Ep 46: Hating Tech, Hidden Japanese Gems, Sexual Awkwardness, and More

This is a special edition of The Tim Ferriss Show -- an audio version of The Random Show http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/ with my friend Kevin Rose (serial founder, Google Ventures). The last few episodes have been rather serious, so this is intended as an informal (but still informative) mind snack. There are dozens of topics covered in this bromantic episode of scatterbrained nonsense. Like what? To start off: hidden gems in Japan, hating tech, Kevin’s new obsessions (and projects), gifts, books we're reading, excessive sexual awkwardness, and much more. O-tanoshimi dane! For all previous episodes of The Random Show http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/, including the infamous China Scam episode http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/08/random-episode-6-how-kevin-rose-and-glenn-mcelhose-got-scammed-in-china-ha/, click here http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/ or go here: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/random/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, where does it seem appropriate to me?

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you for supporting the sponsors of this show. 99designs, which is your one-stop shop for all things graphic design-related. Go to 99designs.com/tim to see the projects that I've put up, including the mock-ups and drafts of the book cover for The Four Hour Body. Xoficio, Xoficio and I go way back. Xoficio.com/tim. You can see the clothing that I've used for traveling through 20-plus countries, including the underwear. By the way, that's about half of my underwear drawer right now. Xoficio.com/tim. You can also see the viral video that I put out, which shows you how to travel the world with 10 pounds or less. As always, you can subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, and you can find all of the links

• 1:05Tim Ferriss?

  and resources from this episode, as well as every other episode, by going to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. Spell it all out, or you can go to fourhourworkweek.com and just click on Podcast. Feedback? If you have feedback, I would love your thoughts, anything at all, who you'd like to see on this show. Ping me on Twitter, @TFerriss, that's twitter.com/TFERRISS, or on Facebook, at facebook.com/timfarres, with two Rs and two S's.

• 1:37Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. For those of you new to the show, this program is really dedicated to trying to dissect excellence, to deconstruct how the best in the world do what they do best. And that can range from billionaire investors, to chess prodigies, to stand-up comics, to seven-time New York Times bestselling authors, and everyone in between. Professional athletes, people from the FBI, it gets crazy. This particular episode is an anomaly. This is an audio version of the The Random Show, which is something I do with my buddy Kevin Rose, who's a general partner at Google Ventures, has also started a bunch of different companies, very, very

• 2:19Tim Ferriss?

  successful angel investor and product guy, as they call them in Silicon Valley. And this is generally a video show. And the video, as well as the show notes for this audio, can be found at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. That's also where you can find all of the other interviews and in-between episodes and all that juicy stuff. But there will be a couple of things that lack visual cues, given this is audio, but it's a lot like a stand-up comedy CD. Most of it should make sense on audio. So without further preamble, please enjoy The Random Show.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Ha, ha, ha.

• 3:02Tim Ferriss?

  Why, hello. Welcome to another episode of The Random Show, number 279.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 3:08Tim Ferriss?

  I'm Tim Ferriss.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  And I'm Kevin Rose. We are your random guests for tonight. And we are normally the guests, so we're here at your house.

• 3:16Tim Ferriss?

  Randomly consistent.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Randomly at your house.

• 3:18Tim Ferriss?

  And we are having what?

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Some awesome wine from our friend Will Harland. This is the Matriarch 2003. Will is a buddy of ours. He gave us a bottle of wine. Actually, he brought this over to my house the other night for Daria's birthday dinner thing after her birthday dinner thing.

• 3:36Tim Ferriss?

  It's hard to explain. The after-party?

• 3:37Speaker 03

  We had a dinner the night after her birthday. He came by, dropped it off, didn't get a chance to crack it, so we figured we'd crack it here. It's awesome wine.

• 3:44Tim Ferriss?

  Matriarch.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Obviously, Harland Estate, Matriarch, everything that he does is just awesome.

• 3:51Tim Ferriss?

  And we have a few accoutrements for the wine. Number one, gifted to me by my girlfriend, is a Coyote Head pourer, which may be hard to see here, but it comes right out the mouth hole like that, which is amazing. Very Game of Thrones. Looks a bit like a dire wolf. And because I know that it would just horrify Will, we're using beakers. These are Kymax

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Beakers that I use for urinalysis in the morning typically. But not only. It's also a perfect 200 milliliters. I also have 250 milliliters, which means that you can get three perfect glasses in one bottle of wine because bottles of wine are typically standardized to 750 milliliters. You've never used this for urine? That's right, this joke, right? Probably not. I wouldn't put it past you. You have like a 1 in 12 likelihood. Hmm.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  All right. All right. So let's get right into the show, people. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. One thing I want to talk about real quick is a new announcement that I have. I've launched a new app. I have, for the people out there that have watched the show, you probably know by now that I typically am a full-time partner at Google Ventures. I've now reduced my time to part-time at Google Ventures and I am a full-time entrepreneur now. So I have a little company called North. We build a bunch of different little apps out there. High five. I was like, you guys might me. And this is our second app. So our second app is called Watchville. It's available at watchville.co and it is basically a tool for kind of what I consider to be like an underserved market.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Like it's the watch collector slash watch enthusiast. And I'm talking about old school wristwatches, not like, you know, smartwatches. Man jewelry. Man jewelry. No, it's not man jewelry. This is the thing about, it's funny you should say man jewelry because a buddy of mine, so the quick little 10 second version, and I've talked about this on a previous random show, but how I got into watches was that, it's a horrible story, but the first time I actually wore a serious watch was when my dad passed away and he left me a watch that he worked very hard for, which is a Rolex that he wore all the time, same one. He didn't have a lot of watches. He wasn't wealthy, but he had that one that he really cared about and I was always watching Paul's when I was a little kid. And I was left that and I would wear one of like his watch out when I was going out to like nice events and stuff like that.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  And I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. And a buddy of mine was like, you know, that's funny you're wearing a watch. He goes, so only jewelry men can really wear and get away with. And I was like, actually, that's a good point. I started reading some of the blogs. I started reading the blogs on mobile and there was no tool that pulled together all the best content, all the best like watch blogs out there, along with some tools for like actually setting your watch and tracking what's going on with it. So the other side of the app outside of the best news around the web is a time setting tool. So current moon phase indicator gives you leap year for watches that require that. It averages out all the different atomic clocks out there to give you the most precise time for setting your watch. And that's important for people that care about like, is their watch running fast or is it running slow, things like that.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  But it's just a free little app. If you like watches, if you're watch curious or anything like that, I hope you'll check it out and download it. It's a watch.

• 7:09Tim Ferriss?

  Watch curious.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  Watch curious.

• 7:11Tim Ferriss?

