#Reid Hoffman interviews himself

[biofunmy]

Jeremy Stoppelman’s Long Battle With Google Is Finally Paying Off

Amy Osborne for BuzzFeed News

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman in an elevator at Yelp headquarters in San Francisco.

The line outside Shizen, San Francisco’s hottest Michelin-starred hipster vegan sushi restaurant, is extremely long, but the wait is surprisingly short. After the doors open and the first wave of diners are seated, the line mostly disappears, despite it being one of the more popular spots in the city. Just a few people linger on the sidewalk. Why aren’t more people waiting to get in?

The line, or lack of it, is a weirdly effective real-world product demo for Yelp, the 15-year-old review site and local business directory. Shizen has put its reservation system and waitlist on Yelp. Which means that when impatient diners want to wait for a table, they can do so at a bar around the corner, or even at home, and then arrive just in time to be seated. In other words, you don’t have to stand in line to be in line. And so, before you know it, Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s vegan CEO, is tucking into a roll made from beets, kale, and, uh, seaweed pearls. (Trust us on this one: 5 stars.)

Yelp bought a waitlisting company in 2017, and it rolled out new predictive wait times and notification features this year. It’s one of a slew of changes the company made in 2019, including introducing some new ways for it to make money. This follows years of moving beyond mere reviews. You can look up a restaurant’s rating, sure, but you can also use it to get a quote from a chimney sweep or order delivery through one of its partners.

“One of the most powerful companies in the world didn’t want us to succeed.”

And while rolling out new features and revenue streams, or even pivoting into completely different business models, are relatively normal things for tech companies to do, for Stoppelman and Yelp, it feels a bit existential.

“In Yelp’s case, it’s been the thing that I probably have been most focused on for the last decade,” said Stoppelman, “finding a way to survive knowing that one of the most powerful companies in the world didn’t want us to succeed.”

That powerful company is Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet. For most of Yelp’s history, it has been engaged in a painful and public spat with the search and advertising giant, with Yelp executives endlessly beating the drum about what they describe — in interviews, tweets, regular newsletters, and even cutesy animated videos — as Google’s anticompetitive practices.

For years, this seemed like a quixotic fight at best. Stoppelman or some other Yelp executive would take a swipe at Google, which Google would then more or less ignore as it casually snacked on YouTube or Motorola or Nest or Waze or Fitbit. But this view of Google — and big tech writ large — as too big and too powerful has gained traction in recent years both in Europe and the United States, and it is now facing multiple antitrust actions, and has already racked up billions in fines. In recent weeks, attorneys general from 50 states and territories (minus California) announced an antitrust probe into Google’s advertising and search business. The winds have shifted and are coming from the left and the right. The Donald Trump administration has been openly antagonistic toward Big Tech, and the president has said on multiple occasions in response to questions about Google that it might be a monopoly. Meanwhile Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a literal plan to break it up.

In short, the world has lined up behind Stoppelman, who, despite the changes he’s making to the site’s platform or the newfound seriousness with which his antitrust arguments are being taken, is basically doing what he always has. In a series of two wide-ranging interviews with BuzzFeed News, one at Yelp’s office and another at the vegan sushi place, he talked about the changes his company has been through the past 15 years. But mostly he talked about trust. Gaining it, losing it, and, of course, busting it.

Stoppelman is 41. He’s thin and athletic-looking, with cordlike veins that snake down his biceps and that hyperfit, low-body fat upgrade that tech execs seem to have all downloaded at the same time. A Virginia native, he moved to the Bay Area after college, in 1999, and went to work as an engineer during the peak of the first dot-com boom for @Home Network, which was in the early stages of a merger with the internet portal Excite, which Stoppelman said was “clusterfucked.”

“I finished all the coding ideas that my boss had. I’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m out of stuff. What do you want me to work on next?’ And he’d be like, ‘Oh, meet me at my desk at 4:45.’ I’d go by his desk and he’d be gone,” said Stoppelman. “But it was also late ’99, early 2000, so it was hopping in the Bay Area. I was getting recruiting calls already. My phone was ringing every day.”

One of those calls came from a recruiter at X.com, a banking and payments processing company founded by Elon Musk, who had already founded and sold a previous company. Stoppelman went in for an interview.

“At the end of it I met Elon, and I was blown away. I was like, I want to be like this guy! He’s only 28 years old but was much like he is today. He’s like, we’re going to take down Visa! He’s wildly ambitious and knows what he wants to do. Who knows if it will happen, but I’d never met anyone like that.”

They did in fact make it happen, succeeding beyond what was probably in any way realistic in those early days (although Musk himself was pushed out of the CEO role along the way to make room for Peter Thiel). X.com was renamed PayPal; in 2002, as the dot-com boom was going south, eBay acquired the company for $1.5 billion. Those early PayPal employees were suddenly quite rich.

This was the origin of the “PayPal Mafia,” so named for the group of former PayPal employees who went on to found a slew of successful businesses and invest in many others. In many cases they started companies together, or invested in each other’s startups. The group includes Musk, Stoppelman, Thiel, Russell Simmons, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, Keith Rabois, David Sacks, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Joe Lonsdale, and Dave McClure, among others. Together they would start some of the best-known companies in Silicon Valley, among them LinkedIn, Tesla, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and YouTube, while their capital investments helped give rise to Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Stripe, Airbnb, Square, and a host of others.

Stoppelman attributes much of their success to timing. The dot-com market correction began in early 2000, its deflation accelerating after the Department of Justice won a ruling against Microsoft in April that year, and continuing all the way through 9/11 and beyond. Once high-flying companies like Pets.com and Kozmo.com became nothing more than correction roadkill as the market sloughed off trillions of dollars in value. But the PayPal guys, on the other hand, did great.

“While the internet was collapsing around us, our company was successful. We didn’t go through the trauma of the dot-com bust,” said Stoppelman. “Everyone had some capital and confidence at a time when most people that had been anywhere near the blast radius of the internet were completely dismissive. The mainstream thinking was ‘Yeah, that internet. Maybe it’s a utility, but it’s not this exciting commercial thing we thought it was.’ That created a very fertile soil. You have people with capital, interest, confidence, motivation, all at the right time in their career — late twenties to late thirties — pretty good odds.”

In 2004, after he spent a year at Harvard Business School, Stoppelman along with Simmons, also of PayPal, cofounded Yelp with investment from yet another PayPal alum, Levchin. In its early days, it was going to have more of a social networking–style structure, where people could ask friends for recommendations. But as Stoppelman and Simmons absorbed a lot of what was happening elsewhere on the internet, particularly with blogging, Yelp settled on local business reviews as a sort of “directed blogging.” The focus was mostly restaurants and small businesses, but you could review just about anything you could think of there: plumbers, doctors, gas stations, cannabis clinics, hotels, parks, monuments, dog parks, you name it.

Problems began almost immediately.

Trust is hard to come by, especially on the internet, where everything anyone doesn’t like is fake. Facebook has spent years awash in fake news and misinformation. Amazon ratings and reviews are notoriously compromised by bad actors. Photos are shopped. Videos are doctored. That account is a bot. The chans have wormed their way into our brains. And even when we see the same stuff, we can’t always agree what happened.

For Yelp, the trust problem was fake reviews. Restaurants were paying people, or offering them discounts, to write nice things on the site. Or people would, for one reason or another, trash a restaurant they had never been to. Maybe it was a competitor, or maybe the owner was an outspoken Democrat. Yelp’s solution was to take an aggressive stance. Most of its users probably didn’t notice, but it created a lot of headaches for its relationship with the businesses it relies on for ad dollars.

But trust was also something Stoppelman and Simmons had thought about, extensively, at PayPal, a company whose entire business depended on getting strangers to send each other money via the then-new internet. In fact, they had seen PayPal’s business boom and were now rich precisely because it had cracked down on fraud and established consumer trust. They had a low tolerance for scammers.

“Within the first two weeks we could see some business owners generating obvious reviews for themselves. The fake content popped up pretty quick. We could tell that spam was going to be a problem,” said Stoppelman. “And we also looked at the competitor that we were up against in those days, Citysearch. They had a consumer review feature, but it was just totally spammed out.”

From those early days, Yelp focused on taking down reviews that it thought were spammy or bogus. Those takedowns became something of an arms race, and the company has sometimes gone to extremes to try to keep things in check. Yelp will publish consumer alerts on businesses pages when it detects inauthentic activity, for example, and even runs sting operations.

“We have a team that tries to buy reviews from people, and then also try to identify businesses that are buying reviews,” said Stoppelman. “If we catch someone red-handed, we’d take screenshots of correspondence and all that and put up a banner saying on their business page, saying, ‘Hey, this business is trying to game the system, and here’s the evidence.’”

It also takes action when people start reviewing businesses simply because they are in the news for other reasons, often political — because everything is political now. For example, in 2018, when the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, refused to serve then–White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, online mobs from all across the country turned to Yelp to pummel the restaurant with negative reviews — even though they had never set foot in the door.

This is a relatively common occurrence, and it doesn’t always take a national story. Local issues can also send people to a business’s page for punitive reasons, which means Yelp has to police these kinds of review-brigading all over the country, even when the company isn’t aware of whatever the issue is that triggered the action. So it has an algorithm to detect what the company calls an “unusual activity” alert that it adds to the business’s page until the activity subsides and it can mop up.

It also surfaces reviews algorithmically via recommendation software. It segregates reviews that the software flags for being solicited or biased, or because it doesn’t know enough about a user. Which means Yelp hides almost 30% of the reviews posted to its site, according to the company. This review filter is, to put it mildly, enormously unpopular among businesses. It has also led to a rash of false conspiracy theories (covered previously by BuzzFeed News) that the company takes down good reviews in order to get businesses to buy ads. It also means Yelp leaves money on the table — it could easily juice engagement and user numbers if it took a less aggressive approach to policing content. But here’s the thing: It works. The company is approaching 200 million reviews, and it may even have passed that milestone by the time it announces its quarterly results this week.

Moreover, when you see an average review number on Yelp, it’s a pretty good indicator. A 4.5-star restaurant is probably going to be pretty great. A 2-star restaurant? Not gonna eat there. You might also see an alert about a restaurant’s cleanliness on Yelp. In more than 30 states, it makes that information available right on a restaurant’s page. It’s another transparency measure that’s good for consumers but has probably cost the company money with the communities of small businesses that populate its site.

“If you optimize for maximum attention, you’re leaning into human nature of rubbernecking at train crashes, and all the worst stuff that humanity can provide.”

“I’m sure we could have been making a lot more money if we allowed ourselves to be compromised and just said: Anything goes on Yelp. You want 5 stars? Tell your friends to go write a bunch of reviews for you and they’ll be on Yelp and then you can advertise. And wouldn’t it be wonderful?” said Stoppelman.

Instead, Yelp went another route. It is vigilant about reviews, and has passed on some easy ways to make money from users’ data. It doesn’t let businesses target users who happen to be walking by with an ad, for example. Despite persistent rumors, it’s hard to imagine Yelp fitting in as an acquisition target for Big Tech — in just two interviews with BuzzFeed News, the outspoken Stoppelman took shots at Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

Which is all the more curious as Stoppelman is a member of perhaps the most successful circle of investors ever, in the PayPal Mafia, and yet his business runs counter to so much of the prevailing wisdom in Silicon Valley, which argues for growth at any cost.

“When I look out at other companies,” Stoppelman said, “I see other priorities, namely growing revenue as much as possible. So why didn’t Facebook crack down on certain types of content, or why did they allow sensational stories or stories that are not true to blast across the network and get amplified so much? Had they had the foresight to say, ‘Hey, this is bad for the world’ or ‘This is bad for our long-term brand, we should shut it down,’ it probably wouldn’t have turned into an eventually traumatic political issue.

“But at the end of the day, collecting attention is the way that they make money, and they dial up the algorithm — the same as YouTube, same for Google. You know, it’s like Google and Facebook did the same thing: Use the algorithm to optimize for maximum attention. And if you optimize for maximum attention, you’re leaning into human nature of rubbernecking at train crashes, and all the worst stuff that humanity can provide. And that’s where you end up. And I’m sure it was like rocket fuel for their business, but now we’re paying the price.”

Amy Osborne for BuzzFeed News

Stoppelman talks with Ronald Clark, head of investor relations, and Brigitte Ehman, manager of business operations and strategy, as they walk through the front lobby at Yelp headquarters on Sept. 20 in San Francisco.

Yelp’s headquarters are in the old Pacific Bell Building, once the tallest building on the West Coast, and the first skyscraper in San Francisco’s SoMa district. When Yelp moved in, it was an early tech colonizer of this particular section of downtown San Francisco, today known as the East Cut. Now, the East Cut is swimming with internet giants, and the Pacific Bell Building is dwarfed by the Salesforce Tower, just a few blocks away.

Yelp’s windows look out on that building and the park next door that bears Salesforce’s name. You can see the offices for Slack, Trulia, and Facebook as well, all of which ring the new multibillion-dollar park and transit center. LinkedIn and Google have offices nearby. To the west, on a blighted section of Market Street, are Uber’s and Twitter’s headquarters. Pinterest is a few blocks south. So is Airbnb. Yelp is hemmed on nearly all sides by tech behemoths.

Yelp is small compared even to Twitter. It’s endured years of ups and downs, including a stock slide last year over the way it sells ads. (It eliminated fixed-term contracts.) The company has a market cap of only about $2.5 billion — nothing compared to Alphabet or Amazon, both of which have market caps of nearly $900 billion. Or, for that matter, Apple and Microsoft, which have both blown past trillion-dollar market cap territory.

Yet Yelp is a tidy, profitable business that pulled in $55 million in profit on $942 million in revenue last year. Seventy-three million people open it up on their phones every month. One hundred million look at it on the web. That’s not shabby. But in 2019, in the era of billion-plus user companies, a mere 100 million people puts you at a disadvantage.

“Google didn’t stick to the plan.”

“The question is, is there a path to independence?” Stoppelman said. “Distribution is always the centerpiece. If you create a great product or service, how do you get it in the hands of the people? The problem with Big Tech is they control the distribution channels. Distribution is the key. If Google is the starting place for all of the people that are tapping into the web, to the extent they get in front of consumers and block them from finding the best information, it’s really problematic, and that can stifle innovation.”

To that end, much of what Yelp has been doing recently is aimed at connecting directly with its audience. In addition to things like reservations and waitlists, it also introduced new customization features, which let you set up dining preferences, dietary restrictions, and other personalized options. These are nascent but represent a big push for the company as it tries to provide individualized recommendations — which means that when you search for a place to get lunch in the near future, your results will be different than your coworkers’ at the next desk over. Yelp has rolled out new tools for businesses as well. A new “Connect” tool lets businesses communicate directly with people who have shown an interest in it — maybe they’ve checked in there or written a review. It also added features designed to help new businesses without many reviews reach audiences, and as a way to build new revenue streams outside of search ads.

But it is the roiling national debate about the role Big Tech plays in our lives — from the way it enables disinformation to how it relies on unfair business practices — that has thrust Stoppelman into the center of a national conversation. Yet he didn’t just end up there. Much of the newfound traction that the antitrust argument is getting is due to a long game from Yelp, which has leaned on regulators across the world for years now. The company began when Google’s business was under far less scrutiny.

“We really started Yelp to do something noble,” Stoppelman said. “We wanted to help people connect with the best local businesses. There was this platform called Google, and we essentially did everything that they said. We generated really fantastic content, we cultivated community, we did all these things that were expensive, that were hard to do, and required a lot of innovation. Google didn’t stick to the plan.”

Google tried to buy Yelp in 2009, but the deal fell apart. And so the larger company built out its own local business reviews, and today it promotes those above content from Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other competitors. Search for “Thai restaurants in Hollywood,” for example, and Google will spit back the top-rated ones from its own listings. Yelp’s listings will generally be there, but farther down the page.

“The only way that we could get them to do the right thing in the early days was by shaming them in the press. So that’s where this all began — they would do something egregious like steal our content and put it in every Android phone and the Google Places app. We would talk to TechCrunch or something, and someone would write it up, and they’d be shamed into doing something. And then eventually they got tired of that and … as we would shame them, they’d get less responsive. And so we would naturally progress to the next level, which was ‘Okay, the only source of power now that might be able to check them is government.’”

Google, via a spokesperson, denied these claims.

In 2011, Yelp’s senior vice president of public affairs, Vince Sollitto, gave a presentation to the Conference of Western Attorneys General, in which he charged that Google was engaging in anticompetitive practices that hurt its smaller competitors. Meanwhile, Luther Lowe, Yelp’s vice president of public policy, aggressively continued to make the antitrust argument to the press. (If you write about Google, Lowe is probably already lurking in your inbox.)

