Smart Friends - podcast cover

Smart Friends

Eric Jorgensonwww.ejorgenson.com
Casual conversations with founders, technologists, investors, and artists about building a brighter future, together. Welcome to our digital living room.  With science, technology and entrepreneurship we can *continue* to create unfathomable leaps in quality of life. We show you how to find, apply, build, and invest in technologies to change your life and the world.  When we have smart friends, we do smart things. When we do smart things, we save the world.  No matter who, where, or when you are – now you have smart friends, too.  Outside this podcast, I’m the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and The Anthology of Balaji. Connect at ejorgenson.com  Laugh and learn with people like Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant, Andrew Wilkinson, Austen Allred, David Senra, Josh Storrs Hall, Ashley Rindsberg, Zach Pettet, Bret Kugelmass, Omar ElNaggar, Grace Guo, Brett Kopf, Max Olson, Chris Williamson, Shane Mac, Tim Hwang, David Perell, Jason Hitchcock, Natalia Karayaneva, Sebastian Marshall, Taylor Pearson, Mitchell Baldridge and more. Join conversations with my partners in early-stage tech investing, Bo Fishback and Al Doan. Our Rolling Fun Episodes cover our investments and escapades as angel investors and startup helpers. We invest in startups creating the *next* industrial revolution. Learn more at rolling.fun “Surround yourself with people who remind you more of your future than of your past.”

Episodes

#056 New York Times’ Radical Distortions and Fabrications with Ashley Rindsberg, Author of “The Gray Lady Winked”

Links: The Gray Lady Winked by Ashley Rindsberg Ashley on Twitter Ashley on Substack Ashley’s writing Sponsor: MadeByBread.com GiveWell.org Topics: (5:02) - The impact of Balaji’s love for your book (6:54) - When did you realize this book needed to be written? (10:35) - Rejected by publishers (11:44) - What changed? How did this get published? (13:51) - The research and writing process (18:01) - Examples: Holocaust, Fidel Castro, Vietnam, Atomic Bomb… (30:45) - Who is responsible for the failure...

Jan 31, 20231 hr 9 min

#055 Crypto Business Banking and Long-Term Blockchain Applications with Grace Guo of Domo and Mitchell Baldridge

Links: Domo.so Grace on Twitter Mitchell on Twitter Domo on Twitter Jorgenson’s Soundbox #38 with Athena Jorgenson’s Soundbox #52 with Zach Pettet Sponsor: Athenago.com Givewell.org Topics: (5:21) - Introducing Grace and Mitchell (5:58) - Who are your heroes? (8:27) - How did you discover there was a need for Domo? (17:22) - How are you thinking about incorporating fiat-based companies with Domo? (21:18) - Who are the customers for this and how would you get accounting done for this? (25:41) - W...

Jan 10, 20231 hr 19 min

#054 Engineering an Acquisition, Grant Funding, and Nanotech Pharma with Maria Flynn

Links: Ambiologix Rolling Fun SBIR requirements Participating governmental agencies State funds for SBIR Topics: (6:00) - Maria’s origin story & the founding of Orbis (12:03) - What is this technology? (13:46) - What was Corey’s breakthrough? (16:06) - How many months of burn did you have from the seed round? (17:42) - What was the process of running down your first 4 contracts? (18:49) - When did grant funding come into the picture and how do people go about getting this type of funding? (27:51...

Dec 27, 20221 hr 20 min

#053 Rolling Fun #4: Q4 Portfolio Recap, Crypto Long-view, Uncapped Notes, and Fund Growth

Links: Rolling Fun #1 Rolling Fun #2 Rolling Fun #3 Portfolio Al on Twitter Bo on Twitter Positive Food Co. Omella Tonic Audio Stell Engineering NSION Gently.com Glyph Terran Robotics Topics: (5:34) - Crypto has imploded, thanks FTX! What’s the long-term play? (21:00) - Life and news updates (23:20) - Q4 Investment updates (1:01:00) - Elon and Twitter (1:06:22) - Discussing the pros and cons of an uncapped Convertible Note and investment philosophies (1:31:27) - Fund Growth Updates >> Invest in ...

Dec 13, 20222 hr 40 min

#052 Money 20/20, Fintech Innovations, and Interviewing Legends with Zach Anderson Pettet

Links: Zach on Twitter & LinkedIn Money 20/20 For Fintech’s Sake Podcast TripleBlind Rule 1033 Propel Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller Topics: (4:25) - Recap the last episode with Zach and Eric (5:34) - Fintech Industry Overview (15:21) - Money 20/20 – the Biggest Fintech Conference in the world (24:02) - Regulation looms over Fintech, always (27:12) - The “Off The Record” Stage at Money 20/20 (29:28) - The CFPB and Rule 1033 (43:15) - Stripe, Adyen, Warren Buffett, and The Media (49:01) - Beh...