  I'd like to buy curious.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Uh, sure. If you're just like, you know, I was about a year, year and a half ago, I was like, just like, oh, that's interesting. I'm curious what it's all about. And then I started reading the blogs and the first thing that you you come to realize is that it's not about just like these, wearing a brand for brand's sake. There's people that walk into a store and they're like, I have to have, you know, name the watch. They put in like a Tag 2.

• 7:37Tim Ferriss?

  Patek Philippe.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  Or a Rolex and they just like buy based on brand. When you really get into it, the geeks, the people that are the true collectors, they understand the movements. Like, like they understand the watchmaker, like where they came from, why they make. I mean, it's like people that are really into cars and engines and things like that. Like you go in there, they're like, oh, they use the blueed screws there over a, you know, a quarter inch like German silver, you know? Like they know every little facet of it and it really is a geeky thing. Like I'm a tech geek and like I can appreciate the engineering and the effort that goes into this stuff. Um, once you get into that side of things.

• 8:17Tim Ferriss?

  I think it's also a really smart thing. So you and I were having dinner not too long ago before the launch at Blue Plate, which is a great restaurant here in San Francisco. Highly recommend going to cheat day, have either the meatloaf or the fried chicken and then the key lime pie is just amazing. Best key lime pie I've easily had.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  We didn't have the pie.

• 8:36Tim Ferriss?

  We didn't because it wasn't cheat day.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:38Tim Ferriss?

  But we started talking about watch film and watch film is so attractive to me for a handful of reasons and maybe not the obvious ones. So I don't currently wear a wristwatch, but.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  You don't wear anything, no rings?

• 8:54Tim Ferriss?

  No, no rings.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Cock ring.

• 8:55Tim Ferriss?

  Just a cock ring.

• 8:58Tim Ferriss?

  Cockering in a butt plug all day long. It's working, I'm like, kegels, kegels.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Those aren't visible though, so those don't really count.

• 9:04Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, no, I'm working up to the hand rings. So, the, so, the... So, we were talking about it, and what I really like about this is the fact that it disproves, I think, a disabling belief that a lot of entrepreneurs have, or would be entrepreneurs. Like, "Oh, well, everything's been done. Uber for whatever has been done, and there's nothing left." And it's like, no, there's so much left.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, the long tail is left.

• 9:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and you found my favorite kind of market, which is a very precisely defined, relatively easy to target, price insensitive, high-end market. And there's so much potential there, and you can make a lot of mistakes. There's a certain, like, margin of safety if you have really good tech shops, really good design shops, and neither of those have been brought to that world.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. One of the pieces I'll...

• 9:54Tim Ferriss?

  Such an attractive way to go.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  One other piece I'll add on top of that, that I absolutely believe in, is like, if you're gonna do something, if you're gonna build something, there's a great book out there, Peter Thiel put it out, called Zero to One.

• 10:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's right over here.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Have you read it?

• 10:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  So, Zero to One, he talks about, if you're gonna build something, make sure it's an order of magnitude better than what's already else out there. And if you look at all the other watch apps out there, they're just...

• 10:16Tim Ferriss?

  What already else is out there?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  What...

• 10:18Tim Ferriss?

  That was amazing.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  Did I nail that, or no?

• 10:20Tim Ferriss?

  No. But I get you.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  So, you look at everything else out there, and if it's, it was all crap. I went in and I investigated, because first of all, I'm not gonna build an app if there's something amazing out there, right? So, you know, honestly, there was like a couple little watch apps here and there. I put this out there, and it was like, tens of thousands of people flocked to it, and it's been like, five days old. And, you know, hundreds of thousands of sessions. And it just goes to show you, like, if you build a quality product, like, the niche, like, people will, they're begging for an Android version. It's just insane. So, I'm pretty happy about it, but for other people that are out there, like, to your point, like, there's just so much opportunity in this, like, long tail of stuff that no one is touching. No one's built an app for, like, high-end, like, these collectors of Nike shoes, Air Jordans. They pay like...

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Five thousand dollars for a pair of shoes.

• 11:09Tim Ferriss?

  Or whatever. It could be a high-end hat, high-end.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Well, it doesn't have to be high-end. It could be like, you know, there's gardening apps.

• 11:15Tim Ferriss?

  But the point is, you know, and I think also people get so obsessed with venture-backed startups, they don't stop to consider alternatives to the traditional sort of venture-backed game. So you don't need to have an IPO, a huge acquisition, to build a massively successful company. I mean, you can be privately held. I think Mars Company is still, you know, family-owned. You can build massive companies, or at least very highly profitable companies. You don't have to get caught up in all of the echo chamber and romanticizing of Silicon Valley. I think it's really dangerous and unnecessary, but we'll come back to that. I wanted to talk about just the setting for a second.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:53Tim Ferriss?

  So this is, this is my house, and we were sitting at my, like, my living room table, I guess you would call it, and these are the books that were on the table. I didn't, uh, I didn't add anything new, and I have stacks of books everywhere in the house, which some people dislike, but it's kind of my way of organizing things. So first, I wanted to just give a congrats. This is a new book. You might recognize the name. So this is a startup that, uh, that I advise, Refinery29. They're the largest independently-owned fashion site, and it's massive, and they, they just came out with a book called Style Stalking, probably best suited to the women out there, but it's really about developing a distinct

• 12:37Tim Ferriss?

  personal style, and this hit the New York Times Bestseller list. So they sent me a, uh, a copy to check out, and I can certainly use all of the style help I can get.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're trying to tell you something.

• 12:47Tim Ferriss?

  So the, the, a lot of these books, otherwise, on this table right now are related to illustrations, so I wanted to just point out a few of them. This one is Robert E. McGinnis, and this guy is amazing as an illustrator. He, he has done everything from the movie posters for Breakfast at Tiffany's to the James Bond movie posters, uh, to, he's, he's known as sort of the king of pageantry back illustration.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Pageantry back.

• 13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, they're so incredibly detailed and good, and I think they're discounted. The artistic value of what McGinnis did is discounted in the same way that sometimes Norman Rockwell's art is discounted, uh, because of how commercially successful it was. And speaking of Rockwell, this is another one for those of you who might be interested. This is Power Magazine. This is one of my heroes, Dmitri Klockov.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Let me see, let me see.

• 13:42Tim Ferriss?

  This guy is a beast.

• 13:44Tim Ferriss?

