✸ How important is failure in business?
“I think failure is massively overrated. Most businesses fail for more than one reason. So when a business fails, you often don’t learn anything at all because the failure was overdetermined. [TF: Overdetermined: “To determine, account for, or cause (something) in more than one way or with more conditions than are necessary.”] You will think it failed for Reason 1, but it failed for Reasons 1 through 5. And so the next business you start will fail for Reason 2, and then for 3 and so on.
“I think people actually do not learn very much from failure. I think it ends up being quite damaging and demoralizing to people in the long run, and my sense is that the death of every business is a tragedy. It’s not some sort of beautiful aesthetic where there’s a lot of carnage, but that’s how progress happens, and it’s not some sort of educational imperative. So I think failure is neither a Darwinian nor an educational imperative. Failure is always simply a tragedy.”
✸ What are the biggest tech trends that you see defining the future?
“I don’t like talking in terms of tech ‘trends’ because I think, once you have a trend, you have many people doing it. And once you have many people doing something, you have lots of competition and little differentiation. You, generally, never want to be part of a popular trend. You do not want to be the fourth online pet food company in the late 1990s. You do not want to be the twelfth thin-panel solar company in the last decade. And you don’t want to be the nth company of any particular trend. So I think trends are often things to avoid. What I prefer over trends is a sense of mission. That you are working on a unique problem that people are not solving elsewhere.
“When Elon Musk started SpaceX, they set out the mission to go to Mars. You may agree or disagree with that as a mission statement, but it was a problem that was not going to be solved outside of SpaceX. All of the people working there knew that, and it motivated them tremendously.”
TF: Peter has written elsewhere, “The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”
✸ How would you reply to someone who says that your position on college and higher education is hypocritical since you, yourself, went to Stanford for both undergraduate and law school?
[Context: Many people see Peter as “anti-college” due to his Thiel Fellowship, which “gives $100,000 to young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom.”]
“I think some people will always find objections of one sort or another. Had I not gone to Stanford or law school, people would object and say I had no idea what I was missing. So I think they’re likely to complain in any event. But I would say my view is not hypocritical because I have never made the claim that there’s a one size fits all. So if I said that nobody should go to college, that might be hypocritical. But what I have said is that not everybody should do the same thing. There is something very odd about a society where the most talented people all get tracked toward the same elite colleges, where they end up studying the same small number of subjects and going into the same small number of careers.
“That strikes me as sort of a lack of diversity in our thinking about the kinds of things people should be doing. It’s very limiting for our society as well as for those students. I certainly think I was very much guilty of this myself, if I look back on my Stanford undergraduate and law school years. It’s possible I would do it again. But if I had to do something over, I would think about it much harder. I would ask questions. Why am I doing this? Am I doing this just because I have good grades and test scores and because I think it’s prestigious? Or am I doing this because I’m extremely passionate about practicing law?
“I think there are good answers, and there are bad answers. And my retrospective on my early 20s is that I was way too focused on the wrong answers at the time.”
✸ What do you think the future of education looks like?
[TF: I include this mostly for the very first line and his reframe.]
“I don’t like the word ‘education’ because it is such an extraordinary abstraction. I’m very much in favor of learning. I’m much more skeptical of credentialing or the abstraction called ‘education.’ So there are all of these granular questions like: What is it that we’re learning? Why are you learning it? Are you going to college because it’s a 4-year party? Is it a consumption decision? Is it an investment decision where you’re investing in your future? Is it insurance? Or is it a tournament where you’re just beating other people? And are elite universities really like Studio 54 where it’s like an exclusive nightclub? I think if we move beyond the education bubble that we’re living in today, the future will be one in which people can speak about these things more clearly.”
(Listen to his entire riff on this in episode #28 at 17:24.)
✸ What one thing would you most like to change about yourself or improve on?
“It’s always hard to answer this, since it sort of begs the question of why I haven’t already improved on it. But I would say that when I look back on my younger self, I was insanely tracked, insanely competitive. And when you’re very competitive, you get good at the thing you’re competing with people on. But it comes at the expense of losing out on many other things.
“If you’re a competitive chess player, you might get very good at chess but neglect to develop other things because you’re focused on beating your competitors, rather than on doing something that’s important or valuable. So I’ve become, I think, much more self-aware over the years about the problematic nature of a lot of the competition. There have been rivalries that we get caught up in. And I would not pretend to have extricated myself from this altogether. So I think, every day, it’s something to reflect on and think about ‘How do I become less competitive in order that I can become more successful?’ ”
✸ You studied philosophy as an undergraduate. What does philosophy have to do with business? And how has your study of philosophy helped you in your investing and career today?
