Charles Duhigg on the writing AI can't touch, what GLP-1s really do to your brain, and the serendipity tax

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker. He is the author of The Power of Habit, Smarter Faster Better, and Supercommunicators. His work focuses on the science of habits, productivity, decision-making, and human connection. In this episode of Summation, Charles and Auren discuss: why producing the words is only 10% of an author's job, and the 90% AI can't dowhat GLP-1s actually do to the brain the serendipity tax: why you pay for five dead...

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

• 0:02Auren Hoffman?

  Hello data nerds. My guest today is Charles Duhigg. Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Power of Habit, Smarter Faster and Better, and Super Communicators. He's also a writer for New Yorker. I love his books. Charles, welcome to Summation.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me. This is such a treat. I, Orin didn't mention this, but we've actually known each other for a number of years. So a chance to, to visit with you in any context is always really fun for me.

• 0:25Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, this is super cool. I'm a huge fan of yours. And obviously we're friends as well, but just like the simple, easy question, first question, like, are we over optimizing as a society with AI?

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Ooh, that is a really good question. So, okay. Let me say that like, so I'm someone who writes about AI. I talked to a lot of people. I live in Silicon Valley. I talked to a lot of people in the valley in tech about AI. Obviously you're, you're in AI every day. I, I would say that for people who are in AI, they think that we're under optimizing. They think that, that we don't understand how, how much this is going to thoroughly change the world. Everyone else in the, on the planet that I talked to at least is like, wait, yeah, AI is kind of cool, I guess. Like, like, do people use that? So I would, I think there is this huge gap between like mainstream America and, and technological America. And, and I think it's, it's hard, we don't totally understand that.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  That being said, are we over optimizing on AI? I think the answer is like, I actually have no idea, right? So in the, in the 1990s, there was a paper published called The Productivity Paradox. They basically said, look, PCs have become so ubiquitous and everyone talks about how PCs are changing the world. But we're not seeing any of those improvements in the productivity stats. Why is that? And it turned out the answer was twofold. First of all, we were, once computers became common, we needed to start measuring different things to figure out what productivity is. But second of all, it actually takes a long time for people to take a new technology and really understand how to use it. If you think about it, like, the promise of the internet, at least in e-commerce,

• 2:07Speaker 01

  was not really achieved until Jeff Bezos started Amazon. And that's a decade, more than a decade of online life before somebody figured out like, oh, the, the thing that I can do is build a store that contains everything. So I would say, I don't know if we're over using or under utilizing AI right now or optimizing for it. But I do think it's going to be a long and less linear path to figuring out how it actually increases productivity and changes our lives.

• 2:37Auren Hoffman?

  How do you think of it as an author? Because like as AIs can do a lot of writing, they can do a lot of research. Maybe they can't, and maybe it doesn't come up like the super novel idea, but maybe it does. Like, how do you, how do you like kind of think about AI?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  So I definitely use Claude for research, right? Like I basically Claude has basically replaced my search engine. And in, and I also use things like Notebook AI to help me look at sources. That being said, as an author, I am not worried at all about AI. Because the truth of the matter is when people buy my books, they buy my books for two reasons. Number one, they buy my books because they are surprising, right? I, I, I say, I'm going to write a book about habits. And then you end up learning about like an aluminum company, or I'm going to write a book about super communicators and you end up learning about a CIA age officers recruiting overseas spies. That surprise?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  That is, that is hard to achieve for AI, because AI is trained on what we already know. It's trained on patterns that it, that it recognizes, that we can recognize. My job as an author is to break those patterns. It's to tell you like, oh, here's the pattern we're going to use. Psych, we're going to do something else. Right? The second thing is that I think the other reason why people buy my books is because there's a grace and a poetry to them, not only in how they're written, but in the clarity of the thought. The act of writing is the act of thinking. And in as much as AI can be smart, it oftentimes struggles to come up with something that's genuinely smart and new and graceful. So

• 4:16Speaker 01

  I think that actually what AI is going to do is it's going to empower people like me and you and the people listening to this podcast, the people who think deeply for a living. They're going to find more time to think. And in fact, they're going to find that thinking deeply becomes even more valuable.

• 4:30Auren Hoffman?

  Could it do a better job than your editor? And I don't want to disparage your editor and stuff like that. And it can be a thought partner for you to go back and forth with. Like if you had a circle of people and you're going to write something.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  A little bit, a little bit. And I've tried that, but what I've found is, so, so what could AI do like as an editor or writer? It can definitely take like, you know, here's an earnings report. Let's turn that into a story. Or I'm going to write a boring story about an earnings report. It's going to tell me how to improve it. So absolutely, or I have a newsletter that comes out, The Science of Better, right? And in my newsletter, my assistant uses AI to help us do the research. And it comes up with like little blocks of text. And, and that text, sometimes I'm reading it, that's kind of interesting. But like, let's talk about like what my editor actually does. My editor, 10% of his job is actually like making little notes about what word I should have used differently. 90% of his job is being like, you know what? I got bored when I was reading this paragraph.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Or you're making this argument and it seems kind of bullshitty to me. Like it doesn't seem like it actually like holds up.

• 5:31Auren Hoffman?

  Or like, hey, you gotta get me, get me, get me some, uh, get me the next chapter.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Throughout history, the killer app has always been thinking more deeply, particularly when thinking deeply is hard, right? Particularly when you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, or you don't have enough time, or you don't have enough information. Getting yourself to think more deeply is the thing that sets apart, sets the most successful apart from everyone else. And I don't think, and if AI helps us think more deeply, it's great. But it's definitely not going to think deeply for us. Because the act of thinking deeply is the act of creating something unique.

• 6:07Auren Hoffman?

  I read a lot of different types of books. So some of the books I read are like yours and they're kind of surprising and interesting. But a lot of books I read are like explaining something. It's like a science thing and it's explaining the science to me. Or, you know, and it could be article too. I read a lot of biographies and it's essentially just like explaining this person's life. Now, sometimes those biographies are deeply researched and they're meeting with like old family members and they're getting interesting anecdotes or they're getting things from somewhere. But my, my partner Todd, he wrote an amazing biography of Dario, the CEO of Anthropic, just using Claude. Claude wrote the whole thing. And it's a 250-page biography and it's unbelievable.

• 6:50Auren Hoffman?

  And I learned so much reading the biography. I didn't know the stories of him. I didn't know about him growing up in San Francisco. I didn't know about his relationship with his sister. I didn't know Claude did everything and it took him, it took him a weekend to write it. And yes, would Robert Carroll write a better biography? Absolutely. But it got done in a weekend. It's now the definitive biography about Dario. There's no better one out there. Like there's that, that, that, that, you know, someone will write a better one eventually, right? But it is the best one today that's there and it's, it's quite good and it's, it's interesting. Like, do you, how do you think about these things as your, as your, as a writer?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Here's the necessary precursor for that. Somebody has to actually go out and find the information about Dario, right? Like, somebody has to record a podcast with him or they have to like, talk to his sister or they have to like, look up his school records or talk to his parents. So when we think about like, what is, what is the value that an author is providing? The, the manifestation of it is the book we get, right? Or the article that we read in the magazine. But the, that's a very small part. Producing that, those, those words on that page is actually a very small part of what a reporter does. The vast majority of what a reporter does is they go out and they get the information to figure out how to, how to arrange it. So basically, like Claude is replacing the, the 10% of

• 8:12Speaker 01

  an author's job, which is the typing part and the arranging part and the structuring part. But the other 90%, Claude can't do on its own. It can't, it can't go and like, ask Dario to like, sit down and have a, and ask some questions that nobody has asked before and be like, be like, you know what? I'll bet you that there was someone in the third grade that like, picked on him. I'm going to go find that person. So I, I do agree with you. I think that like, I think that this tool, AI, is really, really good at structuring knowledge. And it's really good at structuring knowledge in a way that like, makes it even easier to absorb. But finding the knowledge is actually the hardest and most important step.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Because the truth of the matter, what Robert Caro does, Robert Caro, like, most of his job is not actually writing the book. Most of his job is like turning page over after page of old documents over to figure out which ones are interesting.

