean, I brought like pieces of what I learned there. I think like I, I'm probably like more healthy and active than like the average in Kansas City. Uh, and a lot of that was kind of formative from San Francisco. Um, and certainly like the tech ecosystem mindset, like that is which is partly why I moved there in the first place. So, there's definitely— I'm very glad I lived there for some formative years and learned a lot and met wonderful people who I'm still friends with today and both brought some of that back to the Midwest. But I grew up in Detroit, so this is very culturally home. And I feel like on an average day, I'm happier and life is easier here than it was in San Francisco. And I'm hopscotching through the Tenderloin to get to work every day. was like not that fun.

Uh, you know, we left San Francisco in 2003 and my drive home from work had me coming in and I would go towards the Metreon, like Fifth, Fifth and Mission is basically where it is. And like, like every night would be this, like there was this like two alleys that back then, like San Francisco wasn't San Francisco now, but like imagine what's expanded the rest of the years. It was happening in that alley, like all kinds of drug use, crazy stuff going on. So every night would be this like, like tension where, you know, I'm interested in, I'm just, I'm a curious person. So I'd be like, oh, should I drive down Crazy Alley and see what's going on? And usually people leave me alone cuz like, you know, I, I look like a cop, right? Like I have a haircut and like, you know, look like, so, so like nobody would mess with me and it never happened. But like, should I go down this alley? Cuz I just, whatever's going on, like I wanna see what's happening. Is somebody doing, doing bad stuff or whatever? Uh, or should I just take the safe route and just like stay on the main street? So anyway, that doesn't happen in San Francisco.

No, I mean, that is another way that San Francisco is an education, man. I had apartments and offices that had windows that looked down into what those alleys are now. And it was a coin flip. 50% of the time you looked out that window, you'd see somebody literally with a needle in their arm. And it's just like, yeah, high highs and low lows in San Francisco. And you flip from being like, Oh my God, this is a wasteland. Like, thank God to kind of meeting some of the smartest people in the world, literally in a coffee shop next door. And you're— it is just, it is a wild place. And I love it and I owe it a lot and I enjoy visiting, but I'm not— I don't know. I feel like it is a great place to be for a while. And I had a hard time envisioning like raising a family there. So yeah. Were you glad to get back to Texas?

I think so. You know, I think that it, it, it did two things for me. One is like, like mentally and like kind of culturally, like coming back to Texas from there and going to school like on the East Coast, like I picked up elements of both of those kind of cultures, right? So I went to school like very close to New Jersey. So like it was a bunch of people. I showed up the first day and I'm like this sweet kid from, from San Antonio, right? I was the first person from San Antonio ever to go to this college. And, and like people walk up and they're like, who are you? You know, just like this very New Jersey thing. And I can't do the accent, but it's like 5, you know, I'm 6'4" at the time and like these, this little, little 5'2" firecrackers from New Jersey, like ladies will be like, what's wrong with you? Like all up in your face and talking smack and stuff. So I picked up a lot of that kind of East Coast directness and then I end up going out to the Bay Area and I feel like there I started to pick up some of their habits, right? Like the good habits of like this. Techno idealism, like the ideas of being ambitious, like being driven, like all of that was some of the good stuff I picked up there. I picked up some of the bad stuff there, like the West Coast no, which is like this non-confrontational thing where people won't actually tell you what they think or tell you that kind of stuff. So, so like there's those kind of things. But, you know, because I lived that Bay Area lifestyle during so much of my formative years, that means I came back to San Antonio and like all of like the like the kind of conflicts that I have with San Antonio, or like the fish-out-of-water things that I feel are the things that I picked up in those other places. So like, like, I'm a freaking terrible Texan. Like, I don't like hunting. Like, I don't drive a truck. Like, I vote not like most Texans. Like, you know, I'm interested in things that aren't that, you know. And I don't even really like Tex-Mex food that much. Like, I'm glad we have it because it's like the San Antonio ethos, but like, if you're like, hey, do you want to go eat Tex-Mex? I'm like, I'm not really interested, you know.

It makes me Makes me sleepy.

So anyway, that's, that's a long-winded answer to how I ended up in this, ended up feeling weird.

I feel like those, um, it is a pattern now for me to kind of end up finding these people who in, in my case are like grew up in the Midwest and then like self-selected into one of the coasts or, or like a, whatever, a tier 1 city, whether it's Miami or Austin or like San Francisco or New York or whatever. Is, is there a like version of that for you where you're kind of like, ends up being unique and you feel a little fish out of water in your hometown, but also you have this kind of weird subgroup of people who went on a similar journey and accumulated all of some of the same values or skills or perspectives.

Yeah, I think there's some of that. I mean, San Antonio only for the past, say, 10 to 12 years has been a place that people really want to move back to after doing that transition. My generation, you know, we ended up kind of back here just by luck, right? My dad hadn't sold the family business before I managed to move back. He was in the process of selling it off and then he was like, hey, do you want to come work on this? Because he knew I was at a career inflection point at that point. But, you know, by and large, most people that are my age, like I graduated from high school in 1993, they left San Antonio and never came back. Like a lot of the very smart people, I'm not saying every single one of them, but the ambitious ones, they moved on and, we thought there was no real reason for them to come back. And it was, it was kind of justified. Like, I remember moving back here in 2003, and it was a very different city than 20 years ago. Um, but I remember a close relative of mine saying, it is so great that you're here. The city is so transformed. We have such culinary delights here now. Uh, you would be amazed at what we have. Do you know, last week just, they opened up PF Chang's over by the mall. It is just it is just amazing what the cultural kind of shift has been here. And I was like, I was like, oh my God. And this is 2003. So like, you know, the world has changed. We got like the CIA, Culinary Institute of America here, and there's been like a culinary explosion of kind of great places to eat. So many good restaurants. I don't even know where they are.

Cheesecake Factory opened, I heard.

We've seen that.

You got a Cheesecake Factory.

We got the one.

We got a TGI Fridays now.

I think TGI Fridays is really struggling. I went to one last week on the way to the Berkshire thing and it was so terrible. And the whole time I'm just like, as a Chili's fan, I was like, "I don't know if you're seeing me here.

This is just so bad." So as an outsider to the, I don't know, Chili's, TGI Friday's, if you ask me to rank those brands, I would not be able to tell you which was good or which was bad or I have no knowledge of the inside. Is that just heresy from your perspective?

Um, look, I think the beauty of Chili's is that it's all the same. Uh, but if you had to tell me to pick one, I would definitely put Chili's, you know, above all of those. I mean, TGI Fridays is like the worst. I mean, that's garbage. People are listening, they're like, TGI Fridays is garbage. It's like, our Chili's is garbage. But yeah, I mean, Bennigan's is bad. I mean, the one that's a real wild card you got to be careful about is the Chili's 2. You know, have you been to a Chili's too where they have those at the airport? It's the Chili's.

