← Infinite Loops
Loading summary
Transcript193 lines
- [00:00]
A
We are not who we say we are. We are how we move through the world. One interesting thing about how I write is I need to see that mask drop. Like, I need to see who he actually is. I was really scared that I would just get the completely, like the mask version the entire time. But there were small moments where I would notice how tired he was. There were certain times where he told stories that I'm like, why are you telling me this story right now? Because it's what we do that colors like who we are, not the other way around.
- [00:35]
B
My guest today is Polina Pompliano, author of Hidden Genius, a book that asks a great question. When you study highly successful people long enough, what patterns start to emerge about how they think? The book goes into the 10 most common mental models used by these achievers. Please enjoy my conversation with Polina. Polina, it is so great to actually do this in person, in person. Last time, we were between screens, and a lot has happened since you last were on the show. Welcome.
- [01:11]
A
Thank you.
- [01:12]
B
What I'd love to do today is talk about the period between when we last chatted and now, obviously, you wrote a book, which I want to spend a lot of time on, because I think that I loved it, as you know. And I think that the way you break down all of these super high achievers by mental model is really instructive and people could actually learn a lot. So why don't you fill me in on why you decided to actually write the book and we'll go from there.
- [01:45]
A
Perfect. Well, the last time we recorded a podcast together, it was, I think, early 2021. So at the time, I had zero children and zero book. Now I have one book and four kids. Wow. So a lot has changed. I need to turn my brain on for this conversation after all the child stuff. But, yeah, so it's been good. The book. I was surprised at how fulfilling it was to write a book. I always thought of myself as writing short articles, thinking things like that. Never saw myself doing something so big. But the way I broke it down is just by. I was like, okay, I'm good at writing article length pieces, so I'll have three articles that make up one section of one chapter. And I just did it piecemeal like that. And it's been. It's been awesome. There's a paperback launch this summer, so congratulations. Yeah, thank you.
- [02:55]
B
So how much of the writing that you did for the profile? Did you have sort of a satori? And like, you know what, these guys all seem different, but I can group them by the underlying way they look at the world.
- [03:11]
A
Yes. Okay. So one interesting thing about how I write is that I am not an outline person. I don't sit down. I'm like, here's my plan. I don't know when I start, where I want to end. And oftentimes I write in pieces. It kind of like imagine a jigsaw puzzle with pieces of information. And then I'm like, I want this piece here and this person's mental model here. But then this other person is completely different person, but they use a similar mental model, so they belong in the same section. Even though I think to the reader is like, what the hell is, like, David Goggins doing in a chapter with, like, a chef? You know, it's completely different people, but similar ideas and similar mental models. So I just had, like a Google Doc. I had themes, and then I would be like, feeding the baby in the middle of the night, and I would think, huh, what if this person actually makes sense with this person? And I would kind of put the puzzle together in my head. So then when I had 20 minutes to sit down and write, I wasn't like, starting from scratch or with a blank page. I was like, I already know these people belong here. Now I just have to make it make sense.
- [04:25]
B
Did you explicitly ask them about mental models or did you infer that.
- [04:31]
A
No, some of them I interviewed. Some of them I just researched and studied. I definitely inferred the mental model or the view of the world that they had. But after you read enough research, enough watch enough interviews, you kind of get a sense of how they see the world.
- [04:51]
B
And so let's dive into, in your opinion, obviously, what seems to be the most robust of the various mental models, because you cover 10, and I have an opinion on it. But I want to hear your opinion. The most robust, by that I mean the broadly applicable to different aspects of life. I know a lot of people who are really, really good and at one thing.
- [05:22]
A
Yep.
- [05:23]
B
And they kind of suck at other things. And so they've got a great mental model for that one thing. But I'm looking for the ones that you would find most ubiquitous in. You can carry it over here. Carry it over here.
- [05:38]
A
There's three that come to mind. The first one that I think is, like, the meatiest is looking at or finding creativity and being creative by walking into the world or through your world. You don't sit down and wait for inspiration or creativity to come. I think the most creative people walk through their lives every day. And they see things that they can apply to their own professions, whatever they may be, whether it's finance or cooking or fitness. So in the book, I talk about Grant Achatz, and we mentioned it in the last. Cause I'm just fascinated by him. You've been to Alinea, his restaurant, but the whole idea is like, he moves through the world looking for ideas for his restaurant in the most unexpected places. He calls it seeing the world through a kaleidoscope of food. So he'll see a woman wearing red earrings and be like, oh, those I can incorporate in this dish, or something like that. Or rage against the machine. Like, he listens to a song and he's like, there's peaks, there's valleys. I want the. When people come into my restaurant, the dining experience to mirror a story. You know, there will be peaks, there will be valleys, like, things like that. So that is one. The other one that I think was a section in the book that was very. Not underrated, maybe overlooked by a lot of people, which I think is the most important section is the one on rationality and how being an emotionally sober person is probably, like, the best thing that you can be. Because I talked about this woman, Julia Galef, from the center of Applied Rationality, and she talks a lot about, like, beliefs and divorcing yourself from your beliefs, about how, you know, some of the most successful people in this world are able to attack ideas instead of attacking people. So if we're all in a room together, having a meeting, like they do at Pixar, the Ed Catmull talks about this. But the point is that there's a lot of people, and somebody comes up, throws out, like, a crazy idea, and everyone's like, well, that seems dumb. But they don't say, that seems dumb. They attack the idea. They criticize it. They do all these things, but they do entertain the idea. And I think that entertaining the idea first, then critiquing it, then debating it, you come up with something that's like, so much better than somebody throwing out an idea, you being like, wow, that's fantastic. Let's do that without any sort of scientific process in there. So that is the second one, and then the third one. I would say this is across so many people that I talk to that have achieved the highest levels of success, objective success, whatever success you want to measure are the people who are willing to bet on themselves and reinvent themselves in some way. I find myself really attracted to people who have achieved something. Lost a lot, learned from that, loss, achieved again and then come out on the other side with, like, lessons to share. But along that reinvention process, they had to bet on themselves again. And I think betting on yourself is easy to say, but hard to do, especially when you. You've seen failure.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah. And what's funny is you saw me nodding along. Those are the ones that I found the most useful as well. It's really funny. I think the one about rationality is super important because I think that we are basically emotional creatures. Many of our decisions are driven emotionally first, and then we paper them over with rationality after they've been made. And like, when I was still in asset management, they used to tease me that I was Spock. You know, like, you have zero emotions. And it's like, no, I have lots of emotions, but I have to be able to set them aside.