• 9:05Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, and also being a great interviewer and getting the story out of people that they weren't willing to tell.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Or that they didn't even know was sitting in their head. As a reporter, a lot of what you do is, when you're, when I'm doing a good interview, the things that the person is saying to me are surprising them as much as it's surprising me. If I get you to say something you've said a thousand times before, it's a waste of an interview because I can just look up your previous interviews. My goal is to get you to think about something new and to say something new. And oftentimes, when an interview goes well, they're like, oh, wow, I never like, I never actually asked myself that question or I never thought about it that way.

• 9:39Auren Hoffman?

  You were a lot about habits, right? And, you know, you've got the cue and reward and stuff like that. How do you think about where personal habits and and structural forces, maybe people like that they can't control, begin?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I actually think they're one in the same. Like, I think, and in fact, I think there's this, there's this thing in psychology known as the fundamental misattribution error, which is that oftentimes, and this is the basis of social, social psychology, oftentimes, something in our environment causes an outcome and we as individuals assign personal blame to it, right? So we say like, we say like, there's a poorly designed intersection and there keeps on being accidents there. And we're like, well, if people just drove more carefully, right? It's the, it's the fault of those guys who like run through that red light. And the truth of the matter is that 90% of the blame should be on the structure and 10% of the blame should be on the individuals.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  But in our minds, we constantly flip that ratio and we constantly assign blame causation to an individual rather than to a structure. And I think that habits and structures in society are very much the same way. There's a lot of habits that we look at where we say like, you know, I feel really bad. Like, like I have this habit of like checking my phone or I have this habit of like eating unhealthily. And it's a moral failing, right? Like, it's something that I'm doing wrong. But actually, if we look at your life, what we see is that those are habits that are that come out of your environment. And that changing your environment is just as powerful a tool as blaming yourself. So I don't see the distinction necessarily between structures and habits.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  I actually think they're one in the same and that understanding that helps us understand where the levers for change are.

• 11:18Auren Hoffman?

  When you think of yourself, like, okay, so there's some things that you're amazing at. There are some things that you are maybe not very good at. And, you know, are you trying to, at this point in your life, when you've been pretty successful, are you trying to design, let's say, habits to get more amazing at the things you're already really good at? Or are you trying to like, okay, there's this like, these problems that I'm trying to like, break the bad habits and stuff like that?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna ask you the same question once I answer this. So, okay, so in, in decision science, there's this really important concept known as, as satisficing versus maximizing. That when people confront decision making, one of the, they, they fall, and we can be different from decision to decision. Sometimes we're just satisficing, right? We're just like, look, I don't, I don't need to look at every single, like, type of soda. I just need to find one soda that I like and I'm gonna drink that. At other times, we're maximizing, where we say like, I'm gonna buy a car. I actually wanna buy the very best car that I can buy.

• 12:14Auren Hoffman?

  And everyone's different depending on the situation. Like, when I go to a restaurant, I, when I see a menu, I literally pick the first thing I like off. I don't read the whole thing, whereas like, a lot of my friends, like, they, they read every single item and then they like, they're like deciding the very best thing for them, right? So.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  And it might even be that, like, at a restaurant, you're a satisficer, but when you go and, for instance, you on vacation, you might be a maximizer, where you're like, look, so, so it changes from place to place, situation to situation, person to person. And I think it's very true when it comes to different kinds of habits, too. So there's a lot of habits that I have in my life where I'm just a satisficer. I absolutely could be in better shape, right? I could have the optimal workout and I could be exercising every single day exactly the right way. But I don't because for exercise, I'm a satisficer. I'm like, look, I have an app. It tells me what to do for 45 minutes. I do it three times a week. I run once a week. Like, that's it. And like, I don't need more than that. When it comes to writing, I'm a maximizer.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Like, I want to like, figure out how to be the best writer, not only I can be, but the, maybe one of the best writers on earth, right? I have this like, huge ambition. And so the habits that I think about the most, I fit into one of those two categories. There are habits that I build where it's just satisfying and there are habits where I'm maximizing and I spend a lot of time thinking about those. So let me ask you the same question. Like, you are very, very successful. I'm sure you think about habit design and decision design in your life. Do you find that you're focusing on the weak points or trying to strengthen the strong points?

• 13:45Auren Hoffman?

  I would say like, most people I know at my, where I'm at, where you're at, are focused more on the strong points than the weak points, right? Unless there's something that's so problematic, right? Like, if you, someone was like a heroin addict or something, well, okay, well, okay, like, let's focus on that one. And let's, let's get off heroin, right? Because it's ruining your life.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  And I think what you're saying, and tell me if you think this is wrong, is that for, for most of the things, you're a satisficer. And so like, you've actually worked out the satisfying habit for things like, you know, exercise or X, Y, or Z. But the things that you really care about, you're a maximizer and that's where you spend your attention.

• 14:23Auren Hoffman?

  You have a weakness and you're just like, I'm just gonna, I'll be okay with that weakness, right? Like, that's my weakness. I know it's a weakness and, you know, it's fine. Like, it is what it is. And, and sometimes you're very aware of it. Maybe sometimes you're, you're, you're, you're not as aware, maybe that's not as good, but you have a sense, okay, that's my weakness and that's, that's okay.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So I'm thinking about, you know, The New Yorker where I, I write, one of my colleagues wrote this piece about Sam Altman recently. And, and it was, it was not very positive about Sam, it was about Sam and his relationship to the truth. But there's this one scene that I love. Where the the board of OpenAI, the old board, the board that like moronically fired him, they're criticizing him for his truthfulness. And he basically says like, look, I can't change my personality. Like what you're asking me to do is change entirely who I am. And the truth of the matter is that our personalities, they definitely have positive aspects and negative aspects and there's things that we're good at and things we're bad at. But oftentimes that negative and that bad is as much a part of why we're successful as everything else.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Like part, one of the reasons I'm successful is because I don't obsess about exercise. I spend all that time doing other productive stuff, right? And so, so I think that's the other part is like this kind of radical acceptance that you that you mentioned. Like, here's the things I'm not great at and I'm okay with that. That's a really important part of being successful.

• 15:48Auren Hoffman?

  When you're like 16, like, how do you, how would you advise someone to think about that?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. So my, my son is, I have a 15 year old and an 18 year old. And how old are your kids?

• 15:58Auren Hoffman?

  12 and 14.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  12 and 14, 12 and 14. So you're a little bit, you're a little bit before like, like particularly for the 18 year old. He just got into college and he's very, very excited. We spend a lot of time thinking about this, like, what do we want to emphasize? Cause, cause of course, if we're like, oh, you gotta be in great shape. It's good for the rest of his life. He's going to be like, I gotta exercise. That's a priority. But if we're like, oh, you, you should read a lot, then he's going to spend that time reading instead of exercise, right?

