The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

August 11, 2022August 15, 2022

Q&A with Tim on Wealth and Money, Book Recommendations, Advice on Taking Advice, C.S. Lewis, Relationships, Behavior Change and Self-Awareness, Why We Are All (Mostly) Making It Up as We Go, and Much More

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is usually my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply and test in your own life. This time, we have a slightly different format, and I’m the guest.

As some of you know, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of The 4-Hour Workweek, which was first published on April 24th, 2007 (4/24/07), I signed 424 copies of the book. As thousands of you threw your hat in the ring to win a signed copy, I wanted to do something special for all the entrants. So, I invited those folks to a private YouTube Q&A. This episode is the recording of that session.

I answered many questions on a variety of topics, including startup investments, IFS therapy, my views on wealth and money, C.S. Lewis, lower-back pain, solitary time and its challenges, lessons from Kevin Kelly, books I’m currently reading, maintaining relationships, Japan travel tips, from whom to take advice (and how to evaluate advice), self-awareness, behavior change, my current alcohol consumption (or lack thereof), and much, much more.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the Q&A on YouTube here.

Brought to you by MANSCAPED premium grooming products, 80,000 Hours free career advice for high impact and doing good in the world, and Helix Sleep premium mattresses.

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#614: Q&A with Tim on Wealth and Money, Book Recommendations, Advice on Taking Advice, C.S. Lewis, Relationships, Behavior Change and Self-Awareness, Why We Are All (Mostly) Making It Up as We Go, and Much More

This episode is brought to you by MANSCAPED! MANSCAPED is bringing you the total package to ensure your package is the perfect package. No, I didn’t come up with that line… but I tested and loved their products, so I can vouch that I’m still intact and ready for my centerfold shoot. Was it scary? Yes. Was it worth it? Also yes. My girlfriend makes the effort, so I figured it was only fair. MANSCAPED is the most effective way to keep clean, pristine, and looking like a dream through the sweatiest summer months.

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This episode is brought to you by 80,000 Hours! You have roughly 80,000 hours in your career. That’s 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 40 years. They add up and are one of your biggest opportunities, if not the biggest opportunity, to make a positive impact on the world. Some of the best strategies, best research, and best tactical advice I’ve seen and heard come from 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit co-founded by Will MacAskill, an Oxford philosopher and a popular past guest on this podcast.

If you’re looking to make a big change to your direction or address pressing global problems from your current job or if you’re just starting out or maybe starting a new chapter and not sure which path to pursue, 80,000 Hours can help. Join their free newsletter, and they’ll send you an in-depth guide for free that will help you identify which global problems are most pressing and where you can have the biggest impact personally. It will also help you get new ideas for high-impact careers or directions that help tackle these issues.

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Want to hear my most recent Q&A? Listen to the episode here, in which I answered questions about relieving plantar fasciitis, getting better sleep, wolf conservation efforts, maintaining learned languages, low energy remedies, podcasting advice, global warming, psychedelic risks, and much more.

#557: Q&A with Tim — Tools for Better Sleep, Musings on Parenting, the Different Roles of Fear, the Delight of Deepening Friendships, the Purpose of College, How to Boost Your Mood, HRV Training, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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August 9, 2022August 11, 2022

Why I’m Open-Sourcing an NFT Insider Trading Policy for the Web3 Community

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Topics: Writing and Blogging

DISCLAIMER: The following content, including the NFT Insider Trading Policy, does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. Readers should work with an attorney to determine whether the policy is applicable to or appropriate for their particular situation. The NFT Insider Trading Policy is provided “as is”; no representations are made about the content.

Furthermore, there are risks involved in making any investment in cryptocurrencies/NFTs. None of the information presented herein is intended to form the basis of any offer or recommendation or have any regard to the investment objectives, financial situation, or needs of any specific person, and that includes you, my dear reader. Caveat lector!

Now that we’ve covered that…

I began diving into the Wild West of NFTs a few years ago. For me, NFTs were a convenient, muggle-friendly onramp for learning about new technologies. It was also an excuse to break out the pencils and screw around again. I’d let my drawing languish for years, and, no matter what people said, JPEG mania was inspiring.