Yeah. You can't trust any airport brands. Like, those are all— that's, that's a—

yeah, you can't, you can't trust that. Yeah. No, I would put Chili's. If you had to tell me which one— choose one of those, would you go to Chili's? I would. Yeah. Chili's is the one to be at. What are the other ones that come to mind? Bennigan's, TGI Friday's. I'm sure there's some other ones.

There's a green one. Ram's Horn.

Oh, we don't have that. Ruby Tuesday. It's also garbage. It's terrible. Uh, so, okay, so something I— you tweeted that I want to talk about because I think I totally disagree with this. So this isn't an ambush podcast, but I thought this was interesting. Uh, you tweeted, it's hilarious that we think generations are different. So as someone who totally, like, through experience, like, buys into like at least, at least some level of segmentation around age and kind of learned personality dispositions. Like, I disagree with this. Okay, so let me just put that out there. So tell me what you're trying to say with this, because I'm not sure I believe it. I just see generations being so different. I seem to be so different.

This is, this is like a, uh, I didn't even really attempt to articulate my real point. I just kind of like threw that shit out there. But I do have an actual like thought behind this. Let me see if you agree with it when I actually to try to articulate it. So, um, the, the nuanced version is probably each generation is more similar— is much more similar than they are different. Um, but for some strange reason that may have more to do with media and headlines and clicks and tribalism, we actually— we group generations and then label them and keep the label the same as they move through ages instead of talking about age groups. And so it is probably like if, if I said like Teenagers are more alike than they are different over the course of time. That is a much more obvious statement to agree with. And like, 30-somethings are much more similar than they are different over time. But it is weird to say like millennials are self-absorbed and selfish when they're teenagers and then like hold that narrative through when the millennials that I know are now like 40 with kids and like sacrificing for them. Like, it is just bizarre. But we hold those labels instead of talking about people transitioning through age groups and actually being thoughtful about like, oh, all teenagers are sociopaths, and like, it's not their fault, it's hormones, and like, here's how you deal with a teenager, and here's how you deal with someone in early career. And it doesn't really matter. Like, I, I know that technology changes and like those, and the cultures change, and those affect the experience of those people coming up through generations. But at each age group, my hypothesis and what I'm saying here is that they are— people of the same age are much more the same than they are different over time. As everything transitions through that age group.

Yeah, I dig that. Well, do you think in parallel there are also things that are unique to each one of those generations? Like that, for sure.

Yeah, that, that end up being, which I think are mostly determined by those technology and the culture that is downstream of that technology. Um, but I also think, I think there's studies that are kind of like the political affiliations that change over time that are very like, that are somewhat predictable. And so it's like people become more conservative, more fiscally conservative, and more libertarian as they get older in many cases. And so, like, which is another way to kind of say, like, the age is much more of a determinant than, like, who the humans are that are in that batch of age. Um, but talking about it, we tend to talk about it the wrong way.

Yeah, I totally dig that. I do think there are unique characteristics that get associated precisely by what you're talking about. And I don't know if you've studied kind of generational theory or any of that kind of stuff, but precisely what I saw— I've seen talks on it, read books on it— precisely what they say is like the— when technology hits a particular cohort of, of a generation of people is when those things start to impact. You see the impact, right? And it's that plus kind of the shared memory. So like the shared memory, by the way, for my generation— I don't know how old you are, I'll ask in a second. I'm 47. So like the shared memory for us and my generation, um, is actually the Challenger disaster from like 1986. So for Gen X, we all watched that.

How old were you when that happened?

And there was a— uh, going on 12. Yeah, I was born in 1975. So we all like How old are you?

32. So, and my version of that, I think, was like 9/11 was when I was about that age.

Yeah. Yeah. So a funny story for you. So I, we, my, my CEO peer group has like this, a generational speaker come in and she's a Gen X like most of us. And there's some boomers and some millennials. So they split us all up and we're supposed to answer 7 different questions about our generation. And it was just fascinating to see how all the generations reacted to it. Like one of my favorite boomers in the group, there's like 4 boomers out of 20. And she goes, she goes, I had no idea there were Gen X in this group. Like, I thought, I thought there was just us 4 boomers and all you millennials. Me and the 7 other Gen Xers are like, what is wrong with you? Like, no one, this is, you know, so it was just hilarious. Um, so, you know, they get the, they get the boomers together and the boomers all like start to have a meeting and start to get all collegial and they organize everything and decide who's going to talk when and organize their chairs. Then the millennials start going over and everybody's just like looking at each other like, oh, like, who's going to talk first? How do we agree on this stuff? And then like the Gen Xers, so like the latchkey kids, like who are like whatever, 40 to 52 at this point, like we all just walk over and everybody goes, okay, who's going to be in charge? One person goes, I'm in charge. And then we go, okay, what do we do first? And like we sprinted through the list, like sprinted through the list. But they asked us all like, what was the not only like what was the most impactful like moment, the seminal moment for you. The boomers listed like Gen X listed the Challenger disaster. The boomers listed something that I've never heard of. Like I couldn't— I can't even tell you what it was. It was like some random like concert or something. They were like, yeah, that was the most similar thing. But then they, they also asked us what was the— what was the most— what was the most seminal moment of music that represents your generation? And, uh, yeah, I was like, okay. And then out of the 7 Gen Xers, all the Gen Xers says Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana, because that was peak MTV. Like, we all remember that on MTV. And, uh, what do you think the Millennials came up with? When I heard this, I was totally embarrassed by— for your generation.

I think I'm a millennial.

Am I?

I'm a millennial, right? I don't know. I think my guess is like, I think boy bands or like Or Eminem. Those were like the first things that came to mind for me. Green Day. That's not much better than either of those. Yeah. It's not good. It's not going to age well.

This is the worst.

Yeah, that's pretty bad. It's interesting to hear that. I mean, the lab of like different working styles is fascinating. And I imagine there's more like, there are the more stark, the kind of like macro environment or political, you know, I can imagine like anybody who went through World War II is very different from anybody who went through Great Depression. Like there were much more extreme defining generational events than we've had, I think, the last, you know, couple decades at least.

Yeah. Well, if you look at, um, so Berkshire, the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, so those guys were both born in the '20s, right? So '91 and '98. What you heard there was like Greatest Generation, like 101. Like, that was the whole thing. Like, they grew up under the Red Scare. They grew up under the nuclear war, the threat of nuclear war. They grew up during— as children, their formative event was living through the Great Depression. So like, like, why do you think they take no risk whatsoever in their investing style? It's like, because that's how they— people were unable to eat. When they were 5, 6, 7, 12 years. And then Charlie picked up a gun and fought in World War II. Like, this is a very formative type, type scenario for them. But as I'm listening to it, I'm like, like, if I hadn't have sat down and thought about and read through some of like the generational differences and where these guys were coming from, like, I wouldn't have— it would have been as foreign to me. And I joke about it now, the talking for 30 minutes about nuclear war. It's like once I knew that kind of generational theory, like, it just totally made sense. Like, this is— nuclear war is so The potential of it is so visceral for these guys. And like, it makes total sense that as 98-year-olds, they're going to sit there and talk about it for half an hour.

It's been in there for a long time.

Yeah.