• 16:24Auren Hoffman?

  Or maybe he'll do the opposite of what you say.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  As a parent, whatever you do, it has an outsized impact, either good or bad. And basically you can't predict it. And so the thing that we spend a lot of time thinking about is number one, like, what are the values that we want to share? Like, I think that the actual behaviors and habits matter less than like, how do we communicate a priority of values to our kids? Number two is this realization, and I don't know if you've had this experience, that like, you can do all the right things or all the wrong things. And your kid is your kid, right? Like, like they are just going to make choices based on who they are. And I think if there's a 16 year old listening, that's, I would say the exact same thing for them. Like, you can

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Definitely get really paranoid about trying to become the best person ever and do everything exactly right. But you know what? You are going to make mistakes. And, and instead of setting your goal as like avoiding making mistakes. If you set your goal as a value of like, I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to learn from them. So I don't make the same mistake twice. That's a much healthier way to move through life.

• 17:29Auren Hoffman?

  Now, you've written a lot on basically behavioral science. And like in behavioral science, there's been this like kind of big replication crisis over the last 20 years. Like when you look back, like, how do you think about that? Are there things you've written about that you wish you didn't? Or, you know, how do you think about through that whole thing?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  No, the only thing that I've written about that like has been sort of discredited to a degree that I probably would have changed what I'd written is about this concept of willpower as a muscle.

• 17:56Auren Hoffman?

  What is it? Explain, explain that.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  In behavioral science, there was a visualization that willpower is like a muscle, that we can strengthen it through exercise, but that it gets tired. And when it's tired, at that moment of fatigue, it's much harder to, to use it.

• 18:13Auren Hoffman?

  I got it. So that's where they like, they give the fatigue and then all of a sudden you're eating like three cookies at the end of these, all these. There's a ton of studies like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. So the traditional experiment is that you put someone in a room. One, one bowl has, is full of cookies and one bowl is full of like cucumbers or something health, or something healthy. And you tell them not to eat the cookies, but to eat the apples or the cucumbers. And you're not going to, you're not going to pay attention to them. And some of them you give a really hard test, like they have to do a math test. And then other people don't have a hard test. The people who have the hard test are much more likely to eat the cookie. And the theory was that basically your, your, your willpower is getting depleted. And so you have less of it to spend on other things. Now, it turns out that, that it's a little, it's much more nuanced and complicated than that. And so a lot of people, a lot of social scientists, like they're very anti-willpower as a muscle.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Now, here's the thing though, it is actually a really useful analogy. And I think about many of the studies that have been challenged in the replication crisis. Basically, what was challenged was the level of certainty that we're assigning to the conclusion. But the analogies that we get from them are still very useful. The truth of the matter is that if you do use a lot of willpower on X, it is harder to do Y. We know that. Now, we don't know exactly the mechanism that explained it was not necessarily the right mechanism, but the analogy is really helpful for us. Take grit as another example. Right? Grit, which hasn't been challenged quite as much, but the concept of grit, of saying

• 19:48Speaker 01

  that, like, look, if we teach our kids to be persistent, to overcome failure, to have a locus of control that's internal, to say, like, I have control over my fate, rather than circumstances have control over my fate, over time, we think they're going to be more successful. That turns out to be very, very true. Now, the actual mechanics of why that's true, that's a lot more complicated than it's been presented in the past. But the power of social science is not so much in the certainty of its findings. The power of social science is in its ability to give us frameworks to think about our behavior in ways that allow us to diagnose and change our behavior the ways that we want to.

• 20:28Auren Hoffman?

  So I have a friend who's like, she's very thin, she's really good shape, and she's on these GLP drugs. And I asked her, like, why are you on, like, you're super thin, you've always been thin? And she's like, well, she's like, I just, like, I use so much willpower to not eat that cookie every day, and now I don't have to expend the willpower on not eating the cookie, I could expend that on something else. So in some ways, like, people do think of it in their head as like a finite resource.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And so I've been on a GLP-1 for about two years, and exactly for that reason. The reason why I'm on the GLP-1 is because it quiets the food noise in my head.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  And not having, and I didn't even realize that food noise was there until I started GLP-1. Not having to pay attention to that food noise gives me mental bandwidth for other stuff. And in fact, I've become, it's super, I've become an advisor to this company Noom. I don't know if you know Noom, it's like an app that you, that you can use to like track what you eat. And it's, it's built around building habits around GLP-1s now. Like it's, it's, the idea is that there's this habit window. When that food noise in your head quiets, there's a habit window that opens that you can form new behaviors. And I've found that definitely to be true, or it's easier to form new behaviors. What I find is that I'm the kind of guy who like, if I sit down at a table and there's a, there's a thing of rolls there. I will just, even without thinking about it, I will start picking at those rolls and eating that bread.

• 21:55Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, I'm the same way. If it's right in front of me, I'm just like, I'll just like pop the cookies. I'm like, why? And then I'm like, I don't even like, I don't even like these things, but there's like potato chips there. It's like potato chips are fun. Yeah. Like pretzels, pretzels. Oh yeah. I'll just eat the pretzel.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  So what's magical about GLP-1, and not to oversell it, but like that, like now I sit down at a table and I have zero impulse to pick up the pretzels or the rolls.

• 22:19Auren Hoffman?

  And why is it? Because like I eat the, I'm not even hungry, but I still eat the pretzel. Like, and it's not like I'm hungry and I thought the GLP drug just like reduces your hunger. So why does it reduce you wanting to eat the, because it just kind of like, I don't know. There's something about just like, it's fun to just like eat it or something.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  We don't actually know the answers to that. I mean, basically GLP-1s, they seem to be way more complicated and way more interesting than we thought. Cause it's not just that I'm not hungry. It's not just that it's like making my, my stomach release food slower. It does seem to be doing something, again, we don't really understand glucogen, it turns out. It does seem to be doing something to my sense of craving. And this is why, for instance, I mean, and again, I've found this to be true. I've, I've never had a drinking problem. Like, like before I started using a GLP-1, I had three, four, four drinks a week, maybe. Now I like have half a drink a week. I just have no, no desire for it. So it's weird. Like that has nothing to do with my stomach or feeling full.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  But it turns out our brains are really, really complicated, right? There's, they're, they're really sophisticated machines.

• 23:26Auren Hoffman?

  Now, are you worried that like, that might be messing with some other drive or some other thing somewhere that it's like, it's so hard to know or?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I certainly monitor for it, but no, I mean, and, and this is where science actually is really useful, right? Like, like there's a bunch of stuff. Before GLP-1s, there was a real concern around antidepressants that like antidepressants would lower motivation, that like being tortured was like the thing that like got people to like be successful. And the, the science is pretty clear that like, actually successful people, when they take antidepressants, they're, they're just more successful. Now, that being said, you have to self-monitor, right? I think there's some selection bias going on there. I think that people who start taking antidepressants and they find their motivation disappears, they stop taking them. And I think that people who'd used GLP-1s and suddenly they find themselves like no longer desiring things in life, they probably stop using the GLP-1. So self-monitoring is still really important.

• 24:18Auren Hoffman?