- [10:03]
A
And how do you do that practically?
- [10:05]
B
Well, for me, it was just to understand that I was my own worst enemy. And, and I understood that by making a series of emotional decisions in investments and the underlying logic was right and proved to be right. But I crapped out because I got emotional because of all the reasons emotion can lead you astray. And you know, Proust has this great quote which I'm going to mangle. It is forever. Thus, feelings that are going to be very temporary nevertheless lead us to irrevocable choices.
- [10:47]
A
That's so good.
- [10:48]
B
And so I just thought about it a lot and I'm like, I have to be able to create a system where I can neutralize that. Now, creativity is linked to emotion, but also rationality. So the best of both worlds, in my opinion, is kind of like the. I'm sure this is apocryphal, but apparently Alexander the Great, when he and his generals had made a decision, they would get rip roaring drunk at night.
- [11:22]
A
Makes sense. And I'm from that part of the world.
- [11:24]
B
And, and, and if they woke up in the morning and still believed the decision was right, they executed against it. But if they woke up in the morning and they're like, we probably should rethink this.
- [11:38]
A
Oh my gosh.
- [11:39]
B
So it was like this perfect Dionysus and Apollo being joined together. And so I'm a big believer in that. What were some of the examples where. Because I'm interested. I'm sure there's a lot of ways you can unite the two, but I definitely think that I love the idea of don't attack the person. Attack the idea or support the idea.
- [12:07]
A
Yeah. In a really good example actually of marrying creativity and logic, I include in the creativity chapter, where Grant Atkins to continue the story. He's the best chef in the world, the most innovative chef in the world. He has these amazing things, and then he gets stage four tongue cancer. And everyone's like, oh, my God. How is a chef. Chef supposed to continue being creative when he can't taste? And then he applied logic. He was like, actually, taste is. Doesn't only come from your taste buds. The majority comes from vision and smell and texture. So he started playing with those things and would make, like, straw. It would make tomatoes that look like strawberries, but tastes like tomatoes and strawberries that look like a tomato taste like strawberry. But what he did was he applied a lot of logic, actually. He would create this map of how he wanted the dining experience to go. He would draw it on a board, he would talk to all his team members, and he would say, basically, like, let's say I can't taste. How do we make this, like, the most flavorful, et cetera, et cetera, menu that we've ever had? And he would make his team blow up the menu every six months and just start from scratch. And they're like, but, Grant, this is the best menu we've ever had. Like, why would you do this? And he's like, because complacency will kill creativity. So we need to, like, start over. Start over. That forces you to think, you know, it's not just based on emotion. And you're married to the idea that this is the best we've ever done. We're never going to replicate this. It's like, it forces you to continue to, like, push yourself intellectually.
- [13:53]
B
Yeah. And that ties in, of course, to the folks at Pixar. Right. Ed was basically famous for. He didn't want to make a movie if it didn't have a chance to fail.
- [14:04]
A
Yes, yes.
- [14:05]
B
Talk a bit about that. I remember, I read his book, obviously, I read your book. I read a lot about him because he really fascinated me. I loved that idea. You know, what are we doing if, like, there's no chance, Like, I don't want to make.
- [14:22]
A
Yeah, duplicate.
- [14:24]
B
Another. I don't want to make sequels. I don't want to make prequels, and, of course, how many Toy Stories are there?
- [14:30]
A
But he's very, like, counterintuitive. What I found interesting is he says all the advice that you've been given about, like, nail your pitch. Nail your pitch if you can't tell, like, the elevator pitch if you can't. The whole idea of the elevator pitch came from if you're in an elevator with someone and you have 30 seconds to tell them what you're working on. You got to be able to do it in those 30 seconds. And he's like, that's kind of bullshit. Like, it is totally bullshit if you can explain your idea in 30 seconds or less. It's not all that original. And he talks about how, think about ratatouille. It's like a, you know, rat that can cook. Like, that could be disgusting. But we came up with these really interesting, nuanced ways to make it interesting. Or Toy Story, it has, like, these toys that can talk. He's like, there's a chance for it to become super commercial and kind of materialistic. So he's like, how do we not make it that? And he says that when they go into the idea generation process, he's like. He's like, we go through it and every iteration, Like, I still think it's shit. Like, it's still really, really, really bad. The thing that we put out is still not perfect, but it's the least bad version that we could get to. So, like, that's kind of what I find fascinating with him is, like, he's very methodical and he likes the challenge of these two completely different things don't belong together. But I'm going to make them belong.
- [16:05]
B
Yeah, I love Pixar movies and I have six grandchildren, so I get to watch them again because I watched them with my kids when they were children. And I'm thinking of that scene I can still remember the opening of Up.
- [16:18]
A
Yes.
- [16:19]
B
Where, like, how do you make. How are we going to introduce a movie that is finally about happiness and connection and, you know, human bonding? Let's tell the darkest story.
- [16:33]
A
It's so true. And I think that the opening scene to anything, like, now I'm writing a lot of original profiles on people and I think about that opening scene. Like, where do you want to drop the reader, drop the viewer in that encompasses or kind of defines this person's life in this moment?
- [16:52]
B
And let's talk about that. How has your process changed from when you were just doing the profile and then the profile dossier?
- [17:04]
A
You've known me for so long.
- [17:05]
B
I have.