Okay. You're swaying me a little on the argument. Like, this is interesting.

Yeah. So that's what I think my argument to your point is. Yeah. Look, exactly right. 50-year-olds since time immemorial have been saying that 22-year-olds are lazy, no good, no helpful folks. Well, for a couple of reasons. One is they're full of hormones. Number two, their parents have been taking care of them for 22 years. So of course they don't feel any sort of self-reliance. And number 3, their brains aren't finished developing, right? They still have 3 more years until they stop. So yeah, of course they're going to be immature. So that's been happening since time immemorial. But there are things that when, you know, my generation loves freaking complete sentences with correct grammar in them. Like, we go nuts if you send us an email without it. And like, other generations don't have that. It's because we grew up, we grew up when the technology showed up with that. Like, I grew up in AOL chat rooms and everybody would write in like perfect punctuation. Yeah, yeah.

So the 60-year-olds in my life I do not like swear words, but like, I don't trust people who don't swear who are kind of my age. I feel like they're just hiding something and being inauthentic. Like, yeah, that's fair enough. But I, you know, when I turned 30, I started wearing crewneck sweatshirts. It's like clockwork. And then I was kind of like, yeah, it's just, it's all the same. Oh, that's interesting. I wonder, there's probably a really good line. You might have read it. Like, what things are determined, what traits are determined by age progression and what traits are kind of born in and culturally stuck. And I'm sure there's a 2x2 somewhere that enlightens all of this that would have saved everybody a few minutes of listening to us. But now we'll have to see if we can find it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's that and then there's different theories of personality. And the one I tend to ascribe to the most and I use is that people are born with certain traits. And you see those in DISC, Myers-Briggs. People have latched on to this idea and Certain tools will help you understand who's going to have initiative and who wants to be a great team player, who wants rules and constraints and who wants to live in a creative space. Creative space, by the way.

Do you use that in your hiring and management process? Yeah.

Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. So, I basically, when I go to hire people, I'm looking at kind of a Venn diagram of 3 different things. So, one is just how you're wired and there's no right or wrong wiring. Just the idea that I use is that, you know, different roles require different natural personality traits. Like, you've met that person who's just born to be a, uh, an accountant, right? By the way, worst, worst accountant ever. Hate— I'm pointing at myself. I hate rules, I got a terrible memory, like, and I get bored with repetitive stuff. Like, that's just worst job for me possible. Um, and, uh, so like, you know, you, you can have these personality traits that are innate and kind of define what you're meant to do, right? And you see that like on Twitter, for example, you'll see the operators really acting very differently than the allocators. Like it's a very, it's a very clear segregation to me. Also, you know, for me, I'm mostly on the operator side, so the allocators get bored by me talking about hiring processes and stuff. But so there's that bucket. Then there's like the value stuff, including like your level of grit. So I want to check on that and I spend a lot of time there. And then the third bucket is like What is your just raw level of intelligence? And that's just, you know, general, general mental ability. Like, how well can you quickly process information and not have to have me explain it to you 5 different times? Because I'm really bad at that also. So like, I want— I want people to gel with me and I get bored if I have to explain. Yeah, I have to explain 3 to 5 times.

How do you assess grit?

Grit is best done through a combination of 2 things, in my opinion. So one is in your hiring process and before that in the track record of people. So track record is the best predictor of future kind of performance. So if you can show me how you've demonstrated grit in the past, I can be pretty highly, you know, highly believing that you're going to have grit in the future. So for example, like I just did another round of associates to come work with me and like I interviewed one guy and he was like super smart, like, seemed like somebody I want to work with, great personality type, great skill set. Um, but then when I kind of looked at what he did, like, there wasn't a lot of, like, get 'er done. Like, you know, seeing and going through adversity and then how you react to that, like, that's the best demonstration of grit. And like, like, the people that have grit, like, you can see them doing it year after year, all the way back to probably high school, right? Like, like, if you ask me to demonstrate grit for you, like, I can tell you stories from high school of how I demonstrated grit, and then, like, that's continued on. So that's the way to do it. And that's why, you know, I really spend very little time in interviews hearing from people what they tell me they were going to do. I'm more interested in what they did in the past and then now how they think about it, because that's unarguable. Whereas like, we all know those people that can come in and totally bullshit you with like, oh yeah, here's what I'm going to do and I'm going to do this, and they never do it. Um, I'm very uninterested in, in all that kind of stuff. But that grid is your track record, number one. Number 2, your process can help kind of bring out grit. Like, you know, how do you react to it? And that's just like a very minor thing. But like, if you're not willing to do any work to like dig into my job or like learn about what's going on or learn about me, like you may not have the grit for this role. Like, that's so that's like 10% of it. 90% is just— if you're interested, I have a whole video on this that I recorded.

You should put it in the show notes.

It's all It's all— you can go to girdley.com/hiring. It's all on my website. So part of my, my strategy of not to charge for anything, which may be a huge mistake. So, so I did want to talk to you about like you've made the transition from like working in a like for a great company and then now like it appears your job and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it appears your job is curating and producing great content. Is that accurate at this point? You describe yourself as an information dealer, which Look, I, by the way, I've been trying to talk my kids into, like, I helped them start a business where they deliver cookies to our neighbors and it was a SaaS business, cookies as a service. And I was like, okay, son, here's what you need to do. Write down the name of your business is Drew the Cookie Dealer and go with these flyers around and stuff. He's like, no, I'm not doing that. I was like, okay, son, put a picture of yourself on the flyer. No, I'm not doing that. I was like, okay, well, someday you'll work out your branding, but maybe not today. But anyway, I wanted him to be Drew the Cookie Dealer and he was like, no.

Anyway, but he's, but he's, uh, he's slinging cookies, which is most of the battle, and he'll get into optimization, you know.

We made it about 3 weeks. We made it 3.

Oh, that's all right, he'll come back around. Maybe it's a seasonal business.

Well, uh, I mean, that's— I'm just— he's 12. Like, I'm just like, okay, like, if you're happy and healthy and passing your classes and you have friends and you're exploring stuff like this, like, I'm, I'm way— I'm way over any sort of aspirational like putting that stuff on my kids. Like, forget that. Like, I see that from people on Twitter and I'm like, oof, that's a parenting mistake right there just waiting to happen. For every Serena Williams that pops out the other side, you have thousands of kids who hate their parents for wanting the kids to live the life the parents were in themselves.

More importantly, anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say some of the best cookies I've ever had in my life were from like kid businesses. So I fully support the local cookie dealer franchise.

Do you want to know what the secret is? It's the same. It's the same secret that makes steakhouse steaks really good.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's it. The Anthony Bourdain secret. Yeah. My son is like, all right, he's in. He's in there with my wife. He's making the chocolate chip cookies and, and he goes, okay, so this recipe requires a half a stick of butter. And me and my wife were like, up, up, up. Make it 2. Make it 2. Make it 2. We will be back.