“What happened is that the government lost its will to prosecute.”

“I’ve always had a view that the government could and should play a role. I was born in the late ’70s, a child of the ’80s. My dad was an SEC lawyer who worked on insider trading cases. My worldview has always been government regulation isn’t the end-all, be-all, but the government can and should play an assertive role in shaping a market economy,” said Stoppelman. “But what happened is that the government lost its will to prosecute.”

Yelp’s effort has ramped up as Google began delivering more answers on the search results page itself — including local information that had been Yelp’s bread and butter — rather than linking out to third parties. As of this past summer, more than half of all Google searches now end without a click, according to a SparkToro analysis of Google’s clickstream data. That is, most of the time when someone searches for something on Google, they just get the answer they are looking for in the results themselves and don’t have to click through to another website (and see another website’s ads).

But who cares if I get my restaurant reviews from Google instead of Yelp or see hotel rankings right in a Google search rather than on TripAdvisor? The convenience of getting exactly what you are looking for without having to click out or wait for another page to load, especially in the era of mobile, is great. No question.

Yelp needed to show that Google delivering its own answers and own products above others hurt actual consumers, and not just Google’s would-be competitors. So Yelp launched a campaign to try to show how the search giant’s practices did just that. In short, Yelp’s argument is that when Google displays its own results it deprives consumers of choice and, worse, that Google’s local reviews are, well, not good.

“Google’s reviews… It is kind of comical that they call theirs reviews!” Stoppelman said. “Most, probably like 60% or 70%, of their reviews are actually ratings with no text. But they have to compete against us, so they’re generous with what they call a review.”

It’s been a slog. But there is also now real movement — and not just in Europe, which is more prone to regulation than the US — on the issue of antitrust. And on the issue of user trust, there have also been a litany of tech scandals that have roiled Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and Uber. High-profile startups like Theranos and WeWork turned out to be little more than elaborate cons. Tech, and Big Tech in particular, has few political friends on the left or the right. What was once one of the more admired industries suddenly seems more like a politically convenient punching bag.

There was a time when all that seemed to matter in tech was scale. Everything was about getting to a billion, and then the next billion after that. Growth was good for its own sake. And anyone who deviated from these lines was unrealistic, or flat-out irrational. But today those ideas are very much in retreat. Facebook and YouTube and Amazon are so large now that they seem almost beyond policing. Companies are increasingly being asked to defend their scale and practices. It turns out, when you put a billion people together on the internet and let them say whatever they want, the marketplace of ideas bends toward propaganda and Nazis.

Stoppelman seems to be playing a long game, counting on some of the scale we’ve let these companies stack up to be leveled off by government actors. It is often said in and around Silicon Valley that we are in the early stages of the internet. And the question before us now is really about how much control we want to place in a handful of companies, be they in the US, or China, or wherever.

“The first seven years or eight years, there was a lot of eye-rolling in Silicon Valley about Yelp being a complainer, or I’m a whiner, or this is a stupid issue,” Stoppelman said. “I think the reality is now the world has caught up.” ●

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[deniscollins]

Jeffrey Epstein’s Donations Create a Schism at M.I.T.’s Revered Media Lab

What would you do if you were raising money for M.I.T.’s Media Lab and Jeffrey Epstein, who had pled guilty a few years earlier for soliciting a minor for prostitution, offered to donate $1.7 million for your projects, including the Media Lab: (1) accept the donation, or (2) reject the donation? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Joichi Ito gave himself some advice in 2008: “Reminder to self,” he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t invest with or take money from creeps,” although he used an earthier term.

Then, over the next decade, he accepted about $1.7 million from Jeffrey Epstein.

That money from Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who killed himself in jail last month while facing federal sex-trafficking charges, was split between Mr. Ito’s own investment funds and the prestigious center he leads at M.I.T., the Media Lab. His apology last month prompted two academics to announce plans to leave and led to calls for Mr. Ito to step down from the lab, an institution that is proudly indifferent to scholarly credentials and seeks a future marrying technology and social conscience.

On Wednesday, at a meeting billed in an email as the start of “a process of dialogue and recovery” that two attendees said had begun with a group breathing exercise, the rift was unexpectedly pulled open just as it appeared to be closing.

Roughly 200 people gathered to address the lingering anger at Mr. Ito — a tech evangelist whose networking skills landed him in the White House to discuss artificial intelligence with President Barack Obama and prompted the psychedelic proselytizer Timothy Leary to call him his godson. Mr. Ito, who has helped the lab raise at least $50 million, revealed that he had taken $525,000 from Mr. Epstein for the lab and $1.2 million for his own investment funds.

“The division I’ve caused among the students created a tremendous amount of damage,” Mr. Ito said, according to the two attendees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting.

But before the session could end, the divide got deeper.

Nicholas Negroponte, a prominent architect who helped found the lab in 1985, told the crowd that he had met Mr. Epstein at least once since Mr. Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and had advised Mr. Ito about the donations.

“I told Joi to take the money,” he said, “and I would do it again.”

The words stunned the crowd, just before the meeting adjourned. Mr. Ito saw the comments as so damaging to his conciliatory efforts that he fired off a message to Mr. Negroponte just after midnight. “After I spent 1.5 hours apologizing and asking permission to make amends, you completely undermined me,” Mr. Ito wrote in the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

Mr. Ito did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Negroponte said in an email to The Times after the meeting that he would give that advice knowing only what he knew at the time, without the benefit of hindsight.

Mr. Ito said during the meeting that he had visited Mr. Epstein’s Caribbean island twice to raise money, which he has pledged to return or donate to causes that support sex-trafficking victims. He also acknowledged that he had “screwed up” by accepting the money, but that he had done so after a review by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and consultation with advisers.

The university has begun an inquiry into the donations. Its provost, Martin A. Schmidt, has couched the review as an attempt to “identify lessons for the future” rather than “an investigation of any particular individual.”

Other organizations have also stood behind Mr. Ito. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he has been on the board since 2011, said in a statement that it believed his apology “is sincere.” The MacArthur Foundation said Mr. Ito “has addressed his associations in a manner that warrants no action by the foundation at this time.” The New York Times Company, where Mr. Ito has been a board member since 2012, declined to comment for this article.

Mr. Ito is far from the only notable figure whose relationships with Mr. Epstein have drawn scrutiny and caused soul-searching. The financier’s ties to people like President Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and a number of well-known scientists have led to pointed questions. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta resigned after an outcry over his role in Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.

Mr. Ito has been a popular figure at the lab since taking over in 2011, pulling it out of a postrecession lull while dazzling students and well-heeled donors alike. He has continued to receive broad support even after disclosing the donations; more than 200 signed a petition urging him to stay on.

Lab members who defend him said academia had a long history of accepting funding from dubious characters. And Mr. Negroponte told The Times that he had sought donations from disgraced figures, including Alberto Vilar, a major donor to the Metropolitan Opera who served time in jail for financial crimes.

The lab “attracted edgy people,” Mr. Negroponte said. “Some were scoundrels.”

The lab’s contrarian ethos runs deep — Mr. Negroponte called it “literally a place for misfits” — where Mr. Ito’s unorthodox background was celebrated.

Mr. Ito dropped out of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, ran a Tokyo nightclub called XY Relax and led a series of internet companies — as well as a guild in World of Warcraft, the online role-playing game. He had an eye for good ideas, investing early on in Twitter, Kickstarter and Flickr, but it was his mastery of cultivating relationships that was especially valuable to the lab.

Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn, once said Mr. Ito “makes well-networked professionals look like hermits.” His mentors include Lawrence Lessig, the influential law professor and founder of Creative Commons, the nonprofit advocate for public intellectual property rights, where Mr. Ito was once chief executive. His online photo albums include pictures of the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the astronaut Leland Melvin and the filmmaker J. J. Abrams, a “director’s fellow” at the lab. And when Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, toured the United States last year — before the death of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — he attended a reception at the Media Lab.

It was perhaps inevitable that Mr. Ito would meet Mr. Epstein, another prolific networker. Both men attended the 1999 Billionaires’ Dinner, an annual event put on by the literary agent John Brockman, and belonged to the invitation-only Trilateral Commission in 2003.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Ito said he had met Mr. Epstein in a hotel lobby during a conference in 2013, five years after Mr. Epstein’s plea in Florida. Mr. Epstein long cultivated relationships with celebrity scientists, many of whom Mr. Ito also knew, and eagerly associated himself with the Media Lab. In 2014, he issued news releases about donations to restore Mark Rothko murals on the campus and teach coding to 5-year-olds. (The Media Lab later called those statements inaccurate.)

The lab served as an avenue for Mr. Epstein to seek connections to the wider tech world.

Elizabeth Stark, the chief executive of the cryptocurrency start-up Lightning Labs, was not affiliated with the lab but knew Mr. Ito and several others there. When she was raising money for her company in 2015, someone at the lab contacted her and offered to invest Mr. Epstein’s money. Ms. Stark found a news article about Mr. Epstein’s history and turned it down.

“In five minutes I was able to Google and make a determination that seemed like such a no-brainer,” she said.

Critics who called for Mr. Ito’s resignation cited his decision to ignore warnings about Mr. Epstein.

Ethan Zuckerman, a longtime friend of Mr. Ito’s who said he would leave the lab over Mr. Epstein’s donations, wrote in an online post that he had rejected an invitation from Mr. Ito to meet Mr. Epstein in 2014, and had urged Mr. Ito to do the same. Sarah Szalavitz, a social designer and external fellow at the lab, said in an interview that she had told Mr. Ito in December 2013 that the lab should stop collaborating with Mr. Epstein, and had given him a memo outlining her concerns.

Mr. Ito did distance himself from Mr. Epstein eventually, after a damning article in The Miami Herald last year about Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal. Mr. Ito told the gathering that Mr. Epstein had sent a $25,000 check to the lab, which he had promptly returned.

Rosalind Picard, who runs a research group at the lab, said Mr. Ito — who once gave a fellowship to a convicted murderer turned community activist — had believed Mr. Epstein’s claims of being reformed.

“Joi recognizes that not everybody takes the straight and narrow path, and that sometimes people need the chance to redeem themselves,” she said. “He didn’t know Epstein was the monster we now know he was.”

Mr. Epstein’s contributions have already disrupted the lab’s work. It will not hand out this year’s Disobedience Award — a $250,000 prize that has recognized #MeToo activists and others “challenging the norms, rules or laws that sustain society’s injustices” — as Mr. Ito focuses on “healing the Media Lab community,” according to an email he sent that was reviewed by The Times.

One person who was on the award committee, the writer and former Times columnist Anand Giridharadas, told his fellow members in an email he would not participate in 2020 unless the lab was purged of people tied to Mr. Epstein.

“A plutocratic predator was welcomed into a citadel of American thinking and doing, and this welcome was personally exploited beyond the original relationship,” he wrote.

For many associates of the lab, the situation remains complicated. Mr. Zuckerman, who pledged to leave next year, expressed support on Twitter for those who had spoken up, “including those who think Joi’s apology was sufficient and we should move on.”

Mr. Negroponte’s comments could make that more challenging than it might otherwise have been. On Thursday, three prominent professors who had organized the meeting to buttress support for Mr. Ito sent a message to the lab disavowing Mr. Negroponte’s comments.

“While we appreciate what he has done for the lab in the past, he no longer speaks for us,” they wrote in the email, which was reviewed by The Times. “And through his behavior he has demonstrated that he has no part in building the future we want.”

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/americans-encouraged-hate/

The One People Americans Are Encouraged to Hate

by Yvonne Lorenzo for Ooduarere via The Saker Blog

How would you react if you read the following statements and found that they were spoken by government employees who are part of the American Deep State and have a great deal of power over the nation and you? Wouldn’t the prejudice appall and disgust you?

“I do always hate the Israelis,” Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Israel probe, testified to Congress in July 2018. “It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Israel poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life.” As he opened the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign’s ties to Israel in July 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: “fuck the cheating motherfucking Israelis… Bastards. I hate them… I think they’re probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages.” Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Israeli nationals as a cause for alarm: “The Israelis,” Clapper said, “almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Israeli technique. So we were concerned.”

Of course, readers of Ooduarere know that the officials quoted never actually made those remarks about the Israelis; nor did they express their hatred of Germans, Saudi Arabians, Turks, French, Libyan, Congolese, Somalians, Germans, Italians, British, Canadians, Greeks, or even Chinese. No; the actual nation and people named were the Russians. Here is the link to the original excellent piece published in The Nation. Yet it seems perhaps not with a touch of irony the speakers were engaging in projection and discussing themselves, the so-called America elites.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember how I found ooduarere and The Saker, originally not on this official site of his but at Blogspot blog. Yet as an American slowly waking up to the terrible truths of the corruption and destructive actions engaged by the American government and its “Deep State” from reading LewRockwell.com (where I later became a contributor to Lew’s site via this link) and supporting Ron Paul, I was horrified to discover that American “fair play” was only an illusion. Nevertheless, I am astonished by the hatred that I quoted. In this time of extraordinary oppression against any individual who dares challenge certain dogmas, that is to say if anyone is White and a true follower of the Way of Jesus Christ especially, for example, as The Saker himself wrote recently on the whole homosexual brouhaha here, then the full force of the establishment, the powers that be, will be brought to bear—your employment, perhaps your life would be at risk. Not that Lisa Page or Peter Strozk would ever dare to criticize Israel, or look into the mirror and see themselves as they truly are, but if they did, they’d probably be taken to a CIA black site and waterboarded for their troubles.

A few years ago, I was truly haunted by a photograph posted on the Saker’s site of a beautiful young woman and her infant child; I can’t recall the link yet I believe the post was by a Saker contributor. The two were murdered by shelling from the Neo-Nazi Ukrainians. I wonder why Putin in his interview with Oliver Stone didn’t, in his usual calm yet convincing manner, discuss the terrible loss of life and the tens of thousands of refugees, the human suffering caused by the American Empire, for after all Victoria Nuland admitted that billions were poured into Ukraine in support of “regime change.” Nevertheless, what astonishes me is the complete lack of empathy, in fact the evident enjoyment in wreaking havoc and death around the world on the part of America’s political class especially.

Meanwhile, back in America, America itself is breaking apart at the seams. How can one maintain an empire when the empire itself is built on sand? As Boyd D. Cathey noted in his piece “Is It Time for America to Break Apart?”:

“There are then, palpably, two Americas. They still use the same language, but they are increasingly incapable of communicating with each other. Almost weekly words and terms are redefined beyond comprehension, and those ‘devil terms’ have become the modern equivalents of linguistic hydrogen bombs deployed by the progressivists. They illustrate what political theorist Paul Gottfried has called a ‘post-Marxist’ praxis that has actually moved beyond the assaults of cultural Marxism towards a new and imposed template.

“No dissent from this template is permitted in our society. If it demands you call black, white; then you must comply, or suffer the consequences. If your eyes tell you one thing, but the collective media and elites tell you something else, ‘who you gonna believe, them or your lying eyes’?”

I shared the Nation piece, since the news of the statements by the corrupt Page and Strozk were new to me, with The Saker and SmoothieX12, Andrei Martyanov who posted about it on his blog. I think this insight Martyanov offers is important but not the full picture.

He writes, “It is always funny to read about ‘values’ and ‘ideals’–if that ‘way of life’ continues, the end-result will be precisely [the] total elimination of everything of true value [the] combined West ever produced with the US Constitution being shredded to pieces. Ah, wait, I forgot–these are the thoughts of people who are directly involved in [a] criminal coup attempt, which by definition is anti-constitutional and violates this very same ‘way of life’ these people allegedly try to protect. One has to have, of course, [an] appreciation of their fever-pitch hatred of Russians and, what matters here, this is not private, [not] an exception that is, attitude. It is not a secret that [a] very large strata of US policy-makers is afflicted by Russophobia. A large part of this Russophobia, apart from being racial–you know, dirty Slavs and all that jazz–is very much a suppressed complex of inferiority. Throughout all 20th and 21st century not only Russia presented itself as an inconvenient impediment to America-the-savior-of-humanity narrative, but Russia remains the only nation which can remove the United States from the map and can conventionally defeat any combination of forces the United States can assemble. This simple fact makes many in US ‘elite’, which is largely ignorant on the issues of real war, very uncomfortable.”