- [17:05]
A
You're asking all the right questions. Okay, so, so, long story. I was at Fortune. I was a business reporter writing about venture capital and startups and doing a newsletter there called Term Sheet, which was like the daily deal making newsletter that all the big important people in Silicon Valley and like Wall street read. I was doing that every single day, Monday to Friday I would wake up and go to the office around like 5am I would apply, publish it at 9am it was a beast of a newsletter. It took me like four hours, three hours to put together. Then because that wasn't enough, I started the profile In 2017, in February, once a week on Sundays, just to publish. I really just enjoy long form profiles of people. I don't know why I cannot tell you. I just like people's stories. So I would publish that once a week for free for, to family and friends. But then it kind of started like word of mouth, snowballing into this bigger thing. Quit my job at Fortune in 2020 in March. And as far as I know, I'm the first legacy media traditional media reporter to go full time on Substack. I didn't have anybody else to ask for advice. I just like went in. And since then, obviously Substack has grown tremendously. I started being like, oh, how can I make money on this thing? But it became a business out of a passion. Not the business part didn't come first. It was the passion first. And then after I left my job, I started curating profiles. That's what the profile has always been. Here are the six long form profiles I read this week that were interesting to me. Across tech, across business, entertainment, sports, sports. And I would send it to people. I listened to myself in old interviews when I first left my job to do this. And people were like, so like, what's your goal with the profile? And I was like, well, the goal is kind of like a Netflix model. Like first you curate and then you write like original profiles. But like, I never did that. I got distracted with the book. Then I did Q&As. Like, I was always kind of like dancing around this thing that I always wanted to do but never did. And then at first I wasn't doing it because it would be a conflict with Fortune. I couldn't publish original writing if I wasn't, you know, because I was working at Fortune. But once I left, like, why didn't I, you know, I just kept doing the same old thing. And then this was at the end of 2024. I was having dinner with my husband Anthony, and I was like, I don't know, it just. The profile just kind of feels like I've hit a rut. Like I'm doing the same thing every week. I have not missed the week since February 2017, which is amazing. That's crazy. Like, what am I doing anyway? I promise I have other things going on. But then he Was like, you feel like that? Like, why don't you just, like, write your own profiles? I was like, what are you talking about? It seems so revolutionary, but so obvious is something called the profile. Why am I not doing the thing that I'm the best at for myself and also the thing that I love doing the most? And I think, like, what you said before we started recording, we are the most unreliable narrators of our own lives. I was telling myself this story about, like, well, you know, they won't give me access. I won't be able to, you know, interview people, blah, blah, blah. And I just, like, never did it, or I don't have enough time, whatever the story is. So then January 2025, I was like, I'm starting. So my first profile was on Anthony Scaramucci. Then I did one on Ryan Sirhant, the real estate mogul. Then I did one on Saquon Barkley, the NFL star who's investing. Then Kathy Wild, who runs the partnership for New York City. And now I'm working on one that will hopefully publish in April.
- [21:06]
B
And what. Take me through the differences. Were you nervous when you were like, oh, I've got to actually do it? Yeah.
- [21:17]
A
So, yes and no. Like, I obviously wanted to do a good job because I knew that people I used to work with would read it, you know, other people in media, other people who are people who subscribe to the profile. Like, finally, you know, she's writing these things, things. I wanted it to be excellent. So I had two editors, these two women that I used to work with at Fortune, who are amazing, edited it. It went through so many things, but it was really cool because for the first one, I was like, who can I do the. The. The people. I love profiling and that it's a common thread along my work is people who are out there in the public, and people have an idea of who they think they are, but it's actually a misperception of that. Like, being like, actually, you don't know them as well as you think you do. The perfect person was Anthony Scaramucci. I was like, you think you know him? Let me show you another side. You know, so it was a really interesting person. So many contradictions, so many, like, paradoxical things. At one point, I remember being in his office, and I'm like, all right, so you just, like, you want to win. Like, you want to be vindicated, right? He's somebody who's gone up, down to the side, all around. And I was like, you just want to be vindicated? And he's like, no, I don't care about getting vindicated. I literally, Jim, turn my head. There's a figurine on his shelf of him wearing a cape, like a superhero cape. And on the. On the base is inscripted. We won. Fuck off. I'm like, okay. So it's like, I love noticing little things like that. That. And I think that's what makes somebody human. My goal is to humanize these people, not to, like, flatter them or write a hit piece of some sort. Like, I just want to, like, humanize them because they're often caricatures in the press.
- [23:14]
B
Yeah, I. And as I was listening, I wonder how much does just everyone curate their personality that they show to other people so much.
- [23:28]
A
Ryan Sirhant is a great example. He is someone who is so likable. He's so charismatic. He started his career off in real estate on a Bravo show, you know, selling real estate and real estate porn. Yeah, we used to watch that, all of it. And then he got a Netflix deal. And, like, it just opened him up to a wider audience. But every single part of his day is content. He's always on camera. He's on his phone all the time on tv. I shadowed him. We went to the Today show. And I knew, going in, my goal with Ryan is I need to see that mask drop. Like, I need to see who he actually is. So I kept asking him questions about before he was famous, before the shows, before the real estate, all this stuff. And what I found was something completely, like, different from what I expected, because he has this, like, golden retriever, puppy dog energy, you know? But what I found is he's driven by revenge, which is something totally different. It's, like, dark, it's cold, it's calculated, you know? And like, that I wasn't expecting until I got to spend time with him in person. And he told me about. He's like, yeah, like, the thing that fuels me is revenge. And I was like, whoa. But you don't get that. I think the thing that media is missing today, that it used to have, which is why I was so drawn to journalism, like, when I started in high school, is because media companies used to have budgets, and they would use those budgets to pay reporters to send them to places to shadow people. And then it was like, oh, you can just, like, do a phone interview. And then it was like, oh, now you can do, like, an email interview. Now it's like, oh, zoom. It's just not the same, you know? And when you strip that level of humanity and interacting. Like, I always think about it as, we are not who we say we are. We are how we move through the world. And if you spend a day with me and I tell you, like, before we go anywhere, and I'm like, I'm the most generous person on the planet, and then you see, like, I don't leave a tip or like, whatever, you're like, but because it's what we do that colors, like, who we are, not the other way around.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah. Jung has a great line, which is, you are not what you say you will do. You are what you do. And, and I append that with the idea. If somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
- [26:00]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. And people accidentally, it slips, you know, like you can. With Ryan, I was really scared that I would just get the completely, like, the mask version the entire time. But there were small moments where I would notice how tired he was. There were certain times where he told stories that I'm like, why are you telling me the story right now? Like, what are you thinking about that caused you to tell me the story? For example, I asked him if there's a personal cost to his success, and he was like, yes. Like, he hesitated, but he said yes. And then he told me a story about a man, a client that he worked with, who had five kids. He was like, oh, my God, you have five kids. Like, how? With this high pressure, stressful job that you have. How? And he was like, you know, it was really, really hard. It was really, really difficult. But, like, I would still do it every day. Like, I would still have the five kids. Like, I do not regret that a single time. And it showed me a small, small window in that Ryan has one kid. And then he was, like, thinking about more, but he's like, I can't do it right now because I'm so busy. And it's like kind of a, it shows you what he's thinking about and lets you into his, like, internal world a little bit more.
