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How to become dangerously productive with AI (3 tutorials)

Build one AI workflow that closes your daily loop instead of merely generating ideas. Connect your calendar, meeting notes, inbox, and task list; have it produce an evening review that asks why the day felt good or bad, surfaces unfinished commitments, and drafts the next follow-ups. Spend 15 minute

1h 6m

Summary published by , updated .

My First Million

Key Takeaway

Build one AI workflow that closes your daily loop instead of merely generating ideas. Connect your calendar, meeting notes, inbox, and task list; have it produce an evening review that asks why the day felt good or bad, surfaces unfinished commitments, and drafts the next follow-ups. Spend 15 minutes reviewing, editing, and approving—not two hours reconstructing your day. After 30 days, ask the AI to identify the conditions that reliably produce your best days and redesign your schedule around them.

Episode Overview

Zapier co-founder Wade Foster demonstrates how he uses AI as a connected operating system: daily briefings, end-of-day reviews, customer outreach, critical feedback, and a multi-agent “war council” for decisions. The conversation argues that AI becomes far more useful when it has business context, is embedded in reliable workflows, and is instructed to challenge rather than flatter the user. It also explores AI-assisted hiring, agent management, and defining success beyond conventional status metrics.

Key Insights

Turn AI from a chatbot into an operating system

Generic AI can answer broad questions, but it lacks the context of your calendar, CRM, inbox, meeting notes, and priorities. Connect those sources so the model can produce specific recommendations and take bounded actions, such as preparing follow-up emails or highlighting at-risk accounts.

The evening review is more valuable than the morning briefing

Foster’s end-of-day workflow reviews meeting notes, outstanding tasks, and unanswered email, then asks him why the day went well or poorly. Over time, this creates a personal dataset that reveals the schedule, work conditions, and activities associated with better days.

Configure an AI that disagrees with you

Default assistants often optimize for helpfulness and agreement. Add explicit instructions to challenge assumptions, identify gaps, ask for evidence, and propose lower-risk experiments before endorsing a major decision.

Use a panel of perspectives for consequential decisions

Foster’s “war council” creates seven subagents, including permanent roles such as a wartime operations leader, a ruthless CFO, and a contrarian board member. The point is not to outsource judgment blindly, but to expose a decision to structured disagreement before acting.

Protect peak-focus time with evidence from your own life

After roughly 90 days of logging his days, Foster found that uninterrupted mornings were decisive: he performs best before lunch and avoids meetings before 11:00. Rather than copying someone else’s routine, use your own recurring data to identify and defend the conditions for high-quality work.

Frameworks or Models

AI Evening Review Loop

1. Collect the day’s meeting notes, calendar activity, unfinished tasks, and unanswered emails. 2. Ask the user to explain why the day felt good or bad. 3. Record that reflection so the system can identify recurring conditions behind strong and weak days. 4. Surface commitments and draft follow-up messages. 5. Have the user review, edit, and approve actions.

War Council

1. Submit a significant decision or relevant source material, such as interview notes. 2. Create seven subagents with distinct roles. 3. Use permanent perspectives, including a wartime operations leader, ruthless CFO, and contrarian board member. 4. Dynamically generate the remaining roles based on the decision. 5. Compare the arguments, identify risks and missing information, then make the final human judgment.

Two-Stage Hiring Filter

1. Look first for evidence of exceptional ability through a concrete prior accomplishment. 2. Probe whether the candidate personally drove that result rather than merely participating in it. 3. Test working compatibility by doing a small piece of problem-solving together. 4. Hire only when both exceptional capability and productive creative chemistry are present.

Notable Quotes

"This is where AI becomes truly useful : it doesn’t just give you a report and prepare the ground, it says, “I’ll just do it for you.”"

— Wade Foster

"I need the truth that my colleagues are afraid to tell me. I need you to question my assumptions. I need you to look for gaps in my thinking. I need you to disagree with me when you truly have a different opinion."

— Wade Foster

"You have to stay focused because if you turn your brain off, you will look stupid from time to time. But overall, I think that in certain cases these things make pretty good leaders."

— Wade Foster

"The biggest decision in life is what game you decide to play and how it will shape the next 10 years of your life."

— Shaan Puri

Action Items

  • 1
    Create a 15-minute AI evening review

    Connect your calendar, meeting notes, task list, and inbox. Schedule a daily prompt that summarizes commitments, identifies loose ends, asks what made the day good or bad, and drafts the most important follow-ups for your approval.

  • 2
    Write a “how to work with me” prompt

    Create a reusable instruction file or custom prompt for your primary AI tool. Include directives such as: be direct, challenge assumptions, name missing evidence, distinguish facts from inferences, and offer a smaller experiment before recommending an irreversible move.

  • 3
    Run a weekly relationship-maintenance workflow

    Each week, have AI identify 5-10 customers, colleagues, or friends you should contact based on recency, upcoming renewals, shared context, or open commitments. Ask it to prepare personalized drafts, then personally review and send them.

  • 4
    Audit your best days after 30 days

    Log a one- or two-sentence daily reflection alongside your work data. At month-end, ask AI to compare your strongest and weakest days, then make one calendar change—such as protecting a focus block or moving meetings later.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to become dangerously productive with AI (3 tutorials) from My First Million. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Wait, wait. Sam, we need to do some clickbait. How is a $5 billion founder using AI to change his life? Well, you're worth five billion...How much are you worth now? Who knows? You know. You know. You. You. Okay, we need to make a little introduction. So, first of all... Is this... I've been saying Zapier all my life. Is it Zapier or Zapier? The trick is that Zapier makes you happier. It rhymes with the word "happier." Wow. Dude, how is that still not your slogan? Here's your...here's what's written as the slogan on your website.

Level of automation for agent-based AI. It doesn't sound as cool as "Zapier makes you happier." This is true. We could ...You know, there are two points about the name . First: we simply couldn't afford a second "p" when we started. Like, the domain was free. And the other one was we were too smart for our own good, because there was API in the name, and we thought, "Oh, that's cool." Because it's all about connecting different APIs and all that stuff. didn't even notice this. Didn't notice this.

Oh, yes. Honestly, I didn't even notice that the "p" was missing. But if you were to spin "Zapier makes you happier," I would read it as Zapier makes you happier. Just get on with your life. But we are happier here. Thank you. In short: you're a guy who created a really cool thing that started as a simple idea of ​​combining different applications together. What does this actually mean? Let's say I have a business, people fill out a form here, but I need the data of everyone who filled out the form to go here, to another application that is not connected to the first one.

And you created these kind of universal outlets where you can connect anything to anything, and it turned out to be incredibly useful. Sam used it, I used it. We didn't realize, or at least I didn't realize, how huge this business had become. You seem to be worth a few billion. Maybe 5 billion is a number I've seen before. And it seems to me that you have been bootstrapped for a very long time . I don't... Did you develop entirely on your own funds, or did you still take money?