  Because, because we're all different. So that's the thing, like a GLP-1 might, might have some effects in one person, different effects in another person, and could be both positive and negative. And it's like, so you have to kind of know yourself.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  There's lots of different GLP-1s, there's lots of different antidepressants, there's lots of different ways with, just going back to depression, like there's lots of ways to deal with it besides pills, right? Cognitive behavioral therapy works, meditation works for some people.

• 24:42Auren Hoffman?

  By the way, you know what the number one antidepressant is?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  What?

• 24:46Auren Hoffman?

  That I use?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:47Auren Hoffman?

  Donuts.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Donuts? I thought you were gonna say exercise.

• 24:50Auren Hoffman?

  No, I eat donuts. It's frigging pasta. Donuts and pasta make you so happy. Like every time I eat one of those things, I just like light up. I know they're not good for me, but like, oh my gosh, like I just get the biggest smile on my face every time I have like any, any like nice carb hit or some carbs, just like make your synapses fire and they just make you happy.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Compare that to exercise, because, because I imagine you exercise on a semi-regular basis, right? Like it's part of your life.

• 25:17Auren Hoffman?

  I exercise a lot. I don't like it.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  You don't, you don't. So like you, you never get that feeling of like, kind of happiness as a result?

• 25:24Auren Hoffman?

  Not of exercise. I, I play sports and I love that. That, that gets, because I'm playing with other people and it's fun and it's like, and you're laughing and you hit a great shot and you're just like, but like, but like exercise, I do it, I do it every day. And I like, I, I do it because like someone told me it's like, it's important or something, but I, I don't like, if I could not do it, I would be super happy.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  To your point that different people have different things, I think that's exactly right. Right. Like you have found that like for you, physical activity plus socialization is like a magical combination, but physical activity on its own isn't. And that like eating a donut is like, is like magical for you. But just looking at you, I know that you don't eat like crazy amounts of donuts all the time.

• 26:09Auren Hoffman?

  I can eat like eight donuts at a time. Like I have done that before. Yes. Yes.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  So I was just in Brazil. I was giving a speech in Brazil and I like had some spare time. So I went to the mall and there was a Krispy Kreme there. And apparently Krispy Kreme is brand new in Brazil. And there was like literally an hour and a half wait to buy. The line was so long because everyone wanted to try Krispy Kremes. So by the time everyone got to the front of the Krispy Kreme line, you know, obviously they would buy like two boxes, like, like two dozen. And then they had like two dozen donuts and like, you just saw people walking around just like plowing donuts into their mouths. Cause they had to feel like they justified that hour and a half online. And then they would get sick of the donuts.

• 26:45Auren Hoffman?

  The problem with donuts and like, like a lot of these things is like, there's a cascading like utility curve very quickly. Like the first donut is absolutely amazing. And the third donut, like it's terrible. And then your pasta is like that too. Like, you know, a good bowl of pasta is like amazing, but like no reason for the second bowl. But sometimes they still do it like.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  The optimal amount of donut is never just one donut. It's like a donut and a half. And if you've eaten half a donut, you're definitely going to eat the second half of that donut. Right?

• 27:12Auren Hoffman?

  What I do is I always got like a bunch of donuts. And then with like, I go with my kids and get like a ton of donuts. I'm like, I'll get like, I'll get like 10 donuts or 20, you know, more. And then we just like, we just cut them up. And then you eat like a fourth of a donut and then you try another one. Cause you want to try some variety as well. And I like the apple fritter and you got this and you're like, oh, I'll try the chocolate. All right. You and I have talked a lot about happiness over the years. Like if someone who is trying to like, you know, optimize happiness, like what do you, how do you think they should be thinking about that?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  So take the last year of your life. When was the most happy moment? If you like, just remembering like, you were like, I was really happy then. And when was the moment that like, you sort of felt the absence of happiness the most?

• 27:55Auren Hoffman?

  Some people like. Me, I just like, I'm always pretty high level. And I was probably born that way and it's just like, it is what it is. And so, and I don't have a lot of variation, like I'm, I'm usually running a nine out of 10. And then, you know, maybe, maybe a bad day would be eight or something, you know? It was like, like, you know, something terrible happens in life or something like that. Like, you know, someone you, one of your loved ones gets sick or, you know, something like that. Other people, like they're running at like a three and every once in a while they're a 10, right? And so there's just like, people are just different, just like who they are. Just, and they're, and maybe it's just coming out of the womb or maybe there's something in their personality. And, and everyone has like, kind of a difference about them.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Well, and, and one of the things that we know is that this homeostasis is pretty constant, right? And you're right that like some people, some people will be at a nine, others will be at a seven. Most people are actually above a five, like most people are generally happy. And their happiness range does not change very much day to day or month to month, right? Our brains crave homeostasis. But what's interesting is that when you ask people questions about when they were happy, our memories of our happiness oftentimes diverge from our daily experiences. So if I ask you, when were you most happy? For, for me, like, one of the, one of the best moments of like the last year. Well, first of all, when my son found out he got into college because he was so happy. But, but also like, we went on a vacation together, right?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  And like, I just remember sitting at the breakfast table and looking at my boys and being like, I'm just so happy. Like, I'm so, I'm, I feel so lucky, right? And then, and then there's moments when like, I can remember of the last year when I got super frustrated. And I was just like, oh, this is driving me crazy. But if you go and you actually look at my happiness levels during those periods, you'd see very little differences. It lasts minutes, but I, but it stands out in my memory. So I think that one of the things that's really important when we think about our happiness is rather than thinking about, am I happy or am I unhappy, is thinking about like, How can I just be calm and content with this moment? Because my homeostasis is going to take me actually to a pretty good place.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  And number two, when I'm out of that moment, like reminding myself like this is a blip. Like, I'm going to remember this moment and it's going to stand out in my mind. But actually, the experience of it is much smaller than the actual memory of it. And that's really useful. That's really important.

• 30:16Auren Hoffman?

  How do you use money as a tool to buy happiness?

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I use it all the time. I mean, I use it to buy time, right? And we had a big conversation about this recently, like there were some people who like, and I put myself in this camp, there's some people who like clearly got joy from money, right? Just, just having money. And my guess is that those are people who, again, like me, there were periods when they didn't have money and it caused them a lot of stress. And just having money, like, it's just such a source of like comfort. Like, to be like, you know what? There's a ton of stuff I have to worry about, what I don't have to worry about. Like, there was a time when I was starting a company and I had to sell blood to make payroll. Like, I don't have to worry about selling blood for money anymore, right? Like, that's off my, that's off my radar. And that's, that's a real source of comfort.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  But the way that I use money beyond that is I use it basically for freedom, right? I use it to buy time, like I hire other people to do things that I don't want to do. I use it to buy capacity that like, when I go on vacation, I don't have to think about like, you know, like, is this hotel okay? It kind of sucks. Like, it's like, I just stay in a nice hotel because it gives me time to enjoy my kids.

• 31:23Auren Hoffman?

  Yep.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  And, and I, I use it to, to, to buy freedom to sort of say like, here are things. I, I don't have to, I can write the books that I want to write because writing a book that's a bestseller is less of a priority for me from a financial perspective. Like, I can write the book. And it turns out that if you write the book you want to write, oftentimes it becomes the bestseller.

• 31:44Auren Hoffman?

  But you can, you can be more long-term, long-term oriented.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  More long-term oriented and also more, less caring about what other people think. That's what I think money ultimately gives me is I, I can care less about the thoughts of people who I. Don't want to care about.