You trying to get him hooked or not? Anyway, sorry.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we're, if we're gonna be, if we're gonna be dealing here, you gotta be really dealing, Drew, not messing around. So you've made this, have you? So am I, am I right? Is that what, is that your job? That's your, yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's, so I spent 10 years at a, at a startup displaying grit and we, we recently sold that. Like beginning of 2021. And so, I'm kind of like, I think of myself a little bit as entrepreneur between companies at the moment, but I had published the Almanac of Naval and that has gone over really well and I learned a ton of stuff doing it and I really enjoyed it. And, the opportunity kind of arose to do that again with the Almanac of Biology. And so, I'm working on that and at the same time just kind of processing A podcast, as you know, is a wonderful excuse to have conversations with people that you admire and learn from. So, I spun up a podcast this past summer and I'm really enjoying that and just writing more and sharing a little more. So, yeah, it's kind of a self-education sabbatical in which I actually produce a ton of stuff and share everything that I can. It's a mechanism for learning and meeting people. Hopefully, publish another book this year, maybe early next year. But those are also— I've gotten wonderful feedback on the first one. It's been very— a ton of motivation to kind of keep going and keep producing similar things and hopefully similar results for people who read it.

So, is the next book the Baumanac or—

The next one is the Baumanac.

You're working on after that.

We're kind of— we're somewhere in the middle of that one. At the moment.

Yeah. Are you going to do one for Marc Andreessen? That seems like—

I would like to. I like Andreessen a lot. I would really like to do Elon Musk as well. I think it's kind of a— I'm a little bit intuiting my way, kind of person to person, but there's all these kind of criteria that go into it. But really, all of these people that are at the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship and investing and unique sort of perspectives and mindsets, right, are really sort of attractive to me. And I learn a lot from when they kind of synthesize all these things and apply them. Like, that really speaks to me for whatever reason.

Yeah. So, I mean, it does seem like— so Naval, you're talking about Naval Ravikant, and then, and then I'll totally—

Srinivasan, Balaji Srinivasan.

Yeah, Balaji from Srinivasan. Yeah.

As close as I can get, at least. Yeah.

Hi. Hi. I'm a dumbass American. Well, I mean, my first job was in engineering, so I was working with all kinds of Shrikants and Srinivasans and Padadas. Like, I got good at butchering those names, but it's good. So, I mean, it's interesting because I think Naval, who is like one of the best communicators on the planet, like he's just like, you know, he mostly is ideas and concepts that he has taken by and large from reading philosophy, other people. And then he comes across and it just has this amazing ability to write stuff in such a clear, crisp manner. But I kind of mostly put him in this, um, I don't mean to be insulting, but he's mostly a curator. Like, you, you've taken and curated a lot of what he's curated and articulated very well, and then, and then making that into a book, you know. Bajali, like, seems to be much more the original thought guy. And it's also much more timely, right? Whereas Naval's stuff is timeless. So anyway, I'll be totally frank with you. I haven't read the Dvomit Act mostly because I've read all his tweets and stuff. So please don't be insulted.

No, no, no, not at all. I'm very aware. I'm very conscious of the fact that as soon as you write a book, it's kind of like this implicit reading assignment to everyone who you've ever met. And I'm very awkward about that. You have no obligation to read a book just because I wrote one. If it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve you. I don't care.

So, I mean, just the Bajali stuff seems like much more a harder thing to make a great timeless book out of, which I think the Nirmalanak, his stuff is timeless because there's very little kind of timely stuff that he talks about. So, I don't know. How do you think about that challenge or do you just have a—

No. I mean, Naval is an extremely gifted distiller and he focuses much more on principles and to your point, timeless stuff. Balaji has a lot more kind of takes on contemporary things. But there are plenty of principles in there, I think. So it's a little more timely, but I still think that there's a lot of— to your point, he's a very unique thinker. I think in part because he's so— so much of like the OS of his brain is math. And there are those people, but there's a lot less of those people than there are sort of like language people and memetics people. And, you know, so his— You see it even the way he talks. He talks in mathematical frameworks. And so I think there's a lot of the work curating that book and creating it has been just having to sift harder for the principles through a lot of the stuff that was contemporary and the sort of take of the day sort of things and finding those principles because he is a very unique thinker. And I think the principles that he's got produce really reliably unique things. You said something else in there I think that is worth coming back to if you want to talk about curating versus creating. I think you said Naval is more of a curator than Balaji.

Yeah, that's been my impression following them both on Twitter and other media. Naval seems like he's 90/10 curate versus create, and then Mitali feels like the other end of the spectrum. Like mostly an original thinker, um, in terms of stuff. And they both have their gene— and it's just a different genius, let me put it that way. So no, I think I—

my probably not so hot take is that, uh, the spectrum of creation to curation is much smaller than people think it is. Um, like, there's so many, uh, like tropes and quotes through the whole, like, world of all of the various arts of, you know, great artists steal, um there's no original thoughts. Everything is framed— there's almost all great artists, when you study their process, is actually a process of curation and sampling and synthesis of new ideas. Some people are more clear about what that is or more obvious or more outspoken about it. Some people cite their sources much more readily, but there's very little true original creation, I think, in the world. And, The story that you tell about the creation, it moves it a few points between— moves the perception a few points between creation and curation. But if you really sit down and try to pure blank sheet of paper, I think Brian Wilson was the guy who just locked himself in a black room for some months or years trying to create something truly original by removing all outside sources. And I don't think that went particularly well.

Or did you say Brian Wilson?

I think so.

Brian Wilson.

Maybe I'm getting this— him mixed up with somebody else, but I think that was like—

he was definitely a testament to the fact of how many people's genius is compensated by the fact they're batshit crazy, unfortunately, like, or extremely odd.

Sorry.

Oh, there. Did I just injure myself? I totally cursed.

Now I believe you.

Actually, my business— actually, my business coach, it was a few years ago. You know, one of the things I do every year, I have a 360, and he goes and talks people I work with. And like the very first year, people are like, yeah, Michael, people say you curse too much. And so I've been working on it a ton since then. So I'm very, very selective about F-bombs and S-bombs.

I, I— that was a strongly held opinion of mine until I spent— started spending more time around kids and finding that I wasn't actually like aware enough of it to be conscious of it around kids and my friend's kids and people's kids. And I was like, well, that's really actually not a good habit. I need to control that, or at least be more selective about it. So I'm working on that.

There's an awesome corner of TikTok, which is basically like small kids cursing. It's like my favorite. Like I'll sit there for hours and watch videos of like 3-year-olds being like, goddammit. Like they'll just like, they'll be cleaning up the room and just walking around screaming, goddammit, shit, goddammit. Like little 3-year-olds. It's the cutest thing. This is super cute.

I feel like karma will deliver that unto me. I'm sure. Yeah.

God damn it. Just like— but they don't mean it. There's no emotion in it. They're just—

yeah, just parroting it.