- [27:14]
B
Yeah, I, I'm fascinated by that type of personality because sometimes when I meet people like that, I, I, I kind of hear in my mind, you know, this is the kind of guy where authenticity is a deliverable.
- [27:30]
A
Exactly.
- [27:32]
B
In other words, it's like I'm writing a fiction book right now, and it has this grand scope. It starts during World War II and ends in 2027. And one of the things that I find really interesting is a lot of historical and current politicians. Like, they're manufactured and, and like, when I was researching Hitler I was amazed. He's not in the book. He. Goring is, but he's not. I found all this research that absolutely fascinated me. Do you know that he spent hours and hours a day with the filmmaker? I can't remember her name right now, but she made the famous propaganda movies for him. But he literally spent hours practicing different hand gestures, practicing different ways of looking, of moderating his voice. And I just like the. The scales came off my eyes and I started looking at some of our politicians and I'm like, all of them. Authenticity is a deliverable.
- [28:46]
A
Yes, I know, I know. It's really scary and terrifying. It's like, how. But I do think, like, if you spend some time with somebody when, even when they're on camera to see if there's a moment where like that performance art goes away, it's so much more telling. And it's like, it's also almost the moment where it's what they don't say. It's like, huh, why are you avoiding talking about that part of your life? With Sierra Moochi, I found it interesting that he just avoided talking about his dad. And it was always like, forward looking, where are we going next? And I was like, okay, just take me back a little bit and talk about your childhood. And he was like. He said that he tried meditating one day and it ruined his whole vacation. Because I'm just like. He's like, I've compartmentalized those things for a reason. Like, I don't want them flooding back. This is like things like that. And he doesn't like, that's the only time I've seen him be like, let's not talk about that. Usually he's like, oh, you can ask me about anything. But like, that was a part in his life. He was just like very uncomfortable, you
- [29:50]
B
know, a lot of people. And again, in trying to write fiction, which by the way, is really hard, you do spend a lot of time in people's childhoods because you definitely see a lot of commonality. And that I find very interesting. For example, Goring, who was like, over the top. I had to literally tone down the historical Goring because I thought people will never believe this in fiction, but like a lot of them had really bad relationships with their father. Goring, for example, was taken in and his anti Semitism was driven partially by the fact that their family fell on hard times. And a Jewish guy who was fond of the family literally took them into his castle, right? And put Goring in. This beautiful Goring, the man as a child in this beautiful room. But he also was in love with Goring's mother. And so he put the father in a tiny little room at the base of the. So the cuckold husband. And you just, like, when you're reading this stuff, it's like, how does that not shape the man? Right? And. Or a woman. You have a great, you know, kind of origin story in that, you know, you moved here. How old were you?
- [31:29]
A
Eight.
- [31:29]
B
From Bulgaria. And you didn't speak any English. Let's talk about that a little bit.
- [31:35]
A
Yeah, no, it's. Yeah, it's. So we were living in Bulgaria. My dad, his dream was America. He was like, that is just like, like, but like a dream in a way that, like, it's never going to happen. He lived through communism a lot of that side of the family was jailed, killed, sent to concentration camps just for saying that they didn't agree and, or saying something against, like, the regime. So he was just like, he was part of the anti communism protests and all that stuff. But he was like, it's not going anywhere. Like, they're selling us democracy. This isn't true democracy. And he just, like, his. His dream was to come to the U.S. so he was applying two green card lotteries. The U.S. had one, Canada had one, and Australia had one. And he was like, I mean, those two. The other two countries are fine, but like, I really want to get to the US and so he would file every year, I think it was once a year. And the chances of getting the singer, like, very, very. I one time broke it down was like 0.1%. Then like, of that, of you winning that, then actually getting here because you have to go to the embassy, interview, background checks, all this stuff. So very slim chances. But I think it was my mom's application actually that won. Then we went in. I remember a very freezing day in Bulgaria. He stood with this folder outside in line to go into the embassy to interview. And they basically wanted to check, when you go there, do you know people who will help you find a job so you won't be homeless in America and all this stuff. And I think my mom's grandfather's cousin knew somebody in Atlanta, so that's how we ended up there. And yeah, so we moved when I was 8 in the year 2000. And then I grew up in Atlanta, went to the University of Georgia. And it was interesting, Jim, is that even as a kid, I always loved writing in Bulgaria. I loved writing in first grade. My poem won this thing that I wrote literally in 15 minutes. And I was like, maybe there's something to it. Like, I really like words and language and things like that. And then when we moved to the US because both my parents were chemical engineers, I thought I would be some sort of scientist or something. So in high school, I was in the science program, but then didn't love that. Didn't really didn't work out. But I loved writing the research papers and the lab reports. So I joined the newspaper club in like 10th grade. And then from there I just went all in. I majored in journalism at the University of Georgia. I became the editor of the college paper. Then I interned at cnn, USA Today, Atlanta Parent magazine, like, anything I could get my hands on. And then in 2014, I moved to New York.
- [34:34]
B
Yeah. And I love your story because I think it's a story that is not just unique to you in that immigrants to this country, especially from former communist countries, man, are they powerhouses.
- [34:49]
A
Oh, my God, yes. And the freedom of speech thing and the.
- [34:53]
B
Yeah, yeah. And like, I'm. I think it's such a shame that our immigration system is so up because, like, even though we've got a lot wrong in this country, it's still the country where the smartest, most creative people in the world want to go, want to come and live.