“I’m not sure how much the formal study of philosophy matters, but I think the fundamental philosophical question is one that’s important for all of us, and it’s always this question of ‘What do people agree merely by convention, and what is the truth?’ There’s a consensus of things that people believe to be true. Maybe the conventions are right, and maybe they’re not. And we never want to let a convention be a shortcut for truth. We always need to ask: Is this true? And this is always what I get at with this indirect question: ‘Tell me something that’s true that very few people agree with you on.’ ”
TF: Peter will also sometimes ask potential hires, “What problem do you face every day that nobody has solved yet?” or “What is a great company no one has started?” I will sometimes pose a bastardized version of his “something few people agree with you on” question to podcast guests: “What do you believe that other people think is insane?”
3 of 7 Questions
There are 7 questions that Peter recommends all startup founders ask themselves. Grab Zero to One for all of them, but here are the 3 I revisit often:
The Monopoly Question: Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
The Secret Question: Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?
The Distribution Question: Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product?
“It’s always the hard part that creates value.”
“You are more powerful than you think you are. Act accordingly.”
Spirit animal: Loon
* * *
Seth Godin
Seth Godin (TW: @thisissethsblog, sethgodin.com) is the author of 18 best-selling books that have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the way ideas spread, marketing, strategic quitting, leadership, and challenging the sta
tus quo in all areas. His books include Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, Purple Cow, and What to Do When It’s Your Turn (and It’s Always Your Turn).
Seth has founded several companies, including Yoyodyne and Squidoo. His blog (which you can find by typing “Seth” into Google) is one of the most popular in the world. In 2013, Godin was inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. Recently, Godin turned the book publishing world on its ear by launching a series of four books via Kickstarter. The campaign reached its goal in just three hours and became the most successful book project in Kickstarter history.
“Trust and attention—these are the scarce items in a post-scarcity world.”
“We can’t out-obedience the competition.”
TF: I like this so much that I wanted to mention it twice. More context next time.
Be a Meaningful Specific Instead of a Wandering Generality
On saying “no” and declining things: “The phone rings, and lots of people want a thing. If it doesn’t align with the thing that is your mission, and you say ‘yes,’ now [your mission is] their mission. There’s nothing wrong with being a wandering generality instead of a meaningful specific, but don’t expect to make the change you [hope] to make if that’s what you do.
“Money is a story . . . and it’s better to tell a story about money you’re happy with.”
“Once you have enough for beans and rice and taking care of your family and a few other things, money is a story. You can tell yourself any story you want about money, and it’s better to tell yourself a story about money that you can happily live with.”
If You Generate Enough Bad Ideas, a Few Good Ones Tend to Show Up
“People who have trouble coming up with good ideas, if they’re telling you the truth, will tell you they don’t have very many bad ideas. But people who have plenty of good ideas, if they’re telling you the truth, will say they have even more bad ideas. So the goal isn’t to get good ideas; the goal is to get bad ideas. Because once you get enough bad ideas, then some good ones have to show up.”
(See James Altucher on page 246.)
What You Track Determines Your Lens—Choose Carefully
“Those of us who are lucky enough to live in a world where we have enough and we have a roof and we have food—we find ourselves caught in this cycle of keeping track of the wrong things. Keeping track of how many times we’ve been rejected. Keeping track of how many times it didn’t work. Keeping track of all the times someone has broken our heart or double-crossed us or let us down. Of course, we can keep track of those things, but why? Why keep track of them? Are they making us better?
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep track of the other stuff? To keep track of all the times it worked? All the times we took a risk? All the times we were able to brighten someone else’s day? When we start doing that, we can redefine ourselves as people who are able to make an impact on the world. It took me a bunch of cycles to figure out that the narrative was up to me.
“If a narrative isn’t working, well then, really, why are you using it? The narrative isn’t done to you; the narrative is something that you choose. Once we can dig deep and find a different narrative, then we ought to be able to change the game.”
“Stories Let Us Lie to Ourselves and Those Lies Satisfy Our Desires”
TF: The stories we tell ourselves can sometimes be self-defeating. One of the refrains that I’ve adopted for myself, which I wrote in my journal after some deep “plant medicine” work (see James Fadiman, page 100, for more on that) is “Don’t retreat into story.”
Try Sitting at a Different Table
“If you think hard about one’s life, most people spend most of their time on defense, in reactive mode, in playing with the cards they got instead of moving to a different table with different cards. Instead of seeking to change other people, they are willing to be changed. Part of the arc of what I’m trying to teach is: Everyone who can hear this has more power than they think they do. The question is, what are you going to do with that power?”