Nov 29, 20222 hr 50 min

#051 AI Evolution: ComputerVision, Olfactory Computation, and Neural Nets with Max Olson

Topics: (5:29) - Max’s background and career (14:15) - Is it reasonable to use Neural Net, Deep Learning and Machine learning interchangeably? (26:37) - The Future of AI (39:18) - Google & AI Writing (49:42) - Hiring AI for help in our personal lives (55:02) - How Improvements in Robotics will massively push things forward (57:12) - Computers being able to smell and taste (1:04:56) - Scarier futures of AI (1:08:13) - Is there a new field of opportunities you’re paying attention to now in Compute...

Nov 15, 20222 hr 36 min

#050 Growing Podcasts, Bookkeeping Biz, and Creator-Led Companies with David Senra and Mitchell Baldridge

Topics: (4:12) - David on how to grow a podcast & Mitchell as a connector (13:32) - David on changing the structure of his podcast (15:58) - Creator-Led Business, Kobe Bryant, Arnold Schwarzenegger & Balaji (36:49) - The genius of Berkshire Hathaway & The power of Twitter (51:24) - Creator Economics & Story time with David Senra (1:06:38) - Eric’s impact on David (1:09:48) - Mitchell’s career model & Building a bookkeeping business (1:28:11) - Focusing career growth (2:04:32) - Thoughts on TikTo...

Nov 01, 20223 hr 39 min

#049 Rolling Fun #3: Q3 Portfolio Recap and Life Updates: Crafting, Smart Kitchens, the API for the Auto Industry

Topics: (1:05) - Life updates and catching up from Al’s Quilting Capital: Hamilton, MO (20:08) - Fund updates for end of Q2 (25:15) - Fund updates for Q3: Omello, Ohm, Driv.ly & Glyph (49:35) - Closing out Q3 (50:28) - Updates on old portfolio companies: StableCoin, Terran, Gently (55:23) - How to get involved with Rolling Fun! Links: Rolling Fun #1 Rolling Fun #2 Portfolio Al on Twitter Bo on Twitter Wongo Puzzles Positive Food Co. Omella Smart Ohm Driv.ly Glyph To support the costs of producin...

Oct 18, 202258 min

#048 Balaji’s Most Epic, Personal, In-Depth Interview Ever (Transhumanism, Investing, and more)

Topics: (5:53) - Start of Balaji Interview (6:24) - How would you introduce yourself to a stranger? (8:19) - Do you think of your work as “whatever it takes” to advance your ideology? (10:05) - What would you like to see most achieved? (13:14) - What are the things you believe you are the best at? (20:52) - What are the ideas you are most confident telling others that you know for certain? (30:22) - Balaji’s upbringing & growing up in an age before the internet (1:03:35) - Have you always been l...

Oct 04, 20224 hr 57 min

#047 Track Zach Marshall #4: The Services Trap, Firing Customers, Chicken-and-Egg Problems

Topics: (7:05) - Updates from Zach: hiring, firing, building software, and finding PMF (13:41) - What drove the decision to focus more on the marketplace rather than services? (20:18) - How different was it working with a fund rather than angels? (23:03) - Cost cutting measures (24:35) - What was it about services that made them not repeatable or scalable? (37:00) - Fear mongering (38:19) - Regional focused marketplaces (41:07) - Corporate Enterprise focuses (45:15) - Rebuilding community and st...

Sep 20, 20221 hr 14 min

#046 Finding Your Peak of Productivity: Ultraworking with Sebastian Marshall

Topics: (1:46) - Who are your heroes? (7:25) - Sebastian’s affinity for studying history, sports, art & professional gamers (11:30) - How do you take lessons learned from these studies and apply them to entrepreneurship? (13:01) - Why do you approach life and work with a lens of ruthless optimization? (18:12) - Breaking down the concept of ‘productivity’ (26:56) - Non-value producing work (28:11) - Do you find that you have a higher sense of baseline after experimenting with optimizing your enti...

Sep 06, 20222 hr 32 min

#045 The Future of Nuclear Energy: Politics, Culture, and Technology with Mark Nelson

Topics: (3:15) - Mark’s career & background (4:40) - Do you think there is a popular renaissance behind Nuclear Energy? (6:27) - Realizing the regulatory problem holding back energy advancement (15:35) - The costs behind Nuclear (18:06) - The Nuclear customer & Europe’s approach to Nuclear (31:46) - France’s energy price crisis (37:00) - The history of Nuclear Power (51:07) - The next wave: Advanced Nuclear (1:01:51) - Who’s behind the push for Advanced Nuclear? (1:03:27) - How did the USA lose ...