- [35:14]
A
Yes.
- [35:14]
B
And it blows my mind that we are not setting up concierge services to bring those people over here.
- [35:22]
A
Yeah. What was really hard in. The beautiful beauty of it is it's completely random. A lot of times the ones that are set up for merit are hijacked.
- [35:33]
B
Yeah. By genius visas and.
- [35:36]
A
Yeah. But they're hijacked by corrupt government officials who are like, my son is a genius. And like, they go. It's not the people like my dad who are actually really, really, like, intelligent, but didn't have a chance and didn't have the connections to how much.
- [35:51]
B
How much did that. You were only eight and you really had no personal memory of communism.
- [35:59]
A
No, no. Yeah. Because it fell before.
- [36:02]
B
Yeah, yeah. But did your parents attitudes really influence the way you looked at it?
- [36:06]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very much. Very much. And because, like, for example, I heard stories about my grandfather. His house was on, like, the border of Bulgaria and Serbia. And so he would get like. What is it called? Voice of America. Yeah, yeah.
- [36:23]
B
Voice of America.
- [36:24]
A
And he would, like, listen to that. And then that wasn't allowed. And it was very. If they caught you, it was a very big deal. But. Or. Or when my dad was in seventh grade, he wrote on his backpack, usa and he Got like expelled, essentially. So. So it's like things like, like that. I'm like, I can't even imagine growing up here and going to school here and hearing how the students talk back to the teacher and the questions that they ask. I'm like, oh my God. This. I mean, even during my time at vulgarity, like, he would never. But it was just like a level of freedom. I talked to, oh, I talked to this amazing guy who, from the Human Rights Foundation. I met him. His name is Yvonne Marari. But he grew up in Zimbabwe and he challenged the government. There was a dictatorship. And he told me one thing I've never forgotten. He said, freedom is when you go out to have a coffee with a friend and you criticize the government and then you forget about it. He's like, in Zimbabwe, if you do that, you're never gonna see that. Like, you're never gonna see that friend again. You're gone. You do not forget about, about it. So I'm like, it's, it's like that.
- [37:39]
B
What do you think about. As you mentioned, you were one of the first people on substack. The traditional legacy media was very dismissive of all things substack, and yet they seem to be crumbling. And, and do you think that traditional legacy media style. Do you think the playbook has just been played out and that we're going to see new media take over?
- [38:09]
A
I think the top, top will, will survive as they always do. But I think independent writers exposed this illusion that we all wanted to believe that there is no bias, that we're all objective. Like, I genuinely, Jim, like, I went into journalism thinking that, like, objectivity is king. My major in college was newspapers. Like, I really, really believed that if you deliver the facts objectively to the reader, they can make up their own mind. You don't need to, like, they don't know who I am. I don't need to insert my view with choice words that will sway them a certain way, direction. But then over time, as I was in this like, world, I saw what was getting clicks. I saw that every time you included Trump in the headline, your story would skyrocket. Like, I saw it all and I was like, it's a game. And unfortunately, unfortunately, like the long form pieces kind of went away for this short attention thing. Then there was a period, I don't know if you remember, where one publication would do an original article and then it was everywhere for a day because everybody else would syndicate it, but they would just rewrite the article without talking to any of the sources without verifying the information. It was crazy town. But anyway, I think at first the first people to join subset in a meaningful way were mostly original thinkers who were willing to bet on themselves, who were like, I already have a following who will follow me here. They trust me, they know my biases. And so yeah, so I think like it's, it's crazy to think that you're reading something or watching cable news and think that that is not some sort of propaganda in whatever direction you're looking at. I prefer either to get somewhat objective reporting or to know your biases before I go into it.
- [40:21]
B
Yeah, in 2010 I just stopped watching all TV news.
- [40:26]
A
It was so bad.
- [40:27]
B
It was so bad because it's so funny. And the way I would people back in 2010, people were like, well, how do you stay informed? I'm like, well, I can read,
- [40:38]
A
I can still read.
- [40:39]
B
Yeah. But the funny thing was I had no problem convincing my very, very liberal friends that Fox was biased. But they would not have it if I said, by the way, so is NPR and so is cnn. But the same thing happened. The conservative friends could instantly see that NPR and the more left based media was. But Fox, no, they tell like it is. And I would just sit there and I'm like, wow. I mean it's so wow.
- [41:17]
A
We're all in cults. I'm like fascinated by cults. And we're all in like ideological cults. I think Tim Urban once said, he was like, yeah, he was like, if you want to test whether or not you're in like an echo chamber, go to your closest friends and just throw out like say like this politician that's on the opposite side has kind of been making some good points lately and see what happens.
- [41:39]
B
Yeah, well, and I, I, I view ideological capture as brain death because we label things so that we don't have to think about them and we make the argument against the person, not the idea. Tim has a great book on this. One of the things that I found most helpful is with AI, I always have gotten now in the habit of steel manning, a view I disagree with and it is so helpful.
- [42:13]
A
How do you do it?
- [42:14]
B
It's super easy. I mean, you know, take whatever it happens to be and well, I disagree vehemently with California trying to do a wealth tax on billionaires. It's killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. But so I go to AI and I say steel man, the argument for this tax. And what's interesting is we all have biases and when you steel man, the opposing argument. You start thinking, you know, they might have a point there.
- [42:50]
A
Yeah. You know what was so interesting? So I just wrote this profile on Kathy Wild, who is. She represents the billionaires in New York city. Essentially. For 43 years, she's represented the interests of, like, the wealthiest New Yorkers. And they. It's like a coalition of these people. And the whole idea is, like, make New York better. And they work to. She is like the. The mediator between this group and the mayor
- [43:23]
B
and our current mayor.