  But J.C. Liondecker. A lot of you may not know J.C. Liondecker. He was one of the primary influences on Norman Rockwell. And you can see, his art is just stunning. And if you look at the brushwork and the strokes, it's very elegant. There is not an extraneous line to be found. So, some of you who go a ways back with me know that I fantasized for a long time about being a penciller, comic book penciller, for about 10 years. So I've been getting back into exploring that. So, Charles Gibson. This is the Gibson Girl. It's been relatively easy for me to draw men for a very, very long time. So I was a comic book nerd and got really good at that. But the female figure is sometimes difficult, especially if you're trying to do, to draw a female figure

• 14:29Tim Ferriss?

  that is not an exaggerated anime-type figure with a waist that's that big and breasts the size of this room and so on. If you're trying to do something slightly more realistic, then this is just a fantastic guideline. Couple of others, and then I'll come back to the thread of the rest of our conversation. These are two very different books. This is really dorky, but I love this stuff. Many of you will know, really into Stoic philosophy. This is just Epicureans and Stoics, edited by the Axios Institute. It's pretty good. It wouldn't get my highest recommendations. And then the last book I'll mention, On the Table, is a new one. This is actually by a friend of mine, Alex Day, The Underground Storyteller, which is really cool.

• 15:13Tim Ferriss?

  It's one of these rare books, experiential books, that I enjoy. And I get sent a lot of books, and most of them are just not that good, quite frankly. This is about Alex trying to ride every line and get off at every stop on the tube in London, and tell the history of each of those lines as he goes through it.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  That's pretty cool.

• 15:33Tim Ferriss?

  So far, it's very, very good. And then just a real quick on the background here. Every book here, as Daria pointed out, nothing here is accidental. I'm very anal retentive and OCD. Every one of these books, because this is where I look for a lot of my day, has been placed very particularly to elicit a particular response from me. So you have Vagabonding facing out, you have Bird by Bird facing out, Zorba the Greek, Musashi, Dune, The Magic of Thinking Big, and a handful of others.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  What's The Magic of Thinking Big?

• 16:06Tim Ferriss?

  The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. It's an amazing book. I find that when people are failing to accomplish their goals or generally suffering from a malaise in life, it's oftentimes because their goals aren't big enough. Their dreams aren't exciting enough to them. And The Magic of Thinking Big was recommended to me by Stephen Key, who has made millions of dollars creating different products and toys and licensing them to Disney, Nestle, huge companies, Hasbro, whoever it might be. And it was recommended to him by a number of Fortune 500 CEOs. And it's a super simple book, really inspiring. I've had it for many, many years. That copy is probably at least 15 years old.

• 16:51Tim Ferriss?

  And I think the externalities of life are sometimes underappreciated. So for me, my external environment represents my internal environment. So if things are relatively neat, which I would say my house is right now, my mind tends to be well organized. If my external environment is a mess, then my head is usually a mess. My thinking is a mess. So that's why.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  I always think the same way. Like if you look at, I picture it as if you take your house and you rip the roof off and you look down from like a bird's eye view. If you see just like chaos and mess everywhere, like that's a reflection of basically my brain. Like I feel when my office is like messy, I feel, it gives you anxiety too. You have a messy house, like you have like a little background anxiety running.

• 17:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, it's like low grade anxiety that's persistent. You may not even notice it. So for me, you know, when in doubt... This sounds funny, but when I'm having personal or business stress or whatever, when in doubt, just tidy your shit up.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  You have house cleaners, though, let's get real.

• 17:54Tim Ferriss?

  I have a house cleaner for cleaning, but they don't organize my stuff.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  I mean, they tidy up your books and whatnot.

• 17:59Tim Ferriss?

  No, they don't.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Never?

• 18:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's off limits. They're not allowed to touch my books.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  You are a annual retentive.

• 18:04Tim Ferriss?

  No, I don't want people fucking around with the order of my books. I, I, so I do have people who help, I mean, the wood takes a lot of care and stuff, but... I don't want to turn this into a fucking...

• 18:16Speaker 03

  How much care does your wood take? Like, really?

• 18:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, what are you talking about here?

• 18:26Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, boy, alright. This is like, I've had Lyme disease and I'm on like a million drugs, so I've been, I've been not partaking of the nectar of...

• 18:33Speaker 03

  The juice?

• 18:34Tim Ferriss?

  The juice of life, this stuff.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  The Will Harland juice?

• 18:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, god, it's just getting better and better.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Let's move on to the next item.

• 18:41Tim Ferriss?

  Moving on, yeah. I'm very particular about stacking books.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  I brought you gifts.

• 18:44Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, you brought me gifts?

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:45Tim Ferriss?

  What do you got?

• 18:46Speaker 03

  So, the first gift I have for you, I want you to get a good smell of this. Smell that.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Really pungent, yeah.

• 18:54Tim Ferriss?

  What is that, fermented coffee beans?

• 18:55Speaker 03

  So, these, these coffee beans right here, you'll see how oily they are?

• 18:59Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, very oily.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  So, we'll put a link in your blog article to this.

• 19:04Tim Ferriss?

  My blog article?

• 19:06Speaker 03

  I don't know, you have a blog.

• 19:07Tim Ferriss?

  How old are you?

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Blogs are stupid.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  We'll put a link in your blog article to this, this little, so here's the deal, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you people something. Just listen, it's going in my head too. I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell everyone about this little place in Tokyo. It's this little hidden coffee shop. My only ask is one thing. You have to understand that they don't speak English in there, and it's almost, when you walk in there, there's no tourists. So, when you're walking in, like, just be, the best way I can put it is just be very polite. Don't talk loud, don't come there with a big group, and just be on your best behavior. That's it. You don't have to dress up or anything like that. It's a coffee house, but they're very like old school, you know? I go in there, there's this guy, he's probably...

• 19:51Tim Ferriss?

  What's it called?

• 19:52Speaker 03

  I, I, what's it called? Hatsu. Oh, that's Hatsu, yeah, Hatsu's. Hatsu. Hatsu, Hatsu.

• 19:59Tim Ferriss?

  Hato.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Hato, hato, hato coffee. So you go in this little alleyway, you go in this little coffee shop, and the only thing that you can tell this guy, he doesn't understand English, he's like, uh, you know, like, "What do you want?" He hands you a menu, and there's no English menu or anything. And you say-

• 20:13Tim Ferriss?

  It must be really helpful to bring the non-English-

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. You say, "Old beans."

• 20:17Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  And the old beans, he's like, "Old beans." And then, he said, uh, he goes, he goes, takes, is it racist to like, say like-

• 20:24Tim Ferriss?

  It's not racist, that's pretty accurate.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  I mean, that's like, actually his accent.

• 20:27Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's not racist.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  I don't mean to like-

• 20:29Tim Ferriss?

  So chill out, internet.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  I don't mean to like-

• 20:31Tim Ferriss?

  No, just-

• 20:31Speaker 03

  This is not the way he does it.

• 20:32Tim Ferriss?

  Keep moving, keep moving.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  So, anyway, he's like, takes, I couldn't do it, but he's like, "Takes 20 minutes." He didn't say it like that.

• 20:41Tim Ferriss?

  Takes 20 minutes.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And so, but, actually, worse than that.