Yeah, that's what we're doing. So anyway, your point is, before I got you off topic with my random anecdotes, like, like this whole— that's a false dichotomy is what you're saying. Like, there's just like so much more of creating is synthesizing existing ideas and maybe slightly incremental improvements or differences rather than you know, the, the world of kind of breakthrough original ideas, thoughts, technologies, like it's much smaller than most people think. It's—

yeah. And I feel like for me that was a liberating observation too. Like creating is a very intimidating thing and curating is, is not. Um, like anybody should feel empowered to curate or, you know, make a Pinterest board of stuff that they like. And then this first small step of curation is kind of like, oh, I like all "Hey, I have these 3 ideas, but let me put them together in a new thing right next to it. And now, there's 4 things." And did you curate that or create it? Did you just take inspiration? Did you repurpose? All of that is true. And then, the story that you want to tell about the thing that you produced, if you want to run around and tell everyone, "I'm so original. This is an original piece of art," you can do that and that's totally reasonable and fair and actually maybe correct. Or if you said, "Hey, I combined these 3 things and made this new thing," or "I was inspired by these and made this slight variation," all of those are true. It's just different stories. And so, I don't even feel good saying I wrote this book because I don't write these books. They feel like mosaics of writing that other people have done. But I also know that there is value in the final product and value to me in going through the process. And whether you want to call it curation or writing or creation or just assembly, I don't care particularly. And it's shown me how similar it would be actually if I went about creating an original book. My process isn't that different. It's still collecting sources, learning what you can, and then putting it down. And there's plenty of times when I'm like, "Damn, I wish I could rewrite this thing in my own words and make it more clear or change how it's communicated." But the parameters of the project are the parameters of the project. Go about that. But yeah, that, that is not as wide of a gulf as people think, and, um, it is much less intimidating to curate than create. So start curating, and you may just find yourself creating if that's something you aspire to do.

I mean, I think it's telling also, like, the more I write stuff, and like, I have a strong predilection to wanting to bring things to environments that are novel. Like, I just— and that's— and I hear you talk about, I'm like, well, why do I feel that way? Like, is that What, what about me? You know, and I think the largest end of the spectrum of this is like the Twitter thread people who are like the paraphrase Wikipedia guys. Um, and it's always guys, like, no women do this for some reason. So that's why I say guys, like, everybody self-identifies as a male that does the, the curate, you know, curate Wikipedia and rewrite it in Twitter, which goes viral, people love it. But, um, like, like, I've always been reluctant to do that, but then sometimes I'll go back and look at stuff that I thought was truly like novel, and people are like, oh yeah, like here's these 17 other things, like it's, it's been done, and by the way, they all copied that, right? And like, um, like people love Tony Robbins, for example. I don't know how you are with self-help gurus, but like I read an article once and they're like, oh yeah, he just copied this book from like 1993, he just rewrote it in his own words and made it better. Um, and there's like, I, now that you talk about it, I'm like, oh, like that is a process of creation, like like repackaging something so it's consumable and relevant to new people, like that is a valid, like honorable creative exercise.

And it benefits you to do it. Um, you know, once something— David Perel has a great, um, writing school and talks about writing process a lot. He came on my podcast and I remember a line that he delivered on this was, uh, there is no such thing as originality, there's only obscure sources. Um, and I thought that was a hopeful and interesting thing. And actually, it's funny, I was listening to a podcast between Balaji and Mark Andreessen yesterday doing research and working on the book. And Balaji was like, "There's this amazing book. It's so unique. It prophesizes all these things. It's called The Sovereign Individual. And there's nothing like it. These guys predict all this other stuff." And Andreesen's like, "Did you know that book was ripped off from an earlier book that was written by this really obscure guy called The Twilight of Sovereignty?" And Balaji was like, "No, I've never heard of that." And he's like— It's just like turtles all the way down sometimes.

That's amazing. So, I mean, uh, so this will be the most Girdley moment of the podcast, maybe besides me, uh, taking credit for cursing. Um, the, uh, so it seems like there's a franchise you can build around this, this Menak thing. Like, like, I mean, we just off the top of our head, we just named 4 other people we'd be like, oh, this would be the most amazing thing, you know. And you look at like Charlie Munger from Berkshire, like Everybody, that Almanac of Charlie Munger, how many people do you know own that book? It's super popular. And I don't know how many of Almanacs you've sold. Hopefully a lot. But can you build a franchise around this and have your own? I mean, it seems like there's 15 people you could do this with that would—

Yeah. I mean, I kind of intend to keep going until it's obvious to me that I should stop. I'd rather be like Seinfeld than The Simpsons in my ethos. But I do see a lot of value in these. And frankly, I find it a pretty energizing thing. It is an amazing educational process for me to go through to spend 2 years deep diving on somebody as brilliant as Naval or Balaji or Elon. And I just build this deep mental model of this person and marinate in their ideas for so long, become conversant in them and fold them into my own in probably some incredibly borderline plagiarism ways where I just take their principles and infuse them, which is what I did with Charlie in my early 20s. The reason that I'm doing this is that Poor Charlie's Almanac was one of the most formative books in my life. I love it deeply. I have multiple copies of it. I've read it cover to cover multiple times. And I saw that format, the benefit of that format and the lessons that I had gotten from Naval And I really received some incredibly heartwarming feedback on the book. And there's kind of no reason not to keep going with this as long as I feel like it's useful for other people and productive for me and continues to be fun, rock on.

Economically, I know you had to ask, you emailed Naval asking for permission. Did you have to get a license from him to use any of the stuff or is it free?

A half-assed joke pun and he was like, "Sure, I'm happy to give you whatever you want." So, it was not as well thought out of a plan as you are giving it credit for as much as I would like to claim that it is. He actually— he wanted it to be— he had basically two rules. One, he's like, "I want it to be very clear that I'm not earning money from this book because it would be hypocritical of me given some of the information that's in there." And second, that all of the digital copies digital version to be made available for free. So, all EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and it's all posted on navalmanac.com. And it has reached millions of people now thanks to that. So, those were kind of his parameters. And he's like, "If you still want to do this under that guideline, rock on, happy to help." And I said, "Great. That totally fits." So, yeah, that was kind of our agreement going forward. And, he gave me a lot of creative freedom in how we proceed it there.

So, in writing these books, do you actually go and spend any time with those people or it's totally secondhand information?

Naval was all pre-existing publicly available content. The only exception was an export of his Twitter history just because Twitter doesn't make it the full thing public. Biology, I would really like to include a part of the process. And I would have loved to have done this with Naval too actually in retrospect where I have a relatively completed manuscript, but I have plenty of holes and questions that I still have that I get to go ask him and then include that in the book. So, there's a little more of an iteration. So, that is something that I hope we get to include in this next go-round because I think it'll smooth some things out and just reduce the number of questions that readers are left with.

Yeah. Do you think there is— and does it appeal to you to like start to build a team to do more of these faster? Like, I literally— I mean, the second most curdly thing besides cursing, uh, in the thing. But like, like, if you came out with like your own version of like the Taleb's inserto, you know, where it's like— and by the way, don't call it some stupid Latin thing like that, it's just so bougie. But anyway, but like your own version of that where it's like, here's here are the 20 greatest minds of the 20th to 21st century, and you curate that and had them all at this place.