In due time, I hope to have soon a conversation to be published with The Saker on the topic of Christianity in general and Orthodox Christianity in particular; while SmoothieX12’s secular commentary and observations are entirely correct, I truly believe something far more sinister is taking place. On display in these Russophobic statements is a malevolence, not just willful blindness, fear or arrogance. Is this an Adobe Photoshopped manipulated image or truly the real face and eyes of Peter Strozk taken during his Congressional testimony? What do believers see when they look at this?

Peter Strozk

Philip Giraldi wrote about Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to the rich and powerful “elites” and likely intelligence agencies here at Unz.com and also here on the Strategic Culture website. Aside from the intelligence angle, Vanity Fair discusses the people Epstein “collected” in this article:

“Epstein remained a fixture in elite circles even after he was a registered sex offender. A few years ago, for example, he was a guest at a dinner in Palo Alto hosted by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden. At the dinner, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. (‘Mark met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein,’ Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBol told me. ‘Mark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.’)…

“One source who’s done business with Epstein told me that Epstein’s 21,000-square-foot townhouse on East 71st Street welcomed a steady stream of the Davos crowd in the past decade. The source said Bill Gates, Larry Summers, and Steve Bannon visited the house, which has been called one of the largest private residences in Manhattan. ‘Jeffrey collected people. That’s what he did,’ the source said. Gates and Summers did not respond to requests for comment.”

The site Vigilant Citizen, run by anonymous individuals who investigate the occult hallmarks of the Western “elites,” discussed Epstein on this post via this link and noted his connections to the rich and powerful along with occult symbolism on structures on his island:

The fact that a “temple” was built on an island known for extreme depravity is disturbing. However, when one fully understands the mindset of the occult elite, it makes perfect sense. It is all about symbolism and ritual.

For instance, the “temple” has a striking resemblance with Hammam Yalbugha – a Mamluk-era public bath located in Syria.

Why did Epstein model his “temple” on this specific building? Because of the symbolism attached to it. Indeed, the hammam is a classic example of architecture from the Mamluk era. In Arabic, the word “mamluk” literally means “property” and is used to designate slaves.

During the Mamluk era, children were captured by the ruling class to become slaves. Boys were usually trained to become soldiers while girls were groomed to become the personal concubines of their masters. Considering the fact that Epstein island was used to import child sex slaves for the elite, the symbolism is perfectly fitting.

In order to give the “temple” an unmistakeable occult dimension, the building was adorned with golden statues representing gods (Neptune) and owl-like birds. The building is also surrounded by maze-like patterns, similar to those found in Islamic architecture.

To get a better feel of Epstein island, I suggest you view this drone footage which provides great shots of some truly bizarre elements.

Epstein Island Temple

Hammam Yalbugha Aleppo, Syria

In my opinion, something far worse is going on than fear and self-loathing within the souls of the rich and powerful who rule the Western world, not merely decadence. Global Western “elites” are malevolent sociopaths (although I suspect several of the individuals in the Russian “Fifth column” Saker writes about are as well); while America is disintegrating around them, these elites still can cause great mischief. Reader of my words who are Americans must do all they can to resist and challenge these monsters in power; for monsters they are. Yes, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty but the fact remains the armies they control have killed and maimed millions of innocents throughout the world, including children. That I as a believer I think there is something evil behind them and within them is not provable by the scientific method perhaps; but I trust that my concerns are valid. If the reader of my words is a believer, please pray.

Yvonne Lorenzo [send her mail] makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece and by Mises, Murray Rothbard, Tom Woods, Joseph Sobran, and Lew Rockwell. Her interests include gardening, mythology, ancient history, The Electric Universe, and classical music, especially the compositions of Handel, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author Son of Thunder and The Cloak of Freya.

[talabib]

Tools To Succeed In The Modern Job Market

We all like to believe the perfect job is out there waiting for us. But with so many places advertising vacancies – agencies, apps, social media and more – it’s hard to know exactly where to look. And as technology advances and brand new roles are created, the sheer number of possibilities and opportunities makes the task even more intimidating.

Finding your niche in the modern world of work can be overwhelming. Experts have come up with a list of New Rules to help you navigate the ever-changing landscape. These rules encourage you to think about what you value most and to let those values guide you all the way from job search to job interview.

If you’re stuck in a work rut, looking to change lanes and challenge yourself, or even if you’re still picking a college major, the New Rules will help you make informed choices and prepare you for your first day at that dream job.

Identifying your personal values will help you differentiate between the job you think you want and the role you’ll actually enjoy.

Ever found yourself on a job-search website staring at the blank search bar, wondering what to type? Traditional searches like this are only helpful if you already know what you want to do. So, if you’re not sure what that is, you’ll need to identify your values.

Every person’s idea of happiness is different. Think about what you need to feel happy and fulfilled. Perhaps you need a creative outlet, the opportunity to travel or the ability to make a positive impact in the world. These are your values, and they should determine what you look for in a job.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, your current job might not line up with your values. Kathryn once found herself in exactly this situation; though she’d landed the job she always wanted, she wasn’t fulfilled.

Kathryn majored in international relations and French and dreamed of a career in the foreign service. But a few weeks into her dream job at the US embassy in Cyprus, Kathryn realized the pace at which policy changes could be implemented wasn’t what she’d expected.

It was so slow as to be incompatible with her need to see the results of her work: Kathryn needed a job that fulfilled her need to roll up her sleeves and make a noticeable impact.

As you consider your own needs, be conscious of outside influences, such as your parents’ expectations for your career, and don’t be swayed by external pressure. That’s something Alex realized early on.

Alex grew up in France where school pupils must select a course of study – either science, literature or economics – at age 15. Alex chose science. In her senior year, she then had to choose between biology, math and physics. She chose biology and developed an interest in genetics.

It was only after relocating to the United States to study genetics that Alex realized she didn’t enjoy the everyday lab work that would be a large part of her job if she were to continue in the field. She was faced with the challenge of reassessing what she thought she wanted. She ended up pursuing a career in consultancy, where she met Kathryn, and cofounded their consulting company, The Muse.

Just think, if Alex and Kathryn hadn’t taken stock of what was important to them, they’d never have met.

Find surprising career options through strategic research, and explore potential areas of interest before diving in.

So you’ve decided you’re born to be a designer. That’s great. But before you start firing off résumés for every creative role you find, consider whether the position you’re applying for aligns with your values. Designing for a small NGO, for example, will be wildly different from working at a multinational corporation.

To be truly satisfied in your work, you should consider your interests, skills and values all together. That’s what Sarah, a literary studies graduate, learned after starting a career in publishing. She thought it would be the perfect match for her expertise and interests, assuming it would let her read, write and work with like-minded people.

But a year at a traditional publishing house disabused her of these assumptions. Sarah spent more time at her desk than engaging with experts in the field. So she researched roles that would combine her literary interests with her need to interact with those producing literature. Recognizing this need helped her focus her job search and find her current role as the leader of business development at a self-publishing start-up.

But how can you know if your chosen career lines up with your values before you actually start it?

Experts suggests making a grid. Down the left-hand side, list six roles or industries you may be interested in. At the top, write down your three most important values. Now consider how – and if – each role and industry will enable you to live by those values.

If you’re not sure what each role involves, look at the LinkedIn profiles of people with that job at companies you’re interested in. It’ll show you which skills you need and what those who’ve held the role in the past have gone on to do.

If that’s not enough information, get proactive to gain a fuller understanding.

Before starting The Muse, Kathryn got in touch with a former colleague who was also starting a business. Kathryn could talk honestly with him about the pros and cons of being a young entrepreneur and got a firsthand look at the daily life of a start-up CEO by joining him on sales trips for his company.

When you’ve got a clearer idea of which role and industry best matches your values, you’ll be ready to show employers that you’re the perfect fit for their values.

Developing a personal brand that showcases your best attributes will enable you to guide how others see you.

Coca-Cola. Nike. You. What do they all have in common? Well, they’re all brands. Branding isn’t just for companies anymore – it’s also a way for prospective employers to gain insight into your personality.

Experts suggest requesting feedback from your peers on the qualities that make you stand out. Take the three most commonly used descriptors and communicate them in a way that presents you as a good employee, not just a nice person.

Take Jennifer, for example. When Jennifer tried this exercise, colleagues described her as “super nice,” “works hard for others” and “easy to get along with.” When introducing herself to employers, Jennifer might phrase her attributes in a way that demonstrates their value to the employer, such as, “Relationship builder, strong follow-through and motivated to collaborate.”

Using this method, you can be honest about your strengths and weaknesses and still present yourself as the best fit for the job. Consider Zach, who also completed this exercise. Zach’s peers described him as “willing to take risks,” “passionate and occasionally stubborn,” “authoritative” and “irreverent.” These could be interpreted as qualities of a difficult, overbearing character, but Zach could turn them to his advantage, marketing himself as a confident, ambitious leader, who will go above and beyond to achieve company goals.

Your attributes will form your unique brand, and every interaction you have should support the image you put forward. This applies to both face-to-face and online interactions. The companies you follow, the content you post, the way you communicate – it should all showcase your interests, expertise and personality.

However, traditional social network templates often limit how you can communicate your skills. To have complete freedom over how you present yourself and your work, experts recommend setting up a personal website.

That’s what Jillian Youngblood did when she decided to transition from a career in politics to a role in tech. She built her own website to demonstrate her web-development abilities. The head of a development team found the site, and Jillian was invited to an interview, something that may not have happened if she had stuck with a more traditional job template.

Treat your professional profiles similar to a dating profile – no lies, just carefully curated highlights that show you at your best. And definitely no swimsuit photos!

Rethink how you network: build long-term relationships and use those contacts to find opportunities before they’re advertised.

If the word “networking” conjures up images of cheap wine, dry canapés and awkward small talk with strangers, you’re not following the New Rules.

Formal networking events are no longer the most efficient way to expand your professional circle. Social media, in contrast, can put you in instant touch with interesting people within your industry. Your interactions can be as easy as a Twitter exchange, joining a Facebook group or a message inviting someone for a coffee.

Why not take a leaf out of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s book? He holds dinner parties, invites three interesting people and asks each of them to invite three of their friends. With this kind of event, you never know who you’ll meet or what you might learn.

Traditionally, networking has focused on finding people who can help you out immediately, but it’s just as important to nurture relationships over time, as you never know when that relationship will pay off.

Take Alex, She met a writer at a conference, and they stayed in touch, catching up whenever they were in the same city. When her contact was going through a career transition, Alex was glad to offer her advice. Years later, Alex was looking to solve a work problem of her own. Her contact happened to be working for the particular social networking site she needed help from and was happy to help Alex out.

If cultivating your network this way sounds time-consuming, just remember that you don’t need a huge network, just the right one. Most job postings are never advertised, so bring yourself to the attention of the hiring manager of every company you’re interested in. Next time a position becomes available, they’ll have you in mind. This approach certainly worked for Elliott Bell.

In 2012, Elliott heard Kathryn speak at the Women 2.0 conference. The very next day, he sent her a LinkedIn message, mentioning he was blown away by Kathryn’s speech, her team and the company itself. He briefly detailed his marketing experience, how his knowledge could help her expand her business and asked for the chance to discuss his ideas further. He even mentioned a mutual contact, who gave Elliott a glowing reference after Kathryn got in touch.

Kathryn wasn’t actively hiring at the time, but she was so impressed with Elliott that he was hired a few months later as head of marketing, where he stayed for four years and established the marketing team.

First impressions are crucial, so put just as much effort into your application as you did into your job search.

Did you know that 55 percent of hiring managers won’t even read your cover letter? That’s what a September 2015 Jobvite survey found. So why should you bother writing one? Well, because 45 percent of managers will read it!

Experts believe a well-thought-out résumé and cover letter can make all the difference. The key is making the information most relevant to your application – whether that’s your experience or your education – easy to find. It should appear in the top third of your one-page résumé, even if that means taking achievements out of chronological order.

If it sounds like a chore to rewrite your résumé for every application, keep a master document of your achievements and employment history. Then all you have to do is copy and paste the most relevant examples into each version of your résumé.

When it comes to your cover letter, avoid repeating the contents of your résumé. The résumé will show you have the skills to do the job; the cover letter is your chance to demonstrate that you are the best fit.

Try starting your letter with a relevant anecdote. It will grab the hiring manager’s attention and let your personality shine through. That’s what Abby Wolfe did when she applied to intern at a big firm.

Abby submitted her application on October 21, 2015 – the day that Marty McFly traveled to the future in the movie Back to the Future Part II. Abby displayed her creativity by comparing Marty’s future-changing action to her own hopefully future-altering decision. She then emphasized her best attributes with personal stories, and even memes. It really caught the attention of the hiring team and showed that Abby understood the company culture. Needless to say, she got the job.

Abby was able to show, as well as tell, her future employer that she was the best candidate for the job. You can do the same by backing up your skills with concrete examples. Perhaps you can quote increased sales figures as a result of a campaign you led or increased employee engagement as a result of an event you organized.

Why not show that you can already do the job you’re applying for? One BuzzFeed applicant, for example, turned her cover letter into a classic BuzzFeed-style article. It demonstrated she was familiar with the company and its culture.

So what if you send off your perfectly tailored application and hear nothing back? You should check in after about a week. If you can make your follow-up memorable, too, it’ll give your application an extra boost.

The hard work doesn’t end with a job offer; recognize your worth and negotiate a contract that fits your values and lifestyle.

Congratulations! You’ve worked hard, been through several rounds of interviews and the HR department at your dream company has called to offer you the position.

Naturally, you’ll want to say, “Thanks! When do I start?” But there’s good reason to hold off on accepting an offer. Addressing any reservations you have at this stage will save you time and stress in the future.

Once you’ve been offered the job, you’re finally the one in a position of power. The contract can’t start without your signature, so be sure the role and industry align with your values before accepting.

Be honest with yourself. It may sound like a promising opportunity, but ask yourself how it fits with the lifestyle you want. Maybe you’re planning a big trip, but the vacation pay isn’t great. Maybe you’re ready to start a family, but the parental leave is unpaid. These things can all be negotiated. It may sound intimidating, but companies will expect you to ask questions.

So how do you know if you’ll be happy in the job? You guessed it – more research.

Some simple detective work on LinkedIn will give you an idea of the company’s employee turnover, what your career progression could look like and what the company culture is. You may want to contact current or former employees with more specific questions.

If this seems excessive, consider Kathryn’s experience. Kathryn eagerly accepted a new job without looking much further than the job description. It wasn’t until she arrived in the office and met the team that she realized her colleagues would be less than inspiring. Some research beforehand would have informed Kathryn that the working environment wasn’t a good fit for her.

Even if you’re certain that accepting the job is the right decision and you’re happy with the conditions, there are additional benefits to consider. Perhaps you can’t negotiate the salary, but it doesn’t cost you anything to negotiate your title – something that could make a world of difference when it comes to your next job search.

Let’s say you’re offered the role of “HR assistant.” Why not ask to have it changed to “HR generalist.” You instantly sound more experienced!

Lastly, be prepared to say no if you’re not convinced that the job is a good fit. Your working environment has lasting effects on your happiness and personal growth, so turning an offer down may be the best decision for you.

Choosing the right communication channel and nurturing relationships across the company will help you thrive.

“Excellent communication skills,” “Confident communicator,” “Communications genius.” Some version of this undoubtedly appears on your résumé – and hopefully with good reason. Being a strong communicator is key for working well with colleagues, avoiding conflict and building relationships.

Think carefully about what you want to achieve with the information you deliver, who you’re trying to reach with it and the most efficient way to deliver that message. Some colleagues will prefer a phone call; others will prefer email. Choosing the right channel will save you and your colleagues time.

Alex learned this lesson when she worked under two very different managers. Each had a very different communication style. One was gregarious and quick on her feet. If Alex had a question, she could pop into the manager’s office for an instant answer.

Alex’s second manager was thoughtful, analytical and valued focus. Alex learned it was better to save up her questions for this manager and ask them all at one time. If Alex hadn’t adapted to each manager’s personality, it would have affected her own and her managers’ productivities.

It’s worth thinking about who you communicate with, too. In the workplace, you would traditionally only build relationships with people on the same level or maybe the next level up, but the New Rules place importance on nurturing relationships at all levels. You never know who you can learn from – even new hires have something to offer, as their inexperience allows them to see the company through fresh eyes.

Kathryn received mentorship from her peers. When her company was getting off the ground, Kathryn reached out to investors, and she found that the best advice came not from well-established business people, but from other early-stage start-up founders. They had just gone through the same process as Kathryn, so their knowledge was current and firsthand.