• 20:45Tim Ferriss?

  Nihongo dekigundanaka na.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Literally, he, he sits there, and I all, will splice in a video gram that's on my Instagram account. I did a hyper-lapse of him.

• 20:54Tim Ferriss?

  Wait, you did a 20-minute pour-over?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  20 minutes for the pour-over, dude. I'm talking like this, going really slow, and he makes these, this amazing pour-over of fermented coffee beans. And you know how, I mean, talk about fermented foods for a second, like, what you know about fermented foods in general.

• 21:09Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I mean, fermented foods have a lot of benefits. It depends in part on the, the format of the food. So you can, you can grind things, you can consume them. Whole, like, say, sauerkraut or kombucha have different beneficial bacteria, among other things.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  And sometimes it makes the, um, the ingredients more bioavailable to you as well, when the-

• 21:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, some of them, I mean, they have certain K vitamins as well that can be, uh, or some people believe are very, very important for many types of health. And, uh, so fermented foods have a major part in my life right now, because I'm repopulating my gut and my microbiome after a lot of doxycycline, which is a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so anyway, I want you to repopulate your gut with some fermented coffee beans. These are old beans, man.

• 21:51Tim Ferriss?

  So what's the right way to brew coffee with these?

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Um, 33 grams of coffee, and do it, I mean-

• 21:56Tim Ferriss?

  To what?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  To 300, it's a lot.

• 21:58Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, 33 grams to like, 100?

• 22:00Speaker 03

  No, to 350 milligrams of, uh-

• 22:02Tim Ferriss?

  Like, that bag won't last super long if you do 33.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  That's two cups, basically.

• 22:05Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, nice, okay, cool, I'm down.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Um, anyway, uh, make it, enjoy it, ferment it, it's fermented already, uh-

• 22:14Speaker 03

  I got you another gift.

• 22:15Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, alright.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Next gift is, uh, I was just in Tokyo, for those people that don't know.

• 22:21Tim Ferriss?

  Do you know which part of Tokyo the Hot Toys from?

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Do you know what it's, uh, I'll put a link, we'll have a link to the actual place.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  It's not even the whole name.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  The blog article, for those of you who might be getting this on audio, or YouTube, is going to be at world wide web, period.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  ForOurBlog.com. So, this...

• 22:43Tim Ferriss?

  I thought you were H R B O G.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Have you heard of this company?

• 22:46Tim Ferriss?

  Lizen?

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Lizen, yeah, Lizen.

• 22:49Tim Ferriss?

  L I S N.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is a small, um, producer of like, these little freaking sticks.

• 22:58Tim Ferriss?

  Sophisticated incense for listeners, by Shoyedo Incense Company.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  So, it's all organic, all these smells are non-chemical, they're all from plant derived. And like, look at all the different, uh, this is reading, they all have different...

• 23:14Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's by, wait a second, is this from Japan?

• 23:16Speaker 03

  It is.

• 23:17Tim Ferriss?

  It's gotta be. Cause you got, you got 223 is for reading, 219 is for gorgeous, I would like to gorgeous. Uh, 249 is...

• 23:25Speaker 03

  You just light that one up and his beautiful women show up.

• 23:27Tim Ferriss?

  I'm really curious what that is. Sweet Masala Ignis, and on a Maustay Sidewalk Flash Silent Blue Dive Into The Blue, and then Amulet and Avenue.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Can we light, can we light one of them?

• 23:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  So we got the little stone there that it comes with.

• 23:41Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. I think we could use some, uh, I think we should try Continua.

• 23:49Tim Ferriss?

  This is cool, man.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So, uh, if you like any of these, like, they all come in different colors, you can order like, tubes of just that color.

• 23:55Tim Ferriss?

  This is cool, this is fun.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  This is like a variety pack, you know?

• 23:57Tim Ferriss?

  A variety pack, yeah.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  No, it's pretty awesome though. I like the fact that they, it's not like bullshit ingredients, like, the lady was...

• 24:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's not like arsenic and...

• 24:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, she was like, listen, we don't, we don't use any like, perfumes, like, artificial perfumes or anything like that, so...

• 24:10Tim Ferriss?

  There we go. Bam.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 24:14Tim Ferriss?

  Exciting, thank you.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so that's, uh, if you wanna check it out...

• 24:17Tim Ferriss?

  L I S N.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, L I S N. I know they have a website as well, so you can just type in like, L I S N Incense Japan, or something like that, and it'll probably come up on the web, but, um...

• 24:25Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, and then it gives you the ingredients. So, uh, Continua is cinnamon and clove. Selected scents by a hundred, offered by eight assertions. I don't know what that means, but...

• 24:38Tim Ferriss?

  English is not good. Okay, so we were talking about ice baths. Yes. Baths. I wanted to give people a tip because those of you who follow my nonsensical self experiments and lack of self preservation may be familiar with my love of ice baths. And ice baths are a bit of a pain in the ass, just logistically, to organize.

• 24:58Speaker 04

  And literally.

• 24:59Tim Ferriss?

  And literally, a pain in the balls.

• 25:02Tim Ferriss?

  If they don't get to your throat within the first 30 seconds. And going to say Safeway, or wherever it might be, a gas station to get ice is a real pain in the ass. It's a real hassle. And I found- I don't think he's going with this. I'm go- oh, I have a punchline, which is, I've never really used Instacart, and I started using Instacart for ice, and they will deliver 5, 10, or 20 pound bags of ice. Shit's the weirdest fucking thing, dude. So I can use this cart, pow! You know they're like, that's like Ferris order 50 pounds of ice. And get 80 pounds of ice, delivered by Instacart, like that. It is amazing. It's been such a game changer for me. So, Instacart, thank you for that. Can you see the smoke in the camera? This is amazing, yeah, yeah.

• 25:46Tim Ferriss?

  This is not for enclosed areas.

• 25:51Tim Ferriss?

  I can't, oh my god, stop, drop, and roll! Continue. I feel so continued. So, that's my tip for the ice bath. We were talking about a couple of things. What does the ice bath do? The ice bath is great for hormones like adiponectin, for instance, if you want to increase fat loss. Oh, that's right. You put them around your neck and stuff, you said in your book. Yeah, if you want to go lightweight, sort of limper style, if you want to go, like, burly, then you do an ice bath. And the way that I've done it historically is, typically in a normal sized ice bath, I'll be using 15 to 20 pounds of ice. I will only sit in ice up to about lower nipple area,

• 26:34Tim Ferriss?

  and I will read a book for about 10 minutes, and then, and only then- Read fast. -to the neck, hands out, for another 5 minutes. Why hands out? Because you have a very high capillary density in your hands and your feet, and if you put your hands in, you're not going to last even 50% that long. So, keeping the hands out is very helpful. You look a little- I guess what, Anchorman? No, that's Telltale the nice, yeah. So, but, uh, so that's how we generally go about it. I'm not a doctor, don't play on the internet. If you have a heart condition, blah, blah, blah, blah. Your head might explode, be careful, talk to your doctor. All right. This, we were looking at this earlier. So this, this I, uh, is one of my favorite axes.