I think they call it "seed-strapped" now. We went through YC and raised about a million and a half, but that's all the capital we've ever raised. Yes, it's just incredible. Raising a million dollars and then reaching a valuation of 5 billion is just wild. That's really cool, but we're not here to tell the whole story about how Zapier makes you happier, but to see what you do with artificial intelligence. Can you quickly make a public presentation of the product? I'm asking you for a short pitch.

I know how the first version of Zapier worked, where you connect one app to another. You say, "Hey, we have a new AI product that you use with Claude that probably makes using Claude or ChatGPT more powerful, or something." I didn't use it. And one more thing: I'm a little stupid. So imagine you're talking to someone with an IQ half yours. It's like he's saying, " Can you make a pitch for someone who's a little stupid and not listening?" But at the same time, he is very intelligent.

The confidence of a smart person. I have very good news for you. I think AI is an incredible gift for people who are a little "dumb." Because you can just talk to him. Agreed. and say, for example, "Hey, I don't understand that answer. Explain it to me like a five-year-old." So you can keep going down this ladder of simplification, for lack of a better word, until you understand, and then say, "Okay, now teach me everything to the level I need." So, okay. Product presentation . You want to hear the pitch.

In the old world, you know Zapier: you go in, build integrations, connect apps. In the new world, many things are similar, but everything is different. Today you spend time in Claude, in Codex or Cursor, or in Claude open, or whatever you use there, right? And you just communicate with him back and forth. Most people start with this. AI as a chatbot is useful, but it is only intelligent in general terms. He knows everything the internet knows. But he knows nothing about your business. So the next level you need to take is to start connecting your tools.

You connect your CRM, your help desk, your email, your team chat, all of that, and feed that context into the artificial intelligence. Now when you start asking him questions about My First Million and everything else, you don't just get general, reasonable answers, you get hyper-specific answers about how your business works, okay? So if you install Zapier, you can connect any of our tools, right? That's the first thing, that's the first benefit, and the first thing people feel is, " Oh, connecting things makes sense." But look, you can use native connectors and everything else.

So, that's right. you know, use Zapier or native connectors, do whatever you want. The next level where this becomes truly powerful is not when you have a dialogue, but when you deploy automations and agents that work for you while you sleep. This is where the real magic begins. And the reason why you should use Zapier instead of any of these generic agent builders, What was the example? I mean, for example, Claude has routines or ChatGPT has scheduled tasks . There are a bunch of things that agents or pseudo-agents are doing now.

But the nice thing about Zapier is that if you use us, we'll make sure that everything you build is optimized for deterministic work, not agent-based work. I don't think people have figured it out yet, but you've probably encountered it before. we increase IQ. Carefully. tight. Hold on. Hold on. Agents, agents, they just guess what to do, right? And if they are smart enough, they guess correctly most of the time. But sometimes agents make mistakes. And second: agents use tokens, right? You must have heard about token spending?

And that's why they are very expensive. But if you use Zapier, we'll write the code and workflow logic for you, which means everything will work like a machine. So you will get a result that will not burn tokens. It will be reliable and accurate, and AI will only be used where it is really needed. Got it. And you have the option to host this on zapier.com, so you don't have to keep your laptop on to have these agents running in the background . You get the robust infrastructure Zapier has always been known for, and connectivity to everything we've always done.

But you can create, you know, inside of Claude, which is actually really cool, because Claude, with its natural language style of creation—I don't know, it's just so much better than all these No-Code tools that we've been using before . Well, you're not "The Wolf of Wall Street," but it was a pretty good presentation. I gave you the "sell me this pen" test and you did pretty well. So I appreciate that. I feel like I really understand it now. So that was good. Well, that's where the magic lies.

You can take—if you didn't do it, but you're just pretending and trying to be nice—you can take a transcript of that and paste it into Claude, saying, "Waite said this weird thing. I think I did it ." Tell me what he really meant . And that's the coolest part of artificial intelligence. Oh, that's really cool. You gave us a list of things. We asked, " Wait, what exactly are you creating?" And it doesn't always have to be something so crazy or drastic. But what do you create with AI?

You gave us a list of three or four things. You said you have robotic staff. You need to add clickbait. How the founder of a $ 5 billion company is using AI to change his life. You...How much are you worth now? Who knows? You. You...I mean, you know. I don't know how the markets are behaving right now. They are constantly jumping here and there. I wonder what your assumption is? Honestly, I do n't think about it. I only think about how we can create things that make our customers successful.

I knew you were a nice guy. Although I didn't think you were a liar. Yes. Because I know what you're thinking. Under oath, you know this. There's an old saying, right? In the short term, markets are a voting machine. In the long term, it's weights. I would rather you send me than talk this nonsense, because I know what you are thinking. But don't look me in the eye and tell me it's rain. I really don't think so. Just tell me it's none of my business and I'll accept it.

Okay, it's none of your business, right? Does this help? Rightly. Since your company's last valuation, when... Where did the five billion figure even come from ? This was a share sale that happened in 2021, maybe? Okay. Has our income increased somewhat, increased significantly, decreased, or decreased significantly since then? Incomes have increased, yes. Okay. Okay, fine. So, we're all good. OK. The clickbait headline remains relevant. Okay, continue. So how do you actually use AI as a highly effective SEO ? Okay. Let me share a screen to show some of this.

So, let's move on to the most interesting part. One of the cool things is because I work with my agent all the time, I can say, "Hey, I'm going on the "My First Million" podcast ." "Help me, help me demonstrate these things." And here's what I came up with. It goes like this : "Here's what you really have to demonstrate." So you see I have four potential things we can show. The first is robot personnel. It's like my chief of staff who performs a bunch of different automations and tasks for me.

I have an SEO CRM that I created to stay in touch with our corporate clients. I also have an AI that argues back. I think this is a very important thing that every leader should create. I think a lot of CEOs and leaders are talking to AI that just agrees with them all the time. Therefore, you need to apply a few tips and tricks to make him critically analyze your thoughts, rather than just saying, "Yes, you're absolutely right." all the time. And I also have a lot of skills to perform a lot of different internal tasks.

So, I would probably start with the staff robot. I think this is cool for deeper study. The first thing, and we...I'll show the full version of this. Most people, I think , start with a morning briefing. You know, it's very simple. This is a good way to test out your first agent. You connect it to your calendar, mail, any meeting notes, priorities, or to-do list you have. And then, you know, in this case, it starts at 6:00 in the morning and then sends me a message in Slack.

Yes, I call it " waking up like the president." The president wakes up and receives his daily briefing. That's it, sir, that's what's on your schedule today. At 9:30 you're talking to this person, at 10:00 this person is here, this is what they want to talk about. These are the things. And therefore, Absolutely. wake up like Now everyone can wake up with a presidential briefing. That's right. And so, you know, these things work, like In my case, I set up sending a message in Slack. You can set up sending by email.

I mean, hell, you can even fax something if you really want to feel like the president. I have it set up to print. But it does n't do this all the time . And I also have a woman named Ari, which is very convenient because I wanted it to be named after a person, and the person I made you, is it any wonder that Sam named his agent after you? The person they chose looked like Ari. So I thought it was Ari. So Ari also sends me a motivational speech for the day.