In contrast, Alex was mentored by somebody higher up. Alex worked with a manager at McKinsey & Company, whose balanced communication style she wanted to emulate. Even when she no longer worked under the manager, Alex continued to work with and learn from her. The manager became a mentor, giving feedback, introducing Alex to opportunities and helping her develop her own style.

Don’t forget: everybody has valuable wisdom to share – including you.

Take charge of your personal growth by identifying and developing the skills you need to move forward as your values evolve.

So you’ve found a job that matches your values, bought a cactus for your desk and claimed your favorite coffee mug from the kitchen. Don’t get too cozy! As your values change over time, you’ll need to make upward or lateral moves. Keep adding to your skills, and you’ll not only become more efficient in your current role; you’ll also be well prepared for your next challenge.

There’s no need to sign up for night classes – just stay curious and remain open to learning new things. You could start by working on your productivity.

In 2012, a LinkedIn survey showed that 90 percent of professionals admit they’re unable to accomplish all the tasks on their to-do list by the end of the day. If you’re in that 90 percent, there are strategies to help.

Entrepreneur Robyn Scott suggests thinking about how completing tasks will make you feel and grouping tasks under the emotion you will experience on completion. Focus on the motivation behind each task.

Finishing your tax return will ease financial worries, phoning a friend will lift your spirits and exercise will leave you feeling fit and ready for anything. It’s no longer a long to-do list, but a list of tasks whose completion will lead to emotional rewards – a good trick for chronic procrastinators.

Your job will also change as technology evolves. You have to be proactive to acquire the new skills required to keep up.

Say you often work with software developers but have no head for tech; why not sign up for some coding classes? You’ll gain an understanding of the developers’ job and learn a new skill in the process.

Another effective way to prepare yourself for a career move is managing up. When you understand how your role supports your manager’s goals, it makes you and your manager more efficient. Build a relationship with her, get to know the challenges of her job and find ways to take work off her plate without being asked.

Looking beyond your own responsibilities not only shows that you’re dedicated to your development, but it also makes clear that you care about the company as a whole. And when you do move on, you’ll take more from the job than just a cactus and a coffee mug – you’ll have a wealth of skills and achievements under your belt.

Exploring and understanding your personal values is the key to a happy and fulfilling work life. For a lifetime of satisfaction, assess these values every few years. Meanwhile, strive to keep learning new skills and building meaningful relationships at all levels in the workplace.

[blogparadiseisland]

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-deafening-silence-of-colin-kaepernick/

Nature

A tall, unemployed man took his niece to see Serena and Venus Williams play each other at the United States Open on Friday of last week. The man, a free-agent football player clad in a simple black T-shirt, was briefly shown on the video board at Arthur Ashe Stadium to thunderous applause from the crowd. His response was little more than a smile, enough to light up social media with messages of support.

On Monday, the same player shared on Twitter a new advertisement by Nike featuring a close-up of his face and nine words of type that, while drawing acclaim from many, also drove other people to social media to post photos of themselves destroying their Nike gear.

Such is life for Colin Kaepernick, a hero to some and a pariah to others, who has become one of the most influential athletes in the current sports landscape, all while rarely saying a word.

It was Kaepernick who, as a quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, sat then, after consulting a military veteran, started kneeling during the national anthem before N.F.L. games in 2016. He said he wanted to raise awareness of racism, social injustice and police brutality against “black people and people of color.”

He was soon joined in that protest by Eric Reid, a former teammate who was also by his side the other night at the Open. Their protest, which other players have continued even as Kaepernick and Reid have not been signed by any teams, continues to stir debate online, divide fans and the league owners, captivate celebrities and athletes and motivate President Trump to persistently tweet his anger over it.

But Kaepernick has kept his own voice largely out of those debates. As he works his way through a grievance against the N.F.L., accusing it of colluding to keep him out of a job, he has employed a savvy use of Twitter and other social media platforms, along with the occasional carefully staged public appearance, to make his points. And by all indicators most people are getting the message loud and clear.

Nature The Declaration of Silence

In November 2017, with the reality setting in that teams were not going to sign him despite his having led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance after the 2012 season, GQ named Kaepernick the magazine’s Citizen of the Year. The issue was executed with Kaepernick’s permission and assistance, and he posed for photographs, but he declined to be interviewed.

In an article titled “Colin Kaepernick Will Not Be Silenced,” GQ’s editors said “he has grown wise to the power of his silence” and that Kaepernick was hoping to reclaim the driving force of the protest movement from President Trump, who the editors said had distorted it into something entirely different.

Nature The Amnesty International Speech

Kaepernick stayed true to that public silence as he filed a grievance against the league. Over the course of the 2017 season, Kaepernick let others point out the fact that, statistically, he was a superior option to nearly every team’s backup, and several teams’ starters. It wasn’t until April, when he accepted Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience award, that he publicly discussed, in any meaningful way, the protest, what it means to him and what life is like without a team.

The speech, delivered in the Netherlands, lasted just over seven minutes.

He expressed concern that Reid had paid the same price he had for the protest and he sought to emphasize the original rationale of his protest: “As police officers continue to terrorize black and brown communities, abusing their power, and then hiding behind their blue wall of silence, and laws that allow for them to kill us with virtual impunity, I have realized that our love, that sometimes manifests as black rage, is a beautiful form of defiance against a system that seeks to suppress our humanity. A system that wants us to hate ourselves.”

Nature Speaking Without Speaking

Kaepernick’s ability to remain in the public spotlight — and at the heart of the N.F.L.’s protests — stems largely from his use of social media, where an audience in the millions follows him on multiple platforms and tracks his public appearances.

His use of social media is especially intriguing because it is often lost just how rarely the words are actually coming from Kaepernick himself. Kaepernick has posted to Twitter more than 11,000 times, but since his declaration of silence to GQ, the overwhelming majority of the posts are retweets or posts under his name where he is simply sharing the words of others.

Who he follows

The 119 Twitter accounts he follows tell a story by, for the most part, fitting into four tidy categories: political accounts, celebrities, athletes and his family members. He follows the activists DeRay Mckesson and Shaun King, the filmmaker Ava DuVernay and politically-vocal athletes like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Marshawn Lynch and Stephen Curry. He notably does not follow Malcolm Jenkins, the Philadelphia Eagles player who is the active player most associated with protesting during the anthem. Kaepernick and Reid were reported to have had a falling out with Jenkins last year over Jenkins’ willingness to compromise with the N.F.L. in a deal that provided $89 million for various social causes.

(Kaepernick’s following list is not all on message, however, as the lone entry that cannot seemingly fit into one of his four categories is the viral video account @ThingsWork. Staying focused is important, but finding out how to fold a Chinese dumpling is also cool.)

What he posts

Rather than posting his own thoughts, Kaepernick mostly retweets other accounts. His selection includes messages of support for protesting players, relevant news, posts by Reid and other athletes, and frequently the thoughts of his girlfriend, the radio and television host Nessa Diab, and his close friend Ameer Hasan Loggins, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley who posts under the name @LeftSentThis. On Instagram and Facebook, where the ability to recirculate posts from others can be tricky, he still rarely posts in his own voice.

That so much of his message is delivered through the words of others only served to amplify Kaepernick’s personal posts of support to the Miami Dolphins players Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson, both of whom knelt during the anthem before a preseason game last month. He did not post, or even retweet, in support of Miami’s Robert Quinn or Philadelphia’s Jenkins, both of whom raised a fist during the anthem.

In an interesting twist, Kaepernick got a taste of his own social media medicine on Tuesday when Tom Brady, the biggest star in the N.F.L. and a player with a somewhat complicated relationship with President Trump, liked an Instagram post from GQ’s account that shared Kaepernick’s Nike ad. The wordless gesture, interpreted by many as support for Kaepernick, sent people on social media scurrying to figure out what the click could mean.

Nature Where does he go from here?

Last week, an arbitrator denied the N.F.L.’s request to have Kaepernick’s collusion complaint dismissed. The news of the decision was announced on social media by Kaepernick’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, and it was declared by many to be a significant step in Kaepernick’s ability to remain a thorn in the N.F.L.’s side, even if the bar for winning his case is fairly high.

Image

Kaepernick, as was to be expected, kept his voice out of the mix. His personal account retweeted Geragos’s announcement along with a post by Russell Okung, a politically minded player, expanding on the decision. But Kaepernick wasted little time on his personal victory before moving on by retweeting further messages of support for the protests of Stills and Wilson, both of whom knelt again during the anthem before that night’s preseason game.

Kaepernick’s message is focused. His voice remains silent.

Ken Belson contributed reporting.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/sports/colin-kaepernick-nfl-anthem-kneeling.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/benjamin-hoffman, http://www.nytimes.com/by/talya-minsberg

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick, in 2018-09-04 21:39:51

[blogwonderwebsites]

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-deafening-silence-of-colin-kaepernick/

Nature

A tall, unemployed man took his niece to see Serena and Venus Williams play each other at the United States Open on Friday of last week. The man, a free-agent football player clad in a simple black T-shirt, was briefly shown on the video board at Arthur Ashe Stadium to thunderous applause from the crowd. His response was little more than a smile, enough to light up social media with messages of support.

On Monday, the same player shared on Twitter a new advertisement by Nike featuring a close-up of his face and nine words of type that, while drawing acclaim from many, also drove other people to social media to post photos of themselves destroying their Nike gear.

Such is life for Colin Kaepernick, a hero to some and a pariah to others, who has become one of the most influential athletes in the current sports landscape, all while rarely saying a word.

It was Kaepernick who, as a quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, sat then, after consulting a military veteran, started kneeling during the national anthem before N.F.L. games in 2016. He said he wanted to raise awareness of racism, social injustice and police brutality against “black people and people of color.”

He was soon joined in that protest by Eric Reid, a former teammate who was also by his side the other night at the Open. Their protest, which other players have continued even as Kaepernick and Reid have not been signed by any teams, continues to stir debate online, divide fans and the league owners, captivate celebrities and athletes and motivate President Trump to persistently tweet his anger over it.

But Kaepernick has kept his own voice largely out of those debates. As he works his way through a grievance against the N.F.L., accusing it of colluding to keep him out of a job, he has employed a savvy use of Twitter and other social media platforms, along with the occasional carefully staged public appearance, to make his points. And by all indicators most people are getting the message loud and clear.

Nature The Declaration of Silence

In November 2017, with the reality setting in that teams were not going to sign him despite his having led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance after the 2012 season, GQ named Kaepernick the magazine’s Citizen of the Year. The issue was executed with Kaepernick’s permission and assistance, and he posed for photographs, but he declined to be interviewed.

In an article titled “Colin Kaepernick Will Not Be Silenced,” GQ’s editors said “he has grown wise to the power of his silence” and that Kaepernick was hoping to reclaim the driving force of the protest movement from President Trump, who the editors said had distorted it into something entirely different.

Nature The Amnesty International Speech

Kaepernick stayed true to that public silence as he filed a grievance against the league. Over the course of the 2017 season, Kaepernick let others point out the fact that, statistically, he was a superior option to nearly every team’s backup, and several teams’ starters. It wasn’t until April, when he accepted Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience award, that he publicly discussed, in any meaningful way, the protest, what it means to him and what life is like without a team.

The speech, delivered in the Netherlands, lasted just over seven minutes.

He expressed concern that Reid had paid the same price he had for the protest and he sought to emphasize the original rationale of his protest: “As police officers continue to terrorize black and brown communities, abusing their power, and then hiding behind their blue wall of silence, and laws that allow for them to kill us with virtual impunity, I have realized that our love, that sometimes manifests as black rage, is a beautiful form of defiance against a system that seeks to suppress our humanity. A system that wants us to hate ourselves.”

Nature Speaking Without Speaking

Kaepernick’s ability to remain in the public spotlight — and at the heart of the N.F.L.’s protests — stems largely from his use of social media, where an audience in the millions follows him on multiple platforms and tracks his public appearances.

His use of social media is especially intriguing because it is often lost just how rarely the words are actually coming from Kaepernick himself. Kaepernick has posted to Twitter more than 11,000 times, but since his declaration of silence to GQ, the overwhelming majority of the posts are retweets or posts under his name where he is simply sharing the words of others.

Who he follows

The 119 Twitter accounts he follows tell a story by, for the most part, fitting into four tidy categories: political accounts, celebrities, athletes and his family members. He follows the activists DeRay Mckesson and Shaun King, the filmmaker Ava DuVernay and politically-vocal athletes like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Marshawn Lynch and Stephen Curry. He notably does not follow Malcolm Jenkins, the Philadelphia Eagles player who is the active player most associated with protesting during the anthem. Kaepernick and Reid were reported to have had a falling out with Jenkins last year over Jenkins’ willingness to compromise with the N.F.L. in a deal that provided $89 million for various social causes.

(Kaepernick’s following list is not all on message, however, as the lone entry that cannot seemingly fit into one of his four categories is the viral video account @ThingsWork. Staying focused is important, but finding out how to fold a Chinese dumpling is also cool.)

What he posts

Rather than posting his own thoughts, Kaepernick mostly retweets other accounts. His selection includes messages of support for protesting players, relevant news, posts by Reid and other athletes, and frequently the thoughts of his girlfriend, the radio and television host Nessa Diab, and his close friend Ameer Hasan Loggins, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Berkeley who posts under the name @LeftSentThis. On Instagram and Facebook, where the ability to recirculate posts from others can be tricky, he still rarely posts in his own voice.

That so much of his message is delivered through the words of others only served to amplify Kaepernick’s personal posts of support to the Miami Dolphins players Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson, both of whom knelt during the anthem before a preseason game last month. He did not post, or even retweet, in support of Miami’s Robert Quinn or Philadelphia’s Jenkins, both of whom raised a fist during the anthem.

In an interesting twist, Kaepernick got a taste of his own social media medicine on Tuesday when Tom Brady, the biggest star in the N.F.L. and a player with a somewhat complicated relationship with President Trump, liked an Instagram post from GQ’s account that shared Kaepernick’s Nike ad. The wordless gesture, interpreted by many as support for Kaepernick, sent people on social media scurrying to figure out what the click could mean.

Nature Where does he go from here?

Last week, an arbitrator denied the N.F.L.’s request to have Kaepernick’s collusion complaint dismissed. The news of the decision was announced on social media by Kaepernick’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, and it was declared by many to be a significant step in Kaepernick’s ability to remain a thorn in the N.F.L.’s side, even if the bar for winning his case is fairly high.

Image

Kaepernick, as was to be expected, kept his voice out of the mix. His personal account retweeted Geragos’s announcement along with a post by Russell Okung, a politically minded player, expanding on the decision. But Kaepernick wasted little time on his personal victory before moving on by retweeting further messages of support for the protests of Stills and Wilson, both of whom knelt again during the anthem before that night’s preseason game.

Kaepernick’s message is focused. His voice remains silent.

Ken Belson contributed reporting.

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/sports/colin-kaepernick-nfl-anthem-kneeling.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/benjamin-hoffman, http://www.nytimes.com/by/talya-minsberg

Nature The Deafening Silence of Colin Kaepernick, in 2018-09-04 21:39:51

[internetbasic9]

Nature Silicon Valley Doesn’t Like Trump. It Can Still Work With the Government.

Nature Silicon Valley Doesn’t Like Trump. It Can Still Work With the Government. Nature Silicon Valley Doesn’t Like Trump. It Can Still Work With the Government. https://ift.tt/2N5Tw3p

Nature

DealBook

Image

Alex Karp, the head of Palantir, whose software has been used to target terrorists, said American companies had a moral obligation to support the country and its military no matter who was president.CreditCreditChristophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock

Alex Karp grew up in a liberal household and considers himself a progressive. He voted for Hillary Clinton, and he lives and works in Silicon Valley.

Yet Mr. Karp, the chief executive of Palantir, has found himself increasingly at odds with his peers in the technology industry as it publicly distances itself from the government, particularly the Department of Defense, under President Trump.

Mr. Karp readily admits he would prefer that Mr. Trump didn’t occupy the Oval Office. But he believes that Silicon Valley — already facing something of a crisis of user confidence over issues including privacy and foreign influence — is setting itself up for a fall.

“It’s going to be a very significant problem for the Valley,” Mr. Karp, who rarely speaks publicly, said in an interview in his Manhattan office.

“I don’t know how you stand up and talk to a Marine or a special operator and explain to them how you have a piece of software that will allow them to come home — or more likely allow them to come home — and you’re not going to allow them to use it,” he said. “I think it’s a nearly impossible argument to make outside the Valley without people being legitimately pretty upset.”