• 27:22Tim Ferriss?

  For those of you who

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Who even has more than one axe? Like, most people are like, "I have an axe and I chop wood with it."

• 27:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  You have like death axes.

• 27:30Tim Ferriss?

  I do. Look at this.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  That's like, that's for killing people.

• 27:33Tim Ferriss?

  Well

• 27:33Speaker 03

  You don't chop wood with an axe.

• 27:34Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, I would say that any axe could probably be used for killing people. Now, I, I do chop wood with this, but as it turns out

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Wouldn't you chop wood? You wouldn't fucking wood in your backyard.

• 27:43Tim Ferriss?

  What do I hear, man? It's too, it's too large for my, my very, very Lilliputian

• 27:48Speaker 03

  Where do you chop it?

• 27:49Tim Ferriss?

  Out of my patio. Which makes people feel unsafe in my neighborhood.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  I bet.

• 27:54Tim Ferriss?

  It's very loud. But, so this is a Sog, uh, axe. And, uh, Sog is an interesting company. They make a lot of multi-tools. And knives and whatnot. I have experimented with throwing axes because, uh, that's the type of thing I do in my spare time. And it turns out most throwing axes are very chintzy. They're, they're made

• 28:15Speaker 03

  That's racist.

• 28:15Tim Ferriss?

  Very poorly and they break when you throw them. And by the way, having an axe break and like rebound at you in five pieces is rather dangerous. So this axe, on the other hand, is very, very sturdy. Believe it was modeled after an axe that was used by GIs in Vietnam. And it's fantastic for throwing. Uh, of course, that's not what I recommend because you might, uh, look at the backside of this. On the, on the drawback, you don't want to spike yourself in the face. So don't do that. And, uh, just for you urban dwellers, I would also note that if you happen to be a, uh, American history X looking guy like me and you go to the park to throw axes to practice, you might have the police called on you. So

• 29:00Speaker 03

  That happen to you?

• 29:01Tim Ferriss?

  No, if you have a girlfriend or lady friend who's willing to just like come along so you don't look like a psycho and just like a stupid boyfriend, then I would encourage you to take that approach. But the Sog axe is a winner.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  It feels like a good axe.

• 29:14Tim Ferriss?

  It's solid. It is solid. In other news, big announcement to make. Kevin and I are getting married. No, we're not getting married. I am on Instagram. I put up regular semi nude shots of me in my underwear.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  This wine has gone straight to your head. I love it.

• 29:33Tim Ferriss?

  That's what I reserve for Snapchat. It's very exciting. But instagram.com/timferriss, two R's, two S's. And the first photo ever that I put up is of Tony Robbins, who's like eight foot seven, palming my entire head because his hand is large enough to palm my entire head.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  And he's on your audio podcast.

• 29:52Tim Ferriss?

  He is on my audio podcast.

• 29:56Tim Ferriss?

  Tony, Anthony Robbins is on my audio podcast.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  At least you don't have video on that one.

• 30:01Tim Ferriss?

  That's true. I don't have video on it.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  It's freaking technical.

• 30:04Tim Ferriss?

  But yeah, Tony Robbins is one of many interesting folks. Had Peter Thiel.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  I was your first.

• 30:10Tim Ferriss?

  You were my first.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  First guest. Don't think I don't remember.

• 30:13Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate that, buddy. And it's gone really well. The podcast has been a lot of fun, in fact. And that's where I'm focusing a lot of my energy because I want to have not just well-known people, but just like niche.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Who's your niche-?

• 30:28Tim Ferriss?

  Obsessives?

• 30:28Speaker 03

  That you've got, your obsessive niche-est person.

• 30:31Tim Ferriss?

  Obsessive niche-?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  You've had Daria on the show.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  Oh, no. I thought you meant like, of people who like really nichey.

• 30:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  Audience.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, you, no, no, I mean like, have you had any of those people on that you consider to be really nichey?

• 30:43Tim Ferriss?

  I have, I think, in niche subjects. I had, the latest episode is a guy named Nick Gondreau, you probably don't know. He's the CTO of Zocdoc and co-founder of Zocdoc. And he's really, really good at explaining, making non-engineers or non-mathematically-inclined people comfortable with computer science and math. He's really good. And I was turned off of math in 10th grade by a teacher who just busted my balls. It was a real pain. So I was turned off of math at grade 10. But Nick is one of the most recent. I'm gonna have, and this is already recorded, the resident technology futurist for the FBI is gonna be, is on the podcast.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  That's pretty cool.

• 31:28Tim Ferriss?

  It's just not published yet. And we talk about- Oh, I've got a guest for you. Fucking got a great guest for you.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Who do you have?

• 31:34Tim Ferriss?

  The Iron Sheik.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Iron Sheik?

• 31:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, he freaking DMs me all the time.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Really?

• 31:38Tim Ferriss?

  He's like, "I want to be on the podcast."

• 31:41Speaker 03

  He's launching a documentary.

• 31:42Tim Ferriss?

  That could be amazing.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  He's launching a documentary in like two months and he's like, he's coming to LA. He wants to do as much media as possible.

• 31:49Tim Ferriss?

  He lives in Jersey or something.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Like the Iron Sheik would be on your podcast, dude.

• 31:53Tim Ferriss?

  That could be amazing. So if you have any suggestions for podcast guests, please let me know. Twitter is a good idea. That's the easiest place. It is at T Ferris, F E R R I S S. I'm pretty sick of tech.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  You're tired of tech. Yeah, you said you're tired of tech. You've been talking about being tired of tech for a long time.

• 32:10Tim Ferriss?

  Well, now, in full disclosure, since we're having a confessional here, you've said the same thing to me.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I hate tech.

• 32:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right. So sometimes we respond via text at various moments randomly with, "God, I hate tech. I hate tech. Fuck, I hate tech." And there are various reasons for this. Partially, you can't get away from fucking tech in San Francisco. It's like you want to have a normal conversation about something else and then someone just like with, you know. And by the way, everybody in Silicon Valley, just because you're a dick doesn't mean you have Asperger's. You can't blame an asshole on having some condition you've never been diagnosed as having. So...