After a few months of exploration, I felt confident, and still feel confident, in a few things:

Web3 and blockchain will change the world in incredible ways. Before you disagree, listen to this.
The promise is both severely overstated (Utopia! No more governments!) and severely under-appreciated (It’s just another Dutch tulip craze! Right-click and it’s game over!).
It’s the greatest creator, resurrector, and accelerant of artists that I’ve ever seen. Graphic artist and musician friends of mine, jaded after years of barely making ends meet, touring to pay mortgages, etc., are not just excited again (no small thing) but also making good money. TBD if DALL·E 2 and related tech helps or hurts them; I suspect it will be a lot of both.
Legions of brilliant people are dedicating most of their waking lives to it¹. This is perhaps the most compelling case for being long web3.
Last but not least, most of web3 is still an overwhelming garbage fire of junk, grift, and bad behavior. It’s fucking ridiculous. This is the most common case cited for being short web3.

For me, this all started off as a safari to a new Weird Wide Web, a sight-seeing tour of novelty. I do this with a lot of new tech, and I was a casual spectator. Then I began doing little experiments and considering bigger projects of my own. That’s when I got more serious about research, especially risks and pitfalls.

Some of the unsavory bits I noticed were clearly unethical and often illegal, like deliberate fraud. There are bad actors, to be sure. That said, I think the majority of folks are normally good actors, and these same people can slip up and do stupid things under certain conditions. Temptation and accidents run rampant in a world of ambiguity. Much of the mess appeared—and still appears—to be a byproduct of unclear rules, lack of agreements, or misaligned incentives.

I often ask myself “What positive constraints can we apply here?” I apply this to myself for creative projects, and I apply it in many aspects of my professional and personal life. This question also led directly to the document in this post.

August 4, 2022August 7, 2022

Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence (#613)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Artist's rendering of Russ Roberts. — Illustration via 99designs

“What was once destiny is now a decision.”
— Russ Roberts

Russ Roberts (@EconTalker) is the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem and the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Russ is interested in making complicated ideas understandable. He founded and hosts the award-winning weekly podcast EconTalk: Conversations for the Curious, with more than 800 episodes available in the archives. Past guests include Christopher Hitchens, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Lewis, Angela Duckworth, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. His two rap videos on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek have more than 13 million views on YouTube.

His latest book, Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us, explores the challenges of using rationality when facing big life decisions. He is also the author of Gambling With Other People’s Money, How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, The Price of Everything, The Invisible Heart, and The Choice.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Pique premium pu’er tea crystals. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence

This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

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This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

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Want to hear a podcast episode with someone who frequently collaborates with Russ Roberts? Listen to my interview with devoted economics educator Tyler Cowen, in which we discuss his goal to teach economics to more people than anyone else in the history of the world, the mental benefits of listening to complex music, remaining meta-rational during times of duress or panic, fiction recommendations for nonfiction purists, learning from those who offend us, the writing process, committing to kindness, and much more.

#413: Tyler Cowen on Rationality, COVID-19, Talismans, and Life on the Margins

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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August 2, 2022August 4, 2022

Will MacAskill of Effective Altruism Fame — The Value of Longtermism, Tools for Beating Stress and Overwhelm, AI Scenarios, High-Impact Books, and How to Save the World and Be an Agent of Change (#612)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“I often think to myself, ‘Could I justify my life now to my 15-year-old self?’ And if the answer is no, then I’m a bit like, ‘Oh, what are you doing? You’re not living up to what earlier Will would’ve wanted for present Will.'”
— Will MacAskill

William MacAskill (@willmacaskill) is an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest associate professor of philosophy in the world. A Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, he also cofounded the nonprofits Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Y Combinator-backed 80,000 Hours, which together have moved over $200 million to effective charities. You can find my 2015 conversation with Will at tim.blog/will.

His new book is What We Owe the Future. It is blurbed by several guests of the podcast, including Sam Harris, who wrote, “No living philosopher has had a greater impact upon my ethics than Will MacAskill. . . . This is an altogether thrilling and necessary book.”

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 800M+ users, Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel, and Theragun percussive muscle therapy devices. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#612: Will MacAskill of Effective Altruism Fame — The Value of Longtermism, Tools for Beating Stress and Overwhelm, AI Scenarios, High-Impact Books, and How to Save the World and Be an Agent of Change

This episode is brought to you by Vuori clothing! Vuori is a new and fresh perspective on performance apparel, perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional, old workout gear. Everything is designed for maximum comfort and versatility so that you look and feel as good in everyday life as you do working out.

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This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.