Employees at companies including Google, Microsoft and Amazon don’t see it the same way. Google, under internal pressure, abandoned its contract with the Pentagon on Project Maven, which used artificial intelligence software to improve the analysis of imagery from drones. Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, has faced opposition from workers who want the company to end a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And Amazon employees have objected to providing facial recognition technology to police departments and other agencies.

All of this has set off a quiet — but growing — debate across corporate America in the age of Trump: What does it mean to be a patriotic company when you vehemently disagree with your nation’s leader?

Within the technology industry, the debate has been couched as a “moral and ethical” one: “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” employees wrote in a petition that led to the company’s withdrawal from Project Maven.

In truth, the ethical arguments are a diversion. This is political.

And there is a real danger in letting politics undermine the storied relationship between the government and Silicon Valley — Hewlett-Packard built sonar, radar and aviation equipment for the government during World War II, for example — that has led to much of the innovation we enjoy today.

Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and a member of the Defense Innovation Board, an independent federal advisory committee set up under President Barack Obama, said he believed that the partisanship that was contributing to the debate would ultimately stifle innovation.

“I worry that it will stall progress,” he said. “Innovation has been fueled for decades by private-public partnerships. It smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Even if you’re not a fan of the president, you can still serve your country.”

Mr. Karp, whose parents met at a civil rights demonstration, said he believed that American companies, including those in Silicon Valley, had a moral obligation to support the country and its military, no matter who was living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“We’re proud that we’re working with the U.S. government,” he said.

Of course, Mr. Karp certainly has an interest in maintaining relationships between the government and the technology sector. Palantir, which uses technology to analyze vast troves of data, was founded with the help of $2 million from the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm, and much of its business model was to use data to help the government in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But that makes his willingness to be so forthright about his view of the president refreshing when his peers who may have similar views stay quiet.

Image

Google abandoned a Pentagon contract in the face of internal opposition. Mr. Karp, who voted for Hillary Clinton, said that with government work, “you’re buying into the inherent fabric and structure of the country.”CreditChristie Hemm Klok for The New York Times

“I obviously am very biased,” he said. “I have a problem if I go to a cocktail party in Silicon Valley because they want to know, ‘Is it true that your product is used to target terrorists?’ Yes. And some people don’t agree with that. That’s fine, by the way. I don’t expect everyone to agree with that.”

His outspokenness is even more surprising given that a co-founder of Palantir is Peter Thiel, a serial entrepreneur who has publicly supported Mr. Trump.

“We didn’t vote for the same people,” Mr. Karp said without hesitation. “We’re not going to vote for the same people.”

Still, even if it is political allegiances that have prompted tech workers to push back, the ethical issues around artificial intelligence are not insignificant. Everyone from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking has raised questions about technological warfare in the future. But we are still likely decades away from those extreme kinds of worries being realized.

In fairness, the fears of some technology workers that their work will be used for ill do have a historical basis — in other countries. Ferdinand Porsche designed tanks for the Nazis, and Hugo Boss made their uniforms. Was that patriotism? Would it matter?

Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and sold it to Microsoft, where he now sits on the board, said there were real worries about how the government would use powerful technologies like artificial intelligence.

“I think that the majority of Silicon Valley people have a strong worry/reflex against weapons,” said Mr. Hoffman, who is a member of the Defense Innovation Board with Mr. Grant. The Trump administration, he said, has “amplified” concerns over “possible bad government action.”

But Mr. Karp said claims that a president could steer us toward an authoritarian world powered by artificial intelligence were too extreme.

“America is a complicated modern democracy with numerous checks and balances so that no one person has the ability to do insane things,” Mr. Karp said. With government work, he added, “you’re buying into the inherent fabric and structure of the country.”

Lost in the conversation in Silicon Valley is its own history. The internet itself was originally funded by an arm of the Defense Department that is now called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. As recently as the Obama administration, Silicon Valley’s biggest technology giants embraced roles advising the government.

But there is a difference between today’s tech giants like Google and Facebook and those who turned the Santa Clara Valley into Silicon Valley. A bond with the government “was clearly not part of the founding of the consumer internet in any relevant way,” Mr. Karp said.

It is a connection that should be better understood by the employees now pushing for it to be severed. Those bright minds are able to have this debate in part because of the work done by their predecessors.

And given the very real questions that have emerged about the benefits — or lack thereof — that the biggest tech companies truly offer society, those workers might want to rethink their position.

As Mr. Karp pointed out when we talked about the big technology companies, “If actually the narrative was, ‘We are helping also with our defense,’ then people would understand the value of these other things” they do.

There could come a time when Silicon Valley wishes it was waving that flag.

Read More | https://ift.tt/2LTIJ7u | https://ift.tt/2g9FTjb

Nature Silicon Valley Doesn’t Like Trump. It Can Still Work With the Government., in 2018-09-03 14:40:38

[ramialkarmi]

An insight LinkedIn's billionaire founder Reid Hoffman had in high school has defined his entire career

Billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman studied philosophy at Oxford with hopes of becoming an influential public intellectual.

He realized that he could have a bigger impact in tech, but kept his ambition.

In high school, Hoffman decided his life's mission would be to "help humanity evolve," and that he didn't have to define himself with labels limiting himself to a single occupation.

LinkedIn founder and Greylock investor Reid Hoffman has had the same driving force since he was a teenager.

In a recent interview for Business Insider's podcast "Success! How I Did It," Hoffman told us that since high school, his goal has been "How do I help humanity evolve?"

That is, he explained, how can he help people improve both as individuals and as social groups?

"I tend to think that you should always have a fairly big goal and I, of course, know that the likelihood that I'm going to make big changes for the billions of people on the Earth is very difficult," he said. "Luck will play a huge component of it, but as you think about it, you go, 'OK, well maybe I won't get the billions — maybe I'll only get to hundreds of millions or tens of millions."

Learning he doesn't have to fit a label

Hoffman decided to leave his hometown of Berkeley, California to attend the Putney School in Vermont, an elite boarding school where instead of wearing uniforms for morning chapel services, students head to a farm to milk cows or chop wood.

Putney's combination of rigorous academics with manual skills and art education inspired Hoffman. It gave him a new lens for viewing the world, teaching him that you set your own path and pursue "work on solving the problem" rather than "being an expert within a discipline," he said.

From Putney, Hoffman went to Stanford, where he majored in Symbolic Systems, a unique discipline combining elements of computer science, philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. After graduation he had decided that the next step in his journey of achieving his life's goal to change humanity was a rigorous philosophy education. He went to Oxford as a prestigious Marshall Scholar.

"My original thought was I could become an academic and then be a public intellectual as an academic, writing essays and books that would cause people to reflect and grow in this direction — and I myself grow and discover — through those books," he said.

But before school was done, he realized that his assumptions were naive. If he stayed in academia, he figured, he'd be writing books for a handful of other academics, and his peers would frown upon him if he pursued a public life. He decided, then, that another area he was familiar with, the world of technology, would be his outlet.

"I realized that software was another form of media, and so if you actually work on the software as the media object, that's something that could then actually in fact have a similar kind of impact, which is helping humanity at scale," he said. "If I hadn't gone to Stanford, it's unclear I would have thought of that."

Using tech to match his ambition

Hoffman had short stints at Apple and Fujitsu before launching his own company in 1997, SocialNet. It was one of the world's first social networks, where users could look for dates or connect with friends. A combination of his inexperience as a manager and being ahead of the social networking trend made Hoffman abandon the project after a couple years, but he considers it something of a real-world MBA.

Next was a pivotal stint as an executive at his close friend Peter Thiel's online payment company, PayPal. Hoffman has often explained, most recently in an episode of his podcast "Masters of Scale," that he lacked Thiel's passion for changing people's fundamental relationship to money, but he was invigorated by the team's ability to connect vendors and sellers online, and how that grew new markets.

Hoffman was also inspired by the tremendous talent around him, the team that would later be known as the "PayPal Mafia." The entire executive team became a generation of power players in Silicon Valley, and included SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the cofounders of YouTube. This gave Hoffman a network that eventually helped make him one of the most well-connected, and thus most influential, people in tech.

When eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002, Hoffman quickly used his payday for a second shot at a social network. This time it would be specifically for professionals interested in new jobs and useful connections, and was called LinkedIn.

Now an executive with experience building a billion-dollar company, Hoffman led his team of cofounders to making LinkedIn the premiere professional social network. Hoffman and his executive team sold LinkedIn for $26.2 billion to Microsoft last year, and he said that he is proud of the way it's fit into his life's work.

He sees the success of LinkedIn, which reports more than 500 million global users, as "transforming what kind of economic opportunities" people have by becoming savvier job hunters and influencers.

Investing like Spider-Man

Hoffman, now 50, is also regarded as one of Silicon Valley's most sought-after investors, and has been with the venture capital firm Greylock Partners since 2009.

He's known for being one of the first investors, along with Thiel, in Facebook back in 2004, and for his highly profitable investment in Airbnb in 2010, but all of his investments have been extensions of his teenage self's dream of influencing large groups of people. That's not to say that Hoffman isn't looking for a massive reward on his bets; it's just that because he has been so focused throughout his life on what builds networks that drive change, he has an eye for what's going to take off.

He said he knows he should make a deal when he thinks, "This could be rapidly huge. It could be industry transforming."

Lately, two areas he's been investing heavily in are artificial intelligence, joining a $27 million round for an AI for the public good research, and Democratic politics, donating tens of millions of dollars to progressive politicians and organizations against President Donald Trump.

"I think with power comes responsibility— it's essentially Spiderman ethics," Hoffman said, referencing the principle that guides the comic book hero. "And money is essentially ... power, and so for me, what I try to do is I try to do a set of investments and things that really enhance human potential, including within political or other arenas."

Finally becoming a public intellectual

While Hoffman turned down a life as an academic after graduating Oxford in 1993, he's found a way to achieve becoming a "public intellectual," especially over the last five years.

He's cowritten two career guides, "The Startup of You" and "The Alliance," regularly speaks at universities across the US and even taught a class at Stanford, and writes essays about career planning and entrepreneurship on LinkedIn and his blog. Most recently, he began hosting the podcast "Masters of Scale," in which he taps his rich network to explore entrepreneurial principles.

Technically, all of these projects build awareness around him, which in turn could lead to promising companies or individuals seeking him out, but they tap into something deeper than that, as well.

Hoffman told us that "one of the pieces of progress that I think we're making as a society and as a world is realizing that actually entrepreneurship isn't just the odd kid at school or the occasional or random thing," but a way to promote social progress and create jobs.

"And so then I became an advocate for entrepreneurship," he said.

He ties it back to his education at Oxford, too. "There's almost a sense in which part of being an entrepreneur or being an investor is being an applied philosopher or an applied anthropologist," he said.

Hoffman's role as a leading expert on careers surprised him, he said, because it grew out of his passion for LinkedIn rather than an innate passion for the subject.

"And so I'd say it's my own learning path, and my own discovery path that led me there," he said. "But that's also part of the delights of entrepreneurship, and work in general."

SEE ALSO: After getting a brutal rejection, Barbara Corcoran spent 8 minutes writing a powerful email defending herself — and it changed the next 9 years of her life

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman did not always identify as an entrepreneur – here's why

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The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions . Sarah Jacobs/Business Insider Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek." His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times. His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people. Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning. Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book " The 4-Hour Workweek ." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with " The Tim Ferriss Show ," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, " Success! How I Did It ." This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, " Tribe of Mentors ," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk , and he turned 40. On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model. Listen to the episode: Subscribe to " Success! How I Did It " on Apple Podcasts , Google Play , RadioPublic , or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman "Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. A year of reflection Andrew "Drew" Kelly Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire? And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way? Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes. Laying the foundation in childhood Courtesy of Tim Ferriss Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid? Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books. And I remember to this day this book called " Fishes of the World ," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book. Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started? Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated. Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep." Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started. Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident. Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket. And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US. Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing? Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one. And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton. Finding himself in his 20s Tim Ferriss/Flickr Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well. Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time. And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up. During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs. And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies. Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy. Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question? Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something. Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition. I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult. Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand TED Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success. Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything. Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially. Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef." Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah. Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title? Ferriss: No, no. Feloni: Would you have changed it? Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again. So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines. I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not. Living the Silicon Valley investor life Garrett Camp via Tim Ferriss/Flickr Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter. Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: How did those happen? Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples. Feloni: And Mike Maples is? Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?" And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time. So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started. Feloni: You had a good run. Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead. Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently. A new chapter as a podcast star The Tim Ferriss Show Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing. Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did. Feloni: How did that happen? Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder. And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media. And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions. Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily? Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation. What it means to be Tim Ferriss "The Tim Ferriss Experiment" Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone — Ferriss: Yeah. Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in? Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people. Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience? Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful. Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain? Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win. Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point? Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily. I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures. Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you. Ferriss: Yeah, likewise. NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by November 18, 2017 at 02:18PM

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The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions

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Sarah Jacobs/Business Insider

Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek."

His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times.

His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people.

Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning.

Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book "The 4-Hour Workweek." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with "The Tim Ferriss Show," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, "Success! How I Did It."

This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, "Tribe of Mentors," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk, and he turned 40.

On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model.

Listen to the episode: 

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, RadioPublic, or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with:

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman

"Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran

Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff

The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

A year of reflection

Andrew "Drew" Kelly

Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire?

And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way?

Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. 

Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes.

Laying the foundation in childhood

Courtesy of Tim Ferriss

Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid?

Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books.

And I remember to this day this book called "Fishes of the World," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book.

Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started?

Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated.

Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep."

Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started.

Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident.

Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket.

And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US.

Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing?

Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one.

And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton.

Finding himself in his 20s

Tim Ferriss/Flickr

Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well.

Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time.

And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up.

During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs.

And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies.

Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy.

Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question?

Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something.

Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition.

I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult.

Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand

TED

Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success.

Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything.

Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef."

Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah.

Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title?

Ferriss: No, no.

Feloni: Would you have changed it?

Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again.

So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines.

I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not.

Living the Silicon Valley investor life

Garrett Camp via Tim Ferriss/Flickr

Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: How did those happen?

Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples.

Feloni: And Mike Maples is?

Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?"

And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time.

So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started.

Feloni: You had a good run.

Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead.

Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently.

A new chapter as a podcast star

The Tim Ferriss Show

Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing.

Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did.

Feloni: How did that happen?

Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder.

And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media.

And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions.

Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily?

Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation.

What it means to be Tim Ferriss

"The Tim Ferriss Experiment"

Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone —

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in?

Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people.

Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience?

Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful.

Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain?

Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win.

Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point?

Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily.

I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Ferriss: Yeah, likewise.

NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by

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[minnievirizarry]

Top 45 Business Blogs of 2017 | Ninja Outreach

Are you looking to update your business reading list with valuable insights, case studies, and commentary from proven entrepreneurs and experts? Then we have a list of top 45 business blogs for you.

A quick Google search for “top business blogs” will show you tons of results—mostly listicles rattling off blog recommendation after blog recommendation.

We will attempt to do better. Instead of lumping everything together, we will give you a list divided into categories.

Best business blogs for news and updates about the general business community

Best business blogs with stellar founder interviews and founder insights

Best business blogs for startups and other newbie entrepreneurs

Best business blogs about behind the scenes, funding, tools, hiring, and other management practices

Top business journals and resources

Blogs by entrepreneurs whose minds you’d like to take a peek into

Distinguished business and finance publications

This should help you zero in on the business blogs that are most relevant to your needs.

A caveat: This list will not include business blog farms and blogs that contain too many disruptive ads. This list will feature only quality, clean websites, that offer real value to its readers (and not just the search engines).

Methodology

To start, I opened our Ninja Outreach tool and hit Content Prospecting.

Next, I put in my search keyword: best “business news” blogs. I put “business news” in quotes to get more accurate results.

Then, I opened filters and put in a minimum Domain Authority of 29 with a max of 100.

Below are my search results.

Next, I will manually whittle the results down to leave only the best ones.

I will take a look at each blog and check the kind of content they produce.

I will also check each blog’s SEO and traffic metrics using our Ninja Outreach chrome extension.

Now with all that said, here are my recommendations for top 45 business blogs to read.

A. Business blogs for news and updates on the business community

1. globalEDGE

Domain Authority: 87

globalEDGE is one of the most authoritative online portals for information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities.

The site was founded by the Michigan State University’s International Business Center, designated as a National Resource Center, and partially funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant.

The blog has a team of contributors and regularly publishes commentary on prevalent business news on a global scale.

