#403: Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity

Tony Fadell — On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity | Brought to you by SuperFat http://superfat.com/tim and Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. “Get bored. Just put away all of your things. Maybe go clean up the garage or whatever it is. Right? Through that, you're going to start to think differently. You're going to act slightly differently and your mind might open up to other sources of inspiration, other problems...” — Tony Fadell Tony Fadell (@tfadell https://twitter.com/tfadell), sometimes called "the father of the iPod," is an active investor and entrepreneur with a 30+ year history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people's lives. As the Principal at Future Shape https://www.futureshapellc.com/, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology, he is continuing to help bring technology out of the lab and into our lives. Currently, Future Shape is coaching 200+ startups innovating game-changing technologies. Tony founded Nest Labs, Inc. https://nest.com/ in 2010 and served as its Chief Executive Officer until his resignation in 2016. He joined Apple Computer Inc. https://www.apple.com/ in 2001 and, as the SVP of Apple's iPod division, led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Tony founded the Mobile Computing Group at Philips Electronics https://www.usa.philips.com/ and served as its Chief Technology Officer and Director of Engineering 1995 to 1998, responsible for all aspects of business and product development, including the award-winning Philips Velo and Nino PDAs. From 1998 to 1999, he served as Vice President for Philips Strategy & Venture https://www.ventures.philips.com/ focused on building out its digital media strategy and investment portfolio. From 1992 to 1995, he served as a Hardware and Software Architect at General Magic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic, which created the precursor to the iPhone 15 years earlier. Tony has filed more than 300 patents for his work. In May 2016, Time named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod, and the iPhone three of the "50 Most Influential Gadgets of All Time https://time.com/4309573/most-influential-gadgets/." Tony graduated with a BS degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1991. Please enjoy! This episode is also brought to you by SuperFat Nut Butters. http://superfat.com/tim These little beauties are great. I’ve been using them as quick mini-breakfasts and on-the-go fuel for a few months now. They’re 200–300 calories each, depending on which ingredient cocktail you eat (MCT, protein, macadamia, caffeine, etc.); 3–5g of net carbs per pouch; keto- and Paleo-friendly; and easy to throw in a backpack or pocket. The first time I tried SuperFat http://superfat.com/tim, I finished the entire box in a few days, so watch your portion control. I suggest ordering the Variety Box http://superfat.com/tim and you can try all 5 SuperFat http://superfat.com/tim flavors in one box, and it has 2 pouches of each flavor. Get 15% off your order by going to SuperFat.com/tim http://superfat.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic http://foursigmatic.com/tim. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring Lion's Mane http://foursigmatic.com/tim. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim http://foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor http://tim.blog/sponsor. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 00

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

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by SuperFat Nut Butters. I've got two boxes of them, actually, sitting within 15 feet of me in a cabinet. These little beauties are great. I've been using them as quick mini-breakfasts, that's one use, and as on-the-go fuel for a few months now. I was pretty slammed this afternoon. I had a Wi-Fi debacle and I was preparing to record a podcast, so I didn't have time to make something to eat or buy something to eat, but these saved my ass. That's a great use case. They're 200 to 300 calories each, depending on which ingredient cocktail you eat, because there are a bunch of different types. MCT, meaning medium-chain triglycerides, protein, macadamia, caffeine, etc. 3 to 5 grams of net carbs per pouch. They're keto and paleo-friendly.

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  And they are really easy to transport. You can throw them in a backpack or a pocket. I love these things. The first time I tried SuperFat, however, be forewarned, I finished the entire box in maybe two or three days. So, watch your portion control. And pro tip, the way you eat them, you have to unscrew the top. You get about 90% out of it that way. And then you tear the pouch, tear it diagonally, not straight across, and that'll get you the last 10% or so. I suggest ordering the variety box. You can try that way all five SuperFat flavors in one box, and you'll get two pouches of each flavor that way. You can also get 15% off your order by going to superfat.com/tim.

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  That's superfat.com/tim for 15% off. When you go to, one more time, superfat.com/tim.

• 2:02Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic, founded by the genius Finns, who lit the internet on fire. And you may have heard of their mushroom coffee, which features chaga and lion's mane, which has taken Silicon Valley by storm. I use it pretty much every day, either that or the chaga, which is decaf, so it's a separate version. And I use both of these primarily for focus and productivity. They just get you going, light you up like a Christmas tree. So you should definitely check it out. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement. And for right now, this is the answer. I try to force this on all of my house guests. It is a hell of a

• 2:45Tim Ferriss?

  thing. If I have employees or people come over who are working on projects with me, I always try to feed it to them because I'm going to get the limitless effect and get a lot more out of them. The first time I mentioned this product and Four Sigmatic on the podcast, their product sold out in less than a week. So you may want to check them out soon if you're listening to this. And the coffee tastes like coffee. It takes just seconds to prepare with hot water, and oddly enough, only includes 40mg of caffeine. So it has less than half of what you'd get in a regular cup of coffee. I don't get any jitters, acid reflux, or any stomach burn, any of that. It's very unusual and very, very cool. So if you don't like caffeine, they also offer very strong but caffeine-free mushroom

• 3:30Tim Ferriss?

  elixirs, which I will sometimes have in the evening. I find chaga specifically to be very, very grounding and earthy. So that is another option. And I have a cupboard full of their products at the moment, which is right around the corner in my kitchen. You can try something right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/tim. And use the code TIM, T-I-M, to get 20% off of your first order. And they're not that expensive, anyway. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. So try them out.

• 4:07Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. Langen nikke zen, or maybe langen nikke horen. And hisashiburi da ne, hisashiburi ja. That means "long time no see," basically in Japanese. But we're in audio here, so I can't say, for instance, and that phrase "long time no see" is taken from Mandarin, I think. "Haojiu bujian." I'd have to say something like "Haojiu meiyou tindao ni de shangyin na." Something like that. Anyway, back to the episode. I'm a little slap-happy. Haven't had a lot of sleep, but I've had a lot of caffeine. My guest is Tony Fadell. I'm really excited about this one. This was a conversation I've been looking forward to for years. Tony has been called "the father of the iPod"

• 4:51Tim Ferriss?

  for many, many good reasons. But let's go to the current stuff first. He's an active investor and entrepreneur with more than 30 years of history of founding companies and designing products that profoundly improve people's lives. And certainly, products that have fundamentally changed the world. He is a principal at Future Shape, which you can find at futureshape LLC.com, an investment and advisory firm coaching deep tech startups. We do talk about that. Currently, Future Shape is coaching more than 200 startups innovating game-changing technologies. He is the founder and former CEO of Nest, the company that pioneered the Internet of Things. Tony was the SVP of Apple's iPod division and led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Throughout his career,

• 5:36Tim Ferriss?

  Tony has filed more than 300 patents for his work. In May 2016, time-named the Nest Learning Thermostat, the iPod, and the iPhone is three of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time. And we recorded video for this episode. Even before we started recording, I had learned something because I noticed that Tony had blurred the background in his video. It was very surreal. And that is a feature that is built into Skype. You just click on the three dots for more features, and you can blur your background. Who knew? So you can check that out by going to tim.blog/fidell.

• 6:15Tim Ferriss?

  F A D E L L, or you can just go to youtube.com/timferriss. Either one of those will have the video of this conversation if you want to check that out. You can say hello to Tony on Twitter @tfaddell, T F A D E L L, and we talk about a lot. It is wide-ranging, tools, tricks, routines, rebooting yourself, seeking boredom for insight, all sorts of stuff. So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Tony Faddell. Tony, welcome to the show.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Hi, Tim. Great to be here.

• 6:54Tim Ferriss?

  I am so thrilled to finally be having this conversation. We have a bunch of mutual friends, and of course, the good man, Scott Belsky, is one of them. So thanks to Scott for making the introduction.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Great guy, great guy.

• 7:08Tim Ferriss?

  And I have some suggested topics from him that we'll get to at some point, but I thought that we could begin with something that came up before we started recording. I mentioned that I needed to open up my caffeine. I have some yerba mate here sitting in front of me, and you said that you don't do caffeine. And one of the questions I plan on asking you is about alcohol, because my understanding is that you don't do alcohol either. Could you describe or explain why that is in both cases?

• 7:45Speaker 03

  Well, the caffeine thing and the alcohol are, obviously, my daily habits or lack thereof, but they happened at different times. And so for me, the alcohol was really an outpouring of when I went to Saudi Arabia for two weeks to be with a friend there, and I stopped drinking. And it was just before I was 40. Uh, forty years old. And so I was there for two weeks and not drinking. And all of a sudden, I started feeling completely better. I was sleeping better. I was, you know, I was waking up better. You know, you're like, oh, I'm not in this fog. It didn't take until eleven o'clock or twelve o'clock to, you know, to actually be, you know, present.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  And so for me, it was really about that feeling much better. And then I was thinking, wait a second. So if I drink alcohol, well, there's the calories from the alcohol. Then it's what it makes me do, which is usually eat too much dessert or any dessert at all.

• 8:43Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  You're like, you have less, you have less control there and you're like. And then I wake up in the middle of the night because I get happy heart because I can't process the alcohol sugars. So it's like, and then I feel like crap the next morning. I'm like, why am I doing this to myself when I feel so much better? And I'm like, I'm getting older. It's not getting any better. So let's just cut it out. And literally it was overnight and just cut it out.

• 9:07Tim Ferriss?

  Wow. So that was the alcohol piece.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:10Tim Ferriss?

  Which was triggered by the, the trip to Saudi Arabia. And what about the caffeine?

• 9:15Speaker 03

  Well, the caffeine, you know, I basically overdosed on, you know, on sugar water or aspartame water uh back in my twenties when I was at a company called General Magic. And so I was probably drinking between eight and twelve Diet Cokes a day. Right? Loaded with caffeine. And that was just before the times of those crazy drinks with all the extra caffeine and everything. But that's what kept me going. But it was, it was killing me. And so I just then and there just said, I'm, I'm stopping the caffeine and I'm stopping the sodas, whether they were sugared or not, and just, just wet cold turkey on it.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  And uh, you know, and that helped a whole process. That was the beginning of a whole process of life changes that I made from the time I was twenty four, twenty five to again, get to this point today.

• 10:07Tim Ferriss?

  So we won't dwell on this too long, but I have a feeling there's some, some good stuff to unpack here. So the, the cold turkey with caffeine has some repercussions, right? There are some, generally some physical withdrawal symptoms. Uh, even, even a very, very low daily doses of caffeine. So there are two things that pop to mind. Number one is why that particular day, right? What was, what made that day different from the days before and what was? The catalyst. And then number two is, how did you handle the detox period? Or re-acclimation period afterwards?

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Well, and we can get into this more later, but the impetus, the reason why I did that was, I basically pressed reset on my whole life when I was, I think about 25, when a company that I was working at 80, 100, 120 hours a week at called General Magic, totally failed. It became my entire life. I didn't, I shunned even, you know, my family to a certain extent. I just wanted to make this company, General Magic, happen. And so when it was an utter failure and a disaster, I kind of went away on my, a journey. And then I started rethinking all kinds of things in my life. So that was, that was one big thing.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  But the withdrawal, the withdrawal was literally three weeks of insane headaches. It was continual headaches. You had to pop the Advil or the Tylenol or whatever it was. But it was continual headaches. And it just made me realize how much it was affecting me and that I'm glad I got through it. But yeah, it was, it was, it was painful. I'm sure it wasn't, not as hard as a typical drug addiction. But caffeine is a, you know, is, is a drug.

• 12:01Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. Caffeine's a powerful, powerful drug. And

• 12:05Speaker 03

  And I never drank coffee either. I probably had two cups, three cups in my life.

• 12:10Tim Ferriss?

  That's it. And if we rewind the clock and go way back to childhood, of course, in prepping for this, I've done a fair amount of reading. And I've, I've read that from the tinkering perspective, from the building perspective, which we could get into, your grandfather comes up a lot. I'm curious where you developed, or how you developed your ability to, to sell, to market, to present. Because you're, you're not only a good builder, you're also very good at presenting ideas in very persuasive ways. So where does that come from?