Can You Push Something Downhill?
“If you think about how hard it is to push a business uphill, particularly when you’re just getting started, one answer is to say: ‘Why don’t you just start a different business, a business you can push downhill?’
“My friend Lynn Gordon is a brilliant thinker and designer, and for years, she was in the business of designing toys and soft goods for moms with toddlers. Every toy company in America was mean to her, rejected her, had nothing to do with her. I said: ‘Lynn, it’s simple. Toy companies don’t like toy designers. They’re not organized to do business with toy designers. They’re not hoping toy designers will come to them.’ I said, ‘Come with me into the book business. Because every day, there are underpaid, really smart people in the book business who wake up waiting for the next idea to come across their desk. They’re eager to buy what you have to sell.’ And within two months, she did the 52® activity decks and [ultimately] sold more than 5 million decks of cards.”
First, Ten People
Seth has published roughly 6,500 posts on his blog since 2002. Which blog post would he point people to first, if he had to pick one?
“The blog post I point people to the most is called ‘First, Ten,’ and it is a simple theory of marketing that says: tell ten people, show ten people, share it with ten people; ten people who already trust you and already like you. If they don’t tell anybody else, it’s not that good and you should start over. If they do tell other people, you’re on your way.”
To Create Something Great (Or Eventually Huge), Start Extremely Small
“My suggestion is, whenever possible, ask yourself: What’s the smallest possible footprint I can get away with? What is the smallest possible project that is worth my time? What is the smallest group of people who I could make a difference for, or to? Because smallest is achievable. Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you’ve really screwed up.
“We want to pick big. Infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide. So, I want to encourage people instead to look for the small. To be on one medium in a place where people can find you. To have one sort of interaction with one tribe, with one group where you don’t have a lot of lifeboats.”
(See “1,000 True Fans” on page 289.)
“No One Gets a Suzuki Tattoo. You Can Decide That You Want to Be Tattoo-Worthy.”
Seth on Suzuki versus Harley-Davidson, the latter of which has deliberately created an aspirational brand.
“I Quantify Almost Nothing in My Life”
I sometimes fear I’ll lose my edge if I stop measuring everything. This line was freeing for me to hear, as Seth has been an idol of sorts for years. He inspired me to start “cycling off” of quantification, much like I cycle off of supplements for at least 1 week every 2 months (example: I took July 2016 off of tracking weight/body fat, social media, website, and newsletter stats).
I like to study what Seth doesn’t do as much as what he does. Seth has no comments on his blog, he doesn’t pay attention to analytics, and he doesn’t use Twitter or Facebook (except to rebroadcast his daily blog posts, which is automated). In a world of tool obsession and FOMO (fear of missing out) on the next social platform, Seth doesn’t appear to care. He simply focuses on putting out good and short daily posts, he ignores the rest, and he continues to thrive. There are no real rules, so make rules that work for you.
Quick Takes
Breakfast
“Breakfast is one more decision I don’t make, so it’s a frozen banana, hemp powder, almond milk, a dried plum, and some walnuts in the blender.”
Cooking Lessons
“My wife got me a Chris Schlesinger cooking class, and it was the only cooking class I’d ever taken. In 20 minutes, I learned more about cooking than I think I’ve learned before or since. Because Chris basically taught me how to think about what you
were trying to do and basically said, A) You should taste the food as you go, which a surprisingly small number of people do; and B) salt and olive oil actually are cheating and they’re secret weapons and they always work.”
Audiogon
Seth is an audiophile. He particularly enjoys focusing on analog and, in many ways, anachronistic equipment still made by hand. Audiogon is a website “where you can find people who buy things new and sell them 6 months later in perfect condition.”
Parenting Advice
“What could possibly be more important than your kid? Please don’t play the busy card. If you spend 2 hours a day without an electronic device, looking your kid in the eye, talking to them and solving interesting problems, you will raise a different kid than someone who doesn’t do that. That’s one of the reasons why I cook dinner every night. Because what a wonderful, semi-distracted environment in which the kid can tell you the truth. For you to have low-stakes but superimportant conversations with someone who’s important to you.”
On Education and Teaching Kids
“Sooner or later, parents have to take responsibility for putting their kids into a system that is indebting them and teaching them to be cogs in an economy that doesn’t want cogs anymore. Parents get to decide . . . [and] from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., those kids are getting homeschooled. And they’re either getting home-schooled and watching The Flintstones, or they’re getting homeschooled and learning something useful.
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