See:

The Future of Agriculture in India

The United States Begins a Trade Probe Into China

Where do Cryptocurrencies Fall in the International Currency Markets?

Initial Coin Offerings: A Shady Trend in International Capital Markets

2. The Conglomerate

Domain Authority: 55

If you’re tired of self-proclaimed “gurus” and overly marketed business “influencers,” The Conglomerate can serve you the kind of fresh, well-written content from certified field practitioners.

The blog is penned by a group of business, economics, and law professors who provide expert analysis and insights on key business issues and news.

Bonus: They won’t simply link to sources for the sake of marketing or SEO. Whatever source they cite is mostly just as authoritative and reliable. Think .edu, .gov sources, established journals, publications, and other official blogs.

It seems they haven’t updated for a few months, however. As of this writing, their latest blog post was from June of this year.

See: American Airlines, Qatar, and the NOL Poison Pill

3. Bill George

Domain Authority: 45

This blog is home to all editorial pieces and other articles written by, including, or featuring Bill George—former Chairman and CEO of multinational medical technology corporation, Medtronic. He is now a Harvard Business School professor and regular contributor to business publications such as CNBC.

See:

CNBC: The Business Economy Drives our Economy

CNBC: CEOs Do Not Fear This President: Bill George

4. Virgin Entrepreneur

Domain Authority: 82

The Virgin Group is an English conglomerate founded by the well-known businessman and philanthropist, Richard Branson. So if you admire Branson’s business acumen and leadership, you may find the content of his company’s blog to your liking.

The Entrepreneur section of Virgin’s business blog provides commentary, insights, and analysis on business news and related topics.

See:

Why I Blew a Year’s Advertising Budget on a Party

Going From Freelancers to Business Leaders

How to Start a Movement: Tips From The Fairtrade Food Pioneer

5. Michael Czinkota

Domain Authority: 29

Professor Michael Czinkota of Georgetown University is no stranger to international business and economics. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce—simply one among his other noteworthy positions in the field.

His blog features excellent commentary on the latest in international business news, marketing, and strategy. It also has pretty high engagement with some articles reaching hundreds to thousands of comments.

See:

Why International Marketing? Five Core Benefits Explain Key Rationale

Pros and Cons of Foreign Direct Investment

Migration from less developed economies and its effect on corporate and individual international business performance

B. Business blogs with stellar founder interviews and founder insights

6. Startups.co

Domain authority: 55

Startups.co is an online platform for startups looking to find customers, a community of peers, mentors, and learning opportunities.

Their blog has three sections. The first, Startup News, is a comprehensive and updated list of goings-on in the startup world. The second is Education, which hosts the site’s learning resource of in-depth lessons and videos. Third is the Questions section, which functions as a business-related Q&A forum.

The site also features some authoritative figures in their articles and learning videos.

See:

Interview with Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn

Data-Driven Decisions by Mike Greenfield, First Data Scientist at PayPal and LinkedIn

7. Signal V. Noise

Domain authority: 78

Reading Signal V. Noise is like taking a peek at the activities, opinions, and processes of the team behind the successful project management and team communication software company, Basecamp. Each article is a well thought out piece on each team member’s viewpoints and ideas about software and web design, managing the startup life, and technology and design in general.

You can pick up some great insight from articles about how the team would plan out their workflows, work on their tasks, or decide their strategies.

For example, one post talks about their teamwork (Another round of lessons learned from our new team-based way of working) while another discusses a process change that helped three team members launch a major new feature across five platforms in just six weeks (Hybrid development is how we give our teams of three superpowers).

8. Mixergy

Domain Authority: 64

As far as interviews with star tycoons go, Andrew Warner’s Mixergy can be one of your top go-to blogs. The former co-founder and CEO of the one-time million-dollar web property, Bradford & Reed, professes that his blog only interviews “proven” entrepreneurs.

Currently, his blog boasts dialogues with the likes of Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia’s Founder On How The Site Was Built & Promoted), Y Combinator's Paul Graham (How Y Combinator Helped 172 Startups Take Off), Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran (Real Estate Shark), and Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia.

With that star-studded lineup, you can certainly expect not to get disappointed with this blog’s content.

9. Indie Hackers

Domain Authority: 38

Indie Hackers, according to its creator Courtland Allen, is meant to be a place where founders of profitable businesses and side hustles can “share their stories transparently, and where entrepreneurs can come to read and learn from those examples.”

This blog, added Allen, is also meant to be a community where like-minded ‘indie hackers’ can gather together to support each other, share their experiences, and exchange feedback.

If you count yourself among either one of those who fit the descriptions, then add this blog to your reading list. It contains quality interviews with startup founders from various business niches.

10. Both Sides of the Table

Domain Authority: 70

This blog contains a wealth of perspectives on the startup and venture capital world, penned by Mark Suster, who refers to himself as “a 2x entrepreneur turned VC”.

Suster is an angel investor affiliated with venture capital firms Upfront and Techstars. In his blog, he writes about his own experiences in entrepreneurship, startups, and even his personal life and business lessons.

C. Business blogs for startups and other newbie entrepreneurs

11. The Small Business Professor

Domain Authority: 30

If you want to learn everything about small business—from starting up, to management, to the technology involved, head over to Bruce Freeman’s blog, Small Business Professor.

Freeman is a successful entrepreneur who founded the marketing and PR firm, Proline Communications. He is also a small business columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, a book author, and entrepreneurship professor at the Seton Hall and Kean universities.

Additionally, he also hosts a regular radio program about small business.

12. Business Law Prof Blog

Domain Authority: 30

If you want to keep your business on the right side of the law but can't afford to hire your team of lawyers yet, head over to this blog. It won't be an alternative, of course, but it's a great place to start educating yourself on laws and how it can affect your business.

The blog is managed by a group of eight law professors who regularly publish legal analysis on business topics that range from crowdfunding and social media to SEC regulations.

13. Venture Hacks

Domain Authority: 59

Venture Hacks is a blog dedicated to supporting startups and angel list companies. You can read about a broad range of topics related to startups, fundraising, venture funding, and management.

The blog is managed by venture investors Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi, who also founded the online startup investors and jobseekers platform, AngelList.

14. Steve Blank

Domain Authority: 74

This blog by successful entrepreneur turned Ivy League professor Steve Blank discusses startup founder and investor strategies.

He also writes about his personal experiences and lessons learned, as well as some commentary about current events.

Be ready for some extensive reading because he has been blogging since 2009.

15.  The Octane Blog

Domain Authority: 72

The Octane blog is the official blog of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

The EO is a global network of over 12k influential entrepreneurs with 160 chapters in 50 countries.

The blog is a web portal of information and articles with the goal of helping its community to learn, grow, and lead successful businesses.

D. Business blogs about behind the scenes, funding, tools, hiring, and other management practices

16. Workplace Prof Blog

Domain Authority: 92

For anything and everything related to labor laws, head to this blog. It is managed and written by a group of business law professors. So you can be sure to learn the legal matters and their impact on your business from recognized experts.

17. The Entrepreneurial Mind

Domain Authority: 40

The Entrepreneurial Mind is the blog of Dr. Jeff Cornwall. Dr. Cornwall has broad expertise in entrepreneurship as the inaugural Jack C. Massey Chair in Entrepreneurship at Belmont University. But he is currently interested in entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics.

In this blog, you will find not only his articles but also interviews with business owners who share the behind the scenes stories of why they started and how they manage their business.

18. The Business Ethics Blog

Domain authority: 47

This blog about business ethics (if the blog name isn’t already a dead giveaway). It features the owner’s commentary and analysis of news about corporate ethics.

If this seems a little intimidating, know that the blog is written in broader terms to benefit entrepreneurs who are not as well-versed in legalese.

The blog owner, Chris MacDonald, Ph.D., is a business ethics educator, speaker, and consultant, as well as Interim Director of the Ted Rogers MBA at Ryerson. He is also a Senior Fellow at Duke University's Kenan Institute for Ethics.

19. TaxProf Blog

Domain authority: 92

The TaxProf Blog is for business owners looking for expert advice about taxes, tax laws, assets, and financial management.

The blog has a team of well-versed contributors and is managed by Paul Caron, who is a Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law.

The blog’s articles break down legalese for business owners to get more perspective on the impact of certain laws (see: The Evilness Of Section 6511) and even natural disasters (see: The Tax Consequences Of Hurricane Harvey (And Other Natural Disaster) to their business and finances. There are also commentary and analysis by Caron on current events (see: Macroeconomic And Distributional Effects Of U.S. Personal Income Tax Reforms).

20. Entrepreneurs On Fire

Domain Authority: 60

Entrepreneurs on Fire is a blog by entrepreneur and podcaster John Lee Dumas, where he interviews a featured entrepreneur for each day of the week. Each interview shares the story of an entrepreneur’s challenges, motivations, and lessons learned and are meant to help the website’s community, which Dumas calls the Fire Nation.

Dumas’s podcast, which holds over 1.7k interviews with well-known entrepreneurs such as Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, and Barbara Corcoran, was awarded Best of iTunes.

See:

Tony Robbins helps us master the MONEY game with value bombs galore!

Barbara Corcoran shows why she is a shark in sheep’s clothing

E. Top business journals and resources

For this section, we will focus on sites of peer-reviewed journals that you can use as a resource for finding statistics, case studies, papers, analytical pieces, and even expert thought pieces. These are written by the world’s best: professionals, professors, and researchers affiliated with world-class universities and companies.

If you want to go the academic route, no other blogs can beat the resources below. Just look at those high DAs and traffic.

21. Harvard Business Review

Domain Authority: 93

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) is a 23-year old institution and non-profit subsidiary of Harvard University. It is home to thousands of regularly updated case studies, statistics, articles, and journals from experts affiliated with one of the most prestigious Universities in the world.

The good thing about HBR is they also have articles that not only tackle hard facts, but also give advice on other topics related to business, management, and careers, such as an article about motivation (What to Do When Your Heart Isn’t in Your Work Anymore) written by an Organizational Behavior professor and author. You’ll see more examples of articles written by relevant experts as you go on their blog.

HBR is a paid resource, however, and a non-member only gets three free articles while a registered but non-paying subscriber gets six a month.

22. MIT Sloan LearningEdge

Domain Authority: 95

LearningEdge is a free online resource established in 2009 mainly for educational purposes. It is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) business school, Sloan School of Management, and is home to open access case studies.

These case studies, to quote, “highlight the decision-making process in a business or management setting.” While others are more “descriptive or demonstrative in nature, showcasing something that has happened or is happening in a particular business or management environment.”

23. OMICS International Business and Economics Journal

Domain Authority: 78

OMICS International publishes open access journals and houses over 700 peer-reviewed, open access journals. With an editorial team of business, finance and economics academics from prestigious universities around the world, this publication is one to watch.

Since one of two primary goals for the site’s launch was to “disseminate the free articles in Economics and Business Studies for research”, the site acknowledges readers to link, share, cite, and quote the published journals freely and frequently. The content is also “readily accessible to readers immediately after publication in several formats (HTML, PDF, and XML) for abstracts and full texts.

24. The London Business School Review

Domain Authority: 75

If you’re looking to quote respected experts in the business world, this is also a good place to head to.

The London Business School Review is the flagship publication of The London Business School—widely considered to be the best business school in Europe and among the top ten MBA providers globally.

The site contains videos, articles, and editorial pieces about business, management, and finance from some of the foremost thought leaders from London Business School.

See:

The quad effect: where to spot strategy traps

Are commodities worth investing in?

25. Stanford Graduate Business School

Domain Authority: 95

The Stanford Graduate Business School repository has a rich collection of business case studies that you can cite in your articles or research. This strong pool of case studies was created by the school’s faculty.

However, you can only view as much as the abstract because the full case study is accessible only to Stanford students and alumni. But if you need just the quick facts and don’t depend on the detailed breakdowns and analysis as much, you can cite straight from the abstracts. They do have the option to contact their Case Writing Office if you want to make a query.

See:

The Pfizer-Allergan Tax Inversion

Repsol and YPF (C): Recovering Value

F. Blogs by entrepreneurs whose minds you’d like to take a peek into

There are some entrepreneurs who, by the weight of their achievements, have turned themselves into a brand that many other wantrepreneurs aspire to. Here are links to some of their blogs.

26. Bill Gates

Blog name: GatesNotes

Domain authority: 79

The blog of the iconic Microsoft co-founder and consistent richest man on Forbes’ billionaires’ list. He writes about his experiences and thoughts on global issues, technology, business management, his recommended reading lists, and advocacies.

27. Guy Kawasaki

Blog name: GuyKawasaki

Domain authority: 80

Also another iconic businessman, perhaps most well-known for authoring the New York Times best-selling Rich Dad Poor Dad series. In his blog, Guy Kawasaki writes about his personal business experiences, lessons learned, advice, and also the products, services, reads, and other things that he recommends.

28. Tim Ferriss

Blog name: FourHourWorkWeek

Domain authority: 82

Tim Ferriss authored four New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller books, two of which are The 4-Hour Work Week and his most recent release, Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers.

Tim Ferriss hosts the Tim Ferriss Show podcast, which was named Best of iTunes. In his blog, he writes mostly about prominent entrepreneurs and self-improvement as it relates to business.

29. Gary Vaynerchuk

Blog name: GaryVaynerchuk

Domain authority: 75

Gary Vaynerchuk—or Gary Vee, as he is now more popularly known, is a serial entrepreneur, author, and founder of digital agency VaynerMedia. He writes mostly about motivation and self-improvement tips for entrepreneurs.

See:

Being Selfless by Being Selfish

30. Richard Branson

Blog name: Virgin.com/RichardBranson

Domain authority: 81

If you’re an entrepreneur/aspiring entrepreneur and you don’t know who Richard Branson is, you need to get outside the rock you’re living in. Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Media (which we’ve already talked about earlier). In his blog, he writes about his advocacies and other personal advice based on his experiences.

See:

The Night Before Hurricane Irma Arrives

Update After Hurricane Irma in the BVI

31. Chris Ducker

Blog name: ChrisDucker

Domain authority: 60

Chris Ducker writes about and offers services related to personal brand building, such as hands-on training and access to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs. He has written a 4-time, top bestselling book on Amazon.com, Virtual Freedom, and oversees his group of companies with over 400 employees.

See:

How to Prepare for a Speaking Gig

How to Pivot into a Personal Brand

32. Chris Brogan

Blog name: ChrisBrogan

Domain authority: 80

Chris Brogan is a speaker, social media marketing coach, and author. His book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, made it to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling list. He is also a contributor to Entrepreneur magazine, and he writes about social media marketing, business advice, and interviews with other entrepreneurs.

33. Neil Patel

Blog name: NeilPatel

Domain authority: 78

Neil Patel is one of the most ubiquitous names in the SEO, online and digital marketing industry. He is co-founder of the website heatmap software Crazy Egg, business and marketing blog Quicksprout, and currently has his own blog, neilpatel.com, where he writes about SEO, content and online marketing. Neil also regularly writes about startups and marketing for top online business magazines Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Inc. He has worked with the likes of Microsoft, IBM, and Thomson Reuters, and he counts Ben Huh, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Guy Kawasaki, among his peers.

34. Seth Godin

Blog name: SethGodin

Domain authority: 90

Seth Godin is the founder of online direct marketing company Yoyodyne, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998; an event that also led to the hiring of Seth as Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing. Seth Godin eventually became one of the first iconic influencers in the digital marketing space.

He has since authored 18 bestsellers about marketing (All Marketers are Liars, The Dip, etc.) and has also been inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame in 2013. His blog contains his short, personal insights about entrepreneurship, management, and marketing.

35. Avinash Kaushik

Blog name: kaushik.net/avinash

Domain authority: 73

Avinash Kaushik is considered one of the leading experts in web analytics. The entrepreneur, author, and public speaker started out as Director of Research & Analytics at Intuit, Web Analytics. He has since written two smash hits: Web Analytics, An Hour a Day, and Web Analytics 2.0. He co-founded the online marketing education company Marketing Motive and is currently a Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google.

His blog, Occam’s Razor, is a treasure trove of insightful and analytical articles about using web analytics to measure and improve business performance.

36. Bamidele Onibalusi

Blog name: WritersInCharge

Domain authority: 45

Once upon a time, Nigerian national Bamidele wanted to earn money writing, but all he got were cheap pay and discrimination for being a non-native English speaker. Now, he is a successful blogger, freelance writer, and owner of Writers in Charge—one of the most useful and comprehensive resources for freelance writers. He has also been featured in top business and marketing magazines such as Forbes, Digital Journal, and Millionaire Magazine.