So I love these daily briefings. That's it . And now the cool thing I'm going to show you. So, I have a link to this script. This, you know, works on Zapier, and you can see what it actually looks like. You know, a bit like classic Zapier. It starts every day at 6:00 AM. It takes all the events from the calendar. And then here he writes some code and calls on AI to write a message in Slack in a very specific way. Now, what's special about this is that we can look in here.

This is all code. Previously, you know, you couldn't do this with Zapier. Actually, I didn't even look at this code. This is the first time I've opened it and even looked at what it is . So you don't necessarily need to know what's going on here. But again, this speaks to the value of Zapier. This turns all of this into a deterministic workflow, using AI only where it's really needed, meaning the system runs much more reliably, stably, and economically than most agents. So, can I use this instead of them?

The problem I have with Claude, Perplexity, or other tools is that my computer has to be constantly on to perform many of these routine tasks. That's right. And this is a real hassle . M-hm. Can we say that working through Zapier replaces using OpenInterpreter or having a Mac mini? That's exactly it. This is the main idea. You can simply deploy them to Zapier and we'll run them for you in the cloud. This sounds much better than using OpenInterpreter or keeping the Mac mini on. It's much, much easier, isn't it?

You can look here. This is also managed by agents. So one of the great features is, Yeah, wait a minute. I know what you're doing. Wade, the company's founder, brought its valuation to $5 billion. He tells you about all these amazing AI prompts that he uses for his business. You're probably taking a lot of notes right now. That's exactly what I did. So we decided to take all these notes, all the scenarios he talks about , and compile them into a very handy document. So you can just copy and paste everything.

There are prompts where he talks about an AI that argues with him, about how he tests different solutions with the help of a seven-person AI committee that helps him figure it all out, and about your own life coach. So that you can have a better day. So if you want to get this particular AI workflow, you can again just copy and paste all of this by following the link in the description or scanning the QR code. Okay, back to Wade. Although everything works deterministically, if for some reason it breaks, for example, the API doesn't work or something goes wrong, the system switches to AI, which tries to fix the problem for you.

So, it automatically applies fixes when things aren't working quite as they should. So here we have this wonderful combination of traditional software and agent-based AI, which, you know, is very well implemented by a local team. So, I would definitely say, " Hey, if you're constantly overloaded with things to do, if you keep your laptop open all the time, you should install Zapier on your agent or AI of choice and give it a try." Okay, what else? So, you get the morning report. I would say that's pretty standard.

So, I think the morning report—that's pretty standard, but I really like the evening report and the recording . I experimented with several versions of it. One runs after each meeting, and the other at the end of the day. I actually find it much better than the morning report. And the reason is that you can actually enlist AI to help you with your business. He looks through all my meeting notes for the day. I use Granola for all my meetings. It reviews all the tasks left on my to- do list for the day.

It looks at all the unfulfilled emails left in my inbox for the day. And then he asks me, "Hey, how was your day?" So, there are two key things that it does for me. First, when I tell you how the day went, I'm essentially saying that the day was good for a reason or bad for a reason. Now it's all recorded, and the AI learns to adjust my routine so that I have more good days than bad ones. Oh, that's interesting. The second thing he does is take real action on things.

He says, “Hey, you were in a meeting with Sam and Sean yesterday, and they asked you to introduce them to your friend from this company. Do you want me to do it for you? Great, please do it. OK? So, he prepares drafts of these follow-up letters. He drafts everything else. This is where AI becomes truly useful : it doesn’t just give you a report and prepare the ground, it says, “I’ll just do it for you.” And this is where, in my opinion, you start to feel the true power of AI, when you can really make it work.

I love Scribe, these summaries after meetings or at the end of the workday, because I used to spend about 2 hours at the end of the day trying to sort out all the little things I got dragged into. And now those 2 hours at the end of the day have been reduced to about 15 minutes. So you really think this saves you almost 2 hours a day? Yes. Yes. Moreover, these parts about what was good and what was bad about my day help me focus on the really important things.

Artificial intelligence helps me with that , but I also remember about 90 days into using it, I said, “Hey, I had an idea. You know so much about what makes my days successful or unsuccessful. Can you summarize what my good days and bad days have in common? He replied, "Of course." And he did all this. Then I passed it on to my assistant and said, "Please make my days more successful than unsuccessful." What were your good and bad days? The most important thing for me is that I am a "lark." That's why I work best in the morning.

I am the most focused. After lunch, I just won't do anything serious. So the main thing for me is not to have any meetings before 11:00. If I give myself this morning time to get the most important things done, the day will go great. I'll win the rest of the day. But if that time is spent " putting out fires," then at the end of the day I become grumpy because I feel like I haven't succeeded. By the way, notice, this podcast started at 11:00. Can you show me how to make an AI argue with you instead of...

Oh, yeah. Let's do it. So, back to the AI arguing. It's pretty simple, right? I use Cursor as my agent every day, but if you use Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini, they often have a system prompt or way to customize how they communicate with you . So, in Cursor I have a file called agents.md. This is what he uses everywhere. Claude has Claude MD and essentially I have a file called "how to work with me." And, you know, I ask him to be direct and honest. I need the truth that my colleagues are afraid to tell me.

I need you to question my assumptions. I need you to look for gaps in my thinking. I need you to disagree with me when you truly have a different opinion. After all, these things are entities that strive to achieve a goal. So if you tell him exactly what you want from him , he'll say, " Okay, that's what Wade wants." "So I will try to help him achieve that goal." But if you don't tell him about it, don't make that adjustment, he will just sincerely try to please you because he thinks that's what you want.

So you have to tell him, well, direct him a little bit . Here's an example of that, you know, live query that I did beforehand for this video. I said, "Hey, I think we should cancel the entire free rate this quarter because one of our competitors raised their prices." "Help me write the ad, okay?" So that's something he should definitely say to: "Hey, slow down." "That, well, that's a bad idea." And when I do that, this is the resistance I get in return. He says, " Hey, this is a serious move based on a pretty weak signal." "Before you write anything, I want you to provide three things.

" “Give me the data, tell me what problem you’re trying to solve, because announcing prices is risky.” "Maybe there's a less risky experiment you could do?" This is great. Yes, it just helps you think through these issues. And I also have another skill that I created and call " war council." This is an even more specialized version that I often call upon. So I can say, "Hey, I'm thinking about hiring this person." Here are all the notes about them that I received from the committee during the interview.

Help me understand whether this person will raise the bar or not. "And what will the ' military council' do— actually, let me back up . I think I have a "war council" skill here. Oh, yes, there she is. Um, okay. I...she did n't really pick up that skill. So, if you go to Zapier's GitHub, you can get a copy of the "war council." But it works like this : it creates subagents. And these subagents take on certain roles. Seven subagents are created . So, seven personalities.