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Dude, I literally had a phone call today with this lady from CNET and she's writing an article. And she was like, "I want to talk to you about wearable tech and where you think it's going." And I was just like, "I'm so tired of talking about this." And she's like, "Well, what's the future? Like with the iWatch?" And I'm like, "What's going on?" And I'm just like, "Listen, I'm like, I don't need any more tech. I'm teched out." Like, "I don't need more notifications on my wrist and all that." And she's like, "Oh, it sounds like you're getting old" or whatever. I'm like, "Listen, I think tab browsing was the worst thing ever invented." I think we might look back in like 100 years and be like, "Tab browsing was a bad idea." And like just lock it to one tab. Because dude, have you ever gone off and like spent like, I literally, like this happens to me once a week.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  I'll be like 20 tabs deep and I'll come back to tab one and I'll be like, "Oh, that was that email I didn't click send on that this person wanted like four hours ago."

• 33:38Tim Ferriss?

  I have that right now. And Chrome is going at like 1997 dial-up speed because Chrome has like 30 browsers, like tabs in it.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Right. And multiple windows with other tabs behind them. And she was like, "Well, what, the wearables, like watches?" And I'm like, "What is it gonna give me?" "Oh, like a notification? Graham just texted you. I got that on my phone. It's in my pocket." "What else is it gonna give me? Like your heart rate's at this. Like, great. Like, that's great. I'm working out."

• 34:06Tim Ferriss?

  I knew that.

• 34:08Tim Ferriss?

  So I think

• 34:09Speaker 03

  I don't mean to sound old, but anyway.

• 34:11Tim Ferriss?

  You don't sound old. I think tech, and by saying tech, I'm gonna take a three to four month break on almost all angel investing.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  You're all about the breaks this year. You didn't masturbate for like two weeks, a month.

• 34:22Tim Ferriss?

  Month. Oh yeah, you lost faith on booze.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  How was the return to that? I bet you had a great session.

• 34:30Tim Ferriss?

  Had like some makeup, makeup jerking.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  I haven't seen you in a while.

• 34:36Tim Ferriss?

  It was like

• 34:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was like, you know, I gotta say, it was, it was, it was pretty exciting.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  It's special.

• 34:47Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah, it was exciting. Uh, but, um, yes. So the, the, but the reasons are, are, are multifold. Number one, and you've seen this going, going back to Watchville and Tiny is building stuff. And I feel like I can't, I don't have maximum excitement and I can't be a maximal help to the startups that I'm working with if I'm not on the cutting edge. And the only way that I'm on the cutting edge is by building my own stuff.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:15Tim Ferriss?

  You know, and being out on the playing field by battling it and punting the ball down the field. So I'm having a blast.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  You don't want to punt.

• 35:24Tim Ferriss?

  Fucking home running it.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  It's throwing a touchdown. Punting is like when you're in a bad situation and you get a kick.

• 35:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I was going kind of World Cup, but I hear you.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 35:33Tim Ferriss?

  So the, that's, that's one reason. The second reason is I feel like the, the general coaching in the startup world, and we're not gonna take too much time on this, has gotten to a point where everyone is reading from the same pitch script. So you just get, like, I get so many bad pitches from people who feel entitled. And I think that's a dangerous sign, sort of a hubristic.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  So do you think there's a bubble going on right now?

• 36:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I do. I think.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  But it's not gonna hurt anyone when it pops?

• 36:05Tim Ferriss?

  That's not true.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Who's gonna hurt?

• 36:07Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, it's gonna hurt the people who are, uh, who are getting way too much money with crazy terms with bad businesses.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Well, it won't hurt them. They'll just go out of business and they'll move on to their next thing, right?

• 36:19Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I mean, that would, I would, it would hurt them and the people who've invested in them potentially. Now, I think there's a great opportunity for companies that are, say, in a space with three to five leaders, and there's one company that sees the writing on the wall. Raises a bunch of money, is very lean in their operation against competitors who are not and have really high costs and lots of heads to feed, then I think there's massive opportunity. So I'm not going to stop investing altogether, but I'm going to pick a handful of shots over the next three or four months and I'm going to stop everything else.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  So let me ask you a question. There's a lot of people out there that are entrepreneurs or want to start a business potentially. What is it that you look for then? Like, what is it? I mean, you said already lean, but like, in the pitch, when someone sits down with you and they're like, "I have this idea." Like, what is it that you look for in the founder, their body language, the type of pitch? Like, you said you're getting tired of seeing the same old thing. How can someone stand out?

• 37:12Tim Ferriss?

  The way that people can stand out, Graham, I'm right here, right? The way that people can stand out, number one, is don't be in such a fucking rush. And I'm so tired of getting the like, "We're oversubscribed, but if anyone would get this, we think it's you and we're growing 30% month over month." And I'm like, "Oh, really?" Like, search and replace. It's the same email I've had from 10 startups this week. And they're like, "Well, we're closing in the next 48 hours and we can squeeze you in for 25K." Fuck off. Like, if I'm really a good fit for the company, there's no overnight rush. Do you know what I mean? And all of the best companies that I've worked with-

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Do they explain to you why? They say, "Tim, you could help us with X, Y, and Z and we think-"

• 37:50Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a bluff. It's a bluff.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  No, I mean, when a good pitch comes in-

• 37:54Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, when a good pitch comes in, they've done their homework, they know exactly how things fit together.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  So what do they say to you? They say, "This is why you're a great investor."

• 38:02Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, they would-

• 38:03Speaker 03

  To spell it out for you?

• 38:04Tim Ferriss?

  They would say, "We are familiar with how you've done A, B, and C. We think that we're different. We know you're interested in this. We're different because of A, B, and we'd love to do something with you. There's no huge rush, but we might, we're probably closing around in the next X period of time." And they don't give me 48 hours' notice. They give me like, two or three months.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  Because you're kind of the kind of person that likes to think on things a little bit, spend a week doing your own due diligence.

• 38:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, I like to think on it and do due diligence for myself and anyone who might be backing me on, say, like, Angel List, where I do most of my stuff now. angel.co/tim. And, uh-

• 38:41Speaker 03

  I think I'm slash Kevin.

• 38:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think you're slash Kevin. And so that's where I do most of my stuff and you can see all my investments there. But, uh- The best companies want a good fit and they want the right investors. They don't want dumb money with the stupidest terms. Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And that shows a longer-term vision. I also, in terms of founders, and I don't want to turn this into a, I hate tech. Let's talk about tech for an hour. But since you asked a question, the best founders are not arrogant. They're just not. The ones that I interact with, at least, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but in their interactions with me, they're not going to be immediately arrogant and entitled and prickish. And I just see a lot of that right now. And there's so much money flooding the market.

• 39:29Tim Ferriss?

  There's an oversupply of money and undersupply of really good talent. And it's impossible for me to foresee in the next two to three years, there isn't a major correction. Because it doesn't take a million people, 10 million people, to believe there's a bubble for there to be a bubble. It takes a handful of hedge fund managers to liquidate 20 to 30% of their tech holdings. Sure. That's it. And all that takes is a string of bad IPOs, a string of really high-profile catastrophes of some other nature. That's it. So for me, the smart, the smart people as entrepreneurs and the smart money as investors are budgeting for that. Anyway. Cool. So all, but usually, at the end of the day, I am having so much fun building and it's been so long.