- [43:25]
A
So that's what the whole story is about. Because I noticed that when I was talking to her, I was like. She was talking about Mamdani, who is a Democratic socialist, very warmly. And I was like, what? And I kept asking her, like, why do you like him? And she's like, I think he has some good points. Points. And I think he's thinking about it the right way, and I think he's very smart. And I was just like, okay, but. But. But this doesn't align with who I think you are, basically. And then I learned her backstory, and she moved to New York. She was an activist in the 60s. She learned how to. So David Rockefeller set up this. This coalition, and she was the first person to kind of run it. But she has this amazing ability to, like, put people in a room that disagree and mediate and, like, have a conversation. So I thought it was. Her roots were interesting, but she didn't. She sees capital as just. Just a tool, and she doesn't politicize it. It was so interesting. She's like, we all have the same goal. Like, how can we do this? And she was on Mamdani's transition committee. She now stepped down. She's retired. But, like, fascinating. And it was interesting because to me, there was this dissonance and this, like, discomfort that I couldn't put her in a clean, neat box.
- [44:57]
B
Yeah. Well, I strongly believe that if you can infer all of my. My political beliefs from hearing one of them, then I'm ideologically captured. Right. And. And so I. Again, to Tim and his efforts to. It would just be so great if, like, literally, we could put people in a room who really, really disagree with each other. And you know what? There is a methodology that actually works, and that's called the jury system. When. When you. When you look at juries, they come. They're randomly selected. Well, you got to be a voter. But they come from very different backgrounds. They come from very different points of view. They have very different priors, and yet they're Nick Gruen I believe I had on my podcast. He's an Australian who thinks that we could use jury systems for everything. Because literally, people, when they have a task, right, you got to figure this out. They open up. They are like, okay, yeah, you did have a point there. But we have all this vitrol and all of this just pure anger and hatred. And it just seems to me to be just. Again, we're back to emotions. Right. Wasted emotional energy. And like, everything becomes a horizontal fight as opposed to, you know, maybe you should be looking up and, and, and like, who's really running the world.
- [46:39]
A
Exactly.
- [46:40]
B
But no, no, no. Everything is a horizontal fight.
- [46:44]
A
Yeah.
- [46:44]
B
And it's us versus them. And, you know, it just fits right into our tribalism.
- [46:48]
A
Yes.
- [46:49]
B
And you. You'd think it's 20, 26.
- [46:52]
A
Yeah.
- [46:52]
B
Like, can't we get beyond this?
- [46:54]
A
Well, I, I think, though. Yes. I think that the reason that I'm a. I. I really love profiles and people is because stories trigger emotion and emotion triggers your memory. So when I was in school, I could never remember, like, any dates, any facts, any names, but the second, like, so I had to myself be like, all right, Marie Antoinette. And then I would have to, like, be like, I wonder what life was like for her. She was a teenager. She was this, like, portrayed as this queen of excess and all this stuff, and they hated her. They wanted to kill her. Like, imagine how she felt. She, her son had to testify, like, this whole thing. And it, like, I suddenly felt like an emotional connection with her, which then when I was taking the test, like, I could remember otherwise, like, just cold, plain facts. Like, I can't remember. But I think the reason juries work so well is like, you're put in a room with people maybe you don't normally interact with, and then you hear their stories and then you can empathize and then you feel an emotional connection and then you can solve a problem together. Whereas, like, right now, people are so divided because many of us don't know c. Have never even met certain people with certain life paths. So it's hard for us to empathize with those people. But if they were our friends, it'd be a different.
- [48:15]
B
Yeah, I, I mean, like, if. If I have one overriding social or. Or political viewpoint is I am fiercely anti authoritarian of either side.
- [48:28]
A
Yes.
- [48:29]
B
Right. Like, I have no more interest in a left wing or right wing authoritarian,
- [48:35]
A
whatever it may be.
- [48:36]
B
It's just bad for society.
- [48:38]
A
Yeah.
- [48:38]
B
And. And so I, I definitely have that. What's weird for me, though, is like, When. When some people will say, wow, you. You, like, you're really conservative. And I'm like, conservative. And. And they're like, well, yeah, I mean, the whole free speech and the fact that free speech is law, that. That's a conservative.
- [49:01]
A
Isn't that crazy?
- [49:02]
B
It's crazy.
- [49:03]
A
The.
- [49:04]
B
The people who fought for and got free speech were the most radical people on the planet.
- [49:10]
A
Yeah.
- [49:10]
B
Because most of human history, free speech, Are you kidding me? Crazy. And, like, I think it built this country and the rule of law, and. And so sometimes I'll be like, how did that become conservative?
- [49:27]
A
I don't know. But I'm very. I'm guess I'm far right. If you think freedom of speech is bad, like, that's crazy. I. A quick story. When I was in college, I was editor in chief of the paper my senior year, and it's called the Red and Black. And it's like, it's a very, very nationally acclaimed paper.
- [49:47]
B
Yeah, I knew of it.
- [49:49]
A
Yeah. The second I set foot on the campus at Georgia, I was like, I want to work for this newspaper. So day one, I go, I apply. I start out as, like, staff reporter. Then it was like, covering the administration reporter. Then I was assistant news editor. Then I was managing editor. Then I was a page designer at one point. And then finally, Jim, finally I'm editor in chief. And I had interned at USA Today that summer. And I come back, and in the 70s, the students at Georgia had fought for an independent newspaper. So they had a board and everything. It was completely student run. There was no university interference or anything like that. And I was going into the semester, and they're like, oh, so we have a really involved board member now, and he would like to explain to you the new things, like, what's going to happen? And it was this, like, rogue board member who came in and was like, from now on, this speech is allowed. This speech is not allowed. And we're going to get prior review by, like, an adult, basically. Students are no longer in charge. It used to be that the final, like, if I made a mistake as editor, like, it was on me and I had to respond to everybody and be held accountable. All this stuff, suddenly, none of that. And I was like, not on my watch. You don't know where I came from. So the whole Bulgaria, communism, free speech thing. So I was like, yeah, so, like, I'm not going to do that. But if you want to find somebody else who will do that. So then I stepped down, even though it hurts so bad to do it. Week one I was like, my God. Like, I was so excited. I stepped down as editor. And because we were so tight, the entire staff also walked out. And this walkout became, like a national thing. It was in the New York Times. It was in every paper. Like, the students at UGA walk out of the. Whatever. So then the board was under pressure because, like, this was kind of a story that went viral. This was 2012, so Twitter was still like. But it went viral online before they could like, really figure out what to do. And it was. Everyone was calling, people were flying down. I was like, oh, my God. So then the. We sat down with the board, figured it out. But because of that, there are now two student seats on the board of directors. Like, all these things that had to be reformed. And it all happened because somebody was, like, trying to mess with the. With free speech.