Some of them are permanent members. For example, the wartime operations director is a permanent member of the military council. The ruthless CFO is also a permanent member. The member of the board of directors who always contradicts others is also a permanent member of the military council. I leave the remaining four personalities for dynamic generation . So, depending on the request, she decides who else I need to get advice from. Did you create that wartime COO yourself , describe his characteristics, or did you train him, for example, on Travis Kalanick's transcripts?

Well, what, what do you In my case, it's... it's a generic version, but you can do whatever you want, right ? If you would like to have, for example, And what does " general version" mean? You just said you're a wartime CEO. Traits, I said, are the traits of a wartime CEO. And, as I said, I just said, I want a wartime operations director , you know, generate this image, and then I looked at the result and tweaked it a little bit. You have a pretty calm, generally happy and positive outlook , like...

This, this is what you see in my inner competitor, right? It's like Kobe Bryant's "Mamba" mentality, you know, coming out . I like having a thought partner like that who is a little more ruthless, because that's not my typical approach, you know? I want to have such a mechanism of checks and balances. And as a CEO, you won't always have people around you who are comfortable, available, and skilled at this, right? These are exactly the people you want on your team when you need to quickly solve a silly question.

You said I use Cursor for my AI. I thought Cursor was a programming tool, but it looks like you're using it for communication and decision making. I'm confused about what Cursor is, or Well, look, Cursor, Claude Code , Codex—they're all supposed to be agents for programming, but they have an agent mode where you can just talk to it . The thing is , it doesn't just communicate, but since it can write code, it can do different things for you. And I try to explain to people who aren't engineers, "Hey, you should try this." Don't think of it as a tool that engineers use to build things.

Think of it as if you were hiring Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex as an engineer to whom you can delegate tasks. It's like with the engineers you worked with before. You like to give an engineer a task: " Do this for me." Or: "Do that for me." That's why I use Cursor: it goes and does things for me, not because I build something there myself. I actually hardly write any code. Wait, so when you just need to talk to an AI or ask a question, you go straight to Cursor and not ChatGPT or Claude or something else?

Well, mostly yes, especially when I'm at the computer, I mostly communicate with Cursor. Most of the time. It has different models to switch between, and I like that. So I can test a bunch of different models and all that. Do you type or talk more? I...I use voice typing a lot now. So I use this app—Monologue. Why Monologue? I do n't know. I like it. I've tried a few of these things. Tried WhisperFlow, Super Whisper and Monologue ...I don't know. He just seems to understand me.

I don't know how to describe it better . A small digression: I think this will be an interesting trend in the future of software. When software development becomes so cheap, I think we'll see more programs that have their own character. Well, remember consumer goods. It's like the number of places where you can buy jeans, or where you can get anything else. The difference may seem small, but you can choose one brand and I can choose another, simply because I like it better. But functionally they do the same thing.

I think there will be more and more software with that feel. Yes, that's it, yes, no. I mean, that's a valid point. It's like Adidas or Nike sneakers— they serve the same function, or like T-shirt brands. Remember I watched a documentary about Blink-182 last night? Do you remember Hurley? Sean, do you remember Hurley T-shirts? Yes. They were everywhere and I watched the show last night. I wonder why we loved them so much ? Isn't it crazy that we were so obsessed with them? It was just a stupid logo, why was it so important to us?

And I think that's a good idea. This is how we will perceive B2B, even boring software. Well, I think this is a really interesting point, because before it was always different either in functionality or price, right? These are the two main factors of competition. And then the design was added. And it seems to me that there was a wave when better design, better UI/UX became a tool of competition. And then design got its place at the negotiating table. But if you look at other products, not software products, then either brand or status plays a role, for example, luxury, it's like a signal about you.

There is almost no such thing in software. And it seems like you're saying that a new competitive factor will emerge—and that's individuality. You know, what I find more enjoyable to interact with, not which model has more parameters and a higher test score—that's how people won't choose these things. Because I already do that, and I think you're absolutely right. Well, and I definitely feel it, as someone who experiments with many models, I start to prefer different models for different tasks. For example, if I'm asked to do a technical task where I don't need to communicate with her, there are models that I like for that, like Fable—she's just fantastic.

It's like you give him a really complex engineering task and I'm like, " Great, let Fable try to figure this out." He will definitely handle this perfectly. But, man, I don't want to hang out with Fable. This doesn't bring any pleasure at all. We all have colleagues like that. They perform their tasks brilliantly, but it is difficult to find a common language with them. Yes, that's right. But there are other models with whom you think, "Hey, if I want to argue or discuss our actions, I'm more comfortable doing it with them than trying to talk to Fable, where I'm just desperate." And all these phrases, for example, how Claude talks to me, what are his signature expressions?

Well, like... It's not like that, it's like this. Or: "That's really the problem." You don't like to be a "supporting structure," right , or "let's get to the point." Is this inherent to AI or a specific model? Definitely models. You can see that most of the models are derived from the Anthropic or GPT series, so they have two different " characters". But if you use any open source tools, you can see who they “learned” from, and they adopt the character of their base model. Dude, I've noticed my colleagues are starting to talk like Claude— someone said " let's get to the carrier part" the other day when they were communicating in the lab, not in writing.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I've also noticed this, when they start speaking in phrases that I recognize as " Claude-esque," and it's like... They try to speak in a way that then uses Claude's lyrics and passes them off as their own: "No, it's really me." Who's training who, huh? Are we training AI or is AI training us? I think we can go even further, let me show you another example of use. Because that's also interesting. So this is a bunch of synthetic data, so it's not real, but, you know, I have a real version.

There is a list of accounts here, and you can click on them to see what is happening. So, if we click on Acme Logistics, for example, we'll see a lot of information about them. For example: "Oh, usage is down 34%. Contract renewal in 45 days. Here are all the apps they use. Here are the people in the organization to look out for . Etc. But here's the fun part. Here's a suggestion for contacting the CEO: "You should write to Jordan and see how he's doing." Find out what's new.

"And that's where I think AI gets really interesting, because in a way, who's in charge now? Am I in charge or is AI in charge? You know, every Sunday morning I wake up with a list of 10 clients that I want to reach out to. There's suggestions on what to tell me to do, why to do it, and all that stuff . And frankly , I love that. That's something that used to be really hard for me. I'm not a naturally super-communicative person like you who's always thinking, "Oh, I need to keep in touch with everyone." So now I've added an agent into the loop and said, "Help me get better at this." And so, I literally wake up , look at the morning report on Sunday, and there's, " Here are all the accounts that you need." I have already prepared drafts of letters in your mailbox.

You just need to review them, make edits, or click "send" . And I think there's something to that, because if you build these tools well, they'll start telling you what to do. You have to stay focused because if you turn your brain off, you will look stupid from time to time. But overall, I think that in certain cases these things make pretty good leaders. Brian Galligan, one of the founders of HubSpot, he either came up with this idea himself or it was in an interview when Jack Dorsey from Twitter suggested it on Brian's podcast, but they essentially said, "A lot of people get confused.