• 40:14Tim Ferriss?

  What's your next thing? Everyone like, you know, they... Yeah, you know, I am not sure what my next thing is. I am trying to be comfortable in that in-between space. Because historically, I've always wanted that one thing. And it's helpful to have that because I'm, it's easy to drown in the cool stuff. Meaning, a friend of mine, Derek Sivers, has said, and he's also written about this, "Your decision should be hell yes or no." Like, if it's not like, "Hell yes, fuck, yeah, I want to do that," or "No." Where you get killed, and I think where I've been killing myself, is like, "Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, sure, I'll do that." Like, "Oh," somebody asks a favor, like, "Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah, sure, I'll do that." And you commit to 10 of those. You're really stressed out, you don't have a lot of time,

• 40:59Tim Ferriss?

  and you're not doing anything that you're really super 10 out of 10 psyched about. So for me, right now, dialing back on a lot of things, and saying no to the startup investing for three to four months, because I'm not a momentum trader, right? I'm not in it for the next six months like a lot of the fair weather angel investors out there. I've been doing this for, whatever, seven years, eight years. I'm gonna be doing it for the next 10, 15, 20 years. I can wait three to four months. You know, and I think that if there are, you know, people throw these numbers out, there are 15, or 13, or 23 kind of billion dollar plus companies that come through Silicon Valley every year. You don't need to get every one of those. You don't even need to get one of those every year.

• 41:42Tim Ferriss?

  You hit, you get one awesome bet every year or two as an individual investor with a fund that I don't have to allocate over a set period of time. You're great. You're ahead of 99% of the people out there.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  So if people are out there and they want to get involved, I mean, Angel List is probably your best bet for going out. I would say so, as far as like going out and finding...

• 42:01Tim Ferriss?

  I think Angel List is a great way to find good investors. I think it's a great way to find good companies. And, you know, of course, I may be biased. I'm an advisor to Angel List itself, but I think I've never seen anything like it. I mean, I just closed a $1.5 million round for a company called MD Insider, and the whole thing was allocated in one day. And it just simplifies the whole process.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  The one other thing I've had is I've had people that have come up to me and said like, you know, I don't have the money to angel invest. Like, how do I get involved in the, like, the tech phenomenon that's going on? And I always have the same recommendation. It's like, if you have something that you're really good at, that you're like, you're the best at. You know, I'm good at marketing, or I'm good at, you know, social media, or whatever it may be that is your thing.

• 42:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  Like, just go after these young startups that don't have that person, and offer your services. I have a guy right now that's helping me out with customer service. He's awesome. This guy Forrest, he's amazing. And he was like, he approached me and he's like, listen, I'll work for free if you want. Like, what do you want? Like, you know, and he just wants a foot in the door, some stock options, you know, eventually, like, you know, that kind of thing. And it's like, if you have a skill out there and you don't have... Have the funds to go out and be your own angel investor. There's still ways for you to get involved in these companies very early on. And like, I mean, that's how you hear about these stories. There's a reason why the secretaries at Microsoft were all multimillionaires. You know, that was like a huge story that came out back in the 90s. It's like, there's other ways for you to get involved. It doesn't have to be through, through big checks.

• 43:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think, I think that that's very good advice. And Angel List is actually, I just saw an article, it was like how I think, how I got 30 consulting gigs in 30 days using Angel List. There's a piece about it. And I think this is a very smart approach. So for instance, if you were to not try to sign on immediately for a full-time job, but do contract work for a half a dozen or a dozen fast-growing companies.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  This is what David Prager does. He goes out and he shoots videos to them.

• 43:54Tim Ferriss?

  This is a mutual friend of ours.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's, I mean, he used to be on Revision 3 and some of the other stuff I did. But he, he went out and, um, he shoots these videos. He started videos for companies. And if there's a really cool company, he'll say like, you know what? I'll reduce your rates, but like, just like, give me some advisory shares. It's the same idea that the guy from Facebook that painted all the murals. He like made like a quarter, like 250 million dollars or something crazy. Cause he took all stock from Zuckerberg when he was painting their murals in their office. So anyway, that's kind of where you were going, right?

• 44:21Tim Ferriss?

  That's where I was going. And then what you can do is when you do an amazing bang-up job for a half a dozen startups, and let's just say four of them are like, you know, we'd love to hire you on a more ongoing basis. Then you can take a look at those people who are hot to trot and ask for advisory shares or equity, or maybe even, you know, choose a full-time gig. Which is what, you know, I advised a very young guy to do not long ago. He actually had, he, he wanted to work with me. Or he had a couple of other options and one of them was Stripe. And this was quite a while ago and I said, take the Stripe job. And I was like, they like you, you know, take the Stripe job. Like that's, that's a good horse to bet on and he's pretty happy with it.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 45:07Tim Ferriss?

  Moment. But what else is happening?

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is like my last thing I have to talk about. We can wrap up, or I'm sure you probably have something else. But this book, a buddy of mine recommended to me. I have not read it. I brought it along because I just got it in the mail and it was in my bag anyway. But I figured I'd ask you. No, no, no, honestly, I was gonna ask you if you had ever heard of it.

• 45:28Tim Ferriss?

  I've read it multiple times.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so then you said you've read it multiple times. I'm like, well, maybe you should talk about it because I'm about to read this. What am I about to get myself into?

• 45:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  And Daria just finished it. My wife just finished this book a couple of days ago, right?

• 45:39Speaker 04

  Because Ramit Sethi is on your podcast, recommended it on your podcast. I'm pretty sure.

• 45:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that sounds, that sounds right. So this is Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Chialdini, a lot of people say it that way, Chialdini, right? It's a Chi, Italian fellow, PhD. So the cover quote is, for marketers, it's among the most important books written in the last 10 years. And it's, it's, it's a fascinating look at the psychological dynamics that companies and people use in selling services or products. How those can be used against you, how you can implement those for good in your own company. And it touches on things like scarcity, time restrictions.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  I can't wait to read this.

• 46:31Tim Ferriss?

  Social proof, etc.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  I'm really excited.

• 46:33Tim Ferriss?

  And it offers what I think is a very helpful checklist for any type of product launch or, say, message or copy editing. So if you have copy and you

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Oh, you must have loved this.

• 46:46Tim Ferriss?

  On a homepage, then, or you're making an offer, or you're doing a product launch, or you're doing an email sequence, for whatever, or even implementing Facebook ads or something like that. I think that this offers a very good checklist for the components that lead to a compelling offer.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  You just finished this book two days ago. Is there anything you want to add to that? Like anything that you took away from the book?