I'm really hoping that it's pronounced in certo, not inserto. But now that you say that, I've never heard him say it, so I'm not actually sure.

I don't know. I'm blocked by him. If you question anything he says, he blocks you. So I don't know. I mean, look, I mean, okay, so here's one. I'm also— I don't really mind because the, the thing that frustrates me more than anything are people who are either a) smart or claim to be smart and are so disrespectful to their audience that they either through lack of effort or intentionally create obfuscated language so it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying unless you give them a ton of your time to sit there and parse it. And there are people like him who do that, who are just like, I'm going to use language as a weapon and I am going to create sentences so complex that you can't read them without sitting down for hours and parsing them. Like, I think it is one of the most insulting things you can do as an author. I think, I think that is just— that's, that's a core value of mine. And he's, he's welcome to go this direction if you want to, but if you are so lazy you can't take an extra 10 minutes to write something so people can understand it, like, I'm fine with writing you off. Like, I don't—

I don't need you in my life. It's a real bummer that that applies more directly to the entire academic establishment even than most authors. Same thing. Yeah, most, most of the papers written.

Yeah, it's because they're using— they're using it as a weapon, right? And that's, that's like the most insulting thing. I think that's hugely insulting, right? They're using it as a weapon to build a moat around what they do so that mere mortals can't look in and be like, oh, like, you just found the— your study just found that if people eat 200 more calories per day, they get fat? Is that what you're saying? Yes, that's what the study is like. Come on. It's just so—

I do too. The more generous interpretation may be like that is the incentives of the system that they're in of they have to make it look really hard and complicated and try to make it sound fancy to get into the journals, which is the prestige award that they're in, which is a bummer because a bunch of our tax dollars went to pay for a thing that's inaccessible to us that a bunch of journals are making money on that we're not able to access the insights from. Um, you know, we're probably not going to solve that in this podcast, I suppose.

It is— I mean, it's, it's part of that category of problems that like are so— is so easy to fix, right? So you're talking about like, you know, science journals are so expensive. There's also like other stuff that's really stupid, like, um, you can't have prediction markets because they're considered gambling. Like, there's just stuff like that where you're just like, oh, this is so dumb. And, um You know, it does make me excited about like the blockchain technology and stuff like that because like blockchain is a great way for us to start to put all those papers in a way that no government or no copyright rules can start to hurt you.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, that does make some of that very novel though. It happens to break copyright rules in America, which—

Balaji has some good takes on this that I like. I don't want this— I don't think it'll become a crypto book. Um, but it's almost impossible to like collect all Balaji's best ideas without having some blockchain stuff in there. So, uh, he, he's got some really clear, interesting visions about Yeah, the ledger of record and a decentralized scientific database. And I'm excited to kind of hopefully share those in a way that, to your point, is accessible to everyone and gives us kind of a shared vision of like what we can swim towards.

Yeah, I think it's amazing. Well, the cool thing about that is like somebody just needs to start it, right? And just be like, okay, here's the blockchain for this, start uploading whatever you want.

And, you know, here's—

that's my second business, second, second business idea in the first 54 minutes of the podcast.

Sci-Hub is, is, uh, something I just learned about that is like kind of— it is not blockchain-based yet, but it's the, like, at least this ethos. Um, and there's a bunch of papers on there that people have posted. It's pretty interesting.

Yeah, do they— I need to check what that is. Do they have like an economy around?

I, I think that is, uh, what they are pitching. I think it's a little more of a, like, pirate, uh, Pirate's Bay.

It's Pirate Bay for papers.

I'm not sure, I haven't dug in.

I mean, I think I think even if you look at— and what I was asking is, even if you look at Wikipedia, even though it's really— it's ostensibly free and they don't pay people, they do have an economy of incentives, right? Because people really want to be one of those trusted editors. So like people are working their way up and like paying their dues, and then there's— so there's an economy of social incentives there. So that's why I was asking, like, you got to— you have to have some sort of theoretical incentivization for people to want to do that. Otherwise, like, you end up just with— yep.

But anyway, to answer your question, I could totally see marshaling a few more resources to produce these at, at like slightly higher, uh, volume and scale that isn't purely locked by my time. Um, and there are some things that I could probably do to get, uh, to do a few of them faster or in, in more sequence. Um, and something I'm definitely interested in.

I would definitely love— yeah, Andriessen, Musk. At some point we should name somebody who's not a white male. Well, I guess the first two were Indian Americans, but somebody who's not a male. There's some interesting—

I mean, there's a ton. Like, I mean, Gwynne Shotwell is the president of SpaceX, is kind of like functionally the COO of that whole organization, is really interesting. Claire Hughes Johnson at Stripe would be a really interesting— like, these are much more operators than kind of like figureheads, but I think they have a ton of really interesting stuff to say. I think both Vitalik and Paul Graham would be interesting, but are not— like, they are such prolific essayists that it's a little weird. Like, I don't want to compile a book of pre-existing essays, but I have a huge, huge respect for Vitalik in particular as like a thinker and intellectually honest sort of like benevolent polymath with a long, broad, very positive view on humanity. So his stuff is amazing.

Thiel would be interesting. I mean, to some extent, he's very good at producing on his own.

Well, Blake Masters functionally wrote Zero to One for him based on a series of lectures that Thiel gave at Stanford, which was kind of one of the seeds that was planted in my head when I was thinking about this project. Just knowing, to our point earlier, there's a lot of value to be created by transforming mediums. and synthesis and curation.

It'd be cool if there was some way to figure out some of the people who have to be like more political while they're alive. Um, you know, like some of the public company CEOs would be really interesting, you know, like not exactly Diller, but like a Barry Diller type. Like some of those guys are, they're, they're playing, you know, they're, they're playing some kind of—

when I, when I hang at Omaha, there's quite a few people, um very smart investors who are like, man, there's 100 books on Buffett and like zero on Singleton, or like this whole array of really smart sort of that are also in the Mount Rushmore of investing, but they're just not Buffett. Um, but you know, Soros, Singleton, who are some of those?

Is he— Jane, at least for the 4 sentences I heard that guy say at the Berkshire Hathaway thing, I was like, why isn't this guy up in the next guy? Um, and I know it's because he's 70, whatever, but like, that guy was really impressive with his answers when he's like, oh, well, here's how we screwed up in insurance and here's what we're doing to fix it. Hallelujah! Like, that's the greatest answer I've ever heard, man. Yeah, I think you got— and then, and then I think there's like the cool part you can take. This is like, there's all this ancillary stuff. Like, for everybody that wants to buy the book, there's definitely like, like the course that you can build with it and the community you can build around this. Like, the Manac community. Like, I don't know, I think you'd get rich on this.

I appreciate it. It'd be quite something to get rich giving away books. That'd be a fun way to do it. I like that. Oh man.

Well, I mean, you were able— nobody gets rich publishing books except for Stephen King and that lady who writes the books with Fabio on the COVID Danielle Steele.

J.K. Rowling pretty much pulled it off. Stephen King, James Patterson.