- [52:31]
B
Yeah.
- [52:31]
A
And I was like, you're not. The students in the 70s fought for this. It's not going to be me that ends it.
- [52:36]
B
Yeah. I think it's really. I was not editor in chief of a college newspaper. I was editor in chief of my high school newspaper.
- [52:45]
A
I find that investing in journalism are very complimentary.
- [52:48]
B
Yeah, yeah. But, like, we did have faculty supervision.
- [52:52]
A
Yes.
- [52:53]
B
Yes. I actually. It was a kind of remnant military school. It had turned into a prep school.
- [53:01]
A
Yeah.
- [53:01]
B
So my interactions with the faculty, our faculty advisor, Mr. Keene, were sometimes fraught.
- [53:10]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [53:11]
B
I ended up getting voted most radical of my class.
- [53:15]
A
Now you're most conservative. Most radical. Yeah. That's crazy.
- [53:19]
B
Because. Because, like, I would slip things in. Yeah.
- [53:24]
A
That weren't approved.
- [53:25]
B
That were. And it led to my. Better to ask for forgiveness than approval. But there were some tense times. Like, he was like, you do realize that I can remove you as the editor in chief. And I went. I do. Yeah.
- [53:41]
A
But you know what's crazy? Like, at the time, I remember people calling me a radical, and now freedom of speech, like, I would not be a radical anymore. That's crazy. But. Yeah, but it just goes to show, like, times change, things change, and a lot of.
- [53:57]
B
Even the labels are antiquated. Right. You know. You know where the terms left and right originate, right?
- [54:04]
A
Not really. No.
- [54:05]
B
They originate from France and the French Revolution. At the assembly, those who supported the king sat to the right of the speaker. Those that wanted to cut his head off sat to the left.
- [54:23]
A
Wow.
- [54:24]
B
Of the speaker. And so, like, what's interesting is, obviously, it didn't work out well for them because of the whole reign of Terror thing.
- [54:35]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [54:36]
B
But the. The idea that they were very much inspired by the American revolution of freedom of self determination. Like, those were the most radical ideas in human history. Right. That humans could decide for themselves they didn't have to answer to a king.
- [54:58]
A
Right.
- [54:59]
B
And, and, and you know, it went badly.
- [55:02]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [55:04]
B
And we got Napoleon.
- [55:05]
A
Yes.
- [55:06]
B
But like, I just think that in the world of today, those are really antiquated terms because, like, I have opinions that many people, like, I'm pro choice. I'm, you know, I think that most drugs should not be criminalized. I'm not saying they should be legal, but I'm like, the war on drugs has been a horrible failure. And like, when I pop those off,
- [55:33]
A
people are like, the war on anything.
- [55:36]
B
Wow, that's such a great correction. Like war on. Yeah, that's not gonna work out well. And you know, it's kind of like I very much believe that the individual has a series of rights, and I don't care who that individual is. Right. It's like, I don't even know if Voltaire actually said this, but, you know, I might not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the right, you know, to the death your right to say it. I kind of really believe that.
- [56:06]
A
Yeah. No, same.
- [56:07]
B
And, and like this whole idea of policing speech like you went through.
- [56:13]
A
Yeah.
- [56:13]
B
With this board member again, it's that authoritarian instinct that I just like, really triggers me.
- [56:21]
A
Me too. Or people who have like such deep seated beliefs, like, I, those people scare me. I'm scared of like mobs and cults and people who are so extreme that they cannot even hear what you're saying.
- [56:34]
B
I sometimes worry that, like, is it. Are we ever going to be able to get beyond it here we have all of these pathways to communicate with one another. And yet, you know, the, the, like I used to say about investing. Right. The four horsemen of the investment apocalypse are fear, greed, hope, and ignorance. It seems like the, the, the four horsemen of this is, you know, ideological capture. You know, our tribe versus your tribe. You know, those ideas have no merit. Right. And, and if you steal man like I'm doing with AI now, by the
- [57:12]
A
way, such a good exercise.
- [57:14]
B
I, I don't use Twitter as much as I used to because, because I've been mired in trying to write this book. But one of the best features on there, in my opinion is Grok. Because every time I see something where I go, oh, man, that's bullshit. I immediately go to Grok and say, can you verify any of this? And sometimes I'm surprised and it's like, yes, actually, this did happen. I'm like, wow, okay, I've learned something new. But most of the time it's like, yeah, no, no, they've, they've sensationalized this, they made up this fact, etc. But it's really helpful.
- [57:54]
A
But you know what's so interesting? Like, I'm fascinated by people who trust the source so much that they're willing to, like, throw rationality out the window. Like, even if the source is not perfect, obviously not perfect. Like, I knew someone who. They said something, I said that this person on Twitter said. And I said, huh, I can't find that anywhere. I don't think that happened. And, you know, like, I, I showed proof and they're like, I don't know. I trust that person.
- [58:22]
B
I'm like, well. And then that kind of. That's back to the emotions ruling as opposed to logic. Like communism. You grew up under communism, by the way. Any authority, Nazism is just as bad. Right? So. But under communist, people just seem to, like, literally ignore empirical evidence. And it's like if you stripped this story away. This is the importance of story. If you strip the story away and you say, okay, you get to live in one of two systems. This system has killed hundreds of millions of people, has to put walls up to keep its citizens inside.
- [59:03]
A
But no, Jim, we're gonna do it better, right?
- [59:06]
B
True communism has never been tried. And this system provided more material wealth in three centuries than any other human system ever invented.
- [59:16]
A
Yeah.
- [59:17]
B
Which one do you want to live in?
- [59:18]
A
But it like, to me, it's like, okay, take my family. If we had moved. How much has changed in just one generation? Like, not like, I'm first generation technically, because I came, but is that first generation? Yeah, yeah, but. But like, how much has changed already in the course of 26 years versus if my family moved to Russia, would we have achieved the same? Like, no, my dad probably wouldn't have his own business. Like, I wouldn't be able to work in journal. Like, the whole thing is just so stupid. But yeah.