• 31:59Auren Hoffman?

  There's people who are at the point where they have enough savings where like they could quit their job and not have a job for X number of months or something like that, right? Like, just imagine that that person who has that and obviously we're we're we're lucky enough to know lots of people who have that. But just think of a young person who gets to the point where they have enough savings where they could quit their job and not have to have a new job for X number of months. Like, that gives you a lot of freedom because like, maybe maybe you're working with bad people, maybe they're doing something unethical, maybe they're what now? Now you don't have to stay in that situation.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so let me ask you a question. This is, I think, kind of an interesting question for all of us to ask ourselves. Let's say I came to you and I was like, Orin, I'm gonna give you something and you have to give up, let's say, eighty-five percent of your net worth. Or let's say eighty, we'll leave you with twenty percent of your net worth, but eighty percent of your net worth, like, like what you've accumulated over your entire lifetime, you gotta give eighty percent of it to me. What would you ask for in return? Like, what is the thing that you could get that would be worth eighty percent of your net worth?

• 33:00Auren Hoffman?

  It also depends on what situation you're in. Like, like, imagine you had a scenario where one of your kids had like a huge health crisis.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  So let's say I can say to you, I can promise that your kids will never will never get seriously ill. Like, is that worth eighty percent of your net worth?

• 33:15Auren Hoffman?

  It might be. Like, I mean, I haven't I haven't thought it through, but yeah, something like that where it's something about your loved ones that you care deeply about and something like that. And if you could say, hey, but you could say, hey, Orin, you, your wife, your two kids, you're you're gonna you're gonna live well and you're not gonna have to worry about this. And I can I can promise you, the genie will promise you, you know, those types of things. And, you know, and and like, yeah, and as a parent, you're always constantly worried, like, oh, my kid getting hit by a car crossing a street, even when they're like, you know, twenty-one. You're still worried about those types of things. It's just ingrained in your head. If you could just say, hey, you never have to worry about that, like, your kid's gonna be fine and, you know, all these other type of that would that would be pretty, pretty good.

• 33:56Auren Hoffman?

  By the way, also, like, I've always felt like I could just earn it back, right? Like, so it's it's a, so it's always this other kind of thing, like, well, am I like stopping work? I have to just live off the twenty percent, you know, which is fine.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  What I think is interesting about the exercise is that number one, I think it forces us to question that answer, right? Because the truth is, if I came to you and I said, actually, for less than 80% of your net worth, I can make sure that your kids are never in a car accident, which is, I'm going to tell you that you like, you can achieve that just by moving to some rural place. And the truth of the matter is, we don't make that choice.

• 34:28Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Right? Like, like, we, we, we wouldn't like, we can do it for way cheaper than 80% of our net worth. And so it forces us to actually think about like our priorities and what we are prioritizing. The other thing that it does is it gives us a sense of what the value of money in our lives. Like, what is the value that money is actually providing? And the thing I like about money is that it's fungible, right? Like, I can use, if I want to figure out like, how much of your time is worth how many donuts? Money is the thing that lets me make the comparison, right? Cause like, how many donuts do I have to give you to give me an hour of your time? Like, you haven't answered for that. But I think that when we focus on money as money, instead of focusing on money as a fungible instrument

• 35:13Speaker 01

  that lets us compare dissimilar things, that's when we start making mistakes. So the key is, I'm going to go give a speech. I just gave a speech in Brazil. I'm going to go give a speech in France, right? They both have like involve a ton of travel. And, and I'm doing it, I mean, I enjoy it and it's exciting and like being a thought leader is fun. But like, also they're paying me a lot of money. So that's one of the reasons I'm doing it. So like, if the money is just a number on a screen, that's the wrong way of looking at it. The question is, what could I trade that money for that's worth taking four days to go to Brazil? Out of my life and not being around my kids? That's when suddenly the value of money actually means something to you.

• 35:53Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, you are like, they're paying you to do that. But like, there's only like, you might learn something there. You might sit next to someone on the plane and that might expand your mind. Or there's all these other things that could happen during this, these four days as well.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  That's really important. And I think that the way I think about that is as a serendipity tax. So none of us like paying taxes, right? But the more taxes you pay, it's actually a signal that things are going pretty well. Like, if I pay twice as many taxes next year, it's because I earned twice as much money.

• 36:23Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, or and you didn't plan as well, but yeah, yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, or I didn't plan as well, or like, or like, or like, I'm actually like, not committing tax fraud. Right. There's, or I moved to California. Right. Exactly. But the point being that like, We think of tax as being a negative, but actually oftentimes when we're paying into tax, it's for a benefit and serendipity tax is a great example of that. If you only, actually Jim Collins was the source of this because he told me that before he wrote Good to Great, he got invited, he was living in Boulder, he got invited to a dinner in San Francisco. And he was like, I don't want to get on a plane and go to San Francisco just for dinner. And like, this is, but he's like, whatever, I'll do it. Why, like, I know the guy and he told me to come. And he sits down next to someone and he's talking about the stuff he works on about like trying to figure

• 37:07Speaker 01

  out why companies get good. And this guy says to him, like, the more interesting question is, how does a good company get great? Like, bad to good is easy. Good to great is really hard. And that's the, that's the creation of Good to Great, the book.

• 37:20Auren Hoffman?

  So his whole life's like work was about just a random thing, sitting next to some random dude. We may not even remember the guy's name.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And he went to five different dinners that that didn't happen at. He was paying the serendipity tax for this one moment.

• 37:32Auren Hoffman?

  Or you, you know, you meet your spouse through this or, you know, there's all these like random things that happen, right? Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  What Jim said is, he said, like, that dinner was really meaningful for me. The guy who said that to me, he got nothing out of the dinner, right? Like, there was like, like for him, that was just a tax. He didn't get any serendipity.

• 37:51Auren Hoffman?

  Well, in some ways, he, he created something great in the world, maybe unknowingly. He added to the world's goodness in a way that actually was quite good.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  You need to pay the serendipity tax. You need to pay taxes in your life. We live in a good society because rich people pay taxes. You also need to pay taxes to serendipity. You need to pay taxes to fate. You need to pay taxes to karma. Like, all of this stuff is stuff that like, we might not see the benefit at this very moment, but we do see the benefit over the course of our lives.

• 38:19Auren Hoffman?

  Now, you also wrote this book called Super Communicators. What actually predicts if someone is a good communicator? What does that even mean? Like, like, how would you put that on somebody?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  If you were having a really bad day and you came home and you wanted to call someone who you know would make you feel better, just talking to them would like lift your mood. Do you know who that person is? Like, does that person pop into your mind?

• 38:40Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So for you, that person is a super communicator and you're probably a super communicator back to them. You do something special in that conversation with them that you might not even be aware of, that makes the other person feel really heard and seen and like makes them feel connected to you. And there are some people who can do this consistently. There are people who can do this with basically anyone. They can have a genuine connection with any person they meet. And we think it used to be because we were like, oh, they were born that way. They're born with the gift of gab, or they're really charismatic. But what we now know is it's actually just a set of skills. And there's skills that basically anyone can learn. And there's two skills, well, there's three skills in particular. One of them is that people who are really good super communicators, they tend to ask more questions than the average person.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  They ask like 10 to 20 times as many questions. And like, this is one of the reasons I know you're a super communicator. You're really good at asking questions.

• 39:32Auren Hoffman?