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Great question. So my dad was a salesman for Levi Strauss. He was a head sales guy. We were, he was selling jeans for thirty-three or thirty-four years. He was with the company. And so he started there just, I think, when I was two years old. And so I watched him all the time going and selling, you know, clothes. And he gave me little tips along the way. Sometimes I'd actually go with him to a sales, you know, a sales meeting where he would be talking to a retailer and telling him about the latest line or what have you, or about goal, sales goals or what have you. So I got to watch him do his work and ask him questions about that. And he gave me some really big tips on that.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  That was the first one, which is it just, it must be built into my DNA because that's, you know, my dad has that skill. But then over time, it was really after the general magic phase, um, then, and then, you know, starting to understand other people's languages, you know, the language of marketing, the language of, of finance, uh, business. Um, and trying to really understand those languages beyond engineering and, and blending those together and saying, wait a second, every single thing is about communicating in other people's languages, right? How would they understand? And then the other one is then coming from a place in the heart that's really meaningful

• 14:19Speaker 03

  when you are talking the other person's language about what you're doing. And then ultimately, over time, through failures and all these other things, is really understanding, talking to them about what they need and what their problems are and how you're trying to solve them. And so the more you put yourselves in their shoes. So I think it was a continual thing and then, you know, being, being, uh, you know, mentored by Steve Jobs, you know, just kind of drilled it all home, right? To watch him, the absolute master, do it. Then I picked up more tips and techniques and refined and refined after that.

• 14:52Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so we'll probably come back to that as it relates to two specific projects. General Magic has come up a couple of times and I have heard it described as the most important company to come out of Silicon Valley that no one's ever heard of. Now, it's not quite true that no one's ever heard of it, but it's not as recognizable as a lot of other names, of course. How did you end up at General Magic? And in explaining that, what was General Magic? And you can tackle that however you like.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Sure, sure. Well, first, there's a movie out now called The General Magic Movie. So you can see it as the filmmakers told my story of how to get to, how I got there. But beyond that, for me, it was really, I was a passionate geek since the 70s with an Apple, well, first with a, you know, a computer that was a paper. It had a paper display and it had punch cards, right? So I started there and then an Apple II and what have you. And so I was always an Apple fan. I was a fan since, I think, 79 or 80. And then the Mac came. And so then I was a fan of the Mac and I started to learn more and more because I was

• 16:06Speaker 03

  really diving in deep. It wasn't just using, it was learning about it, learning about the craft and learning who's behind it. And that was all about the, you know, the Mac team. Because before that, before Apple, before the Mac, Apple was really, you know, it was just about the product. It wasn't even about Steve Jobs at that time. It was really just about Apple II. When the Mac came, it was a whole set of the product, Steve, Jobs, as well as the team behind it. And you were able to read all kinds of articles about the team. And that's when I started to really just go, who are these people? What are they all about? And so I kept tracking them and watching where they went.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Some stayed at Apple, some left, some went back to Apple and back and forth. And when I was getting out of school, there was a, in the back of Mac Week magazine, there was a little column that was always about the rumor mill. It was the rumor mill. And I would read that and it said, The founding team from the Mac has gone off to do this project and this company called General Magic called Pocket Crystal. And I was like, what is that? And so every week, you know, you would look for those little nuggets and that week I found it. And so after that, when I, when I read that, because there was no internet back in the day, right? I read that, I was like, okay, now it was tunnel vision. Whatever it does,

• 17:31Speaker 03

  I need to go figure out what this company is doing and I need to see if I could go work there because I was, I was graduating. I had a startup at the time, but I was like, this, it wasn't working. I was a, I was a, it was a tiny pond I was in in Michigan at the time because it wasn't the mobile revolution we have today. And so I had to get to Silicon Valley. I had to go see that team and, and then ultimately, you know, knocked down the door, I should say, you know, kicked in the door to get to work there.

• 17:57Tim Ferriss?

  And to add some color to that, so I did watch the documentary.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Oh, cool.

• 18:02Tim Ferriss?

  And you basically, I don't know how to put this harassed, I think is probably not too far off, the, the head of HR and just called and called and, and pestered and pestered until they finally paid attention. Is that, can you, can you add a little bit of detail?

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Sure. Well, well, first it was pestering the people inside Silicon Valley to find the people at General Magic to talk to. So first was, okay, I was determined to find a person that at the company I could talk to. So I had to talk to various people. I wrote letters. I literally typed letters and sent them to various VCs and various people saying, who do you know at blah, blah, blah? Who do you know at? So I had to find, find the person. And so then I ultimately found that person, which was Dee, Dee Young, and, and started, you know, stalking both the company from sitting at the doorstep, trying to get in in the mornings to, to meet somebody, as well as placing calls to Dee to, you know,

• 19:08Speaker 03

  to, to get that interview, to get, you know, response from the interview, all those things. It took, it took probably six, let's see, I started in, I think, April that year and then I landed the position in November that year and that was 1991.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  In 1991.

• 19:27Tim Ferriss?

  My recollection of the film, which is really all I know of General Magic, is that you were not the only person who was, say, sleeping outside or trying to get a position at this company. What did they see in you? What were the elements in your approach or resume that got you a job? Do you think?

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I can't speculate.

• 19:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, speculate.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  But it was so, well, first, I had already, you know, at that time, I had a startup company in high school with another guy, doing educational, selling Apple II peripherals and writing software for the Apple II for those peripherals. That was called Quality Computer. Joe Gleason was a great guy, and, you know, he was just two years my senior. And we were, it was the two of us doing that. And then after that, in school, in college, I created a chip firm with another guy, and we reverse engineered and made a new version of the 65H16 processor in school for the

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Apple II GS, literally a 16-bit version of the Apple II, because we loved it so much. So we made a processor and actually had it fabricated. And then we also, I also had that software startup called Constructive Instruments with my professor Elliot Soloway at the University of Michigan, and we were doing educational multimedia software at the time. So I think those few entrepreneurial endeavors, you know, chips and software and sales and retail, you know, mail order, not even e-tail, mail order, and customer support, I think gave me a little leg up. It'd be, plus my passion for just, please let me in. And they were like, oh, who's this kid? He's fresh out of school.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Well, he's got all this, you know, he's got all this experience. Okay, let's hire him for a pittance, which it was, and we'll give him a try.

• 21:33Tim Ferriss?

  Why, why did General Magic with this all-star team? I mean, just the, the superstars of the time and soon to be, or I would say, yeah, sure, soon to be superstars of the later times fail? Why did it not? What were they doing and why didn't it work?

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Well, General Magic was trying to create what was in essence the iPhone about 15 years too soon. Okay? So, you know, we know the iPhone today, but back then, there were no digital telephone networks or mobile networks. They were all analog. There was no internet. There was almost no multimedia and there's, most people didn't even use email yet. Right? And so what we were creating was this iPhone too early, but it was, it was a picture of what was to come. So we were too early for the technology. Even the processors weren't fast enough and the battery life was too short.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  It just so many elements. We were well ahead of our, well ahead of the future. Let's put it that way. And so, so that was one piece. But then the other piece that really, really cut General Magic down was, I would think it was a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline about who our customer was, what the product was we were making, what the, um, the timeline was and how we were going to get it to market. It was literally this amazing sandbox to create this next generation platform with almost no bounds. We created everything from scratch. We didn't leverage almost anything in the, in the, that was already built at the time.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  We decided to make our own, you know, uh, chips and everything.

• 23:24Tim Ferriss?

  And from that point, uh, well, I shouldn't say from that point, but could you describe your first contact with Steve Jobs?

• 23:33Speaker 03

  My very, very first content?

• 23:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Was at Andy Hertzfeld's birthday. Andy Hertzfeld had his birthday. I don't remember which one it was.

• 23:43Tim Ferriss?

  And for people listening or watching, could you, could you?

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Sure, sure.

• 23:46Tim Ferriss?

  Just define who that figure is?

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Andy Hertzfeld was one of the principal software developers of the Macintosh. So he and Bill Atkinson and Susan Kerr and a bunch of other people created the Macintosh. And they were all at General Magic. And so Andy, you know, he was having his birthday. And so he invited the team from General Magic to come to his birthday at his house. And low and behold, who shows up? I think he was riding his bicycle at the time with Steve, who was literally, I think, like, living five or six blocks away. And so he just, you know, rolled up on his, on his, on his bike and there he was. And we were all gathered around, because Steve was obviously, you know, busy at Next at the time.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  And Andy and, Andy and Steve had a really close connection. And they would always talk about, you know, different technologies and things. And that, that was the time when I first got to meet him, you know, meet Steve.

• 24:46Tim Ferriss?

  What were your impressions at the, at the time?

• 24:50Speaker 03

  You know, you're starstruck. You're absolutely starstruck. Oh, that's Steve. Oh, my God. You know, and I'm, you know, I was, I think I was 22 at the time, something like that. So I was just, you know, you, you know, it's like when you go up to your, you know, favorite rock star or something, you just don't know what to say. You're blah, you know? You're like, and he probably just looked at me weird instead of this crazy kid. But that was it. He was, but the impression was he was, he was, he was very definitive in the way he spoke. You know, he made sure like, this is my opinion and that's what it is. And then you could argue with him or whatever. It was great. It was a great banter. That was fun. But I also, you have to remember, at General Magic, I would hear Steve's stories every day.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Every day you'd hear about something that happened on the Apple II or something that happened at Apple or on the Macintosh team. And so I had this vision of Steve and these stories of Steve from the people who were with him in the most intense times and the most celebratory times and what have you. And I'm sure a lot of those stories were larger than they really were and what have you. So I had this picture and in times you were like, "Oh, my God, absolute genius," and other times you're like, "Absolute madness," and you're like, "Ah, should I cower in fear?" You know what I mean? So you don't really know what to make of it because you have this incredible impression of a person before you've really met them.

• 26:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I can imagine. The fish was this big type stories and all the elaboration that comes with dramatic storytelling, especially when you have such good raw material to begin with.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 26:26Tim Ferriss?

  In Steve. So I will ask you more about Steve, but before we get there, I want to talk about your reboot.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 26:36Tim Ferriss?

  Post, this was post-General magic, so you're, let's call it...

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Just at the end and then about a year and a half after, two years after that.

• 26:48Tim Ferriss?

  So what were the elements of your reboot? And then the consequences of the reboot, if you look then, say, a few years after that?

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah. Sure. Well, look, it started, and I know you've interviewed Jim Collins, and it was kind of this, I started on the, you know, I'm still on the good journey, hopefully one day I might get to the great journey. But it first started with individual contribution, right? So I was like, "Oh, I'm an issue contributor, I'm doing well, I think I'm performing at the team." And then when the bottom fell down, general magic, right? Just everything happened and you were working night and day and all you have is this tunnel vision. And you're like, "What am I doing? What am I doing with my life?" And every time you talk to your parents, or I talk to my parents, I'd be like, "I gotta

• 27:44Speaker 03

  go, I gotta work on this." Boom. It was always just shutting everything down for one sole purpose. And then when that time happened, and it's a very dark and lonely time, you say...