- [59:51]
B
Yeah. Well, I mean, regardless of what label you put on me, anything that increases human freedom. Yes, I'm pretty much in favor of
- [60:01]
A
whatever you may believe.
- [60:03]
B
Yeah. What profile or insight from doing one of these dossier profiles where you're hands on which one and you don't even have to name the person. What was the most surprising thing? Like, you went in with one set of priors and you came out. Whoa.
- [60:24]
A
Yeah, I think I would definitely say the Ryan Sirhant one. Because I want some. Surprised me a lot because there's so much out there on him. Videos, books, he's written, all of this. I really thought that I had some sort of theory or hypothesis on, like, who he was. And then spending time in person, which is so valuable if you're a journalist or a writer or anything, investor, to spend time with the person in person is because I came away with, like, for example, I interviewed his old boss, didn't think anything of it. His old boss said, you know, he. We helped him get a TV show. We helped him become who he is. Like, it was the greatest experiment in all of real estate, what we did. And it was like, kind of taking partial credit for Ryan's success. And I wanted to tell him, like, in person, I wanted to tell him that quote, and I wanted to see his reaction to it. I wanted to know in the moment he hearing this, what do you think? So I went in, I said, so he said this, what do you think? And he was drinking water. While I was asking him, he literally choked on the water.
- [61:35]
B
Spit take.
- [61:35]
A
Yeah. He was like, you interviewed him? I was like, yeah, he said this? Yes. And then he said, huh? And he, like, took a second. He was like, I'm going to quote from. I'm going to take a line from the movie the Social Network with Mark Zuckerberg and say, if you have to stand on my shoulders to feel tall, then go for it. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so good. It's just like, the tension and the drama and it's human emotions. Right? But seeing just how, like, Ryan is the type of person that I think a lot of people are, where you're not successful, you're not trying to be successful to prove yourself right. You're trying to be successful to prove other people wrong. And, like, that's so much more powerful, you know, Jim. Anyway, it was like this, like, really charismatic, bright character ended up actually being fueled by something very, very dark. And the thing that surprised me the most is with Anthony Scaramucci, people went like. The feedback that I got from readers was, wow. I went in with one opinion, and I came out with, like, I actually really liked him. After reading this With Orion, it was kind of the opposite because they were like, I don't think I would want that kind of life.
- [62:55]
B
Yeah, I. When you said motivated by revenge, I was like,
- [63:01]
A
yeah, it's. And the final. The final quote that I have from him, he says, you know, like, adrenaline, you know, I've built all this on, like, revenge and Adrenaline, and that's really powerful. But it also has the power to burn your house down.
- [63:16]
B
Yeah.
- [63:17]
A
Like so you know that.
- [63:18]
B
Yeah, you need to have fire is very useful, but we need fire codes.
- [63:24]
A
Yes. So good.
- [63:26]
B
Well, so what's next for you? What are you working on now that you're gonna do another book?
- [63:30]
A
For now. For now, I'm focusing just on the long form profiles. I want to kind of like master that. And I just like love humanizing these characters. We'll see if that could possibly turn into a book or. I would love to one day write a biography.
- [63:46]
B
Oh, very cool. And being a mom, going from no kids to four kids. You know that old joke about the English lord who said that before he had children, he had six theories about how to raise children, and then he said, said, now I have six children and no theories.
- [64:05]
A
Wait, that's so true. It's so true. It's like focus. Like every single second is optimized in my life right now because I have a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and two 5 month old twins. Oh, my God. So it is a full.
- [64:21]
B
The fact that you are here looking so resplendent.
- [64:25]
A
Thank you.
- [64:26]
B
Like, says a lot.
- [64:28]
A
It was, you know, bouncing one while you're getting ready, but it was, it's been great. Like, I grew up as an only child and I realized that, like, the reason I love so many kids and the reason why I love New York City so much is that I like, secretly love chaos. Like I say, I don't like. Oh, I miss quiet. But like, I actually really like chaos. So that's, that's why.
- [64:50]
B
Well, I, you know, when I moved here in 91, and I would have friends come from the Midwest and I, I really developed this theory. Watching them react.
- [65:01]
A
Tell me.
- [65:02]
B
And the theory is you either feed on New York's energy or it feeds on you.
- [65:07]
A
Oh, that's so good and so true.
- [65:09]
B
And, and I fed on New York's energy.
- [65:12]
A
Yeah.
- [65:12]
B
And I think it, it. I think it's a certain kind of person.
- [65:16]
A
It is.
- [65:17]
B
Who, who really just thrives here.
- [65:20]
A
It's so crazy.
- [65:21]
B
And then others like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. But four kids in New York City,
- [65:27]
A
like, wow, it's chaos on chaos.
- [65:29]
B
That is like, really, really impressive.
- [65:32]
A
I love it.
- [65:32]
B
Well, Polina, this has been so much fun. So great to finally do it in person. You remember the question from the. Our final question? I hope you don't.
- [65:42]
A
I don't remember.
- [65:43]
B
Oh, perfect.
- [65:44]
A
Wait, I re. Listened to the episode. How did I miss? Somebody was probably crying.
- [65:48]
B
The. The final question that we ask is, we're going to make you Empress of the world. You can't kill anyone. You can't put anyone in a reeducation camp, but you. We're going to hand you a magical microphone, and you could say two things into it that is going to incept the entire population of the world. In other words, whenever their morning is, the two things that you say, they're going to wake up and say, say, you know, I just had two of the greatest thoughts, and unlike all of the other times, I'm actually going to act on these two things. What are you going to incept?
- [66:24]
A
All right, I have them. And I'm curious now to go back and hear what I said last time. If it's the same. The first one is what we talked about today. Freedom of speech is actually the best thing in this world. And if you don't have it, you should try to move somewhere where you can have it. And the second one is, at some point in your life, you should bet on yourself.
- [66:48]
B
Oh, I love that one. Polina, thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
- [66:52]
A
I loved it. Thank you.