Well, people—

James Clear, another book. I was like, yeah, Morgan Housel does pretty well.

Yeah, Morgan Housel does pretty well. I mean, but you look at it and they sell a million books. Like, you— it's really good if you do a million books, but like, you're taking home $3, $4 a book. I don't know what the ratios are anymore. When I wrote a book, I was getting like 50 cents per book. Book. And I guess that was back in '19.

It's not great. And with a publisher, it's even worse. But I don't understand why anyone is using a publisher these days. I've been approached by a few now. It's the worst pitch I've ever heard in my life. It's like a complete absence of value props.

So, when does the Bajaj—

I don't have a specific date. I'm pushing hard for it to be this year, like end of 2022. I don't know if we'll make that. Something that I learned the last time around, I didn't have a deadline and that was very much to the book's quality. Like, I just took a very sort of craftsmanship mindset of like, this will take the time it takes and it just can't go until it's perfect because books are just bizarre, especially in a digital world, in that they are just uneditable functionally like once it's out there. So you got to really sand and polish for a long time. And cross the Rubicon once. So, I would desperately like to get it out this year, but if it doesn't happen, it'll be because there was more sanding and polishing to do and it just matters more to have it be great than to have it in the market 2 months sooner.

Are you working with a professional editor?

Yeah. So, there's an interesting sort of— I have like a professional self-publisher I think is kind of like the best way to articulate it. So I have a— I use copy editors and professional designers and page layout and all of that stuff. I don't have like a— I don't know, there's different kinds of editor, which I didn't really realize, but there's like, you know, line copy and proofreading and then like structure editors and like you can really layer on the editors if you feel like it. And I definitely do towards the end, but I tend to do most of the structure editing and stuff myself early on.

Yeah. So are you, do you use like one of the scribes?

I use, yeah, I use Scribe Media. They've been also awesome to work with.

Okay.

Uh, I, I, yeah, huge respect. I will be a return customer of theirs for, for a while.

Yeah. For, for those of you listening, this is like a, a self-publishing house where they like bring you an editor and then they give you a whole like playbook to run to promote it. And you know, they They tell you to email all your friends and ask them to rate you on Amazon, all that stuff.

You basically show up with a Google Doc and they turn it into a professionally published book, which is awesome.

That's so cool.

And you pay a pile of money up front, but then you own your copyright and you own all your royalties, which is, in my opinion, the way to do it.

Do you think I could send them all my tweets and how many chapters would be about chilies?

You probably have to pay some sort of editing, massive editing premium.

Did you see the meme that was being sent around today about every old guy at Chili's? It's like, oh, they'll let anybody in here. So many people said that to me yesterday. I looked at it, I was like, oh, nice shoes. The guys were wearing like New Balance, like dads.

They got you pegged, man.

Yeah. I'm fine with it. I mean, it— you haven't asked, but like, my, my love for Chili's is actually bigger than just, you know, margaritas and sizzler plates. Yeah, bottomless, uh, bottomless sizzling plates. It's more of a love for— it's more of a love for flyover America and the beauty for me that is found in the uniformity that has come out of, you know, a byproduct of our capitalist system and just how I feel like, yeah, there's beauty if you're in Brooklyn canning your own okra, like, great, like, that's fine. And you want to listen to vinyl records, that's cool. There is something beautiful about the fact you can exit any interstate in America and get basically a uniform meal that's not going to kill you, and you're going to be able to get back on the road and move on. Like, like, there's beauty to that for me. And the fact that the coastal people don't see that, it, it's why I like Chili's. It's like, ah, you guys are just missing out.

Do you feel the same about every manifestation of that idea, like McDonald's and Subway too, or is there something unique about Chili's?

I think I definitely have more of an emotional connection to Chili's just because of the way it has become an integral part of my social media persona. And I do think it's better. I mean, it beats the crap out of Ben Jerry's and TGI Fridays and Ruby Tuesday. I mean, easy peasy. They're the best—

Would you be able to pass a blind taste test with the same dish from each of those 4 places Um, or is it the atmosphere?

Probably not. No, no, I'm probably not.

But I respect the dedication to a brand. Look, I get it. This is—

yeah, yeah, it's just like, why, why would I go— why would I go back?

This is exactly my definition, my explanation for my sandwich love. Like, it's just— has become a thing.

Yeah, there you go. Somebody took— actually, I, I tweeted that, uh, Olive Garden was the Mordor of food. And, uh, somebody took that and made it into one of those like demotivation posters, you know? So like they sent it to me, they're like, hey, check this out. I was like, yeah, Olive Garden is the Mordor of food.

Olive Garden is an amazing target on social media. I appreciate all Olive Garden heckling that goes on. And dude, those commercials get me though. Like probably once, uh, it used to be like once a year I'd like see like slow motion pasta and just like garlic bread falling from the in the sky and I'd be like, "Oh my God, I need to go to Olive Garden. Look at that lasagna." And then, you go and you're like, "Yeah, I'm literally eating plastic. This is terrible. Plastic covered in soybean oil. I have to get out of here." But, I had to learn that lesson a few times.

I have some good Olive Garden memories. My grandmother used to take me.

It smells so good in there.

Smells good and they would have those chairs on the carpet that all had wheels on the bottom so roll your fat butt up and eat as many breadsticks and nasty salad as you could shove.

Yeah, it's great. It's great parmesan there for sure. And they just appreciate the power of a good carb.

I don't know if they still do it, but when I went there as a kid, they would— they had this whole like Potemkin village set up of a, of a pasta making operation where they would pretend to make pasta in the front And I was like, this is, you know, it's like, oh, look, they're making the pasta here and it's frozen in the back of some factory.

And who are you fooling here?

There's just no way. But it was just like, it was just cool. So, um, yeah. Anywho, uh, all right. Any other topics? We wrote down some topics. I wanna make sure if there's anything you wanna really talk about. Um, but you've been so generous with your time. So, um, anything else comes to mind?

I mean, it's your podcast, dude. Whatever, whatever you want to get into. Um, I have infinite time for you and plenty of more questions for you that I'm just curious about also if you want to indulge any of those.

All right. Let's do one.

I want to know, you are a man who does a ton of— you're on boards, 9 companies you started. I am just always curious how people who are accomplishing so much in so many different directions organize their life and maybe in particular their information. How does it all sort of like come to you and how do you manage all of these different areas?

Yeah, well, so, you know, every project or every kind of like active ownership position gets a customized like both API and engagement model for me. So this is very much like I grew up, I grew up in a, in the area of like maximum object-oriented programming. So like a Java programmer. So I see everything as like, I see everything from my programming days is like an object and objects define how they're going to interact with the world. And they have documentation and say how that's going to work. And there's a, there's a set way it comes in. And so, you know, whenever I'm working with something, say I'm on, you know, majority owner of a business or minority owner of a business, I have an engagement model with them and I will set that up based on what the company actually needs. And generally the rule of thumb is like I'm trying to always maximize my time and availability for that stuff. So like I'm not taking full-time roles or even part-time roles in the company. Companies. It turns out being on boards and being a coach and being supportive and being there when they have big problems, that doesn't take as much time as like running a whole business, right? Um, so yeah, so it basically comes down to that. It's like, how do I continually create the most leverage by— and, and realize that my only real finite resource at this point is time, followed by money, and like try to minimize that all the time. But you know, when I get involved in different companies, like, they all have a set API, I have an engagement model, there's one-on-ones with CEOs.