• 28:00Speaker 03

  And I had luckily a friend who actually worked at General Magic, she came, Sandra Card, and she came and just sat there and talked to me and just helped me try to get through it. And it was just, "You know, no, this is valuable and this wasn't all just you and don't worry about that." And you know, and just, "Hey, let's..." And get me out of that element and let me see beyond. Because when I was in Silicon Valley at that moment, it was probably four years. And I literally probably did not go further than a couple of miles radius away from General Magic and where I lived. You know, I didn't go to San Francisco, I didn't go out to the ocean, I was just, it was a sole purpose in life, was just that.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  And so, she helped to help me, you know, kind of take the blinders off and see more. And then as I saw more, I started saying, "Well, wait a second. What's the right thing for General Magic? Where would the product go? What's the..." You know, and so I started thinking about that. And then I also started, "Where does my life go? Where do I need..." I can't, I have to start to understand balance. And I started reading. And I started, you know, designing and thinking about the customer and thinking about marketing. So you start to see all of these things that were breaking down at General Magic and you go, "Oh, I should have been involved in that, I should have learned about those things." And so, so during that, that time was all about redesigning a product for General Magic that I thought was a success.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  And so, I did that, I was learning more about myself through that. And at that moment, when I thought I had something, I took it to the General Magic, you know, powers that be. And I said, "Hey, this is what I think is really great." And they said, "That's nice, Tony, but we have other priorities." And I was like, and then of course it hit me and I'm like, "Oh, this thing I'm working on, I can't get these, they have different things they want to do, I can't make this thing real." So, on the journey of good to great, I decided to go... To be a manager/leader. And so I went and took that design. And I went to different ones of the licensees of General Magic.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  We had many, many big companies who were working with General Magic to create this device and this service. And it was Sony and Panasonic. And another one was Philips, who I was working closely with. So I went and pitched my device to CEO of Philips at the time. And I said, this is what we can do with this General Magic investment you made. And they were like, that's great. Let's do this. Okay, now you're going to come on and do it for us. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? And so literally, I was 24, 25 at the time. And now, you know, through a whole set of things, I was now the lead of this project and this

• 30:51Speaker 03

  new team that I had to build from scratch in Silicon Valley for Philips to create this device. And so, so there was the failure of General Magic. And now all of a sudden, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. And so I've, I've never managed people. I never did anything. So I started hiring people, people I knew, and started building this team. And then I was probably the worst manager under the sun for the first six months. You know, you're just like, do it this way, do it that way, blah, blah, blah. You don't know what you're doing. And so I had to go back and I'm failing miserably. You know, and I'm in this big company with these dark offices. It's old, it's not a startup, it's nowhere near like General Magic. So I left everything I knew to go to this big company to do this thing.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  I had no clue what I was doing. And I was failing at it. And so then I had to go on another journey of like, okay, what am I? Who am I? What's, what's a great manager? What's a great leader? How do I learn about these things? How do I reflect and see what I'm doing? How do I get feedback? And so that was another step, right? And then all through that time was also a physical journey. Because if you saw the movie, you probably saw me in the movie. Yeah. I don't look quite like I look. Very different. And so I'm playing the long game. I wanted to look as horrible as I could in my twenties. So I can only look better as I got older.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  So, so there was that mental journey and emotional journey. But then there was a physical journey of healing in every which way of, of moving up through that pyramid of trying to kind of right the ship and get whole again, but then move well beyond it and take the, take all those really negative experiences and turning them into something positive.

• 32:41Tim Ferriss?

  Let's, let's explore your process for a second, or maybe more than a second, as it relates to these, these, these, what you might call sort of phase shifts or chapter changes. When you're asking yourself, what's a great manager? How do I get feedback? What does the actual process look like when you did that? I mean, are you going to the bookstore and buying 10 books and reading 10 books? Are you trying to pin people down to grill them about how they manage? What, what did you actually do? What was the process?

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Well, you hit it on the head, nail on the head there was books, a lot of reading. Another one was talking to people who I trusted, who could give me feedback. And then I started kind of going to a couple of classes, you know, and, and, and, and just doing that. And then-

• 33:36Tim Ferriss?

  Sorry to interrupt. What type of classes?

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Oh, they were just kind of like management classes or, you know, doing little like questionnaires of your management style and what's working, what's not. And then I, as I got deeper and deeper, I was like, wait a second, I need to get deeper into myself. I need to learn much, much more about myself. And so, how do you do that? You know, athletes go off and get a trainer and they start working on the training and they, you know, like you, you know, work on their, their, their, their food, you know, what they eat, how they sleep, how they work out, all that stuff, maybe even their mental abilities. And so I was like, well, if I'm gonna do this, I gotta know myself really well.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  And I'm, and given a lot of the stuff that happened growing up, because I went to 12 schools in 15 years, I was, you know, you know, a transient kid in a way. And so I didn't, so there was all these social interactions that I had or I did not have because I wasn't with a group for very long. Right, um, sometimes sports gives that to kids because they they learn how to work on teams. But I never had that because I was always moving. And so I decided that what's the best thing to do is I'm gonna act because I was reading all these books about psychology. You know, the road less traveled, I was reading, you know, I was also a philosophy minor in in in college.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  So I was also going back to some of that, going back to some psychology and things like that. So I said, okay, I'm just gonna go find a person that I can go and talk to about everything. So I went to a psychologist. I just, I I was, I wasn't crazy. I just decided I'm gonna go talk to somebody who should know something about this. So I literally went to one and a half to two hour sessions

• 35:29Speaker 03

  twice a week for almost a year and a half. And literally just diving deep into everything and said, I had this in, I had this experience today. I had that experience today. And it gave me the time for me to process it myself, right? And just, you know, the person would ask me questions, the the doctor would ask me different questions. But then, and then I was like, oh, oh, I didn't think about it that way. I didn't see it from that angle. Oh, okay. And so I got to go really deep into so many pieces of my life that that was just, wow, it was just like huge lights were, you know, flashing and you're like, oh, my God.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  And all of a sudden, you know, the changes started occurring. It wasn't just doing, but it was learning the fundamentals and learning, not just by reading a book, but actually seeing it in your day to day. So I could bring examples from every day into the sessions and just talk about them. Does that, does that make sense?

• 36:31Tim Ferriss?

  It does make sense. How did you find the psychologist? How did you pick this person?

• 36:36Speaker 03

  Oh, geez.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Wow, how did I do that?

• 36:41Tim Ferriss?

  Or how, it could be-

• 36:42Speaker 03

  I think it was just a recommendation from-

• 36:45Tim Ferriss?

  From someone you knew?

• 36:46Speaker 03

  From a friend, yeah, it was a recommendation.

• 36:48Tim Ferriss?

  What were some of the results that you saw, outside of the sessions? Some of the, some of the outcomes for you?

• 36:57Speaker 03

  I, I think it was, you know, empathy. There was a lot of empathy, putting yourself in other people's shoes and understanding, what they were thinking, how they're acting, how they might be reacting to certain words that you're saying.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Different approaches to leading and motivating.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Certain things about the decisions I made every day and how I could go about making different decisions.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  How about just re-enabling social interactions? Again, like I said, I was the geeky kid in the corner. I was the new kid all the time, right? And, you know, if you're the new kid all the time, you're gonna have certain tendencies and you're gonna fit in really fast, but you're also not gonna make deep connections. So it's those kinds of things that you had to grapple with and, and really tease apart and learn about yourself. And so that was like, and then, and so that was where, you know, the physical changed, the mental changed, the leadership changed, to allow me to really propel beyond and not just, you know, learn through lots of mistakes.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  I, I learned through mistakes, but you were, it was a quick iteration because you could learn the, it wasn't, you were, you're not learning about the symptom, but you're learning about the root cause.

• 38:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  And fix, or trying to fix the root cause, or at least manage it.

• 38:23Tim Ferriss?

  Why did you go through 12 schools in 15 years?

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Well, because of my dad's job.

• 38:29Tim Ferriss?

  Because of your job, your dad's job?

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, my dad, so he was, wherever the business at Levi's, because it was taking off. You remember in the 70s, Levi's, or you're too young, you don't know this. Levi's was, was literally like-

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Was a precious, precious commodity. Like, they were trading Levi's jeans as currency in Russia on the black market. It was that sought-after thing. Uh, maybe like Supreme is or was, you know, it was that kind of thing. And so my dad would always go to various places where, um, they were either starting and rolling out Levi's, because it wasn't everywhere. It was just in certain places. So, starting up new territories, or propping them up, or, or fixing them in some way. So, we would move from place to place, because my dad was ambitious and he was really good at sales. Um, and, and so they kept promoting him and moving him up the ranks. And giving him harder and harder work, you know, that's what happens, right?

• 39:29Speaker 03

  When you're successful, they only give you more, and harder.

• 39:32Tim Ferriss?

  Right. Yeah, as, as a friend of mine put it, he said, "Your reward for winning the pie-eating contest is more pie."

• 39:39Tim Ferriss?

  What's, I, I know that we're going a little memento nonlinear with the way that I'm asking questions, but I wanted to ask this earlier. What, what made your dad so good at sales? What are some of the things that made your dad so good?

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Well, he's, he's a very personable guy. So, he gets along, and you can see it in his face. He is not a guy who can lie, alright? And he, neither am I, and I got that from him as well. And he said, to me one day, um, after the meeting, I, there was some, or in a meeting, he was in a sales meeting, I was there. And, I saw him and he laid out the whole line of clothes, and showed this, I think it was, I don't even, it was Bloomingdale's or Macy's at the time, something. And, he said, "Okay, these are the hot sellers in our line. These aren't so good, I wouldn't recommend you buying these, blah, blah." And I was like, "Dad, what are you doing? You're supposed to sell everything."

• 40:35Speaker 03

  And he goes, "No, I'm not supposed to sell everything. I'm supposed to sell the things to the, what the customer really should have, and they're gonna be successful with. And if I don't have what they're gonna be successful with, I'm gonna recommend my competitor, and tell him that they should go there instead of this piece of apparel or whatever." Because I'm gonna earn the trust and respect and I'm it's not about a transaction. It's about a relationship and they will come back to me every day, every week and know that I'm the person they want to talk to and I'll be first and if I have the best stuff, I'm gonna get the biggest orders. But if I always sold all the stuff that was dog, you know, just to make my quarter to quarter, whatever nut it was to crack,

• 41:16Speaker 03

  I am gonna lose that relationship and everything in life is about your relationships and how you treat them and how you, you know, um, whether the times are down or whether times are good or times are bad. And so that was a key piece that I took away um, from that day and that we'll never forget.

• 41:35Tim Ferriss?

  That is a great story. What a great story. What a great lesson, too. Man, what a gift.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  It was great.

• 41:42Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, when you later in your career were giving advice on managing, right? Because we talked about developing empathy, you talked about this personal transformation. Later on, when people would come to you as novice managers who are kind of trying to build the plane while they're mid-flight, what, what type of advice do you give to new managers? Who are maybe good product people who have somehow been promoted into a management role, but never prepared for it? What, what type of advice or training or recommendations do you give those folks?

• 42:18Speaker 03

  Well, the, what always inevitably happens with all new managers is they have a difference with another manager somewhere, whether customer, their supplier, whatever it is, they have a difference with a manager that's inside the team. And usually they'll come and complain to me about that person or whoever they're having a problem with that team. And then usually the other team will, member will come up. And I always would say to them, I'm like, look, I can sit here and I'll give you some advice, but at the end of the day, I am not gonna rule on this. I'm not gonna sit here and take a side. I said, because whatever side I take, you won't be happy or the other person won't be happy. It will never go well. I said, the best thing you can do is whenever you have these issues,

• 43:02Speaker 03

  is you to get in a room and speak like adults instead of complaining, you know, whiny children.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And you get in a room and you hash it out and you try to speak like adults to each other and try to work it out. And if you still can't work it out, come get me. But don't, what most people do is they rant over here and they rant over here, but they never try to make a bond with that other person to try to find common ground and work from that. Kind of like the polarization of our politics today. Right? And you gotta get in the room, you gotta get, and that's the biggest step for conflict resolution and to build your relationships inside the organization so that you can go further. Because you're gonna always, you all need to work together. This is, it's not a zero-sum game. Uh, maybe some companies are, but in the ones that I've had, it was never a zero-sum game.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  We needed each other and we needed to work each other and you can't always get your manager involved to do that. And so, I was always about, sure, you, I'm always about learning by doing and then doing the education on the backend. In other words, have the failure moments. Work through, work through it and try to figure it out yourself and then go read about it and go, "Oh, now I get it." So it kind of locks it in. So, a lot of people learn, then do. I like to do, fail, then learn.

• 44:22Tim Ferriss?

  Are there any particular books that you have found useful or recommended to people related to management or communication, anything like that?

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Management and communication.

• 44:37Tim Ferriss?

  Oh yeah, yeah, or communication. Uh, I'm, I'm just wondering if, if somebody came to you hypothetically and they're, and they said, "Tony, I wanna hash it out with this guy, but, you know, I'm, I'm a miniature version of you. I'm running red hot, I'm in sixth gear and I think I'm just gonna, uh, uh, not have the tools to, say, have this conversation without getting, uh, really excited or, or, uh, managing it in a way that they won't be as, as productive as it should be. So, how should I prepare for it? Right?

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 45:10Tim Ferriss?

  What, uh, where might you point them or what might you say to them?