37. Pat Flynn

Blog name: SmartPassiveIncome

Domain authority: 75

Pat Flynn was an architect and had a job that he loved—for a time. But the economic downturn changed his life, uprooted him from his comfortable job, and forced him to look at other avenues to pay the bills. Serendipitously, one of Pat’s old websites—a blog about architecture that he wrote to help others reviewing for architecture exams, became his lifeline—earning money for him at a time when he needed it most. Realizing the power of this channel, Pat started his journey into starting an online business in the pursuit of passive income.

Serendipitously, one of Pat’s old websites—a blog about architecture that he wrote to help others reviewing for architecture exams, became his lifeline—earning money for him at a time when he needed it most. Realizing the power of this method, Pat started his journey into starting an online business in the pursuit of passive income.

Now, he is a successful blogger, writer, and owner of Smart Passive Income, an online resource where Pat writes about his proven strategies for optimizing and running a successful online business to earn passive income.

38. Brian Dean

Blog name: Backlinko

Domain authority: 78

Brian Dean has an interesting story. He went from nutritionist Ph.D. candidate and dietitian to a successful online entrepreneur and SEO guru. Today, he has a thriving online business on his website, Backlinko, and writes about his SEO and link building techniques. He talks about how to optimize his blog enough to show up top in search engines, boost traffic, and earn more passive income from

Today, he has a thriving online business on his website, Backlinko, and writes about his SEO and link building techniques. He talks about how to optimize his blog enough to show up top in search engines, boost traffic, and earn more passive income from his site through the products and courses that he sells.

39. James Clear

Blog name: JamesClear

Domain authority: 69

Not everything about business is about analytics, ROI, marketing, and SEO. A lot in business also depends on you—the person on the driver’s seat—the one who holds the wheel and does the steering. Do you have the right frame of mind? Are your thoughts healthy and constructive? Are your habits productive?

Enter James Clear. His work has been covered by top media outlets such as CBS, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and TIME.

With his clear, engaging writing, James weaves stories about successful entrepreneurs and influencers alongside lessons and advice about self-improvement, habit formation, and personal health—from physical to psychological. All this is designed to help you, the person managing the business, make better, well-minded decisions.

Enter James Clear. His work has been covered by top media outlets such as CBS, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and TIME.

With his clear, engaging writing, James weaves stories about successful entrepreneurs and influencers alongside lessons and advice about self-improvement, habit formation, and personal health—from physical to psychological. All this is designed to help you, the person managing the business, make better, well-minded decisions.

40. Jason Cohen

Blog name: ASmartBear

Domain authority: 55

Before being the Chief Technology Officer of WordPress Hosting company, WP Engine, Jason co-founded and sold the successful software company, SmartBear. His blog, A Smart Bear is the place to go if you want to read smart, insightful articles from a successful tech entrepreneur about business technology, how to manage startups, employees, personal health, decision-making—anything that has to do with an entrepreneur lifestyle.

G. Distinguished business and finance publications

A list of business blogs to read won’t be complete without the indispensable international publications that are best known for their business coverage. Now these are not exactly “blogs” but more professional publications, but any reading list about business won’t be complete without including these recommendations.

41. The Wall Street Journal

Domain authority: 98

What would be a more obvious recommendation than a top quality journal named after the most iconic street in Manhattan, America’s financial district, home to the country’s largest brokerages, inves, ment banks, and the New York Stock exchange? The journal is synonymous with business and financial services industry coverage. If you want to read the biggest stories in business and finance, written by the best correspondents in business and finance, then this is your top resource.

42. The Economist

Domain authority: 96

The Economist is an almost two hundred years old publication headquartered in London. Despite its magazine format, The Economist covers hard news that would benefit people in business. Its coverage is global: reporting about politics, business, finance, science, and technology, while their body of experts pen authoritative insights to make sense of how the interplay between these international issues affect the world’s economy as a whole.

43. Fast Company

Domain authority: 91

Fast Company is an online business magazine that packages itself as the more “progressive” one in this bunch. The publication focuses on more “modern” businesses—such as innovative startups in the digital, design, and tech space.

44. CNBC

Domain authority: 95

CNBC is mainly a telecommunications network. They have a dedicated business and financial news channel along with their own newswire. CNBC’s coverage is not much unlike the Wall Street Journal, but the network tries to set itself apart by taking a particular focus on financial earnings and stock market quotes.

45. Bloomberg

Domain authority: 98

Bloomberg is not an exclusive news journal, per se, but a software and information service in one. Bloomberg provides a financial analytics tool, equity trading platform, data services and news to its clients in the business and finance sector.

Wrapping up

And that's it! Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments section.

The post Top 45 Business Blogs of 2017 | Ninja Outreach appeared first on Ninja Outreach.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://ninjaoutreach.com/top-business-blogs/

[ramialkarmi]

The 4-Hour Workweek' author Tim Ferriss reveals what he's learned after a difficult year of introspection, and how he built a passionate fanbase of millions

Tim Ferriss first found fame in 2007 with the massive bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek."

His interview podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show," has been downloaded nearly 200 million times.

His newest book, "Tribe of Mentors," is a collection of advice he gathered from some of the world's most successful people.

Ferriss explained how this year was a time of introspection and learning.

Tim Ferriss first found fame with his 2007 book "The 4-Hour Workweek." After taking a break from writing, in 2012, he became an accidental podcast star with "The Tim Ferriss Show," which is approaching 200 million downloads. He's an investor and self-described human guinea pig. He sat down for an interview with Business Insider senior reporter Richard Feloni for our podcast, "Success! How I Did It."

This past year hasn't been typical for him. He celebrated the 10th anniversary of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and then decided to leave his successful "4-Hour" brand behind him. He's out with a new book, "Tribe of Mentors," in which he collects advice from 140 successful people, a project that was as much for him as it was for his audience. Ferriss has spent the last year thinking a lot about his own life. He lost some friends, he got a lot of attention for talking about his struggle with depression in a viral TED Talk, and he turned 40.

On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Ferriss spoke with Richard Feloni about all of that and more, including how wrestling shaped his childhood, the original title of "The 4-Hour Workweek," and why he hopes no one considers him a role model.

Listen to the episode: 

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, RadioPublic, or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with:

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman

"Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran

Former White House press secretary and Fox News host Dana Perino

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff

The following is a transcript, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

A year of reflection

Tim Ferriss: Turning 40 didn't, as a number, scare me, or throw me off, at all. I'm very comfortable being 40. But as a thought exercise, you know, I asked myself, "If this is the halfway point, if we're just looking at the actuarial tables, it's like, all right, if I'm at 50%, right, I'm halfway through this race called life, and when I hit the finish line, you're dead at 80, how might I want to rethink trajectory? How might I want to rethink over-planning versus under-planning? Even though I'm trying to improve my relationships with others, are they dependent on my relationship with myself? If so, how should I even conceptualize improving that, right? If it's never been part of my repertoire?

And all these questions sort of came to the surface, and, rather than try and go at it on my own, which has been my predisposition and my reflex for decades, I figured, why don't I just take these questions and, given the reach of the podcasts and books and everything else at this point, why don't I just reach out to 130 or 140 people and ask them all the same questions? People who are the best at what they do, in many, many dozens of different fields — and then just try to borrow? Why not do this the potentially easier way?

Rich Feloni: It seems an extension of what you've done that past 10 years. Even beginning with "The 4-Hour Workweek," which is dabbling in a bunch of different things and seeing what works and then sharing that with an audience. 

Ferriss: Yeah, it's exactly the same. I mean, really I view my job more almost as a field biologist or anthropologist, where I'm collecting practices. I'm collecting techniques. Then testing them on myself, and if I can replicate results, and then share those with, say, six to 12 friends, and they're able to replicate results, then fantastic, off to thousands or millions of people it goes.

Laying the foundation in childhood

Feloni: And did this constant love of learning anything and everything, did it start as a kid?

Ferriss: Yeah. My parents did a great job of raising me and my brother. Very supportive parents. Did not have a lot of money, and the one exception they made: "We always have a budget for books. So if you want to get a book, we will figure out a way to get the book." So what does that do to a child brain? It makes you excited to figure out ways to get books. And so we became fascinated at a very early age with books.

And I remember to this day this book called "Fishes of the World," I think it was, that I carried with me. This huge hardcover — I mean I was a little runt, I was a really small kid growing up, and it was this gigantic hardcover, beautifully illustrated book on marine biology, and I took it with me to school every day, because the playground was not a safe place for me. I was born premature, I was really small and got my ass kicked mercilessly up until about sixth grade. So I wouldn't go out to the playground. That was a danger zone. I would stay by the classroom and kind of sit on the step leading out to the playground, and I would read this book.

Feloni: Was being a small kid and someone picked on for his size — was that an impetus for getting involved in body experiments? As you say, you're a human guinea pig. Is that when it started?

Ferriss: It wasn't a deliberate decision to become Captain America or anything. I was really small and had a lot of health issues growing up. I mean, not compared to some people certainly, but I had a number full-body blood transfusions when I was kid. Premature, so I can actually — this is audio, most likely, so people can't see it — if you look here, Rich, on my wrist, it looks like a cigarette burn, and that's actually from being intubated. And then I have another one under my left lung, where my lung collapsed, where my blood was being oxygenated.

Nonetheless, so all of these various issues, and to make my parents' lives more difficult, really hyperactive. And some other mothers told my mom, "You should put him into something called 'kiddie wrestling,' because that'll drain his batteries, and then when he gets home he'll just fall asleep."

Wrestling is unique among sports because it's weight-class-based. So you could have the puny runt from Class A competing against the puny runt from Class B. So it's a situation which one of the puny runts can actually win at something. And my mom inserted me into kiddie wrestling, and I took to it, and that became my sport, until the very end of high school effectively. But the confidence built on the wrestling mat as a puny, little — God knows, like 40-pound kid — is where a lot of it started.

Feloni: I've heard you downplay your time in high school, like your time as a student and all of that. But you ended up at Princeton, which doesn't happen by accident.

Ferriss: Yeah. My brother and I were always told, maybe not in these words, but if you get really good grades, you can do whatever you want in life. In effect, that's your ticket.

And I transferred from a high school on Long Island to a high school in New Hampshire, which was a much better school called St. Paul's. Very well known — it's one of the older boarding schools in the US.

Feloni: "Dead Poets Society" type of thing?

Ferris: Very — feels like "Dead Poets Society." So you'd have seated meals, seated dinners a few nights a week, with suit and tie, and classes six days a week, chapel almost every day of the week, mandatory sports. And I was encouraged to go there — or to at least leave high school on Long Island — by teachers who could see me getting complacent. Like "All right, you think you're pretty good because you're a big fish in a small pond, but you should go somewhere else." Number one.

And then one of my friends — just one of my classmates, because very few people left where I grew up in Long Island, or relatively few people — and one of my friends had gone to a boarding school and came back and effectively was, like, "I've seen the promised land — you need to get the hell out of here," and so I was able to get support from my grandparents, and kind of extended family, got a few small scholarships, and go to St. Paul's. And St. Paul's really set the stage for everything else and really opened the door, or even the possibility, of even thinking about applying to a place like Princeton.

Finding himself in his 20s

Feloni: At Princeton you studied East Asian studies, and you took a break as well.

Ferriss: I took a year away from school, which was in the middle of my senior year. It was a very, very, dark, dark, dark time for me, due to a bunch of — just a conflagration of all sorts of heavy things hitting me at the same time.

And that is when I came close to sort of the precipice of total self-destruction. I don't want to belabor it here, because I've spoken about it at TED and people can certainly just search "Tim Ferriss suicide TED" and it'll pop right up.

During that time, I saw my classmates competing, because that's what they were good at. I mean, you take kids who go to a school like Princeton, they're used to competing, and they're used to being No. 1, so if something seems coveted, they will compete for it, whether or not they really want that thing. And in this case, the thing would be, say, a job at McKinsey or a job at Goldman Sachs.

And everyone was competing for these, and I ended realizing very clearly I did not want to do either of those things. And I felt very lost. So during that year I tried all sorts of things. I spent six months in China, mainland China, and then went to Taiwan, and just fell in love with Taiwan. So I had this dream of opening a gym chain in Taiwan and went pretty far down the line of trying to figure out all the details, this that and the other thing, meeting with gym owners throughout Taiwan, and ultimately you had to interact with, like, paying, in some cases, protection money and so on, to Triads, and organized crime, and it just got so involved, it was, like, "You know what, this is just a little bit above my pay grade — don't think I can handle this." So came back, ultimately rejoined school, and graduated a year later. Most of my friends had already graduated. I walked away with an illustrious degree in East Asian studies.

Feloni: And the foundation of your career over the past 10 years was "The 4-Hour Workweek." And key to that coming together was your experience with BrainQuicken, the first company that you started. And so, it's a young guy, and he's selling supplements out of his house. That sounds a little sketchy.

Ferriss: OK, all right — what's your question?

Feloni: I've seen you refer to it as, like, you jokingly refer to yourself as a drug dealer or something.

Ferriss: In fairness, I was actually neuroscience before East Asian Studies and had some of the wherewithal to determine what might make a good product, because as someone making 40,000 pretax in Silicon Valley, in those days, with roommates, and a hand-me-down minivan, did not have a whole lot of disposable income, but nonetheless was spending an absurdly high percentage of my take-home income on sports nutrition.

I was, like, "All right, I have some ideas of the pain points and needs of this market, and know what I would want to create if I had the budget for myself," and, which would in effect be what we ended up labeling a "neural accelerator." BrainQuicken was a real learning-on-the-job MBA. I mean, it was very, very difficult.

Achieving unexpected success and creating a brand

Feloni: So "The 4-Hour Workweek" comes out in 2007. It seemed like no one really expected that to be success, including yourself, right? Like, a massive success.

Ferriss: Nobody expected it. I mean, I had an initial print run of 10,000 copies, which isn't even partial national distribution. So for those who don't know, the premise of "The 4-Hour Workweek" — which, by the way, was initially titled "Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit" — is a collection of tactics and tools and case studies of people who have designed ideal lifestyles for themselves by thinking about this nonrenewable resource of time and how they want to spend their day-to-day, week-to-week, and then reverse-engineering that by building a business, a cash flow, or a career that allows for remote work and so on. So that's "The 4-Hour Workweek" and those are the basics, but nobody expected it to do anything.

Feloni: Yeah, and it led to this "4-Hour" brand essentially.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: "The 4-Hour Body," "The 4-Hour Chef."

Ferriss: Very accidental, but yeah.

Feloni: And I've seen you lately kind of be self-deprecating about it, like, "Oh, this makes me sound like an infomercial guy or something." Do you actually regret the title?

Ferriss: No, no.

Feloni: Would you have changed it?

Ferriss: No, no, no. Definitely not. No, I don't regret it at all, but, you know, there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. And in the beginning, you want to be pigeon-holed, in a sense, you want to be clearly defined in the very beginning. But past that point, and I did. You want to diversify your identity so you don't become a parrot who regurgitates the same party lines over and over again.

So in the beginning, "4-Hour" this, "4-Hour" that, fantastic. But right after "The 4-Hour Workweek," I was heavily advised by many people that I should do "The 3-Hour Workweek" or "The 4-Hour Workweek Revisited" or something along those lines.

I felt, if I didn't do something that was a complete left turn in a different field, I would forever be thought of as "The 4-Hour Workweek" business guy. Which is why I took the same approach and applied it to physical performance and sort of physical manipulation. And then with "Tools of Titans" retired the jersey of "4-Hour." And you know, who knows? Maybe it comes back at some point, but probably not.

Living the Silicon Valley investor life

Feloni: At what point did investing enter the picture? You had a public post that you essentially retired from it in 2015, but you had deals that — most any one of them — people would kill for. Uber, Facebook, Twitter.

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: How did those happen?

Ferriss: Yeah, I've had a fortunate run. So in the case of angel investing, in 2007, "4-Hour Workweek" pops and suddenly it's a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and so on. I'm not so naive to think that I can just put lightning in a bottle and do that over and over and over and over again. I thought to myself, "Well, if this is really my moment, like the opportunity window, what might I do with this?" And around the same time, I was having lunches with Mike Maples.

Feloni: And Mike Maples is?