Will you like define those? So does API mean like a specific data feed that manifests as a dashboard to you and as an engagement model, like a pre-agreed set of ways of interaction or communication or how much time you'll spend with them? Will you walk us through that?

Yeah. So the undercurrent, for example, is always, "Hey, if you need me, I'm here for you. I'm available." So that's part of the deal. But like, so we'll set out a, okay, you know, at an, at an, on an annual basis, there will be at least one, one meeting where we're going to be approving your plan for the next year. There are quarterly, monthly, or bimonthly board meetings, and those have a set format depending upon the state of the business. And then typically I will add to that a, a regular cadence of, say, once a month or once a week or once every two weeks. I'm getting together with the CEO personally, and that could be just a phone call where we talk or we go to lunch or we get coffee or whatever. And so for some companies that's happening every week, for some companies having once a month, some companies it happens every 2 weeks. And so we'll sit down and do a mutual agreement upon what the state of the company is and what it needs and then execute on that. And then, you know, I try to standardize that stuff as much as I can where it makes sense, especially where written or like dashboard type stuff comes in. So for example, like Everybody uses like the same board template and it's all actually based off the same kind of business operating framework called EOS, and everybody uses the same hiring methodology. I like that. So that's— there's a level of standardization there that makes it easier for me to interface. But that API has a cadence of meetings and then document formats, and then sometimes I'll go beyond that. So there's like a couple of companies where cash flow is so paramount, like I look at their bank statements every month, like I go through and I just look at it and make sure, you know, it's, it's my money after all. Like, I wanna make sure it's going the right way.

Interesting.

So yeah, how many of these do you do in parallel? I feel like, uh, right now it's 9 going on 10.

How, how full?

Yeah.

Is your calendar with like prearranged, like how, how full does your calendar end up after 10 of these running in parallel?

Uh, that's about 10 hours a week of stuff, maybe 12. Yeah. So generally a typical calendar for me will be like 10 to 12 hours of like background supervision and helping things. Then there's another kind of third of my time is spent doing like new initiatives, like new projects I'm working on. So those can be personal goals or getting involved in doing another deal or starting another company or whatever. And then the last third is hopefully like free time where I can like record podcasts or like write tweets or eat chilies. So that— so, you know, if I'm doing something and every single minute of the day is booked up with meetings or that kind of stuff, like I'm varying too much kind of off that because I want to have thinking time and rest and relaxation.

One more. Where, how do you like actually interact with the APIs that these companies are sending you? Like, do you, I mean, do you're using a dashboard, like some sort of?

Yeah, so there's a couple different ways. Email is, I'm Gen X, so I love email. It's great. Email me anytime. Um, yeah, that's why people— you see those people with like 30,000 unread messages? Like, I'm like, what is wrong with you? Like, how do you possibly do that? No, Gen Xers don't do that. Like, it's so weird to me. So weird. Um, yeah, I'm like, like, I'll have inbox zero all the time and people are like, I could never have inbox zero. I'm like, you just need to try harder. That's all that comes out to anyway. Um, email. Um, and then a couple of companies, for example, say with metrics or individual kind of business planning, like they use some of the software products for EOS. Like you can do an online SaaS version of that. So it has everything from like your strategic plan, your dashboard, your quarterly goals and that sort of stuff. So a lot of that stuff is online and like I can just go log in there and be like, okay, what's really important to them? Or what did the team meeting look like this week? Like it's all kind of there.

Cool. Very cool. Okay. Thank you for indulging me.

Yeah, look, maybe this is a great opportunity. You can invite me to be on your podcast.

I'll do it.

Like, I'm available. I'm not begging, but I'm close. Could that— whatever.

Tip for tip podcast rule. Let's do this.

Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, um, so people could support you how? Like, uh, buy the Nivôlmanac. I know you have a course, you have a newsletter. What's the best stuff?

Absolutely everything comes out from ejorgensen.com. So, if you are there and subscribed, you'll get podcasts, you'll get blog posts. The link to the book is there and the course is there. The newest and perhaps most exciting at the moment to me is we just started a rolling fund. So, we're investing in early-stage tech companies with this kind of new vehicle type that AngelList has put together that's really interesting. And so, that's been a lot of fun. Spending so much time thinking about the technology and opportunities of tomorrow. That is a very fun mental and economic exercise for me. It's been wonderful so far.

So you guys are investing $2.5 million a year. There's 3 partners, right?

Yup. There's 3 partners. We'll cap the first year at $2.5 million. We're about $1 million raised so far. We're only 2 months in. It's kind of coming in.

Um, and then the economic model is you take 20% carry, and then who's doing all the work?

I'm doing most of the work. Yeah. Uh, I mean, all, all the partners are like sourcing deals and evaluating deals. Um, and we all help the portfolio companies. Um, but yeah, it is a— it's wonderful because we all have very different networks and slightly different experience and strengths. Uh, but I think the same vision and same ethos. So, it's great to get together and jam on these companies together. And we've invested in some very cool stuff so far that we hope we can help be a small part of how they can change the world for the better and get some new technology distributed.

Yeah, that's awesome. At some point, we could talk about my journey through venture. I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I am certain that I have much to learn from it. We'll do that on the podcast. How's that?

Yeah, that sounds great. Well, I mean, the TL, the TL;DR is like, I learned through that process that I really enjoy being much more the man in the arena or closer to them. And just being on that end of kind of the passive VC spectrum, like, it just, it's fun. It's just not rewarding. Yeah.

It's, um, I wonder if that, I empathize with that deeply. Um, and I don't ever expect to be a full-time venture capitalist, the vehicle, the rolling fund vehicle is really interesting because it lets you sort of scale up like personal angel investing without— you don't need the full staff. You don't have to raise $50 million at a time. You can just say, "We'll take $1 or $2 or $5 million a year and we'll write $50K or $100K checks instead of $5K or $10K checks and scale that up." without a ton of overhead, which is really nice. So, I think it'll kind of be a part of my life forever, but we're not setting out to build the next Sequoia. And I think by staying small and still thinking unique and farther out than most mainstream, we'll still do okay. But who knows? We're babies and you don't know if you're really good at this for 10 years. So, I can see you biting your lip. So, I'm sure this sounds familiar to you.

Oh, no. My lips are getting dry. That's not an emotional thing. My lips are getting dry. After the podcast, I'm going to put some on.

Girdley's just like nodding indulgently.

I didn't want to do it during the thing. You'd be like, ah, that Girdley's so weird. We need a chapstick break. Podcast. Just odd. At some point. All right, man. Well, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. I can see why we get along well in the virtual world. And I look forward to seeing you at Capital Camp in a couple of months.