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Well, I think that there's one book which is really does a, there's two, there's two books actually. One book, which is Getting to Yes, if you've ever read that book.

• 45:25Tim Ferriss?

  I have.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Getting to Yes.

• 45:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Right?

• 45:27Tim Ferriss?

  William and Yuri and other guys, yep.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Right, Getting to Yes is one, and that's all about telling a story, right? And, and being there and telling a really great story for why people should say yes to whatever you're proposing. So, building that. The other one is Who Moved My Cheese?

• 45:43Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  Right? That's another really simple book. You don't have to go through all of this psychological kind of, you know, uh, you know, heavy books to get to very simple lessons. Right? And so Who Moved My Cheese is when, you know, basically something's changed and you don't like it anymore and it's out of your control. And then, you know, Getting to Yes was all about trying to find the common ground and getting someone to see your side and hopefully getting them to say yes. So those two things are very simple books, but they're a good starter place to get people to, uh, work together.

• 46:18Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. Uh, so I'm looking, I'm looking at, normally I would apologize for this. I'm looking at, this is gonna get meta for a second. I'm, I'm, so I'm looking at, I'm looking at my iPhone, which normally I would apologize for, but it seems very appropriate here. And I'm gonna look at my notes because there's a text from our, our mutual friend Scott Belsky with a few suggestions. And this is gonna be the return to Steve in a way. So he, he mentioned, uh, I'll just read a few things. So he's one of the rare people I know who can work across atoms and bits, as he describes it. And then he said he has a ton of, ton of Steve stories from early days of iPhone and iPod, how decisions were made, counterintuitive bets taken at the time.

• 47:00Tim Ferriss?

  So, could you tell a story about any decision or counterintuitive bet from the Steve days?

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Counterintuitive bet? Um, well, you know, Apple was fighting for its life at, on the iPod days, right? So... That was pre iPod. So a counterintuitive bet was specifically Steve saying, "We are going to build iPod." That was called Dulcimer. Literally, the company at that timeframe was 200 and I think it had $500 million in debt and $250 million in the bank, and it was break even quarter to quarter, right? And Steve was like, "We need to do this thing."

• 47:48Speaker 03

  It was a code name called Dulcimer, which ultimately came iPod. "But we need to do this project." And he said, "Okay," I was a consultant whipping this thing up. And then he was like, "Okay, you're going to come on board and you're going to make this happen." And the people in that room, he said, "Look, this is going to happen, and if anyone gets in your way, have them call either someone in this room, or call me, and we're going to take care of it." And so, literally, there were people who put roadblocks in. You know, we say it's the corporate antibodies that set in and say, "Wait a second, we're struggling for our life." Right? "We're struggling for our life for the Mac. We got to put all of our resources in the Mac. We can't be, you know, going in a different direction. We

• 48:33Speaker 03

  have to like all be, you know, and you're just, you're a consultant. Who are you, kid?" You know, and I'm like, "I need these, you know, I need some people to help." And they're like, "No, no, no, no." And then, literally, I'd call in the air cover, "Hey, I need some help." Whoever that was, and then, you know, that person and that person, whoever was in the way, you know, after about four or five calls, it got around the company like, "If I ask you, I need help, you just say yes." Don't, because you don't want to know what's going to come, you what, you know, what bomb's going to come and hit you otherwise." And so, that was a very counterintuitive thing, and it was totally, you know, guarded by Steve and the management, or part of the management team at the time.

• 49:15Tim Ferriss?

  What gave him the confidence to...?

• 49:23Tim Ferriss?

  Make that type of decision. Or maybe confidence is the wrong label to apply to it, I'm not sure. But whether you have to speculate, or if you know. What gives or gave him the ability to make that type of commitment and decision?

• 49:43Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I saw a lot of decisions and a lot of stuff after the first iPod, you know, kind of green light to start to keep going, right? So I'm going to speculate based on those, you know, 10 years of decisions I saw, what I think happened at the iPod thing, which was literally, almost every time we had to make a big bet, a very big decision, that would be, you know, kind of high, high risk, put the company at high, high risk, it was always because we were under threat.

• 50:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Okay, so the iPod was because they tried everything to get the Mac to go over three years, and it wasn't going. And it was, we have to try something different, we've tried everything on the Mac, no one wants to move off Windows PCs, what are we going to do differently? And so this looked like the first thing that could happen, MP3s were taking off, all the MP3 players at the time were just horrible. And iTunes, at the time after Apple bought iTunes with Jeff Robin, basically started gaining traction, and Macs were just starting to sell as multimedia machines, you know, you could do your music on them.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  And he's like, okay, now, if we get an iPod, maybe it will cause more people to want to, because it's differentiated, it's not just burning CDs or something, people will buy more Macs, because this iPod will allow them to do something that nobody else can do, not especially, definitely not on the PC side. So we were under threat, right? Michael Dell said to the world, like, oh, Apple should, you know, pack up and go home, give all the money left over to the shareholders and stop, right? So that's the situation it was, and he didn't want that to happen, so he was looking for anything that could possibly break out. And he's a lover of music, we were all lovers of music, or are lovers of music.

• 51:41Speaker 03

  And so I think he made that bet, and it wasn't too expensive to go off and do.

• 51:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. What is the timing for, just as one piece of it, iTunes within Apple? When it's first being sort of prototyped and developed inside of Apple? What would have the timing been on that in terms of year? But that like 2000, 2001?

• 52:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so iTunes, I believe, was bought in late 2000. It might have been, no, no, you know, middle of 2000, early to middle of 2000 it was bought. And then it was quickly rejiggered to be an Apple product, to be iTunes. And then they started seeing it taking off. And they wanted it to work with MP3 players. And that's when it all, that's when Apple said, oh, we need a device. And that's when I got the call and, you know, everything came together. So it was early 2000 and then we had the discussion about the iPod. I was brought in in late January 2001.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  And then I would, Steve signed off on it in the third or fourth week of March of 2001. And then we shipped it in the first week of October, November that year in 2001. So it was that fast, built the whole team, built the whole thing. It was, you know, it was crazy, crazy, crazy schedule.

• 53:07Tim Ferriss?

  So just as a small world story of sorts. So 2000, I had just moved to Silicon Valley and I was working in San Jose, living in Mountain View. And I had this tiny, tiny, tiny bedroom, which costs like $5 million a month in rent. I was driving my mom's hand-me-down piece-of-shit minivan. This thing was a disaster. And in my apartment complex, there was this guy, a fat, sort of across the way. There's this little concrete pond. I mean, it was, it was really pretty hilarious, but perfectly comfortable place. And this guy, I don't want to get anybody in trouble, so I won't mention where he's from.

• 53:51Tim Ferriss?

  But he would always be smoking late at night. And I was a night owl, so I'd be Up at like two, three in the morning, working on this first company and be like, hey, how's it going? And we talked for a few minutes and it was sort of our nightly chat. And I saw this guy get, he worked at Apple and he got progressively more and more haggard looking. And, and it turned out at the time, he didn't give me any name or anything, but he's like, look, my, I can't even make sense of this anymore. Can you come over here and give me your thoughts on this interface? Because I've just been looking at it for like 20 hours straight. And it wasn't, I later realized a very early sort of mock-up of iTunes.

• 54:33Tim Ferriss?

  And it is so wild to look back, but this guy, he was working so hard. He was a good employee. I mean, he probably, I'm sure wasn't supposed to show me, but he needed a second opinion. And it's just reflecting back on what that has become. Does it still hit you? Your TED Talk is wonderful, talks a lot about habituation. But when you see people walking around with one of these devices, right? An iPhone or some of these products, Nest, that you've been so critically involved with. Does it ever still just kind of stop you? Or is it so you, are these, are these things so ubiquitous that it's become invisible to you?

• 55:17Speaker 03

  Well, you know, when it becomes everywhere and it becomes mundane, basically, you know, just like whatever. And then you kind of look back and go, oh yeah, I forgot I was involved in that because you're just using it every day. It wasn't like, so, so to me, you know, in our business, whatever you did was ancient history. It's always about what you're doing or what you're planning to do, right? So we could never, you know, as we said on the team, we'd only celebrate for a nanosecond and move on. And if you look at iPod, we were fighting for our life with every generation. iPod wasn't successful till this third generation. Right, so the first one was like, cool, and then it was, nobody bought it.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Second one, cool, for a little while, then a few more people bought it. The third one is when it started happening. And then when iPhone happened, you know, we had lots of success underneath our wings at that point. But then it was like, we're taking on these monster companies, just like we took on Sony is like, yeah, and this is really hard, can we do this? And like, and we did it, and then, but we're like, but that's not enough, we gotta do the next one, and the next one. And so it's a breathless journey that you have. And then finally, when you're there, you're like, oh yeah, we did all that. And then you go and try to like, write down the history and like, wow, we sure did a shit ton of stuff.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  You know, but you know, it's, after having that general magic experience and 10 years of failure for me in the valley, it was always a hope we would be successful, but never a, it's gonna be, because I already went through that. And I went through that physical and emotional pain, so I never got to that point where, yes, oh my God, and oh, we champions. Like, that left my body. It was always about climbing the next part of that hill or that mountain, to then ultimately get to, you know, making something that's really great. And, you know, those things today are still evolving, and it's great to see.

• 57:15Tim Ferriss?

  We're, we're gonna talk about a lot of your post-Apple experiences, but before we get there, you mentioned early in the conversation that you learned a lot from, from Steve. What, what are some of the things that you learned from Steve or picked up from Steve? Any, anything, yeah, anything at all?

• 57:33Speaker 03

  The, the biggest one was storytelling, storytelling, storytelling. Always, whatever you're doing, have great stories and great analogies, because you need to relate to people on their level. And if you can give them great analogies. So, if you're trying to, whether it's a product story or software story, but even if you try to change the way, you know, you're doing a process at work, or who, who are the right vendors we should be working with? You need a great story behind that, so you can get people on board and understand the facts through a fun way of learning about the facts, if you know what I mean. We went through this, and here's the-

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Step one of our journey, step two of our journey, this is what we learned and now we're at this decision today. Here are the things that we want to make sure we avoid from the past, but we need these things in the future. It's going to be risky, but telling those stories and then, and if you can, find the analogies by which everyone can relate and it makes it really just drop dead simple.

• 58:40Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any examples of analogies, whether from Steve or from your own journey later that, that you could use to illustrate?

• 58:51Speaker 03

  Sure. You know, like Steve had this perfect one he did with Walt Mossberg on stage, which was like, you know, the Mac was like bringing, you know, a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.

• 59:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 59:07Speaker 03

  Right? You're like, oh, yeah, of course. You're like, oh, it's so refreshing. I need this. I've been dying for so long. You've now saved my life in a way. And so that was one, just a classic example of, of that. But we, you know, we try to do that all the time in our marketing, you know, when we were at Nest in our marketing, we tried to do that in, at iPod, iPhone. But I, you know, sometimes you don't even need an analogy though, if you can really get it crisp.

• 59:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  And that was the first tagline for the iPod, which was a thousand songs in your pocket.

• 59:40Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  It is probably the shortest, most concise, most dramatic tagline of any product ever in existence.

• 59:48Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 59:49Speaker 03

  And when you hear that, you're like, we always use that, we hold that up as kind of the measuring stick for everything we do after that. Like, how do we get to that point with our marketing or how do we get to that point with whatever we're trying to say to get it so crisp, so understandable for everyone that it's like, oh my God, duh.

• 1:00:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And it's such, it's such a beautiful, elegant example of the benefits versus features, right? And instead of what you saw a lot at the time, which was the specs, right? The megabytes or the...

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Feeds and speeds.

• 1:00:22Tim Ferriss?

  The feeds and speeds, exactly. And man, it's also the type of tagline that hits that sweet spot of, of perfectly understandable and shareable, right? Which is, it's, it really did just... Uh, thread that needle perfectly after Apple.

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  One other thing on analogies.

• 1:00:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  One other thing on analogies is if you can have a great analogy for someone, they will continue to repeat that to everyone else. So even if they didn't get all the details and everything else and they can't articulate exactly the story or all the, the, you know, the hows, whys and whats. They can tell the analogy and everyone goes, oh, now I get it.

• 1:01:09Tim Ferriss?