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Want to hear the first time Will MacAskill was on this podcast? Have a listen to my 2015 interview with Will MacAskill here, in which we discuss how to take a scientific approach to doing good, charity spending for the poorest of the poor versus investing in future generations, the perils of pursuing your passion, underrated existential threats, life decision frameworks, and much more.

#120: Will MacAskill on Effective Altruism, Y Combinator, and Artificial Intelligence

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 28, 2022August 2, 2022

Liv Boeree, Poker and Life — Core Strategies, Turning $500 into $1.7M, Cage Dancing, Game Theory, and Metaphysical Curiosities (#611)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“Poker is about maximizing deceptiveness while extracting information out of your opponent.”
— Liv Boeree

Liv Boeree (@Liv_Boeree) is one of the UK’s most successful poker players, winning both European Poker Tour and World Series of Poker championship titles during her professional career. Before poker she studied astrophysics and now focuses her time as a TV host and YouTuber specializing in game theory, futurism, and rationality. She also gives seminars on high-stakes decision-making, and recently spoke at the annual TED conference about the application of poker thinking to everyday life. In 2014, she co-founded Raising for Effective Giving (REG), a nonprofit based upon the philosophies of effective altruism that has raised over $14,000,000 for its carefully selected list of maximally cost-effective charities.

Please enjoy!

Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#611: Liv Boeree, Poker and Life — Core Strategies, Turning $500 into $1.7M, Cage Dancing, Game Theory, and Metaphysical Curiosities

This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $28 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost.

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Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of reality? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman here, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more wild stuff.

#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 27, 2022August 6, 2022

The Life-Extension Episode — Dr. Matt Kaeberlein on The Dog Aging Project, Rapamycin, Metformin, Spermidine, NAD+ Precursors, Urolithin A, Acarbose, and Much More (#610)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“I constantly tell the people in my lab and other scientists, ‘You’ve got to do the experiment.’ You cannot go into it thinking that you know the answer and not do the experiment because your dogmatic belief says, ‘This is how it’s going to work.’ You’ve got to do the experiment.”
— Dr. Matt Kaeberlein

Dr. Matt Kaeberlein (@mkaeberlein) is a professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, with adjunct appointments in Genome Sciences and Oral Health Sciences. Dr. Kaeberlein’s research interests are focused on understanding biological mechanisms of aging in order to facilitate translational interventions that promote healthspan and improve quality of life for people and companion animals.

Dr. Kaeberlein is the founding director of the University of Washington Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute, the director of the NIH Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging at the University of Washington, director of the Biological Mechanisms of Healthy Aging Training Program, and founder and co-director of the Dog Aging Project.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Levels real-time feedback on how diet impacts your health, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and LMNT electrolyte supplement. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#610: The Life-Extension Episode — Dr. Matt Kaeberlein on The Dog Aging Project, Rapamycin, Metformin, Spermidine, NAD+ Precursors, Urolithin A, Acarbose, and Much More

This episode is brought to you by LMNT! What is LMNT? It’s a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I’ve stocked up on boxes and boxes of this and usually use it 1–2 times per day. LMNT is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low-carb, or Paleo diet. If you are on a low-carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness.

LMNT came up with a very special offer for you, my dear listeners. For a limited time, you can get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase. This special offer is available here: DrinkLMNT.com/Tim.

This episode is brought to you by Levels! I wrote about the health benefits of using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) more than ten years ago in The 4-Hour Body. At the time, CGMs were primitive and hard to use. Levels has now made this technology, and the unique insights that come from it, easy and available to everyone. Levels is making glucose monitoring simple, helping you see how food affects your health through real-time feedback. I started tracking my glucose years ago to learn more about what I should and shouldn’t be eating (including quantities, time of day, etc.), based on objective data from my own, unique physiology. Keeping my blood sugar stable is critical to my daily and long-term health and performance goals. Furthermore, poor glucose control is associated with a number of chronic conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and obesity. It’s important.

If you’re interested in learning more about Levels and trying a CGM yourself, go to Levels.link/Tim.

Want to hear another podcast episode that explores the possibilities of rapamycin? Have a listen to the conversation I had with Peter Attia, David M. Sabatini, and Navdeep S. Chandel at the source of this miraculous compound: Easter Island. Here, we discuss how one of the most important discoveries of medical science was almost lost, why metabolism (along with longevity) research is key to treating a long list of diseases, intermittent dosing of rapamycin, parenting advice from scientists on confidence and conflict, the necessary failures of good science, good fonts versus bad fonts, “non-potato” relationships, and much more.