  But I'm not, I'm not trying to, I'm just curious. I'm, it's selfish. It's selfish for me to ask questions. Sometimes, sometimes people will ask questions like, why are you asking so many questions? You know, it's like.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  And in particular, you probably ask a lot of questions that are known in psychology as deep questions. A deep question is something that asks us about our values or our beliefs or our experiences. And that can sound like kind of intimidating, like I have to ask this person all about their like parents. But it's as simple as like, if you meet someone who's a doctor, instead of asking them, you know, what hospital do you work at? Asking them, oh, what made you decide to go to medical school? Right, that second question is an invitation to that person. It's this deep question. It invites them to talk about seeing their dad get sick or like they love to be a healer. And so that's the first habit that super communicators have is they ask more questions. They ask deep questions. The second habit is that they tend to prove they are listening much better. So we think of listening as like, I'm going to close my mouth and open my ears.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  That's just the first step of listening. We have to show the other person we're listening. Listening has to be an active activity. So we're asking follow up questions. We're saying things like, what I hear you saying is this. And we're repeating what they just told us. We're, we're saying like, oh, you mentioned this thing and it made me think of this other thing that I learned about. We're proving to them that not only are we listening, but we're actually actively processing what they're saying. That's the second thing that super communicators do is they're more active listeners. The third thing is that they tend to pay more attention to what kind of conversation is happening. Because when we're having a discussion, we think we know what that discussion is about. But actually. Discussions are many different kinds of conversations all happening at the same time. And in general, the conversations we have, they tend to fall into one of three

• 41:13Speaker 01

  buckets. There's these practical conversations where like solving problems or making plans together. But then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings, I want you to empathize.

• 41:23Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  And there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society. And all three of those big buckets of conversations, they use different parts of our brains. And if you are having a practical conversation and I'm having an emotional conversation, we're like two ships passing in the night. We will not be able to fully hear each other. We will not feel connected to each other. And so one thing that super communicators do is they, during a conversation, they're a little bit aware of like, is this actually, this sounds like a practical conversation, but is this actually an emotional conversation? Like this person's talking about budgets, but they keep saying how anxious they are that they're not going to get the budget right. Like, I think this is an emotional conversation. I need to match you. I need to match that emotionality. It's called the matching principle in psychology. I need to show you that like, I hear your emotions and I empathize with you. And then we can move to the practical conversation together.

• 42:09Auren Hoffman?

  I am personally terrible at nonverbal cues. Like, I can't pick up on anything. I can't pick up on someone's facial things. I just, I have, you know, so if someone's saying something, I can analyze like the words. How, but I imagine like being a really good super communicator, you have to see, you have to understand the nonverbal, are they leaning in? Are they not leaning in? Are they engaged? Like, like all these other, I assume all these other nonverbal things are really important.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  They are if, if it's something you use, right? So like, I think what's interesting about what you just said is, you are aware that you don't pick up on a lot of nonverbal cues. And so my guess is, as a result, you actually pay more attention to nonverbal cues than you would otherwise. Like, my guess is that like, you've trained yourself habitually without even realizing it, that when someone smiles or they frown, you like, you process that, even if it's not a natural thing for you that you've learned. So what matters in a conversation is not like being really good at every aspect of a conversation. What matters in a conversation is paying attention to the conversation and thinking about the conversation. The thing that super communicators do that sets them apart from everyone else, is they just think a little bit more. More about the conversation than the average person.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  And in fact, if you ask them, were you always good at communicating? They'll say things like, no, like in high school, I had trouble making friends. And so I had to really like study how kids talk to each other. Or, or my parents got divorced and I had to be a peacemaker between them. The key to communication is not being really great at like nonverbal or verbal, or even ask more questions. The key to conversation is just thinking a little bit more about conversations. That's what makes us good at it.

• 43:41Auren Hoffman?

  Do you think people have a good self-assessment of how good of a communicator they are?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  So what we found is that the people, that the best communicators worry about, worry a little bit about their communication ability. And the worst communicators think that they are fantastic communicators. Like, like basically, if you go to someone and you say, are you a super communicator? And they're like, absolutely, I'm a super communicator. I'm a great communicator. That means that they are not a great communicator. But if you ask someone, are you a super communicator? And they're like, you know, I try to be like, I think about it and I work on it. There's times that I don't live up to my expectations and there's times that like, it seems to go well. That person is probably a really good communicator. Again, because it's the self-monitoring. It's this, it's this ability to think about the conversation and, and realistically know like, actually, I wanted to connect with Orin and like, we had this conversation and I did everything right,

• 44:30Speaker 01

  but I just didn't feel connected to him. Like, why is that? What happened? What could I have done differently?

• 44:35Auren Hoffman?

  I found people are like, they can self-measure on certain things really well. Like it's IQ. I think if someone thinks they're in the top 10% of IQ, they're almost always in the top 25% of IQ. Like they're, they're, they're quite good at self-measuring, something like that. Cause it's like, there's, there are things like SAT score. There are other things like in your life that you have a sense of where you fall in that distribution. EQ, if someone says in their top 10%, like they might be in the top 90% or something like, it's just like, who knows? Well, they're probably not in the bottom 10, but they're, they're, they're, they could be anywhere on the distribution that that's out there.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  So it's not so much that like different kinds of confidence or self-monitoring are different. It's more about the feedback loops that we pay attention to. So there's this thing known as deliberate practice. Like when you look at experts and how experts become expert. They practice a lot, like the 10,000 hour rule, but they're actually doing something very specific in that practice. Simply like playing the same guitar song over and over, practicing songs I love. That does not make me a better guitar player. Playing a song that challenges me and then paying attention to where I succeed and where I fail, and then going back and trying to improve on those moments when I failed, which can be much more boring than just playing the song that I love. That's deliberate practice. There's a feedback loop there that... So what we find is that people are very good at self-monitoring

• 45:56Speaker 01

  in situations where they pay attention to the feedback loop. So the reason why smart people say like, I'm in the top 1% and they end up being in the top 10% of intelligence is because they pay a lot of attention to intelligence. It's probably something that like, there were times that they acted unintelligently and they thought about them a lot, they obsessed about them. Whereas when it comes to emotional intelligence, it might be something where I'm like, yeah, that's something I'm good at, but actually I don't really care about it. So I'm not really paying attention to the feedback loop. So the difference that you're distinguishing there is, and there are people who care about intelligence and they're very good at self-monitoring their own EQ. So the thing that like matters is not like, what am I self-monitoring? It's what matters is when I am self-monitoring, what am I looking for the feedback on?

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Because if I'm like a, you know, a bull in a china shop in emotional situations and I'm just like, I don't care. Like, they either get, they either get the solution or they don't. Like they get for me what they want or they don't. Then like you're not, then the self-monitoring there is poor, not because you're bad at self-monitoring, but because you're not paying attention to the feedback.

• 46:58Auren Hoffman?