  Right?

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. For the most part. And so that's another thing is trying to give, give the people, your listeners or the people you're trying to persuade, a superpower. Give them that key line to make them feel like they really know what's going on and then they can reiterate and then like, yes, I'm in the know and it's cool.

• 1:01:28Tim Ferriss?

  Totally. And that, that single analogy or that single line, that one memorable phrase, at least in my experience, also often acts as an anchor for other pieces of information, right? But they need that first anchor in order to access that chain of recall that gives them the other details.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. Cause you go, they go, oh, now I'm listening. I get it. Now I'm listening.

• 1:01:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  Tell me more.

• 1:01:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 1:01:55Tim Ferriss?

  You're right. Now, in all the videos that I've, I've watched of you and certainly just having this conversation, you, you, you seem like a guy who's very comfortable at high RPMs. And I read, and certainly you can't believe everything you read on the internet, so feel free to fact check, but I read that upon leaving Apple, your goal was to get bored. And they put it in quotation marks. This is from The Guardian. And then he traveled around the world with his young family for a year and a half, put his children in French preschool, et cetera. Was the goal to get bored? And if so, could you explain what that means?

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  So getting bored and, and a lot of people who come to me for career advice, so people who worked for me, worked with me, whatever, they, they come and say, Tony, I'm thinking about doing the next thing. And you know, you get a point in your career where you have the ability to take time to make decisions. Most people very early on their career, you know, you have to, you have Eat, you know, you have to jump from you have to jump from lily pad to lily pad. And you have to make sure it's going to be solid, stable and everything else because you're worried about it. Uh, worried about your life or your perhaps your family. You get a certain point in your career where you can actually take a pause. You can breathe and you can think again and you can get inspired and you can.

• 1:03:11Speaker 03

  And so when I say get bored, which is get out of the process you're in the day to day grind. And just saying, okay, I've taken as much information as I can in this week or these two weeks of figuring out where I'm jumping to. And I'm just going to jump to it. I'll, you know, damn the torpedoes. It's just gonna, I'll make it work, kind of a thing. And so what I say to people is, no, don't, you know, they're like, oh, I have this great position now and title. If I stop, I'm gonna have, if I stop now and I don't take a job over there, I'm gonna lose it all. And I'm gonna have to start from zero again. And I'm like, no, you don't. What you need to do is if you do your career right, between every eight to 10 years,

• 1:03:55Speaker 03

  you're going to have a, a different chapter of your life, of your career. If you, if you want to do anything substantial, it's probably between eight and 10 years. Um, some people think it's four to five. I don't think that if you're doing something that's really important and different. And so when you, when those pauses come up or when those big transitions happen, you need to think very clearly because you are about to get married for 10 years or eight years to something else that you're going to put your heart and soul into. It's gonna, if you're, if you're choosing correctly, right? It's not about the money. It's about the mission and what you want to learn and what you want to challenge yourself with and deliver to the world in whatever that is.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  And so you should take the time out, get bored, get out of the rat race, get out of that. Nah, and I got, you know, a sliver of time to think about the future. I think about, you know, I've made my future is today, two weeks, two months, maybe. After that, it's a blur. It's maybe holidays, but other than that, it's like, okay, I don't even know what's out there. Get the time to get bored. Spend three, six months, if you can, or at least two or three weeks outside of that. Get bored, just put away all of your things, maybe go clean up the garage, or whatever it is, right? And through that, you're gonna start to think differently.

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  You're gonna act slightly differently, and your mind might open up to other sources of inspiration, other problems, other things where you start to go, "Oh, now I see differently." I'm not just gonna go and make, go to run to the competitor, because I understand the space and run to the competitor and go work for them, because they're gonna give me a better job. But I wanna go to a whole different thing that I wanna learn about, that's gonna challenge me, so I'm not just checking in every day and doing my work, but I'm actually growing through that.

• 1:05:50Tim Ferriss?

  This is great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep, keep going with this.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Keep on going.

• 1:05:54Tim Ferriss?

  This theme. Could you give me a personal example from your life of, of doing this? Whether it's current day, past, anything that, that comes to mind that you think is, makes for, makes for a good illustration?

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  Well, you, you brought it up already, which was, you know, the time that we went around the world for a year and a half and traveled, okay? The whole goal there was to get out of the same place at that point, my, I had been for, uh, let's see, tw- uh, eighteen years, nineteen years, with Silicon Valley, you know? Um, was to get out, see the world with our kids, who are one and two at the time, and they were, we didn't see them very much, because my wife also worked for Steve, right? My wife worked for Steve, I worked for Steve, so we were busy, busy, busy, helping Apple. And so when we had kids, we came home one day and we weren't with them. Uh, you know, we'd learned that we weren't with them.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  They were like running to the nanny when they had a problem instead of us, because they didn't know who we were. So we were like, "This is not working." So we said, "We're gonna change everything and go out and understand other things in life and try to be as, with a family." And through that, we went to many different countries and lived in different houses, lived in, you know, in Spain, in France, in Hawaii, and different parts of California. But anyways, moved all around. And through that journey and going to different art museums and talking to people living in different houses, um, that's where the idea for Nest came up.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  Was literally, we were living in all these homes around the world with all the same problems. So you're living in Spain, and you're living in France, and you're living in Hawaii, and you're living here, and you're like, wait just a second, they all have the same fundamental problems with their home controls and things. And at the very same time, I was designing a, a house in, remotely, in Lake Tahoe. So between Lake Tahoe designing, you know, I was, that was a great way to like distraction, right? It was, it was something I always wanted to do, so I was working on that. And then living in these different places and experiencing the same problems in that design here, and understanding that I saw different ways of living all around. I was like, wait a second, I think we can fix this problem.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  And step by step, then Nest was created over, you know, kind of a nine-month gestation of thinking, reading, learning, experiencing, to then come up with that solution that if I was still in Silicon Valley, I would have never came up with.

• 1:08:36Tim Ferriss?

  Where are you now?

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  Right now, I'm in Paris.

• 1:08:40Tim Ferriss?

  In Paris. And where do you spend most of your time these days? Is it in, and, uh, I suppose along with that, why Paris?

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  So, Paris happened during that trip, that, that, that, um, year and a half travel. Um, Paris was only supposed to be a two-week kind of quick adult, we're gonna come here, be in Paris, it's gonna be a, a great parents' experience, but the kids, not so much. And we got here, and then we started looking around and really living, you know, in those two weeks, just going to this, the, the various, uh, Jardins and things of that nature. We're like, wait a second, this is great kids, especially in their age. And I was like, oh, this is wonderful. My wife's like, this is great. Let's just stay. And we just, because we had that ability, we just stayed. We just continued to stay in Paris.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  And, and, and then through that, we met all kinds of very interesting people, learned about the culture, learned about the language, um, and just fell more and more in love. And I was going to, you know, various museums and learning about those artists and learning about their periods in time. So like, oh, certain, you know, Picasso had his blue period and his next period and his next period. And each time they'd take these breaks. I was like, oh, wait a second. We're on those breaks. Getting inspiration just like they did. I was like, this is cool. And so Paris just became part of us. And then the other piece of the puzzle was, we're like, well, wait a second. We can go back to Silicon Valley, but what are kids really going to learn? We're like, they could learn a language.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  It was always my dream to learn a second language. Growing up in the Midwest, growing up in the US, you know, you don't really think a second language, at least in the seventies and eighties, was important. Today, obviously, it's more and more important, especially in California and other states, Texas and those things. But I always wanted to do that. I was like, well, we could give that to our kids. They could learn that. They're going to learn socialization, of course, but they can't learn math and history and science, but they could learn a language. Let's do that. And let's give that gift to our kids that I always wish I had. And so that was the, the Paris connection. And then we kept coming back every summer. Our kids always stayed in French programs and became fluent in French. And, and then ultimately, um, we bought here. And then after I got done with, uh, Google Nest,

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  my wife just said, hey, we have a place in Paris. Let's just move. I'm like, let's do it. Done. And that's, that's how it all, that's all that happened. But since then, since that happened in 2016, yeah, 2016, we've also decided to branch out further. And now we spend a lot of time in Southeast Asia and in Paris. And we go back and forth and put our kids in school there, have, you know, uh, homeschoolers that help our kids when we're in different places and those things. Just because, as you've said so many times, experiences are incredibly powerful things to learn from. So it's, it's knocking the parents off the foundation, just like the kids are learning for the first time, and we learn as a family unit.

• 1:11:40Speaker 03

  And we figure out things like when you're in Indonesia, what, what, what's the currency? Why do they act this way? Why is it this way? Oh my God, that's really cool. Why don't we do that in the developed world? Why do we do this? All of these different things just, it just helped to build, you know, I think our family and the way our kids see the world.

• 1:12:00Tim Ferriss?

  It's, it's such an incredible gift that you're giving, of course yourselves, but your kids as well as an entirely different lens through which to view, not just the physical world, but the constructs and concepts and labels and language that make up our realities. It's, uh, it's, it's really exciting. Makes me excited for them.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  In some of your episodes, you talk a lot about language. And I think you also had that in one of your, your, the papers you wrote in school or something about language. And, you know, when I was listening to some of your podcasts, I'm like, yes, you are absolutely right. There's these containers that's called language. And when you see how differently they speak in a different language and what words are meaningful and what words they don't even have in that language, you're like, oh, that shapes the culture in a dramatic way. And that's the kind of things where you go, you know, it's like brain food, at least for me, where you're like, oh my God, I, I've never saw, thought of that problem that way before. Oh, it brings such clarity or brings such, you know, resolution to how you see the world in many ways in different respects. So it's cool.

• 1:13:08Tim Ferriss?

  So this might seem like a 90 degree turn. I don't, I don't, I don't think it is, but I want to bring it up. Uh, and I was planning on bringing it up anyway. Plastics.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:13:20Tim Ferriss?

  Plastics.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  Plastics.

• 1:13:22Tim Ferriss?

  Why, why are you so interested in plastics?

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  Plastics. Well, when you live in Southeast Asia, you start to really understand plastics. Because they're all around you in, on the ground, in the water, um, even in the air, and you see it everywhere. And you start saying, why do they have this problem? And in other parts of the world, we don't seem to have that problem. And so, as over the journey of the past year and a half, I've come to realize a lot of interesting pieces about plastics. And so, for me, plastics are a problem that we all have.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  It just is hidden in many parts of the world from us. Because there is waste management, management in quotes. It's taken away and we don't see it any longer. But it is still an incredible problem. And it's, in some ways, a blessing that there is not waste management in many of these places. So you can see the damage we're doing to the environment firsthand. And it's not just about gathering it up. And it's not just about recycling, which everyone tells you about. It's really a problem with our usage and the material itself and how we use it and how we design with it. That we are burying our future generations in this toxic mess. We talk about CO2 all the time. We talk about coal plants.

• 1:14:51Speaker 03

  We talk about climate change. We have all kinds of things behind climate change that are going to be problems for future generations that we also have to pay attention to. And in some cases, some of these other things, just like plastics, is actually contributing to our climate change issue as much as its environmental damage for 500 years. And so, being in Indonesia, you know, you really, you really feel it viscerally. And you're just like, where there's a big problem? This is what I love. This is when I get like, my brain turns on like, this is a big problem. How can we solve it? And this is not a problem with like, a societal problem. This is truly a design problem. This is, we designed this mess.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  We gotta design ourselves out of it, just like we have to do with climate change. So I'm like, that was a, it, it hit me so hard that I'm like, okay, how are we gonna design our way out of it? And so I spent the last year and a half learning about it.

• 1:15:48Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so.

• 1:15:50Speaker 03

  So I can get, yeah.

• 1:15:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's a leading thing to. Yeah, no, it's a great dot, dot, dot. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna pursue that dot, dot, dot.

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:15:57Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, I wanna talk about possible solutions or directions for solutions. But before we get there, because I'm so interested in how your mind.

• 1:16:06Tim Ferriss?

  Approaches something like this, how do you begin to dissect a problem that's that could have such a broad umbrella, right? There's so many possible directions to go. How do you even begin as someone who knows how to build from a design perspective or other perspectives? How do you begin to deconstruct that?