#193: My Life Extension Pilgrimage to Easter Island

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 25, 2022July 25, 2022

In Case You Missed It: June 2022 Recap of “The Tim Ferriss Show” (#609)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, et cetera that you can apply to your own life.

This is a special inbetweenisode, which serves as a recap of the episodes from last month. It features a short clip from each conversation in one place so you can easily jump around to get a feel for the episode and guest.

See it as a teaser. Something to whet your appetite. If you like what you hear, you can of course find the full episodes at tim.blog/podcast.

Please enjoy!

***

Timestamps:

Jack Kornfield: 00:03:28

Bill Burr: 00:09:43

Edward Thorp: 00:14:53

Jason Portnoy: 00:20:22

Isabel Behncke: 00:26:36

Sam Harris: 00:31:36

***

Included episodes:

Jack Kornfield — How to Overcome Apathy and Find Beautiful Purpose (#601)

Legendary Comedian Bill Burr — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss (#602)

Master Investor Ed Thorp on How to Think for Yourself, Mental Models for the Second Half of Life, How to Be Inner-Directed, How Basic Numeracy Is a Superpower, and The Dangers of Investing Fads (#604)

Jason Portnoy of PayPal, Palantir, and More — Porn Addiction, The Corrosiveness of Secrets, Healing Wounds, Escaping Shame Cycles, and Books to Change Your Life (#600)

Primatologist Isabel Behncke on Play, Sexual Selection, and Lessons from Following Bonobos for 3,000 Kilometers in the Jungles of Congo (#598)

New Insights from Sam Harris, Dr. Peter Attia, Ramit Sethi, and Elizabeth Gilbert (#599)

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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In Case You Missed It: June 2022 Recap of “The Tim Ferriss Show” (#609)

July 20, 2022July 26, 2022

Signal Over Noise with Noah Feldman — The War in Ukraine (Recap and Predictions), The Machiavelli of Maryland, Best Books to Understand Geopolitics, The Battles for Free Speech on Social Media, Metaverse Challenges, and More (#608)

19 Comments

Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“According to [James D.] Fearon, if the two sides have different opinions about what’s going to happen, then you go to war because you don’t have perfect information about the outcome.”
— Noah Feldman

I rarely cover current events on this podcast, but this is a new experiment.

To avoid overwhelm, I do not track the news 24/7 with doom scrolling. Rather, I depend on conversations with my smartest friends to find the signal in the noise. The following exchange with Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is an example of such a conversation, very similar to what we would have offline, and I wanted to share it with you. I learned a ton and changed my thinking a lot, which I always do.

Noah Feldman is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America. You can find my interview with him at tim.blog/noah.

Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.

Feldman is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.

He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his JD from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the US Supreme Court.

He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

Please let me know what you think of this experimental format by sending me feedback on Twitter @tferriss. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Have suggestions for improvement? The usual long-form interviews with evergreen questions will still be the default and bread and butter of this podcast, but if you like this, I could see doing more of them, perhaps once a month or once every two months. It’s just an easy way to get caught up without drowning in news.

Please enjoy!

NOTE: This episode was recorded on June 22nd.

Brought to you by MANSCAPED premium grooming products, Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Allform premium, modular furniture. More on all three below.

The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#608: Signal Over Noise with Noah Feldman — The War in Ukraine (Recap and Predictions), The Machiavelli of Maryland, Best Books to Understand Geopolitics, The Battles for Free Speech on Social Media, Metaverse Challenges, and More

This episode is brought to you by Allform! If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about Helix Sleep mattresses, which I’ve been using since 2017. They also launched a company called Allform that makes premium, customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door—at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. You can pick your fabric (and they’re all spill, stain, and scratch resistant), the sofa color, the color of the legs, and the sofa size and shape to make sure it’s perfect for you and your home.

Allform arrives in just 3–7 days, and you can assemble it yourself in a few minutes—no tools needed. To find your perfect sofa and receive 20% off all orders, check out Allform.com/Tim.

Want to hear my first conversation with Noah Feldman on this show? Listen here as we discuss achieving post-childhood language fluency, caffeine-free existence, “failing” at therapy, pre-Civil War interpretation of the US Constitution, circumstances that require trusting the untrustworthy, why a futurist needs to understand the past, the pros and cons of uneditable smart contracts on a blockchain, productive compromise, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the Iroquois Confederacy, and much more.