They think there's going to be a human brain or a CEO in the center and there's going to be agents running around doing the work. He said, 'That's the wrong way to look at things.'" AI is the brain. AI will be the CEO, and people's job is simply to provide it with information and decide whether to listen to AI. But in general, it is AI that should make difficult decisions, because it will most likely do a better job. And that changed my vision a little bit , and it seems like you're talking about the same thing without saying it directly.

Well, I think so, right? If you can connect all of your company's institutional knowledge to AI, it will be able to consider much more information than a human CEO. He just can. He can view every single commit in the codebase. He can read every conversation with a client. It can scan every comment about you on Reddit, X, LinkedIn, or anywhere else. So he simply knows much more than you as a human will ever know. And that will make it much more useful for certain types of solutions.

For example, you now use it as an assistant to help make these decisions. But it seems quite likely to me that you'll start saying, "Hey, I'll listen to his suggestions more often on certain issues." Yes, I think that's true . I wonder if AI will have, you know, the advantage of not having emotional swings like humans, or fears that would prevent it from doing the right thing, or conflict avoidance, or other things that are human biases. And I also wonder if we will have to develop cognitive biases for AI that we should take into account.

For example, well, we know that we have the sunk cost fallacy and the recency bias . What will AI be like, because we will need to be more aware of this the more often we delegate decision-making to AI. Yes. So, you run a company worth billions of dollars. How many decisions a day do you make where they are actually weighed against AI? Well, I would say that any important decision is now weighed with the help of AI. It's like, you know, a seat at the table in executive meetings, board meetings, and things like that, where we ask AI to highlight these things.

Is there an example where AI changed your mind or found the right answer that you had n't come up with and you decided to listen to it? Here's an example of an area where I find AI really useful. Let's go back to the hiring example. So, we have a “ raise the bar” process where I approve every job offer, but a member of the leadership team is involved in the final part of the hiring cycle. This is to test the hiring process, as well as to find out, "Will this person improve the culture or work, etc.

here at Zapier?" In the past, before the AI ​​era, when I was reviewing these claims, I would often , if I came across a candidate I wasn't sure about, feel like something was wrong. I've already had enough interviews. I interviewed thousands of people. I've reviewed thousands of applications, so I have more experience than most hiring managers. Most hiring managers hire one or two people a year. And I just looked at a much, much larger volume. And so I can't always find the words to explain why it's wrong, but I still feel it.

I often turned to these people and asked, "Are you sure?" Something is wrong here. I don't think they have this, that or that. And that was interesting. This interaction with my staff has always been a bit tense. People said, "Well, I support this person." Or: "Vade, are you just going to make the hiring decision yourself?" " If so, then it's simple: if you don't want to hire him, don't hire him." And it was like... And I was like, "Well, that's not exactly what I want , is it?" I want you to make your own decision.

I'm just trying to give you some advice. And I want you to be able to, you know, think logically about this problem. And if you answered, that is, if you are sure that you answered effectively, then I will support you. Let's hire this person. But if not, I want you to consider this and figure out if you need more information , if you should change course, etc. But that usually does n't happen. It all comes down to: " Does Wade want me to hire this person or not?" And I'm like, "Oh no, not at all." So, actually, this is exactly what happened before the advent of AI.

After implementing AI, I would hold a “war council” or hiring committee on these people and notice that it speaks better than me. He could say, "Hey, I noticed that this person has these qualities, and the commission didn't pay attention to it." So you should check that out and he would, you know, put a rating against everyone you hired at App. That's how successful I think they will be or not. Now I could bring this to the hiring committee and say, “Hey, AI said this. I agree.

What is going on here? And I suddenly noticed a change in behavior when people started saying, " Oh, that's interesting." I think the AI was right about this and that, but I think it was wrong about something else. And here's why: I have a different context that he doesn't have." And I'm like, "Great. "That's all I wanted to know." I'm like, "What else, what else am I missing?" What am I not seeing here? And I found that maybe it's because it's easier to argue with an AI than it is with a CEO, or because it's more eloquent and has a way of speaking that makes it easier to address specific points.

I'm not sure, but I've noticed that our hiring decisions have gotten better, partly because we've added AI to the process. I don't know if you ever believed in all these personality tests. Well, there's this thing, I think, Culture Amp, it's software where you take personality tests before you hire someone. Ray Dalio has his own version of this, and so on. And people are usually divided into two camps: some say they don't believe in any personality tests at all. I noticed that with the advent of AI, I became more inclined to trust the results, because I took such tests myself and used them to train my AI , and it helped me a lot .

But when it comes to hiring, do you even believe in , well, personality tests to understand whether a person is suitable for a position, because with AI, this process becomes much easier. What do you think, Sean? I look at it from a different perspective, meaning it's not so much about personality tests, but about, you know, like with driverless cars: one approach was— let's install all possible sensors on the car . Let's put cameras, more cameras, lidars, radars, sonars, what else can be added? Let's conduct a test, what other different sensors can be installed on a car?

And Tesla's approach was that the car needed vision. She only needs eyes. And one of the reasons people thought it was because of cost—which I think was also a factor, because lidar was very expensive and impractical in the long run. But the reason Elon says he did this is that when you have too many sensors, you get too much conflicting data and you don't know which one to trust. This makes the system more imperfect and prone to errors. In fact, you need to take the minimum number of necessary sensors, but then train them as well as possible.

This is my approach to hiring: I simplify everything, spend less time communicating with the candidate, look for fewer criteria, but they should be decisive. Otherwise, I simply will not hire this person. So what I mean is... Yes, yes, but answer the question. So how do you get... Okay, you're saying that instead of hundreds of questions, you're only looking at three. Are you good at this, that, or that? Okay, so how do you collect this information? So, again, borrowing from Elon, he says you need evidence of exceptional ability.

So all I'm looking for, the first filter, is just evidence of exceptional ability. So I'm not trying to assess cultural fit right now. I don't ask, "Do I like them?" I don't ask, "Do they have the relevant experience?" All I want to know is, "Have you done anything exceptional before?" And then tell me this story. And in this story, I will try to understand: "Did you do it, were you on a team of people who did it, or were you just taking credit for it?" And if you really haven't done anything exceptional, then the likelihood that this place will be the first exceptional achievement of your career—that's not a bet I'm willing to take.

So, this is the first filter I look for, and it's not based on personality tests. Then there's a kind of compatibility test: I try to do something together with them to get a sense of whether we have creative "chemistry." Do I feel like this person is good to have around when I'm trying to figure something out, or do they not improve the flow of the conversation when this happens? So I only have a two-stage filter , and that's all I want to say. Of course, I don't run a very large organization , I work with people directly in a very small team where everyone has to be "10x" or better, otherwise they shouldn't be on the team.

I learned this the hard way, because I used to do things completely differently. Yes, we have done something in this direction. For example, we sometimes used internal tests like Myers-Briggs. We also did a test called the Birkman, which we sometimes used. I find it moderately useful. I have a friend who is the CEO of a public company in Colombia who does DISC profiling for every hire. He insists that, for example, if I hire an accountant, he must have a DISC profile “like this.” And if not, then he won't fit the team.