  If you think of like a super communicator, a lot of those things you said, which are, it's, it's almost like there's a, there's like a formula in some ways to do some of these things. Like you would think, okay, AI would be great if you're chatting with OpenAI or Anthropic or Gemini or, you know, these other things. Like you think they would do a really good job of like, it's just a, hey, be a super communicator with me and they probably could do most of those things. Or you, or no.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Here's what the research tells us. You're exactly right that like, if I tell Claude to have a conversation with me, it does a lot of the techniques of super communication and that can be helpful, that can be really helpful. But the thing about a conversation is... The conversation is not just about how you react. The conversation is about how I feel about how you react. A big part of making a conversation, again, we're a pro-social species, right? Our brains have evolved this instinct for conversation and connection that is really, really powerful that we can't fight. And if I, if I feel like I am connecting with you, when I say something to you that either makes you feel happy or sad or angry, and I see that expression on your face and I believe it's real, it causes a feeling in me.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  And that feeling in me is as important as the feeling in you. Now, when I'm talking to Claude, I don't actually believe that I can make Claude happy. I don't believe I can make Claude sad. I believe it's just a machine that's like using some pattern recognition to interact with me. So as a result, I don't get that feeling and I don't feel connected to Claude the same way. So what we found is that people who get into these parasocial relationships with AI, they like start having all these long conversations with them. It is, it is very powerful. It tends to diminish pretty quickly. Like if you look at those people six months after, like they, we noticed that they're obsessed with AI, they're no longer having like long conversations. Chatbots and like digital boyfriends have a shelf life of about three or four months. Because at some point, people are like, you know what?

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Actually, like, I'm not getting, there's something intangible I can't name to you. It seems like it's doing everything right, but I'm just getting bored with it. It's just not, it's not the same.

• 49:05Auren Hoffman?

  What is the optimal amount of self-awareness?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  That's a really good question. And this is something that researchers study all the time. And it differs from like situation to situation and person to person. I think the optimal amount of self-awareness, frankly, is what makes you happy. Like, you could definitely, you could, you could measure everything in your life. I'm thinking about Brian Johnson, right? He's this guy that we both know, who like literally is measuring everything. And And like, because he's so invested in it, it makes him happy. If I was measuring that much stuff, it would make me miserable, right? Like, like, I don't even wear an aura ring because I'm like, I don't know what to do with the data. So I don't even just, I don't even want the data. Like, I'm just, I sleep when I sleep. So I think that the thing, the, the question to ask is, does measuring this, does optimizing for this,

• 49:52Speaker 01

  does paying attention to this, there's like self-monitoring on this. Does it make me happier over the long run? Or does it make me less happy over the long run? And that for you determines not only what the optimal level of self-monitoring, but what kind of self-monitoring is really useful for you? Because you might care a lot about your day-to-day happiness, but not care about your day-to-day fitness. Or you might care a lot about your day-to-day fitness, but you're fine having periods where you're kind of stressed and unhappy because it, you find some motivation for, from it.

• 50:23Auren Hoffman?

  Do you think the, the average person is not self-aware enough or too self-aware?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  I think actually the average person gets it pretty much right. Right? Like, like, we all know people who like, fall off, are at the extremes. But in general, our brains, again, because of how we've evolved, we're very, very good at monitoring, like, monitoring things we need to monitor. So like, if I suddenly got super angry with you, you would, you would register that, right? Because me being angry at you is something that like, matters to you. But if a stranger on a bus gets annoyed with you, you don't monitor it because it doesn't matter. So like, and you don't, you don't have to make that choice. It's not like you're like deliberating, like, should I pay attention? Should I not pay attention? Your brain's really, really good at figuring out the appropriate level of self-monitoring.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  As long as you're paying attention to the feedback loops, as long as like, if everyone around you is getting annoyed with you all the time, you should probably notice that and care about it. But, but as long as you have like a basic level of sort of- Feedback loop and paying attention to feedback loops, your, your brain's going to do a great job of monitoring on its own.

• 51:30Auren Hoffman?

  The people who like talk the most about self-awareness and they're super into it, I would say on average are like way unhappier. Like, it doesn't seem like there's a point where it leads to more happiness. Like, in general, like, I, I don't know, that, that's my random, my random small n. I'm sure my study could not be replicated, but.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  No, no, it's a hundred percent. Every single study shows that exactly what you're saying is right. That basically, like, and this is why it's sort of like letting your brain just do that level of self-monitoring that like is almost like a minimum viable product is good. The more time we spend thinking about ourselves, the less happy we are. The more time we spend thinking about other people, usually the more happy we are. Now, there's some nuances there, right? Like, if I'm like, if I'm like thinking about other people and hating on them because I'm so envious, then, then that's not good. But actually, if you think about it, what that is, is that's not me thinking about other people. That's me thinking about myself. That's me thinking about like what I lack in comparison to you. The more we can design our life to be thinking about our clients, our customers, our family,

• 52:32Speaker 01

  about doing good in the world, about helping other people out, the happier we are. And the more we like, more time we spend like just obsessing about like ourselves, the less happy we usually are.

• 52:43Auren Hoffman?

  Okay, a couple of personal questions before we leave. First, like, you have, you have nine siblings. I don't really know that many people who have, that many people have nine siblings. That's a lot. Like, what is it like to have nine siblings? And.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  You get to pick and choose and you have to pick and choose who, who you are really close to. Right? Like, like 10 is a lot of people. So like, there, and like, I love all of my siblings and I talk to all of my siblings, but there's some siblings that like, I'm just closer to, like I talk to on a more regular basis. And, and that's okay, right? Like, that's, that's actually fine. And I feel really lucky that I have like three or four siblings who like, I just love to talk to. And like, I wish I had more of them in my life. I will say the other thing, so I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And one of the things that does happen when you have that many kids is that like, no matter how successful you are. The resources are always going to be somewhat scarce.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Right? Just like, like, so, so I, I went to Yale for undergrad and, and I was, I was lucky that my parents could pay for part of me going to Yale, but I had to take out loans and I had to work every summer to earn money to like, support myself when I was at Yale. And like, that was never like a question for me. Like, I was never like, and then once I graduated from Yale, like, I was financially on my own. Like, like, I went to, I went to, to business school and I had to take out a ton of debt to go to business school. Like, and, and so I think that one of the things is that, and, and my dad was older than most dads, right? He was 45 years old when I was born, because I'm, I'm number seven in the 10. And so like, there, there's, there's things that, that if you have an older dad, like, you know that your dad's going to die earlier in your life. And so, so I think that there are

• 54:24Speaker 01

  things, but, but in general, I would say that like, I think my experience is more like your experience than more different than your experience.

• 54:32Auren Hoffman?

  Okay.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  It's just little nuances that, that end up like, being a little bit different.

• 54:37Auren Hoffman?

  How do you think about just like, in general, like, having relationships with cousins? Because there are, there are people probably like your kids that have tons of cousins and stuff. Some of the cousins that may not even really even know that well. Some, you know, it's like, and then there are people who have like, there are people growing up nowadays who have like, very, very few cousins. I know some people basically have like, no cousins.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Do you have a lot of cousins? And were you close to your cousins when you were a kid?