• 47:11Speaker 04

  It's also, I mean, that's all absolutely true. It's also really interesting, just in terms of human psychology, because it's important to remember that people have a lot of different motivations for doing things. And it really like goes through the basis of

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Understanding how to get people to act, you know, and when you're in MySpace or any, I mean, it's for marketing, yeah, but also like I just, I just want to get people to eat healthy, you know, and it's like for that, it's incredibly valuable.

• 47:38Speaker 03

  Cool. I'm excited. I can't wait.

• 47:41Tim Ferriss?

  No, it's, it's, it's a, I think a very helpful book. It's a seminal book that's influenced many other books and you know, whether you're looking at uh

• 47:52Tim Ferriss?

  mystery and the mystery method for pickup artists or you're looking at how, let's say, why Combinator companies are coached to pitch investors, or you look at how to get people to change their diet when they've resisted it for 20 years. They all, all of the dynamics, the psychological dynamics that make any of those things successful boil down to a handful of principles which in general are covered in this book. So this is not necessarily industry specific, which makes it very valuable because you can apply it wherever you want to apply.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Cool.

• 48:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  That's all I got.

• 48:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Anything else?

• 48:32Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I uh, I don't.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  Chop some wood?

• 48:35Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think so. Yeah, I got some almond wood, which is good for uh.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

• 48:40Tim Ferriss?

  Good for burning, good for cooking.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  We're about to go on Thanksgiving.

• 48:43Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, we are moving into Thanksgiving.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  I'm smoking a turkey.

• 48:48Tim Ferriss?

  I'll be headed to the East Coast to have Thanksgiving with my, with my family.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 48:53Tim Ferriss?

  Which I'm very excited about. I have a, have a new wood stove coming in from Vermont Castings. Did a bunch of homework. There are a number of really good companies out there, but decided on that. And I'm excited for a little bit of brisk cold on the East Coast. I don't like to live in the cold all the time.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  I know what you mean. I was just in New York a few days ago and it was like, it was nice.

• 49:15Tim Ferriss?

  It's crisp. It wakes you up. It's nice.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  Nipples get hard.

• 49:18Tim Ferriss?

  It's good. A little, yeah, levels up the nipples, brings them to attention. So I like, I like the, I like Thanksgiving and Christmas for that. So I'm very.

• 49:28Tim Ferriss?

  Just, just for the nipple, nipple erections. Uh, but that's, I think on that note, really, I've covered all the bases this time around.

• 49:39Tim Ferriss?

  Graham, anything to add before we go?

• 49:41Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 49:42Tim Ferriss?

  Happy Thanksgiving.

• 49:43Speaker 05

  Have you guys seen Too Many Cooks?

• 49:45Tim Ferriss?

  No. Too Many Cooks, what is it?

• 49:47Speaker 05

  It's an Adult Swim thing that aired at 4 a.m. in the middle of the night and it's this parody of old 80s TV shows where they have the credits of the, uh, of the folks that are in the show. And, uh, like, you know, like, they'll be doing something and they'll look up and their name will be on the screen and they'll like smile at the camera. But this is an 11-minute-long parody of that that slowly devolves into like a really interesting horror movie.

• 50:14Tim Ferriss?

  Whoa.

• 50:16Speaker 05

  And I think that you guys would enjoy it, so go check, like, go watch it.

• 50:20Tim Ferriss?

  Too Many Cooks.

• 50:21Speaker 05

  Too Many Cooks. Uh, the song will be, I apologize in advance, the song will be stuck in your head for weeks, but...

• 50:27Tim Ferriss?

  It aired at 4 a.m.?

• 50:29Speaker 05

  It aired at 4 a.m.

• 50:30Tim Ferriss?

  They were just like, screw, we're gonna put it on.

• 50:31Speaker 05

  Immediately, when it aired at 4 a.m., it immediately went viral the next day.

• 50:34Tim Ferriss?

  No way.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  It's got over like 2 or 3 million views, uh, and it's the creepiest, funniest, like, amazing. You've got to see it.

• 50:43Tim Ferriss?

  Awesome. That's a great recommendation. All right, yeah. Too Many Cooks, check it out and happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Namaste. Even if you are not in, uh, in America, uh, be thankful. Take the occasion of all the Yanks eating their turkeys or, uh, tofu-made textured vegetable protein, god knows what, here in San Francisco. And, uh, think, think of what you're grateful for. I'm not trying to get too Deepak Chopra on you, I'm just saying. Uh, I think it's, I think it's common for...

• 51:18Tim Ferriss?

  I think it's, I think it's common for type A personalities, I don't know where I'm going with this. Type A personalities to be very focused on achievement and it's easy to recognize that you've done so much and you haven't taken any time to appreciate any of it. And I think for just general peace of mind and quality of life, it's really helpful to take some time, even if it's just a minute before meals, grace style, even if you're not religious, uh, to be thankful and make a list of those things. So, and in fact, there's a really cool type of meditation that is sometimes called, uh, gratitude meditation or compassion meditation closely related. That's very interesting, uh, but we'll save that for another session. So, happy Thanksgiving, even if you're not in the United States of America.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Peace out. See you soon.

• 52:12Tim Ferriss?

  This episode of The Tim Ferriss Show is brought to you by 99designs and Exoficio. 99designs is the world's largest online marketplace of graphic designers. And I have used 99designs for years, including to get cover concepts for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to become number one New York Times, number one Wall Street Journal. It was a huge hit. And here's how it works. And you can check everything out, including some of my competitions. You can see these book covers and so on at 99designs.com/tim. Whether you need a logo, a car wrap, a web design, an app, a thumbnail, a t-shirt, whatever, you go to 99designs.com, you describe your project, and then, within a week or

• 52:55Tim Ferriss?

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• 53:40Tim Ferriss?

  And I talked about Exoficio underwear. Exoficio underwear is lightweight, ultra-lightweight, quick-drying, and antimicrobial. Why is this important? Well, I've gone through 20-plus countries with two pairs of underwear before, both from Exoficio. And I'm not alone in this. This might sound crazy, but a lot of executives, for instance, will take this underwear, they'll wash it in the sink or somewhere else, roll it up in a towel, like a burrito, step on it, and a few hours later, they are completely dry, completely clean. You don't have to just have two. And yes, they have to be comfortable for all day wear. But check out their clothing, as well as their underwear. You can go to exofficio.com/tim. That's X-E-X-O-F-F-I-C-I-O dot com forward slash tim.

• 54:23Tim Ferriss?

  And you can see this video, which has a bunch of other packing tips. But this underwear, this clothing, is not just for the gents. Ladies, you have choices too. And they really have an incredible collection of high-quality products that I've used for almost 10 years now. So check them out, exofficio.com/tim. And until next time, thank you for listening.