I won't go that far. I think what I'm ultimately getting at is that first and foremost you need an exceptional person. Everyone has their own personality type, but that doesn't say whether you're a good professional or not. You know, you can score any number of points, but you still have to be a professional. Yes. But I really believe that team matters . When I look at my personality or my approach to work, I see things that I'm extremely good at and certain weaknesses where I know that if I work with someone who has complementary traits, I'll be much more effective because they'll reinforce where I'm...

I don't know if there's any science to it , but if you compare my Myers- Briggs results to my assistant's, she's three letters different from me. So, there are four letters, and three of them are different for her. And she really likes doing things that I don't like, and she's good at them, so it turns out to be quite useful. It's like sports, you know, if you're putting together a basketball team , you need someone like Michael Jordan to shoot all the balls, but you also need Dennis Rodman to defend and rebound the balls.

But do you use it when you hire employees? We don't do that. No , we don't force people to take tests to ask, "Hey, what are you going to do?" Different hiring managers probably do this somewhat organically. But for us, it's not an exact science. I have an idea of ​​how I think companies could use AI to improve hiring. I don't know if this is entirely legal. I'm not sure it can be implemented exactly as I describe, but here's what the exercise is. Agree. You analyze your team.

So, you have all the employees you've hired in the last , say, 3 years. You can rank them by level: who is exceptional, who is acceptable, and who is showing inconsistent results, let's say . Class. So, you can line up the employees on your team by rating and say, "Great." You also have, perhaps, transcripts or recordings of all the interviews you conducted, right? So you have this historical pattern that you have with all of them. And then new people come. And, you know, when I worked at Twitch, they used the same Amazon “bar raiser” method that you talked about, trying to do it in a human format.

It looks like this: here is a person who has seen a thousand interviews, coming in to standardize the hiring process, as well as provide the most expert assessment; and they compare the candidate to past samples, as well as to your values ​​and the role itself. And I just think AI will be much better at this than humans. I think he will be much better at this. And I'm surprised people aren't using the training data from their current team for their next hire. Do you think that would work?

I don't know for sure if AI would be good at this, but it seems to me that it would be useful. I remember when Google shared their hiring insights where they ran a bunch of tests on this . And they seem to have found that no hiring manager had an advantage over the others, with one exception. This exception was a highly specialized group of technical talent, where there were only about 100 specialists in this field. And their success rate was higher simply because "well, there are only 100 people who can do this." So for me, that's not a very convincing answer.

It seems like there should be something more to your words. This is also something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I was thinking about the fact that a large percentage of the people in my company —about 35 people—we work here, in this office. And they're only here because I'm bored and I want someone to be around most of the time. This is probably 70% of the reason why I have a company. Just because I want someone to be around. Because I'm not very good at making friends.

Yes, something like that. It's difficult with friends, easier with employees. This is difficult. Creating companies is easier. Which sounds like a joke, but, you know, I'm sure, Sean, you'll agree. Like Sean, Sean has a boyfriend who works with him. He says: you can work for me if you move here and we will spend time together every day. Dude, yesterday I was like: I'm like done with work. Want to play Fortnite? We just played Fortnite for a few hours. What I mean is, I need a pickleball partner.

Can you become my employee? I mean, that's pretty much what it looks like. I just want to spend time with people. But when you have Okay, now I want you to imagine that you are the CEO of War Console, and I need you to be the crazy Wade, not the real Wade. So in everything that will be said until the end of this section, you can behave a little inappropriately. Mode of inadequacy , okay. Yes, but when Wait, military Wade. Yes, I don't know how many employees you have now , but there used to be 700.

How many are there now? Around 730 or something like that. It's not much more . So when you have remote workers , you mostly only know them as avatars in Slack, right? You don't know all 700 people, and many of them don't know you, except for that guy on Zoom or the one who writes on the blog every now and then. This begs the question: what if they were all just or can one person have like 10 or 30 different agents that they control and you only have 20 employees?

I think there is definitely a certain school of thought that I have heard of. I really think there are limitations here. And the way I think about constraints is like a manager having an ideal span of control, where they say, "Ah, I can only have, you know, I don't know." The rules say eight. I think people are pushing the limit now to 10 or 12, or if you're Jensen, you have 60 or whatever. But there 's still a limit where you simply can't cognitively keep up with so many people.

But you still can't keep up with so many people. When you have a company, there's always something going on that you don't even know about. Mhm. Well, why don't you just make it one of your agents? Well, you could, but the thing is, you can only handle so much, right? 20 agents? Because they will constantly set you tasks and give you more and more work. So the limitation still exists. I'm not saying it's going to be just Wade, but do you think there's a world where, let's say, you hypothetically make about half a billion in revenue?

Is there a world where 20 people could do this? For a company like Zapier, not sure, but some company could certainly do it. In fact, we have already seen companies that have reached this level with very small revenue figures. Which ones exactly? Well, let's say Minecraft before it was bought by Microsoft had, I don't know how many people, but less than 100, I think , and made a lot of money. There was that article in the New York Times this summer about that guy who was selling GLP-1 drugs.

Yes, we invited him to the podcast, but the article came out the day before, and he turned us down. Well, he must have been working, I don't know how many employees he had, but it seems like one or two. Yes. How many cellmates does he have now ? He has two cellmates. So, how many cellmates does he have? But you could also think of someone like Taylor Swift. From what I understand, Taylor Swift has a very small team. And she, you know, makes billions a year or something, at least at the peak of her career.

So, I think it just depends on the business. Perhaps a philosophical question: do you think that work used to be structured like this: you start as an individual performer, and then you become a manager who manages a group of such performers? Yes. And was it the case that in the corporate world your value was proportional to how well you managed people? Yes. Will there be a new world where your value... Yes. ...where the money you get paid is based on how well you manage AI agents, right?

That is, how large a group can you manage and how effective is this group? Is this a new management skill ? Yes. I am quite sure that this is the direction we are moving in. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you just said the same thing . You say I'm right and I'm a genius. Yeah, you're like...I... We've come to this. We have come to this. And again, this is Ruthless Wears, so I don't want you to think you need to make excuses or apologize, but there are still different roles in the company, right?

For example, think about your sales department. I still believe that for certain categories of purchases we want to communicate with a human being. We still want to buy from a person. Do you want your sales reps to wake up every day and manage entire staffs of agents, or do you want them to engage with your customers, build relationships, build trust, and all that other stuff? For this role, I think I would prefer you to build human relationships rather than do a bunch of AI stuff. I definitely want you to do certain things with AI, but it doesn't necessarily mean, "Hey, Mr.

or Ms. Sales Manager or Sales Manager, manage these 20 agents who will actually sell for you." Can we change the subject for a moment? How old are you? I turned 40 this year. Obviously, so if you're worth $5 billion, you were on track to become a billionaire by the time you were 40 . About. Is this a strange feeling? Because you seem like a person who doesn't care much—even though I teased you—you seem like someone who doesn't care much about money or success, other than having a good time.