• 55:00Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, I was, I didn't have a lot, but I was close. My, my wife has 27 cousins. We couldn't invite them all to our wedding, you know, it's like, because they each have, they're, they each, most of them were married and, you know, it's like, yeah, all of a sudden it just becomes like a math problem. It's like, which cousins should you invite and which cousins you can invite and, you know, all these other types of things.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  So I think that cousins, so relationships with cousins, with grandparents, can be really, really positive, but they're not absolutely necessary. So like, so my, my aunt also had 10 children, right? So like, I had 10 cousins living in Iowa, but I'd see them like, once every two years. Like, we never went to Iowa. They never came to Albuquerque. And so I, I liked them, but like, I'm not that close to them. And it was fine. Like, I had other relationships that worked for me that were meaningful when I was a kid. So what I would say is, relationships with cousins, studies show us, can be really, really powerful. Relationships with grandparents can be really, really powerful. It's worth investing in those if you're a parent on behalf of your kids. It is also not necessary.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Relationships with friends, if they're good friends, can be just as powerful. And relationships with, with teachers can be just as powerful. The key is, as an adult, to help our kids invest in relationships. Whether it's a relationship with someone you're related to or not, like, create the environment where it's easy for them to spend time together. Emphasize to them, like, spending time with this person, even if you don't have anything to do, even if you're just hanging out, is really, really good. So my 15-year-old, we live in Santa Cruz, California now, and San Francisco, but we're mostly in Santa Cruz. And he basically leaves in the morning for school, and then we don't see him until like six or seven at night. And he's just like, riding his bikes with his friends, or going over to each other's houses, or going swimming. And the thing is, I'm like, this is great.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Like, I want, I mean, I'm sure they're getting into trouble sometimes, but like, I want them, I want him to really invest in these relationships. And I, and I fully support that 100%. So that's what I think matters, is teaching your kids to invest and giving them the space where they can invest.

• 57:00Auren Hoffman?

  If you're growing up in China today, like, a lot of people don't have a cousin in China. You know, it's like, just imagine, because like, both of your parents, you know, were maybe, um, single, single children, or they don't have siblings. So, you know, all of a sudden, you're, you're kind of in this kind of like, interesting thing. But yeah, I guess you're right. There, there, there's other substitutions that people can, can make.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Again, we're a pro-social species. Like, in our brain, there has evolved this instinct that we cannot fight, to want to connect with other people. And the more that we allow that instinct to flourish, oftentimes, not only are we way healthier, we live longer, and we're happier, oftentimes, you're actually more successful. Because like, you, you have these weak ties that give you access to insights and to opportunities that you wouldn't get otherwise.

• 57:45Auren Hoffman?

  Two more questions before we go. One is, how are you using AI in your personal life?

• 57:49Speaker 01

  I use AI for financial stuff, and I'd say it's, it's about 50% good. So like, what I do is I upload all, I use Simplify to like, download all of my credit card data and I'll upload that to Claude. And I do like a snapshot every week of like all my account statuses. And I'll ask Claude to look for patterns. And it, and it, it finds patterns that aren't obvious to me, which is nice. What it also does is it gives me terrible advice. It was like, you should sell all of your real estate and put it into the market right now. Because the market over the last five years has outperformed real estate. And I was like, that is not good advice. Hopefully, nobody's, well, nobody's relying on you, right? So, but what it does is it forces me to think more about my finances. Like, it basically like asks me questions and I have to think about them.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  And of course, thinking about your finances is what makes you good at finances. So I use it for that. I use it for like tech stuff, like I'm like, how do I fix this thing on my computer? And like, I, like, I know that I could go through. And I'm just like, Claude, just tell me what to do. And it tells me what to do. So I use it that way. What I don't use it for is I don't, I, I use it as like an information tool. I don't use it as a companion. And what I want to do is I want there to be a device. So, one of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older, and this is probably true for you too. I used to have a great memory and my memory is definitely not as good as it used to be. And very often, I'm like, an idea came up in this conversation and had something to do with airplanes. And I can't remember what it is and I can't remember what that person said. So what I actually want to do is I want a life log.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Like, I want something that records all of my conversations all the time. And then use AI to query it. In theory, it's easy. In practice, it's actually like really hard. Like, I've, I've bought all the different devices you can use to record and none of them work very well. The AI still has a hard time distinguishing between different voices. And distinguishing between like ideas and questions. So, so it's something that I think down the road will exist. And it's something that clearly could exist. It, but we're not actually there yet. And until it becomes seamless, I, I don't want it in my life. Like, it's just, it's more of a hassle than it's worth.

• 59:50Auren Hoffman?

  For that question you had, like, it probably would, it would surface it pretty well.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  I think that it would if I knew the right question to ask and if I had the thing recording all the time. The other part of it is that like, is that like, I don't want, I don't want to freak people out. There's AI and then there's the use of AI, making AI actually. We practice all our lives and that has so much to do not with the technology itself, but with learning how to use it and getting culturally comfortable with it. One of the reasons I don't record every conversation is because I don't want to freak other people out.

• 1:00:20Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah, and they're not going to be as candid and you know, et cetera.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Now, in 10 years, it might be that everyone just assumes every conversation is being recorded. And they know that you're not going to use it like it's so, it's a taboo to use it for something bad. So like, they don't have to worry about it. So our cultural norms, our mores have to change. Also, our capacity, like, part of it is that if I recorded everything, I don't even know the right questions to ask. Like, I can remember, like, I was talking about airplanes. But like, maybe it turns out that the useful thing is like, having this device on my shoulder that like, is like, by the way, like, you just said um fifteen times in the last five minutes, right? Like, like, we don't actually know what the questions or what the use cases are yet. And that's, that's what's exciting to me is that every time a technology emerges, society changes and use case, there's an experimentation in use cases.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  And then oftentimes, the thing that wins is not the thing you would expect.

• 1:01:09Auren Hoffman?

  All right, this is awesome. Last question we ask all of our guests, and this is why it's like perfectly in your real house. What conventional wisdom or advice is generally bad advice? And you're not allowed to say follow your passion because like 50 other people I've interviewed said that.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  When you're making a decision, assume you will be wildly successful. Like, if you're trying to decide whether to go into politics, just assume you will end up becoming a US senator. But also assume that it is going to take two to 10 times longer than you expect for that success to come. Because what I think what that does is it forces us to say, do I like the activity or do I like the outcome? And the truth is, if I'm doing something simply for the outcome, then it's not a good choice. It's not a good use of time because first of all, the outcome becomes less likely. But second of all, I'm just going to be miserable on the route to getting there. I'm saying like, I want to become a great chef, like, I want to be the best chef in the world.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  And I know it's going to take like 30 or 35 years to get there. But like, actually, that's fine with that. I love cooking. Then, that's great. That's, I think, the right way to make decisions. And so when people say like, you should weigh pros and cons and, and like, I actually think that's a good exercise to go through to, to surface stuff. But when you're making the decision, just assume you will be wildly successful and it's going to take much longer than you anticipate.

• 1:02:26Auren Hoffman?

  Interesting. Well, we're, we're investing in venture capital. We're often like, we often have it, not exactly, but a similar thing, which is like, what if everything went right? Like, what, what, what could happen if like this is just like way like all the things worked, rather than looking at all the bad stuff that go there? Yeah. What, what would that look like? You know, and sometimes it's like, it's still not that great.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  We get 2.5 times our money in 10 years. And it's like, well, actually, like, I could do better in the S and P. Yeah.

• 1:02:53Auren Hoffman?

  This has been awesome. Thank you, Charles Duhigg, for joining us on Summation. By the way, I follow you at C Duhigg on X. I definitely encourage our listeners to engage with you there. This has been, and also to buy your books, which I love. Thank you. This has been really awesome.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. This has been so much fun.

• 1:03:08Auren Hoffman?

  One more thing before we go. I read a blog called Summation. It's the same as this podcast. The blog is about non-obvious idea sharing on business, talent, data, longevity, and random contrarian takes. If you like the conversations on this show, you'll probably like the blog. It's free. New content comes out twice a month. You could subscribe at orin.substack.com. That's orin.substack.com.