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  Well, let's just, I'm gonna just go back through the plastics thing, you know? I'm not a plastics expert by any means, or at least I wasn't. I'm trying to get there. Even though the products that I helped to create had plastics in them, I really didn't know a lot about the end of life of plastics and that stuff. So I was like, okay, there's all this waste everywhere in Indonesia. Well, why don't we just do what we do in the US? We'll just recycle it, right? And we'll just make sure there's good collection. And then you kind of dig in and you start learning about that and you go, so you try to just model saying, oh, we're just gonna fix it by doing what we do there. And then you start

• 1:17:07Speaker 03

  asking more questions like, so where does that go exactly? And so you just kind of dig deeper and you just dig deeper and you just keep saying, you know, I always say, you know, you can usually get to a great answer or a really great question by asking why about five times. Why this? Why that? Why this? And so literally the process for me about plastics was why, why, why, why? And you just kept, and you never just took anybody at face value for the answer. You just kept digging. And so for me, it's been all research. And then I got to the point where I was like, wait a second, this, all logic does not apply here. Wait a second. Who's, someone's giving us a, you know, selling

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  us a story about how, how plastics are really used, how plastics are really treated at the end of life. That's not what happens. What really happens? And you keep diving deeper and deeper. So for me, it's really about that. You start to apply things and just never give up till you find the real root cause. And then unwind, right? Don't just try to patch. So that's, that's how, that's how I got to, you know, and I'm still asking a lot of whys, but I got to a really, I think, a good point, at least on some pieces of the plastic issue that we have.

• 1:18:21Tim Ferriss?

  Can you talk about where you are now in your thinking?

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So it first started with collection, waste management, and let's just collect it all and make sure it just doesn't get there. And then we'll recycle it. Then, and so what I'm mostly talking about now is there's two types of plastics. There's plastics that are durable things, things like, you know, your car bumpers. And they last for five or 10 years. And, you know, and they serve a purpose and they're, and the material is really good for that. Okay, then there's another purpose, which is we call ephemeral, or single-use, or very low-use plastics, where we're using this product once, or a couple of times, and then we discard it. Okay. So there's still a lot

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  of things that need to be done on the durable side. And it's not perfect by any means. But if you look at what's growing exponentially is packaging, and single-use, and these ephemeral applications, that are going wild. And in fact, many of the petrochemical companies, like the petroleum companies, right, they're actually not worried about electric vehicles taking away all the gas, because they see these petrochemicals, all these plastics and these things being, consuming oil over time. And so you're like, wait a second. The petrochemical guys aren't scared because we're using so much plastic, this, in packaging, and it's growing crazy. So let's talk about that. So, is it really recycling? So I'm talking

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  about packaging and recycling. And I'm like, okay. So I dig deeper, and I, you know, I started recycling at University of Michigan back in the 80s, you know, like, and so when you start to learn about it, you find out that just because it has the recyclable label on it, it's not recycled. It's literally buried, or burned, setting off toxic gashes. Literally, it's buried or burned. Or it ends up in the environment like we see, you know, as litter or in the oceans. And you're like, wait a second. Just because it has a recycling label doesn't mean it's recycled. And very, very few of them are actually recycled. And you're like, okay, this is a problem. And it's growing exponentially.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  And even the best countries in the world with all these resources cannot afford to recycle. Like, because it doesn't make any economic sense. So, I go, wait a second. So what happens to all this stuff once it's burned or buried? Then you find out it turns into micro and nanoplastics that remain in the environment for 500 years. And then you learn, it's in, think, everything we drink, it's in the air we breathe, it's in the soil, that, it's in the soil, it's in the water. It's in snow, it's, it's, it's falling down as rain or snow in the, on, on the polar caps. You're like, wait a second, this plastic is everywhere, it's going to, it's going to be everywhere for 500 years.

• 1:21:16Speaker 03

  And it's these tiny nanoplastics, just because it goes away, it's still there. And you're like, well, what does that do? It goes into our body. And typically, those nanoplastics pick up bioaccumulative toxins. And those toxins literally latch onto it, and then they go into our bodies, and then they go into our bloodstreams. And so, we have very, very early research, it isn't published yet, but I've talked to a lot of researchers, that when those nanoplastics get into us, it's like asbestos. And it causes inflammation in the body, and the body attacks it. And it could cause all kinds of things. We still have to do the correlation. So, people are like, oh yeah, it's nanoplastics, don't worry about it, it's in your water, but it's small parts per million. But look, I think it's just a lot of people telling us, these things don't matter, just

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  like they said cigarettes don't matter, or other, sugar doesn't matter. It matters, and it's in us, and it's in our environment, and we're polluting for generations. So, okay, so now we have this nanoplastics problem, it's going to be there for 500 years, packaging's going crazy, it can't be recycled, so what do we do? So we have to come up with new materials and new designs for all this packaging, to allow us to live like they do in, and this is a great thing in Southeast Asia. When you order something, you get takeout, or you get anything, it comes on a banana leaf, or it's wrapped in a banana leaf. And you're like, oh, cool, and you take the banana leaf, and you can just chuck it. You should, you know, obviously, you gotta put it in a compost bin. But if you don't, and it just ends up on the street, it goes away in, you know, 30, 45, 100 days.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  So we need to get to that type of packaging. So guess what? There are packages like that out there that are cost-effective from different materials. Some of it's called PHA. There's other ones out there that can come from waste product, bio-waste, to create this, whether it's a film, a bottle cap, a bottle, these different things, that can then be consumer compostable. So literally, you can just drop it. If you litter it, it goes away. If you put it in the ocean, it goes away in forty-five, one-hundred-twenty days. No nanoplastics, no microplastics, just goes away. And that is the holy grail. And there are companies that are doing that

• 1:23:26Speaker 03

  today, and we're trying to find them and help them, and try to get people to design with them. And that's what we need to do. And in the meantime, we need to stop all this single-use stuff. We need to literally ban it because we are creating a huge mess on this planet, and we just don't realize it. Thank you for that description. No, it's great. No, I want to add one more thing. You can add, you can add three if you'd like. So recycling, just because it's recyclable doesn't mean it's recycled, okay? So don't trust your recycling labels. If you do recycle, you should still recycle, but for the most part, it's probably not going anywhere to be reused. Recycled plastics, even if they

• 1:24:09Speaker 03

  are recycled, are only good for two to three uses, and then they become bad plastics because they're mechanically recycled. The long chains of plastic become short chains, and they can't make things with them. They become too brittle. So literally, you can only recycle them a few times, unlike aluminum and glass and paper. The next thing is, is that people say, oh, if you don't recycle, you can compost it. Maybe you saw these boxed water thing, you know, like boxed water. They're like, oh, it's great. They say that you can recycle it. You have to go to a special facility in the middle of nowhere. Like, it doesn't really get recycled. You hear things about compostable things. What that means it has to goes into an industrial composting facility.

• 1:24:51Speaker 03

  And it needs to get a special heat treatment and air treatment and all this stuff to be able to break down. That doesn't work either. So we have been greenwashing, recycling, compostable. All of these different languages used to say plastics are green or they're bio-based. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The only thing that really matters now is bio-waste-based plastics that are consumer compostable. That's the only thing that we should be selecting. And if we can't select that, pick a different material. Do not use plastics. Okay? I know that was a diatribe. It's long-winded, but I'm trying to get that message out to people. It's really important.

• 1:25:30Tim Ferriss?

  That's why we have long-form conversations. So we can unpack some of this stuff, so to speak. And you mentioned finding companies, helping companies. Is that done through Future Shape? Or is that done through a different vehicle? And for people who don't know Future Shape, could you describe what it is?

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  So Future Shape. Future Shape is an investment vehicle from our family to find great entrepreneurs and companies trying to do really hard developments, create deep technologies to help fix our planet, fix our societies, fix our communities, and get us forward in a green way, in some way, green. Or to enable small and medium-sized business owners to then be able to flourish and get out from underneath the system in some way that they've been subject to for a long time. So we try to find these things and we go and we don't call ourselves venture capitalists.

• 1:26:38Speaker 03

  We don't call ourselves angels. We call ourselves mentors with money. We are mentors first and we come and we put our money where our mouth is to help these entrepreneurs, to help these companies to realize these goals, these dreams, these technologies to help our world. And they take time to build, right? They take time, effort and belief in what's going on. So that's what we do. We've invested in over 200 companies around the world and we mentor them at certain parts of their life cycle and just try to be that team that can help them with the confidence when they're down, when they're doing the right thing, or help them find whatever resources they need, or help them when they're trying to learn leadership, you know, how to do leadership

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  or find the right person or do the hiring. All those kinds of real, you know, things that if you haven't done them a long time, you know, for many years, you may not feel confident about. And so, you know, it's that nudge to help them. Maybe we act like big brother or big sister sometimes.

• 1:27:40Tim Ferriss?

  And is Future Shape where you're putting most of your energy these days? Or what are you personally spending most of your energy on?

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  So Future Shape has been going now for about eight years, maybe 10, depending on how you count. And I spend almost all of my time on Future Shape and my team, you know, our team together. We all work on these companies because what we've learned over the time is we could do one thing but and start another company. But we take all of the experience, the knowledge, the resources that we can bring to bear anywhere in the world and help these other 200 companies to thrive and really make the change that they want to make in this world. And so we wanted to use leverage model. So we're really trying to leverage it.

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  And for us, it's incredibly fun and our curiosity has peaked all the time when they're going after tough problems and we get to dive in and be beginners with them in a way, or get to learn from them and then we get to take our expertise and then, you know, combine it with their expertise. And so it's incredibly rewarding. And you know, if people didn't mentor me when I was growing up and going through that thing, I would never be here today. And so at some point, I looked around and go, wait a second, I guess that's me now. It's time to, you know, try to live up to what the mentors taught me. Try to live to that ideal and pass the baton now and, and instill this art, this

• 1:29:13Speaker 03

  craft with these other people that we try to help because it's really important that we try to pass the stuff down to try to make it better for other generations.

• 1:29:23Tim Ferriss?

  That's important work. And you mentioned, you mentioned being beginners. And that's, that's something that came up in your TED Talk within the context of Steve and looking at things with beginners' eyes. Are there any particular skills that you're currently focused on personally or new behaviors, either ending or starting behaviors within the personal realm, or I say individual, probably a better way to put it. Is there anything that you're currently working on?

• 1:29:55Speaker 03

  Well, I think, you know, from a beginner's standpoint, in many ways, I'm, I'm in the plastics, right? I'm, I'm just this, I'm this little guy calling up researchers, say, can you help me? I'm trying to get this, why does it work this way? You know, and reading research papers and, and really going back to school and, you know, being an undergrad in a way and learning, hopefully from the best. So I try to put myself in a position where I'm incredibly curious and I don't, I have skills of analytical skills to understand maybe what they're doing, but I don't really have the data to really understand it to that level. And so for me, I'm always trying to put myself in a uncomfortable position to make big decisions like, should we invest? Should we do whatever? Because that kind of tension makes things,

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  I think, really, really fun and really exciting. For me, I call it brain food. So I try to do that every day with the companies and the, you know, we're doing, we helped invest in Impossible Foods. I didn't know anything about food science, know anything about that. So go learn about that. Or we're doing, you know, Modern Meadow, which is leather without a cow, right? How do you grow skin?

• 1:31:07Speaker 03

  Without an organism, you know, without a, you know, a larger organism. What does that mean? How, what? So, all of these things are just putting yourself in that point where you're like, "I gotta learn this thing and I gotta be success, you know, I gotta try to be successful and keep up with these experts in the field." And so, every day is like that.

• 1:31:26Tim Ferriss?

  So, for, for people who are listening or watching, by any objective measure, I mean certainly people would consider you successful. And, uh, what I like to do in these conversations, and fortunately in your bio, it's, it's, it's very clear that it wasn't a, a linear path from kind of bottom left to top right. I mean, you followed a very jagged path in a, in a sense. What do you struggle with? What are things that you struggle with, that you find difficult?