Honestly, it sounds a little far-fetched, even when I hear it from you. I do n't see myself that way at all. And that is largely tied to Zapier's paper value at any given point in time. It's like a voting machine. I don't have that much cash. You know, I have a certain amount that is liquid. Describe your psychology regarding money. So, what do you think about this? How do you use them in a way that improves the quality of your life? How do you avoid letting them ruin certain aspects of your life?

Make us a little smarter. Just share your view. Yes. I think, listen, a lot of this—it's very personal. And what is important to you in life? And for me, my family is the first priority . So I want to be there for my family, provide for them, make sure they can live well, however I define it. And, frankly , once you reach a certain level of wealth, more money doesn't change anything. What level do you think this is? Well, listen, if you live in central Missouri, it's not that much.

Yes, I think it's quite possible to get by with a million dollars. And, you know, life is pretty good. I mean, I remember when I first graduated from college, my dream was to make at least $100,000 a year. This was my dream. I thought: if I can make $100,000 a year, that's it , I'm settled. By the way, I had the same one . I thought: if I get a job at KPMG for 60 thousand, then by the age of 30 I will make 100, and everything in life will be a success.

Yes. That was the goal. And I don't know, probably because I do n't have any particular bad habits. I don't have any expensive hobbies or anything like that. Are you doing anything interesting with your money? Well, you know, when I go to a restaurant, I don't look at the prices on the menu. Class. These are the things. You attracted investment. So, you have to have some kind of exit plan, probably an IPO or sale of the company. Is there anything on your wish list that you would like to do if you received, say, a billion dollars in cash, something to change in your life or accomplish?

No, there's nothing I can't do right now. I remember my grandfather always dreamed of going on safari. But he never managed to get there. I always thought that was an incredible thing. And when my girls get a little older, I'll say, "Let's go on safari ." "But I can do it now." I don't need billions of dollars to go on safari. I like asking you about this because you are very well-rounded, and we even had this joke about the " ideal person." It was one of our friends or podcast guests who was like the "perfect package." They were ruthless when needed, sweet when needed, smart when the situation demanded it, but they were still a pleasure to talk to.

And like I said, Dharmesh has it, and you definitely have it. I like hearing your thoughts on topics that most people, including myself, talk about from a traumatized or offended perspective , while you do n't. You have a much healthier and more positive outlook on many things. That's why I like hearing your thoughts on things you rarely hear from an emotionally healthy person. You know, I'm very lucky. I grew up in a family where everything was stable: my parents were married, both of my grandparents were married.

I had aunts, uncles, and cousins, and we were all very close. But if I had to single out someone, I would have to talk about my grandfather. You know, my grandfather is a veteran of World War II. But you know what? I did n't perceive him that way . I knew him as a man who always had time for his grandchildren. He died at the age of 98 and a half, and the entire time I knew him, he lived on his own. He drove the car until two weeks before his death.

He walked 3 miles every day until two weeks before his death. He solved the New York Times crossword puzzle every day, writing down the answers in pen. I remember after he died we were at the funeral home trying to plan everything. And you know, most 98-year- olds, when they die , don't have any friends anymore. There will be no one there, because everyone who should have been there is already dead. You're 98. Well, he just, he lived a long life. And I remember the staff saying, " Okay, we'll probably have a greeting line for, you know, 30 minutes or an hour, something like that." And this queue lasted 3 hours.

People just kept walking. And you know, people from all walks of life. He was a teacher, and so many teachers came who remembered him. He was very active in the DARE program. So a lot of traffic police came. All the church members came . His entire extended family came. I remember it really impressed me: here was a person who was wonderful both in his family and in his work. For me, this was a great example of how a person set their priorities correctly. He did n't have everything, but he didn't need it.

He mastered the things that were important to him perfectly. So for me it has always been an example of what a good life looks like. Sounds like a great role model. You really embody it, you are successful in business , but you do not have the arrogance that is inherent in most people at your level . Isn't that right, Sean? Yes, yes. I really liked the story you just told . It was a truly wonderful story, and I think the value of your words lies in two points that struck me.

You said, "He didn't have everything, but he did n't need it." I've been thinking about this a lot lately: you are as rich as you need little. That is, regardless of whether it's material things or something else, right? If you don't need the approval or attention of others, you are free. You are rich because you simply don't need it. It's not something you have to pay a price to get. Right? You know, you don't have to show off on social media if you just don't need to.

And I think that's a very underrated trait. When you said that, it seemed to me that your grandfather had exactly this kind of lifestyle. And the other thing is, you know, the definition of what victory is. If victory is only in work, or only in one aspect of life. You have to decide for yourself what it is for you, and it seems like you clearly understood that quite early on. And the more clearly you understand this, the less likely you are to be swayed by the wind.

You know, if the media portrays Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or anyone else as titans, you say, "Oh, I guess that's what winning is." And then, you know, pretty quickly you find yourself with a bunch of divorces, and the kids don't love you, or something . It's easy to go down the wrong path if you don't have a solid belief system about what winning is. And to have examples of people who have succeeded in this way, because you'll get a lot of examples of what I call one-dimensional winners.

Michael Jordan is the pinnacle. I'm a basketball fan, so I grew up thinking that Jordan was the best in history. He is the greatest, he is the best. That's true when it comes to basketball, but there was a lot in his personal life that I don't want to emulate. So as much as I wanted to be like Mike on the court, I didn't want to be like Mike off the court. I think it's worth spending time on what you said you did— finding your "north star" to have a clear picture in your head.

This makes all future decisions very easy. Quite. I like it. You know, define your own concept of victory. And, you know, if you do it right, some of your decisions may seem strange to others. They will ask, "Why are you doing it this way? You could have done it this way. You could have done it differently." But you'll be much happier if you just say, "This is what I want to do." And, you know, if you want to run a software development company—great, go for it.

If you want to, you know, be a teacher and, you know, help students, do it. For example, if you want to, I don't know, live on the coast or live in...What is a win for you? Do you have any examples of this? I mean, you're very successful, and you moved from San Francisco back to Jefferson City, so that's an obvious example. But are there any other weird decisions you've made at Zapier or Wade that you think the average Silicon Valley person would call crazy? "I would n't do that." Well, the story with remote work— we never had an office before everyone started considering it the norm.

You know, we only raised one round of investment. It seemed pretty strange at the time. We are building this business for the long term. And so I'm constantly asked questions like, "Well, what about... Hell, you're asking me that yourself ." "What about going out of business ?" "What is the company's valuation ?" "What is...?" And I answer: "It will be as it will be." We are here to develop it for our customers. This is what worries me. "Not these other things." And I think if we do it well, then of course the numbers will improve, but that's not the point.