Ferriss: So Mike Maples, at the time, was a very successful angel investor, meaning he invested his own money in generally small-ish checks into very, very early-stage embryonic startups. He's now a founding partner of Floodgate, which is a successful venture-capital firm. And at the time, we would meet up for lunch or brunch at a place called Hobee's in the Bay Area, and we would very frequently talk about launch strategy or PR angles that his startups could use. In return, I would ask him about deal structure, about company selection. "Why did you choose this company instead of A, B, or C companies? What are the most important points in deal negotiation for, say, a seed round of financing?"

And over the span of a few months of asking him these questions, I had decided that, rather than go to Stanford Business School, what if I took $120,000 of my money, which I would have spent on Stanford Business School for two years at the time and instead created a real-world MBA for myself where I create the "Tim Ferriss Fund," in quotation marks, and invest $120,000 in startups over two years with the expectation that I'm going to lose all of that money. In other words, every startup will fail, but the relationships developed — that I develop and the skills that I develop, the knowledge that I acquire, will, and so forth and so on, will more than make up for that over time.

So I asked Mike if I could co-invest with him in a few deals and that's how it started.

Feloni: You had a good run.

Ferriss: I had a good run. The first one was not a good run. The first investment I made — I won't mention the name. But I invested — now keep in mind, I'm looking at 120K over two years, right? So the first investment, I want to say I put in — it's so stupid — I put in 50K in the very first investment, because I got so excited. This is one of the risks of being an angel investor who's a former entrepreneur, is you can sometimes get very easily excited. And Mike says — I remember Mike saying to me, "Don't you think 50K might be a little aggressive?" — given that my allocation for the year is supposed to be 60. And I was, like, "Oh man, but no, based on your description, based on this, this, and this, no, I'm so bullish," and it promptly just went sideways and became walking dead.

Over time, as I started to learn, "All right, well now that I've overspent my budget, I need to figure out also how to become an adviser." And an adviser, for those who don't know, really just means that I am acting as a consigliere or consultant slash adviser, and instead of getting paid in cash, I get paid in equity. I get paid in a portion of the company over time. And so that — that then led to some very good decisions, and I had very lucky timing also. Because, say, 2008, 2009, there was less capital in the startup game, and that allowed me to invest in some great companies, and, like you mentioned, some of them — I mean, the Facebooks and Twitters and being an early adviser to Uber and then later Ali Baba, and I was the first adviser to Shopify, which had eight employees at the time and now has 2,500 to 3,000, and is a publicly traded company, and so on and so forth. So ultimately, the portfolio ended up being, I want to say, 60 or 70 companies, currently.

A new chapter as a podcast star

Feloni: So, Tim, you've had a few books at this point, but whenever I mention your name to someone now, what typically comes up is the podcast, and this is something that you started a few years ago. The way you put it, it almost seems like it came up as a lark type of thing.

Ferriss: Oh, it did. It's not just the way I put it — it totally was, dude. It totally did.

Feloni: How did that happen?

Ferriss: Well, after "The 4-Hour Chef," which was a very complex book, I was very burned out and wanted to take a break from anything that was writing-focused. And I was interviewed at the time on Joe Rogan's show, Marc Maron's "WTF," "Nerdist" with Chris Hardwick, which has since exploded into its own industry unto itself, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it because I could be myself. I could curse if it came out, from Long Island and all, and there was very little censuring. A and B, the format was long enough that I could get into the details, I could dig into the nuances, and I didn't have to try to encapsulate everything about a 600-page book into 20 seconds of scripted time when the person I'm talking to is reading a teleprompter over my shoulder.

And in those interviews I had so much fun, No. 1, and then, No. 2, they moved a lot of books. I was blown away by how many books these podcasts moved. It just completely made my jaw drop compared to a lot of other media.

And I committed to six episodes to start. I felt like that would give me a certain critical mass, where I could develop new skills, maybe remove a few verbal ticks and decide and assess fairly whether I enjoyed it or not. So I committed to six episodes. First one was a softball with my buddy Kevin Rose. Didn't even have a name for the podcast at that point, and we got — or I got, I should say; I'm trying to use the royal "we," but it was me — I got sloppy drunk because I was nervous, I was really nervous to interview one of my best friends, partially because he was busting my balls the whole time, and after six episodes I decided to keep doing it. I was having a lot of fun. And now, 300 episodes or so later, I'm still going and it's become, like you mentioned, what almost anyone who comes up to me in the street mentions.

Feloni: I've noticed in your podcasts, it seems to be a common thing that you interview people across all kinds of industries. You even have some maybe experimental episodes where you're talking about things like your morning routine or things like that. When I look at the past 10 years or so of your career, it seems that you — this a common theme — that you jump around among things. Do you get bored with stuff easily?

Ferriss: Oh, I would say I get bored with things easily, but the jumping around is also a protective mechanism. So much like, I had mentioned diversifying my identity with content by going from "4-Hour Workweek" to "4-Hour Body," even though I'm still ... I still had interest in business stuff, but I wanted to establish the precedent of me exploring different subject areas with the same framework. The insertion of experimental episodes into the podcast, say, the "drunk dial" episode, would be a good example. So I decide, all right, what would this look like if it were easy? Well, I would put out a note on social. I'd say, "Hey, guys, fill out this Google form, give me your phone number or Skype handle, and I'm just going to sit down with some gin and soda and I'm going to start drinking and then I'm going to call the first 15 people or 20 people and you can ask me anything you want, and that's going to be a podcast episode." So it self-selects for an audience who's up for that type of experimentation.

What it means to be Tim Ferriss

Feloni: I've heard you call yourself a dilettante before. Someone —

Ferriss: Yeah.

Feloni: Dabbling in a bunch of different things. And what is it that you specialize in?

Ferriss: I specialize in pattern recognition and accelerated learning. So taking a subject that seems very complex or that can be presented in a very complex way, and distilling it down into the fewest number of moving pieces that really matter. So the 20% that gets you 80% of the results that you want. And then imparting that to other people.

Feloni: So with that perspective, you've built up a good amount of success over the past 10 years, but something that I find interesting about you is that, more so than a lot of even entrepreneurs in tech, that you're really open about your failures, whether that was being turned down by publishers or your TV show being dropped or just a wide variety of things. Is that deliberate on your part? Is that as much for you as it is for your audience?

Ferriss: It's very deliberate. I don't know if it's "for me" because it's painful.

Feloni: Well, maybe coming to terms with the pain?

Ferriss: No, no, I mean it's not really a cathartic exercise for me — I suppose it has that effect — but I talk about my failures because I think it's dishonest to only talk about your successes. It's so critical that people realize mistakes are part of the game. Unforced errors are part of the game and as soon as that becomes the norm or the expectation, people can persist when they inevitably flub or drop the ball. I've had a bunch of what people would consider failures, in TV, in books, in any domain that I've participated in, I've made huge mistakes, massive errors of judgment. And nonetheless, if you focus on acquiring skills and relationships — acquiring — developing skills and relationships, if that's your focus, over time, you will win.

Feloni: Do you see yourself as a role model at this point?

Ferriss: I ... no. "Role model" is ... I wouldn't call myself a role model. I would call myself a teacher, certainly. I think there are certain tool kits that I've acquired, or approaches that I've tested that people can emulate, certainly, and use to replicate results. I mean, that's what I do. But I wouldn't anticipate, nor really want anyone to look at me and say, "I want to be Tim Ferriss." No, that shouldn't be the goal, and trust me, I mean, I talk about a lot of my demons. Like, I don't think you want to sign up for that necessarily.

I want to be the teacher who makes his students better than he was. I want to give people the tools and say, "OK, look, I made this shitty little birdhouse that people seem to be impressed by, but you can go build a Gothic cathedral if you want with the same set of tools, right?" That's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea, and then send people on their way to have their own adventures.

Feloni: Well, thank you so much, Tim. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Ferriss: Yeah, likewise.

SEE ALSO: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman reveals what it was like building PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and what it takes to make a $26.2 billion company

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NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by

[tortuga-aak]

The billionaire founder of LinkedIn was one of Facebook's early investors — and he watched CEO Mark Zuckerberg overcome 'the most spectacular adaptation curve'

Jacqui Ipp

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was one of the first investors in Facebook.

At the time, Zuckerberg was painfully awkward.

Hoffman said that Zuckerberg's desire to adapt and stick to his vision account for his evolution into a highly capable and sharp CEO.

Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the confident leader of a massively influential global company with a roughly $517 billion market capitalization, but 13 years ago he was a painfully awkward 20-year-old college dropout with a startup.

Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder and investor Reid Hoffman has seen the transformation up close for the whole journey.

In a bonus clip from a recent episode of Business Insider's "Success! How I Did It" podcast, Hoffman said, "One of the great delights in working with Mark through kind of the early days to now is that Mark has demonstrated literally the most spectacular learning and adaptation curve that I've ever seen in a young entrepreneur, to now, an experienced and highly capable CEO."

Hoffman met Zuckerberg in 2004, when Zuckerberg was looking for investments in "The Facebook" and had yet to have any takers. Hoffman was intrigued, but because he was in charge of his own burgeoning social network, he didn't want to be the lead investor. He phoned his friend and fellow investor Peter Thiel and arranged a meeting with Zuckerberg.

On the episode of the podcast "Masters of Scale" where Hoffman interviews Thiel, the two joked about how difficult it was communicating with Zuckerberg.

"He's very articulate now," Hoffman said. "But back then there was a lot of staring at the desk not saying anything." He and Thiel also found it amusing, even at the time, that Zuckerberg was pushing his (much less exciting) file transfer service Wirehog, just in case they didn't like Facebook.

Last year Business Insider spoke with Antonio García Martínez, the former Facebook employee who built much of the company's advertising foundation. He said most outsiders don't understand that Zuckerberg grew into some of his leadership capabilities rather than become a completely different person.

Martínez told us that Zuckerberg is both "actually very alpha male and very dominant," and that even a cynic like himself has to concede that Zuckerberg is a true believer in his mission of connecting the world. These seeds were there in the 20-year-old Zuck — his company's growing influence essentially forced him to outgrow some of his awkward tendencies.

In our podcast interview, Hoffman agreed, saying that Zuckerberg learned how to be graceful, but that his visionary intelligence was always there. He credits Zuckerberg's evolution to Zuckerberg's ability to adapt remarkably well coupled with this "true north" of a guiding desire.

"I am learning from a bunch of things that he does," Hoffman said.

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The billionaire founder of LinkedIn was one of Facebook's early investors — and he watched CEO Mark Zuckerberg overcome 'the most spectacular adaptation curve' Jacqui Ipp LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was one of the first investors in Facebook. At the time, Zuckerberg was painfully awkward. Hoffman said that Zuckerberg's desire to adapt and stick to his vision account for his evolution into a highly capable and sharp CEO. Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the confident leader of a massively influential global company with a roughly $517 billion market capitalization, but 13 years ago he was a painfully awkward 20-year-old college dropout with a startup. Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder and investor Reid Hoffman has seen the transformation up close for the whole journey. In a bonus clip from a recent episode of Business Insider's " Success! How I Did It " podcast, Hoffman said, "One of the great delights in working with Mark through kind of the early days to now is that Mark has demonstrated literally the most spectacular learning and adaptation curve that I've ever seen in a young entrepreneur, to now, an experienced and highly capable CEO." Hoffman met Zuckerberg in 2004, when Zuckerberg was looking for investments in "The Facebook" and had yet to have any takers. Hoffman was intrigued, but because he was in charge of his own burgeoning social network, he didn't want to be the lead investor. He phoned his friend and fellow investor Peter Thiel and arranged a meeting with Zuckerberg. On the episode of the podcast " Masters of Scale " where Hoffman interviews Thiel, the two joked about how difficult it was communicating with Zuckerberg. "He's very articulate now," Hoffman said. "But back then there was a lot of staring at the desk not saying anything." He and Thiel also found it amusing, even at the time, that Zuckerberg was pushing his (much less exciting) file transfer service Wirehog, just in case they didn't like Facebook. Last year Business Insider spoke with Antonio García Martínez , the former Facebook employee who built much of the company's advertising foundation. He said most outsiders don't understand that Zuckerberg grew into some of his leadership capabilities rather than become a completely different person. Martínez told us that Zuckerberg is both "actually very alpha male and very dominant," and that even a cynic like himself has to concede that Zuckerberg is a true believer in his mission of connecting the world. These seeds were there in the 20-year-old Zuck — his company's growing influence essentially forced him to outgrow some of his awkward tendencies. In our podcast interview, Hoffman agreed, saying that Zuckerberg learned how to be graceful, but that his visionary intelligence was always there. He credits Zuckerberg's evolution to Zuckerberg's ability to adapt remarkably well coupled with this "true north" of a guiding desire. "I am learning from a bunch of things that he does," Hoffman said. NOW WATCH: The 60-minute morning routine that productivity expert Tim Ferriss swears by November 16, 2017 at 03:36AM

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The billionaire founder of LinkedIn was one of Facebook's early investors — and he watched CEO Mark Zuckerberg overcome 'the most spectacular adaptation curve'

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was one of the first investors in Facebook.

At the time, Zuckerberg was painfully awkward.

Hoffman said that Zuckerberg's desire to adapt and stick to his vision account for his evolution into a highly capable and sharp CEO.

Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the confident leader of a massively influential global company with a roughly $517 billion market capitalization, but 13 years ago he was a painfully awkward 20-year-old college dropout with a startup.

Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder and investor Reid Hoffman has seen the transformation up close for the whole journey.

In a bonus clip from a recent episode of Business Insider's "Success! How I Did It" podcast, Hoffman said, "One of the great delights in working with Mark through kind of the early days to now is that Mark has demonstrated literally the most spectacular learning and adaptation curve that I've ever seen in a young entrepreneur, to now, an experienced and highly capable CEO."

Hoffman met Zuckerberg in 2004, when Zuckerberg was looking for investments in "The Facebook" and had yet to have any takers. Hoffman was intrigued, but because he was in charge of his own burgeoning social network, he didn't want to be the lead investor. He phoned his friend and fellow investor Peter Thiel and arranged a meeting with Zuckerberg.

On the episode of the podcast "Masters of Scale" where Hoffman interviews Thiel, the two joked about how difficult it was communicating with Zuckerberg.

"He's very articulate now," Hoffman said. "But back then there was a lot of staring at the desk not saying anything." He and Thiel also found it amusing, even at the time, that Zuckerberg was pushing his (much less exciting) file transfer service Wirehog, just in case they didn't like Facebook.

Last year Business Insider spoke with Antonio García Martínez, the former Facebook employee who built much of the company's advertising foundation. He said most outsiders don't understand that Zuckerberg grew into some of his leadership capabilities rather than become a completely different person.

Martínez told us that Zuckerberg is both "actually very alpha male and very dominant," and that even a cynic like himself has to concede that Zuckerberg is a true believer in his mission of connecting the world. These seeds were there in the 20-year-old Zuck — his company's growing influence essentially forced him to outgrow some of his awkward tendencies.

In our podcast interview, Hoffman agreed, saying that Zuckerberg learned how to be graceful, but that his visionary intelligence was always there. He credits Zuckerberg's evolution to Zuckerberg's ability to adapt remarkably well coupled with this "true north" of a guiding desire.

"I am learning from a bunch of things that he does," Hoffman said.

SEE ALSO: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman reveals what it was like building PayPal with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and what it takes to make a $26.2 billion company

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Billionaire investor Reid Hoffman reveals why his family was furious at him for going to Stanford

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Reid Hoffman's dad, mom, grandmother and grandfather all attended the University of California-Berkeley.

When he chose Stanford University it caused a "firestorm."

He knew he would thrive in a smaller college setting.

Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and a Greylock Partners investor, defied his whole family when he made his college choice. Eschewing tradition, he chose to attend Stanford over the University of California-Berkeley.

"I said I wanted to go to Stanford," Hoffman explained on CNBC. "There was this whole sort of  firestorm within the family." They balked at the decision, commenting, "Is he too good for public school? Why isn't he going to public school?"

For the Hoffmans, the decision felt personal. His dad, mom, grandmother and grandfather all attended Berkeley.

"They are legitimately and greatly advocates of what public universities and public education means for the greatness of the country," he said.

But Hoffman explained the decision had more to do with understanding himself, and advised others to be similarly self-aware.

"Know your own strengths and weaknesses," Hoffman said. "I thrive much better in small classroom environments. I thrive much better when I can connect with a teacher. And so one of the disadvantages of public schools is that they tend to be large and you tend to get lost in large lecture classes."

That's certainly true for Berkeley, which has about 30,000 undergraduates compared to Stanford's nearly 7,000.

You can watch the entire interview here:

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