• 1:31:57Speaker 03

  Difficult for me? Um, difficult for me, I think is, you know, just heavy duty analytics, just anything that's very analytical. I just, "Ah, I gotta, I gotta feel it. I gotta, I gotta see, I gotta feel it. I can't just sit there and stare at numbers." You know, another thing that's really hard for me is any kind of long-form writing. You know, any kind of, just, "Oh, no." I can't, you know, that, that's really hard. Um, I'm, I struggle with impatience. You know, these things take longer than you'd like and, you know, you just, you, you can see it, you can feel it, you can grasp it, but you gotta go, "No, I can't. No, no, come on, let's just get there." And you're like, "No, okay."

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  And you just gotta be in the, you know, in the passenger seat waiting for things to happen. And so, you know, I try to augment, obviously, the things I don't like to do with people who like to do that. You know, like Mike on our team is an amazing legal guy and this is what he loves to do. And so, I'm like, "Mike, just go do it." Like, uh, you know, I, that's not my thing. So, we make sure we do that. But then, when it comes to the real kind of emotional stuff of like, "I want the future to be here now," that I struggle with all the time. Like, I just don't wanna wait. Why should we wait? Especially when we know now is the time. You know what I mean? There was a general magic, it wasn't the time. It was way too early and all that stuff. But when you see it, when you can see it perfectly, you see the moment.

• 1:33:26Speaker 03

  It's, you're like, let's go, we gotta get this done. Take the hill, come on, you know? That's, that's the most frustrating thing. You know, there's always science fiction and future stuff. But when you see it and you can feel it, you know? Yes, go for it, let's get it done.

• 1:33:40Tim Ferriss?

  Let's, let's dig into impatience a bit because impatience has been, I would, you know, I would like to think, and maybe this is delusional, but one of my greatest assets and also one of my greatest handicaps. How do you, and maybe this isn't the right question, but how do you think about your impatience or work on your impatience? So that you get the benefits of feeling a sense of urgency and pushing when those pushes are helpful without being just an insufferable pain in the ass who leaves scorched earth everywhere? Because I've certainly been the latter at points where people are just like,

• 1:34:23Tim Ferriss?

  god damn it, Tim, like shit doesn't happen that fast and you're pissing everybody off. How have you thought about finding the, the middle path with that, if there is one?

• 1:34:33Speaker 03

  I struggle with it every day, you know? It's, it's, you know, there's times when you're working on things and working with people when you know you've been there and it should go faster. You know, like, you know, like, okay, why aren't we doing blah faster? It's just like, get the stuff out the door. It's, it's not like researching and trying to engineer and find the right, correct, you know, widget for XYZ. It's really just the process of getting it done. It's like, come on, guys, you know, I understand you don't want it. This is a big risk and you're tentative about it, but we just gotta move on. Right? So you don't want to have this, what do you say? Analysis paralysis.

• 1:35:13Speaker 03

  Right, so you gotta bucket it. You gotta say, okay, this is just their mental state. Okay, we gotta coax them through it and give them, help them or help myself to get through that phase and educate them that we gotta get faster. Then there's the other phase, which is, you know, we're just, it's the process of discovery, the process of getting to insight, those kinds of things. And yeah, those always take longer. And then there's another one, which is out of control, is, you know, working with other external teams that you can't really push, right? And you just have to kinda grin and bear and you keep reassessing the partnership, should we be doing with them and all those things. And communicating them in a very positive but very direct way, like, let me tell you

• 1:35:58Speaker 03

  what we're grappling with now. It isn't all rosy, and these are the kind of decisions we have to make because you are delaying, or this is happening, or this is what's happening in our business, you know, those kinds of things. And you have to be really upfront, just like I was talking about the two managers or the two people who had to get along and figure out, we gotta be upfront and honest about our partnership and how it's not working and going, what are we gonna do to get over it, right? And so I think it's those types of bidding and then also just taking a step back and, you know, you tense up your neck, like, ah, and you just go, breathe, make sure I get my yoga done, you know, make sure I, you know, do what have you to, okay, just to try to calm down in certain instances.

• 1:36:42Tim Ferriss?

  So my next question was going to be related to self-care, so the yoga's a perfect segue. So what are some of your self-care practices, whether on a daily or weekly basis?

• 1:36:54Speaker 03

  Well, the diet's the first one. The diet's the most important, right? So that's that.

• 1:36:59Tim Ferriss?

  And what is your diet?

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's, well, vegetarian, without caffeine, without alcohol, and, you know, it's, it's a absolute, it's the hardest thing in the world, you know, it's, is, Refined sugars, right? Trying to just stave off that beast is ju- it's, it's, you know, I'm, I like it too much. You know, it just is what it is. So you try to do what you can to minimize that as much as out. So that's that eating healthy, eating whole foods, that kind of stuff. Then there's exercise. So exercising at least an hour a day, uh, six days, maybe seven days a week, right? Or maybe two hours or three hours or breaking it up with a hike and this or whatever.

• 1:37:46Speaker 03

  But always exercising. So whether that's, you know, I've always, I've been doing yoga, I think 25 years now. That was also part of my reboot. Yoga for 25 years and it is, I hope, I hope it will be the only exercise I will be doing when I'm 75 or older. Because I think it's the right balance of mental and strength and, and toning and those kinds of things. So yoga for sure.

• 1:38:10Tim Ferriss?

  A particular type of yoga? What, what are the characteristics of your yoga?

• 1:38:14Speaker 03

  Um, I'll, I'll do, basically I just have to, I have to do something, whether it's hatha, ashtanga, Bikram. You, you name it. Um, I'm not gonna be, I'm not religious in that way because I always think there's more things to learn about and do, try different things. All right? And, um, and work with different instructors and that stuff. Then there's, you know, weight training, right? Weight training and stretching, which I should be doing more and more stretching, not doing enough, but weight training for sure. Uh, I love to run. So, you know, it's my best way of exploring a new city is whenever I go to a city, you know, four and five or six in the morning, getting up, putting on the shoes and just running and just seeing what the city's really like.

• 1:39:01Speaker 03

  Biking, so road biking, um, for long distances or even short distances, altitude as well.

• 1:39:11Speaker 03

  Skiing, so doing that, hiking. So those kinds of, uh, basic sports is, you know, what I, I, I, it's, I call it Tony time. I don't have any music with me. I won't have music with me. It's almost moving meditation for me. Right? I, it's not just sitting there, but it's moving meditation. So I, I, things start coming in my brain and start, you know, flowing over it and all of a sudden problems that had gone unresolved for days, all of a sudden seemed to like. Because I'm not ruminating over them anymore. Just they all of a sudden the answers come to you. Which is great. So that's another thing. And then there's sleep.

• 1:39:52Speaker 03

  And on the sleep side, you know, I've, I think you've talked about it as well, but you know, I have this device called the Ullr, which is I think the next generation Chili Pad.

• 1:40:01Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:40:02Speaker 03

  Oh my God. Oh my God.

• 1:40:06Speaker 03

  It is a lifesaver. And so now I swear by it. Now I buy him as gifts for friends and have him try mine. I'm like, you gotta try this. Uh, but you know, you gotta try to get good sleep and, um, and that's, that's also important as, as much as possible.

• 1:40:21Tim Ferriss?

  I, uh, to, to sort of bookend, we're not, we're not totally done yet, but to, to sort of bookend something you mentioned in the very beginning. Alcohol and sleep. I've been astonished looking at heart rate variability and resting heart rate and so on, which I've tracked with different devices, Aura Ring and a number of others. Two drinks or more and my sleep is garbage. It is such a binary change.

• 1:40:48Speaker 03

  What time in the, what time in the early morning does it happen to you?

• 1:40:51Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I have, uh, I've looked at this spike. There are a number of different spikes. I have to go back and look at the data. I think they're also making some algorithm changes with Aura specifically. And I was using another, a number of sleep devices concurrently because I wanted to compare data and, uh, try to, try to correlate a few different things. Um, so I don't remember the exact time. Do you, do you recall when?

• 1:41:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was around, well, it depends on when you went to sleep and when you had your last drink. But it was always seeming to be about four to four and a half hours after that last drink and you went to sleep when, at least for me, my heart would race.

• 1:41:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:41:28Speaker 03

  And then you would wake up and then you, and then because you're, you're, you know, you're just a type A personality, you start thinking and you can't go back to sleep and you're sweating and then you have a horrible night's sleep and then, you know.

• 1:41:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:40Speaker 03

  But that was it for me.

• 1:41:41Tim Ferriss?

  So you mentioned that you, you buy the Ullr as gifts, uh, for friends. Are there any other?

• 1:41:49Tim Ferriss?

  Devices or books that you regu- that you regularly gift to other people?

• 1:41:56Speaker 03

  Um, I regularly gift the book called In Praise of Shadows.

• 1:42:01Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, man, you are the first person. Yes, I know this book. Okay. It's a very, very, very small book.

• 1:42:08Speaker 03

  It's like eighty pages.

• 1:42:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:10Speaker 03

  But it is an insight when you, when, when we talk about staying beginner and looking at details and seeing it through other people's eyes. When you read that little book, again, you want, you don't want these big tomes. You give your friends something and they're like, oh, this feels like a obligation. But they go, oh, it's so small. Okay, I'll read that. And they can do it in an hour and then they go, huh. So, I, so the book is, you, you could explain the book if you want. Go for it.

• 1:42:36Tim Ferriss?

  Well, no, no, no. I, I want to know. I mean, I can give some, some, some examples from the book. There's one that especially stuck with me, but why is, what's more interesting to me, because I get bored hearing myself talk. Why do you find this book interesting?

• 1:42:50Speaker 03

  I find it absolutely fascinating because I only grew up, so the book is all about, you know, Japan before pre-industrial era and how they lived at home and how they lived when Western technology entered the home afterwards. And he was comparing his life before and after, and I, I was never able to do that because I only lived in this world. You know, in this post-industrial world. And so he was explaining things like, we had wooden spoons before metal spoons and the, and we had wooden bowls before we had porcelain bowls. And just the sound of the, of the spoon hitting the bowl when it was wood on wood versus metal on porcelain.

• 1:43:34Speaker 03

  And how that would be grating to your ear and how soothing it was when it was wood on wood. Or artificial light versus natural light and diffuse light. And how your eyes and how your mental state would be very different under these two conditions. So it was, it was literally comparing this pre-industrial and post-industrial life through a, uh, through an incredible writer who could encapsulate it. And you start to go, wait a second, I never considered those details in my life to this level. And you're like, that's about staying beginner, right? It's like, oh my God, I've never even thought about that. And this makes me rethink so many things that I never thought of. And it takes you to a whole nother world.

• 1:44:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the the piece of it that stuck with me most concretely was the because I used to live, I lived in Japan for a year in high school as an exchange student and lived with three families. So I got to see different rooms in the house and different styles of home. And there's a there's a short portion in in Praises of Shadows where he talks about how gaudy certain types of you you could consider them sort of Chinese influenced Japanese, say bowls and furniture are because they're they're covered in gold plating or painted to look very bright and gold.

• 1:44:58Speaker 03

  Lacquered.

• 1:44:58Tim Ferriss?

  Lacquered, exactly. And one of my one of my gifts to myself for my after my finishing my second book, which is definitely not short, and is more of a homework assignment, was a lacquered Japanese saddle, actually, which which kind of typifies this. And the point in the book was that it looks gaudy because things were lacquered in those types of materials due to dim lighting. They were intended to be looked at in very dim lighting. And as soon as you put incandescent, modern lighting on it, it looks terrible. And I was like, wow, I've never even considered the source and strength of lighting.

• 1:45:40Tim Ferriss?

  And then it just totally changes how you look around at different objects, different historical objects, right? It's you you kind of take as a given that the lighting is a constant, but of course it's not a constant in retrospect.

• 1:45:56Speaker 03

  Exactly. And and now that we've gone to LED and beyond, it's, you know, it's it's even more so, you know, that that kind of brilliant stuff. So, no, it's great. I'm glad that, you know, we share that love of that book. That's that's awesome.

• 1:46:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, this is the first time this first definitely the first time that this book has ever come up on the on the podcast. How cool. I'm really glad you brought that up. It's a weird little book, too. I mean, it is it is it is a strange, it is a strange, strange book.

• 1:46:22Speaker 03

  Especially for that author, right, who's wrote all kinds of novels. And everything. It was just like a little weekend project, it seemed for him.

• 1:46:29Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any other books that you recommend often or have reread yourself?