The point is in the work itself. And I think you'll find that in anyone who loves what they do. You ask them... That's where I think the media gets the narrative about billionaires wrong: they say they're hoarding money and all that. Look, I do n't know all the billionaires, but I've met a few. Dharmesh Shah, Halligan—people like them genuinely seem like people who love what they do. And they will continue to do so regardless of whether they make a little or a lot of money .

Time has proven this. Yes. They did it before they were making any money, and they continued when there was no clear prospect of profit . That's right. when they made money, they kept doing it. So, it was clearly not about the money, because I just enjoy doing it. I think athletes are the same. Well, let's say Olympic athletes. Olympians don't make a lot of money, but they just love it and will continue no matter what . You see this in professional sports, when guys are at the end of their careers and it's probably time for them to retire, but they keep playing because they love it.

They accept smaller contracts, do their best because they say, "I just can't, I love this game." "I like doing this stuff, dude." So, Sean, listen to this . One day, it seems, in 2019, Wade was performing at Hustle Con in Oakland, California. And that was just before you raised the investment. I think you were the most popular back then. You came and performed, and I thought that was cool. And I don't know if you remember this, Wade, but you and I sat backstage for 10 hours.

All the speakers were coming and going, and they had to walk through this room. I don't know for sure if you felt the same way, but it seems like you did what I did: when these people came in, we just stared and watched their behavior. Because it was interesting to see billionaires or big CEOs just interacting with you, having a normal conversation. It was very exciting. It was like watching people on steroids, and we were just staring at them. But I remember you sitting with me.

I don't know if you remember that we sat there for eight or ten hours. It had been a full day, and I asked, " Don't you need to go anywhere?" And you said, "No, I just like being here." I remember you doing this, and it seems like nothing has changed about you: you were successful then, you're incredibly successful now, but your personality remains the same— you're still very curious. Yes, I don't remember it being eight or ten hours, but I remember it being a whole day.

Like, you came at 9:00. I think we left at 4:00. So no matter how much it is . It was, yes. Yeah, I mean , you invited some cool guests, man. Who wouldn't want to just sit backstage and listen to how all these people run their companies and what works for them and what doesn't. I mean, hell, I'm pretty sure I had a notebook of ideas that I took with me and I was like, " Okay, we'll try this." We are going to do it. Yes.

I mean, the cool thing is, you know, when you were doing this, I don't think podcasts were a big deal, and now, my God, you can just study all this stuff, and you'll have notes on the day ahead of you about things you can just try. And just, "Okay, let's see if this works for me." What do you listen to and what do you consume on a regular basis? Books, podcasts, anything. I have to give credit to the guys at Acquired. It's just a 10 out of 10.

You know, most of the cases they go into detail about are legendary entrepreneurs who have been doing this for decades. Leave us a recommendation. Recommend an episode of Acquired that's worth listening to, and maybe a book you liked. Well, an episode about the NFL, if you like sports at all. This is a good introduction to Acquired . Although, probably my favorite series is all about retail. There seems to be Costco, Walmart, and Amazon there. This is a trio , they are all very, very good. Regarding the book, I recently finished the book "Make Something Wonderful" .

This is Steve Jobs, so to speak, in his own words. This is a very good book. You know, I think Steve Jobs has a reputation for being a larger-than- life person. This book is literally just emails, speeches, just his own thoughts. And they are roughly ordered chronologically. And so you can see his development: V1 Apple, years at Pixar, V2 Apple. And you just see how it changes over time. Sean, is there a book you've read recently that you'd like to recommend? Yes, there is a book called "The Score." Have I already talked about this here ?

Si Ti Win is the author's name on the cover. But the book is called "The Reckoning : How to Stop Playing Other People's Games." And the main idea of ​​this book is simply incredible. He talks about the power of the game. He says: imagine a game, well, let's say, " Pixonari". We start playing " Pixonari". Games are an incredible thing because they show what winning means. They set the rules: what you are allowed to do. They show the scoreboard, i.e. how you earn points, how you win and what you should strive for.

They dictate your goals, your behavior, and who you need to be to become the best at this game. He says: let's take a game like "Crocodile." To be the best at it, you have to be relaxed, sociable, and a team player, regardless of whether you're showing or guessing. But if you play Risk, you have to be ruthless and dominant. And he says it's amazing how the very idea of ​​a game changes your behavior. He transfers this to the games we play in real life. He describes how he became a professor: "I went to teach philosophy because I love it." Of course, that's why .

Who else becomes a philosophy teacher ? But then he discovered a kind of leaderboard. All the philosophy professors in the country were there. And suddenly he started thinking: how to get on this list? I don't want to be out of the rating. And he naively decided: oh, I need to get published. Then I realized: in order to get published often and quickly, I had to write for obscure publications about things that no one needed. He says: after a few years, I hated what I was doing.

I ask myself: why am I doing this? I study all sorts of nonsense that I'm not interested in just to get into a ranking that's worthless . Why? Because I play games. We all play games. So, you have to be very careful about the games and the different ways you play. There is a drive for play when you play for fun, as opposed to a result orientation when you play to win . And, you know, it's worth striving to be a player for these very reasons.

And such players usually win more often, even though they did n't play for that reason . You can't just say, "Well, I'm not going to play anything because it's not fun." Let's say we're playing charades. If you don't care at all about winning, we won't get the satisfaction. The trick is to focus on it at the moment of the game, and then let it go completely once it's over. You remember, "Oh, we're playing charades to have a good time together, not so I can get the most points." And, you know, there are so many nuances around this, okay.

games. And I think the biggest decision in life is what game you decide to play and how it will shape the next 10 years of your life. She also just came out . The book was released about 6 months ago. Yes, I really like this book now. I just finished. I'll sum it up with this. Wade, you might like this one. I guess if I had to guess, did you listen to Blink 182 as a kid? I listened. What about you, Sean? I mean, who hasn't been listening?

These were popular songs. Although I didn't go to concerts. Yes. I read the biography, the memoirs of Mark Hoppus, one of the vocalists of Blink 182. Such a good book. I read it in 3 days. Could n't tear myself away. It was one of those books where I forced myself to put it down at night before bed because I stayed up too late. Dude, why are musician biographies so good? They're, I mean , they're much more interesting. or something else about musicians and comedians—this What else do you have?

The guy from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis. Was she good? It's been a long time. I was in college when I read it, and I loved it. Well, his book is good, I think, because he had a complicated life and he traveled a lot. Yes, a difficult childhood leads to a difficult adulthood. So it's fascinating. These guys, they weren't that complicated. But they became really famous really quickly, and he talks about it, like, you know, I'm going to start a chapter now where I complain about fame, and then he says , I'm kidding.

I like being famous. That was cool. People come up to me all the time and say they love my work. This is an incredible feeling. And then, later in life, he got cancer. He talks about his cancer treatment. Oh, this is such a beautiful book. If you want to read something interesting, Mark Hoppus has a biography, and if you want a summary, it's called " Fahrenheit 182," I think. But, by the way, wait. You are a real pro. We appreciate you. We invite you at any time, and thank you for everything.

Of course. Thanks for the invite, guys. Well, that's all. It was a podcast.

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