#540: Harvard Polymath Noah Feldman — Deep Focus for Hyper-Productivity, Learning 10+ Languages, Predicting the Future with History, the Possibilities (and Limitations) of DAOs, Lessons from the Iraq Invasion, Designing the Supreme Court of Facebook, the Virtue of Scholarship, and the Wild Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 12, 2022August 2, 2022

Luis von Ahn, Co-Founder and CEO of Duolingo — How to Be (Truly) Mission-Driven, Monetization Experiments, 10x Growth, Org Chart Iterations for Impacting Metrics, The Intricate Path to an IPO, Best Hiring Practices, Catching Exam Cheaters, The Allure of Toto Toilets, The Future of Duolingo, and How to Stand Out in Your Career (#607)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

Artist's rendering of Luis von Ahn. — *Illustration via* 99designs

“Whenever somebody asks you to do something a long time from now, change the framing and say, ‘What if it was tomorrow? Would you want to do this or not?’ Almost invariably, the answer is, ‘No, I definitely don’t want to do this tomorrow.’ And then you should answer based on that.”
— Luis von Ahn

Luis von Ahn (@LuisvonAhn) is an entrepreneur and consulting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who is considered one of the pioneers of crowdsourcing. He is known for co-inventing CAPTCHAs, being a MacArthur fellow, and selling two companies to Google in his twenties.

He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, a language-learning platform created to bring free language education to the world. With more than 500 million users, it is now the most popular language-learning platform and the most downloaded education app in the world.

Luis has been named one of the Brilliant 10 by Popular Science, one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover, one of the Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review, and one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. Luis also won the 2018 Lemelson-MIT prize, the largest cash prize for invention in the U.S.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#607: Luis von Ahn, Co-Founder and CEO of Duolingo — How to Be (Truly) Mission-Driven, Monetization Experiments, 10x Growth, Org Chart Iterations for Impacting Metrics, The Intricate Path to an IPO, Best Hiring Practices, Catching Exam Cheaters, The Allure of Toto Toilets, The Future of Duolingo, and How to Stand Out in Your Career

Want to hear the last time Luis von Ahn was on this show? Have a listen to our conversation here, in which we discuss why Luis left Google before his vesting phase was complete, the pros and cons of running a tech company, Duolingo’s evolving business model, how Duolingo compares to college instruction, how Luis vets and recruits computer science engineers, entrepreneurial resources, and much more.

#135: Luis Von Ahn on Learning Languages, Building Companies, and Changing the World

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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July 4, 2022July 20, 2022

Balaji S. Srinivasan — 5-10-Year Predictions, How to Start a New Country, Society-as-a-Service (SaaS), Bitcoin Maximalism, Memetic Warfare, How Prices Are Born, Moral Flippenings, The One Commandment, and The Power of Missionary over Mercenary (#606)

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Topics: The Tim Ferriss Show

“A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.“
— Balaji Srinivasan

Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) is an angel investor and entrepreneur. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he was also the co-founder of Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase), Counsyl (acquired by Myriad), Teleport (acquired by Topia), and Coin Center.

He was named to the MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35,” won a Wall Street Journal Innovation Award, and holds a BS/MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering, all from Stanford University. Balaji also teaches the occasional class at Stanford, including an online MOOC in 2013, which reached 250,000+ students worldwide.

His new book is The Network State: How To Start a New Country. You can also read it for free at TheNetworkState.com.

Please enjoy!

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#606: Balaji S. Srinivasan — 5-10-Year Predictions, How to Start a New Country, Society-as-a-Service (SaaS), Bitcoin Maximalism, Memetic Warfare, How Prices Are Born, Moral Flippenings, The One Commandment, and The Power of Missionary over Mercenary

This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.

More than a store, Shopify grows with you, and they never stop innovating, providing more and more tools to make your business better and your life easier. Go to Shopify.com/Tim for a FREE 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features.

Want to hear Balaji’s last time on the podcast? Listen to our conversation here, in which we discussed “real” journalism, DeFi risks and rewards, potholes on the road to a utopian decentralized world, transhumanism versus anarcho-primitivism, Bitcoin versus gold, the problems with a 51-percent democracy, angel investing in the twenty-first century, COVID lessons learned, and much more.

#547: Balaji Srinivasan — Centralized China vs Decentralized World, The DeFi Matrix, Ascending vs Descending Trends, Bitcoin Mining as Energy Storage, Reputational Civil War, and Maximalism vs. Optimalism

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

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