• 1:46:36Speaker 03

  So, yeah, there's a, I think I always go back to it because it makes me think about the ideas in the book, but also it makes me think about my life, which is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. And, and, and, you know, you know, a Nobel laureate, amazing, amazing guy. And, you know, when you read that, you really get to understand how your brain works. And then you also, if you can relate it to yourself and how you make decisions. And a lot of it is about, you know, depressing the emotional part of your body and about your decision making for the more logical, rational part. And then I also go, well, that's good for some decisions, but not all decisions.

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  So, because he really is advocating for taking, getting rid of one of the system, the emotional system. And I'm like, I like it because, the book, because I can really choose which one I want to use. Because sometimes there's fact-based decisions and other times there are opinion-based decisions, which are emotional-based decisions. And you have to really understand which type of decision you're making for that given, that given, that given point in time.

• 1:47:51Tim Ferriss?

  Thinking Fast and Slow, I was, believe it or not, a subject as an undergrad in some of Danny Kahneman's experiments. He got paid, whatever, $4 an hour to press space bars for various experiments. On that thinking fast, thinking slow separation, if we look at the emotion-based decisions, whether that's, I don't want to say impulsive, but very quick decisions that are sort of made with a few million years of evolutionary input, like pre-pro-con list.

• 1:48:29Speaker 03

  Well, whether to retweet something very quickly without reading it.

• 1:48:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right, right. But are there any examples that come to mind from your life where you've made very, very good snap decisions?

• 1:48:43Tim Ferriss?

  Where if you had tried to analyze it, you would have made the wrong decision.

• 1:48:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Um, well, one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was to ask my wife to marry me. And I didn't know, literally fifteen minutes, ten minutes before I was going to do it, that I did it.

• 1:49:00Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 1:49:01Speaker 03

  I didn't even know. I had no, I had no clue. It was an amazing weekend. That was after eleven weeks of dating. And then literally, it was in a span of fifteen minutes from the time I said, I'm gonna, or ten minutes from the time I said I'm gonna do it till I did it. I wasn't prepared. I didn't even know that, I wasn't even prepared for her to say no.

• 1:49:24Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So walk, walk me, no, no, walk me through this a bit. So, yeah, what happened? I mean, in the sense that, did it just randomly pop into your head, or was there more to it on that day?

• 1:49:38Speaker 03

  Well, there was, you know, it was actually a Monday morning, of all things. Real romantic, right?

• 1:49:45Speaker 03

  Um, no, it was, so what had happened was, I had some very, very close, I have some very, very close friends. And they came down, they said, oh, I met this wonderful woman, uh, you know, and, and, and they were coming in time. So, hey, I would love to get you guys to, to meet her and, you know, I'd love to just see if we can all hang out. Because the worst thing that ever happens, I don't know if you've had any friends like this, is, you know, you have a girl or a guy friend or something, and they're the really great friends of yours. And then, they meet somebody, and they fall in love, and then all of a sudden, you're like, and then you try to meet that person that they love so much, and you're like, I, I just don't click with them. And it's like, oh, I almost lost a friend. Oh, no, oh, no. You know, whatever. You know how that could.

• 1:50:28Tim Ferriss?

  It's happened, yeah.

• 1:50:29Speaker 03

  Right? It's happened. And it's, it's, it's heart wrenching. So, you just go, okay. I wanted my friends to like, cause I, it was eleven weeks in, and we're having a great time. And I'm like, am I in some crazy fog? You know, and I was older at the time, so I had a lot of, and they saw some of my other relationships, and they, you know, they gave me feedback on them. So, it's like, okay. So, come on over. And so, we hung out the whole weekend together. And we had an amazing time. And so that morning, I was driving, I was driving them to, you know, they said goodbye to, Danny's my wife, and they said goodbye to her, and then I was gonna drive them to the airport. And all night long, it was pouring rain, it was crazy rain, and it's raining all the time till I take them to the thing.

• 1:51:10Speaker 03

  And on the, in the car, Sandy and Daniel, my friends, they said, "Oh my god, she's amazing, oh god, oh, you guys are so in love, it's so amazing." You know, head and shoulders over any, any woman you've ever dated before, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "Oh my god, yeah." And so I was like, "Yeah, that's how I feel," and I was in cloud nine. And so I drop them off, and then I turn around to come back, because I was gonna pick up my wife, we're gonna go to work, or not my wife, my girlfriend's time, who's gonna come and, and drive to, uh, uh, work together with her. And so I come back, and as I'm coming back, uh, the clouds open up, a rainbow opens up,

• 1:51:51Speaker 03

  and literally this brilliant sky comes into view, and I'm like, huh, and I'm thinking the whole time, like, "Well, when's the right time? How do you know? When do you know it's the right time that this is the right person?" Given my, you know, fifteen years of dating history at the time, or whatever, I'm like, and I'm like, "It's never felt like this before." You know, and I can work through all the rational arguments and all that stuff, but you're like, at some point, you're like, "Screw that." So, I'm driving home, then all of a sudden, one of my favorite songs comes on the radio, and I'm like, "Oh my god, this is amazing," and the rainbow and everything else, and I drive up, and I had a rose bush in the front of the house. And there are great roses often, but it was raining so hard that night, I looked at the rose, and I always clipped one and gave it to her.

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  And, you know, and so I looked at that, and I was like, "That survived the night." It was the most beautiful rose I've ever seen and all this stuff, and I took off the thorns, I clipped it, and I was gonna just give it to her. So I walk in the door, and I'm like, And she's coming down the stairs with a basket of laundry. Literally a basket of my laundry. It's 11 weeks and she's coming over. I'm like, what's going on? And I was gonna take her to work. She's coming down the stairs and I'm looking at it and I go, here's a rose, honey. And then I took the, you know, and she said, oh, that's very nice. And I said, wait, wait, wait. No, no. Give me the basket. Give me the rose. And I got down on one knee while she's on the stairs and I said, will you marry me? And it was like, literally like that. It was, I was blind. I just said, will you marry me? Right then. And that was the whole, that was the Monday morning with a rose. I had no ring. I had nothing.

• 1:53:21Tim Ferriss?

  Wow. That's an incredible story. That is just incredible.

• 1:53:26Speaker 03

  So that's the, that's the kind of craziness, you know, that, you know, when you know, you know. And the same thing happened in different parts of my life like that. Like taking the job at Apple was just like that as well. It's crazy.

• 1:53:37Tim Ferriss?

  Crazy. When you know, you know. Amazing. Tony, I, I wanna, I wanna let you get back to your day, but this has been so fun. I really appreciate you taking the time and certainly hope it's not the last time that we get to have a conversation. Perhaps we'll meet sometime in the future.

• 1:53:54Speaker 03

  Sure, anywhere. You know, I'm in different places of the world. I will be sure to stay in contact and, you know, thanks. This has been a lot of fun. And we went to all kinds of interesting questions that no one ever asked. So thank you.

• 1:54:05Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, my pleasure. And people can find Future Shape at futureshape LLC dot com. Is that the right URL?

• 1:54:11Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 1:54:12Tim Ferriss?

  And what is your best, your best social is on Twitter? Is that the best place for people?

• 1:54:17Speaker 03

  At T Fidel. T F A D L. F A D E L L.

• 1:54:22Tim Ferriss?

  And, and I'll link to all of that and everything else that we discussed in the, in the show notes for people. So they'll be able to find you very easily. Is there anything that you'd like to say, recommend, conclude with, suggest, any, any parting comments? Or anything at all before we wrap up?

• 1:54:39Speaker 03

  You know. I think the biggest thing is that we all go through all of these changes in our lives. We go through failure. If you just are open to learning and you're open to the failure and pushing hard. You know, I didn't have the best start. You know, I tried really hard, but I didn't have the best start. But it can end up happening if you really keep pushing, whether it's a failure or a success. Keep pushing even beyond success and keep staying a beginner, trying to stay humble and trying to work with others because you know, that's, that's your superpower at the end of the day.

• 1:55:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for sure. And you know, in your, in your TED Talk, you talk about seeing the invisible problems instead of just the obvious problems. And it, it strikes me that you've done that, looking out at the world, but also looking inward at your own subjective experience, as in working with that psychologist to become more aware of your internal processes. And it's just such an incredible and inspiring story. And I mean, for the purposes of helping people, I think it's so wonderful. I'm sure it was difficult at the time that you had so many challenges at various points in the road. It's

• 1:56:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. There was, and there's always challenges and I'm still learning and I'm still growing and all those things. But you're going to go through them too. Everyone's got to go through them and just embrace them and, and you know, and just because you see success, doesn't mean they didn't go through them as well. They, they, they most likely did, or if they haven't, they will at some point. Everyone does.

• 1:56:21Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, for sure. Yeah.

• 1:56:22Speaker 03

  Keep going, keep going.

• 1:56:24Tim Ferriss?

  Everyone's fighting or has fought battles that you know nothing about. Everybody's got their own stuff. Thank you so much, Tony.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  Good. Thanks, Tim. Thanks. Have a great day. Looking forward to staying in touch.

• 1:56:37Tim Ferriss?

  Likewise. All right, my man.

• 1:56:38Speaker 03

  Cheers, man.

• 1:56:39Tim Ferriss?

  Bye bye.

• 1:56:39Speaker 03

  Bye bye.

• 1:56:40Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:57:23Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic, founded by the genius Finns who lit the internet on fire. And you may have heard of their mushroom coffee, which features chaga and lion's mane, which is taken Silicon Valley by storm. I use it pretty much every day, either that or the chaga, which is decaf, a separate version. And I use both of these primarily for focus and productivity.

• 1:58:07Tim Ferriss?

  They just get you going, light you up like a Christmas tree. So you should definitely check it out. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement and for right now, this is the answer. I try to force this on all of my house guests. It is a hell of a thing. If I have employees or people come over who are working on projects with me, I always try to feed it to them because I'm going to get the limitless effect and get a lot more out of them. The first time I mentioned this product and Four Sigmatic on the podcast, their product sold out in less than a week. So you may want to check them out soon if you're listening to this. And the coffee tastes like coffee.

• 1:58:46Tim Ferriss?

  It takes just seconds to prepare with hot water and oddly enough, only includes 40 milligrams of caffeine. So it has less than half of what you'd get in a regular cup of coffee. I don't get any jitters, acid reflux, or any stomach burn, any of that. It's very unusual and very, very cool. So... If you don't like caffeine, they also offer very strong but caffeine-free mushroom elixirs, which I will sometimes have in the evening. I find Shaga specifically to be very, very grounding and earthy. So that is another option. And I have a cupboard full of their products at the moment, which is right around the corner in my kitchen.

• 1:59:22Tim Ferriss?

  You can try something right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/tim. And use the code TIM, T-I-M, to get 20% off of your first order. And they're not that expensive, anyway. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. So try them out. This episode is brought to you by Superfat Nut Butters. I've got two boxes of them, actually, sitting within 15 feet of me in a cabinet. These little beauties are great. I've been using them as quick mini-breakfasts, that's one use, and as on-the-go fuel for a few months now. I was pretty slammed this afternoon. I had a Wi-Fi debacle, and I was preparing

• 2:00:06Tim Ferriss?

  to record a podcast, so I didn't have time to make something to eat or buy something to eat, but these saved my ass. That's a great use case. They're 200 to 300 calories each, depending on which ingredient cocktail you eat, because there are a bunch of different types. MCT, meaning medium chain triglycerides, protein, macadamia, caffeine, etc. 3 to 5 grams of net carbs per pouch. They are keto and paleo-friendly. And they are really easy to transport. You can throw them in a backpack or a pocket. I love these things. The first time I tried Superfat, however, be forewarned, I finished the entire box in maybe two or three days. So watch your portion control. And pro tip, the way you eat them, you have to unscrew the top. You get about 90% out of it that way. And then you tear the pouch,

• 2:00:50Tim Ferriss?

  tear it diagonally, not straight across, and that'll get you the last 10% or so. I suggest ordering the variety box. You can try that way all five Superfat flavors in one box, and you'll get two pouches of each flavor that way. You can also get 15% off your order by going to superfat.com/tim. That's superfat.com/tim, for 15% off. When you go to, one more time, superfat.com/tim.