Aug 23, 20222 hr 36 min

#044 Brainstorming Bologna with Matt Ferrel and Ben Bator

Topics: (5:14) - Matt & Ben’s friendship origin (8:42) - Starting Texts From Last Night (18:17) - Matt’s early career with Google, Coachella & Lafayette American (43:33) - Mille Mitten (58:34) - Tik Tok, Ads and Algorithms (1:06:55) - Elon Musk & Twitter (1:15:38) - Fixing Movie Theaters & car charging infrastructure (1:38:07) - Fixing conferences (1:50:50) - Exercise: Rebranding the podcast Links: Texts from Last Night Lafayette American TickPick Mille Mitten Mil-Spec Automotive Alamo Drafthous...

Aug 09, 20222 hr 5 min

#043 Automation and Delegation to buy $500 million+ of real estate, with Rohun Jauhar of JT Capital

Links: Rohun on Twitter JT Capital The Sovereign Individual by James Davidson CBRE JLL 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss Loom Maven The Fear Setting Exercise - Tim Ferriss Topics: (6:10) - Why Eric and Rohun Should have been friends 10 years ago (8:30) - Rohun’s Heroes & family dynamic (15:44) - Journeying into Real Estate (20:52) - Getting Reps: Underwriting Deals (26:57- The importance of scale (30:14) - What is the order of operations for buying a deal? (33:17) - How did you find your partners ...

Jul 26, 20222 hr 33 min

#042 Black Swans, The End of Jobs, and Long Volatility with Taylor Pearson of Mutiny Fund

Topics: (6:21) - What is your specific knowledge? (7:20) - Taylor’s career (12:38) - Transaction Cost Economics (20:02) - The work behind Taylor’s first book: The End of Jobs (21:20) - Was publishing that book a major inflection point in your career? (23:53) - Taylor’s writing on the crypto space and work in investing & finance (29:03) - Mutiny Funds (32:57) - The Long-Volatility Strategy (36:33) - The Thousand-Year Portfolio (40:49) - Who is using the long-volatility strategy and how are they u...

Jul 12, 20221 hr 22 min

#041 Devouring Founder’s Biographies, Self-Belief, and the Power of Podcasting with David Senra of Founders Podcast

Topics: (3:48) - David Hijacks the podcast: Eric’s Heroes, Munger as a copywriter and “Jeffisms” (8:31) - How did you start Founders Pod and build it into a business? (27:39) - How did you engrain this level of discipline in your craft? (34:41) - Emulating Ed Thorpe (43:59) - The power of podcasting (50:43) - Eric and David discuss career goals (57:46) - Thoughts on the ‘serial entrepreneur’ (1:08:18) - Deep dive into David’s approach to reading (1:19:17) - Is this just a chapter of your life, o...

Jun 28, 20222 hr 9 min

#040 Customer-Driven Products: How Brett Kopf built “Slack for Schools” and launched Omella

Topics: (7:11) - Brett’s earliest memories of his strengths (9:58) - Understanding different skills and abilities (13:36) - Brett’s early career (18:08) - What was the moment of conception for Remind? (26:03) - What were some pivotal moments early on? (30:08) - How much did Twilio aid your growth? (31:18) - What role did investor selection play into the success of Remind? (35:00) - Transitioning into Omella (44:18) - How many customers did you talk to before building the product? (45:11) - What’...

Jun 14, 20221 hr 23 minEp. 49

#039 Track Zach Marshall #3: 10x-ing your company in 4 Months

(2:29) - How clear is the picture of how far you’ve come in the past 4 months? (3:27) - Recapping Track Zach #2 (10:36) - What are customers buying now and how have the service offerings changed? (20:06) - Do you know the bootstrapping process of these other industry marketplace products? (21:49) - How did you arrive at home security audit and family protection as the right first products to offer? (29:20) - What’s your ultimate revenue goal as it pertains to fundraising? (38:35) - What do your ...

May 31, 20222 hr 39 minEp. 48

#038 Creative EA Delegation, the Corporation of You, and Personal Leverage with Robert Hayes and Chris Ho of Athena

Topics: (4:56) - Chris’ background and work at Athena (6:53) - What does a Chief Client Officer do? (10:20) - Robert’s background and work at Athena (17:00) - Robert recruiting Chris to Athena (20:20) - What distinguishes Robert as an operator (25:02) - Robert’s first year with Athena and how the company has scaled (33:39) - Chris’ decision to join Athena (37:28) - Creating a great experience for both clients and the EAs (46:17) - What people use their EAs for at Athena (50:28) - How Athena focu...

May 17, 20222 hr 3 minEp. 47

#037 Inside Buying & Selling Internet Businesses with Thomas Smale, Founder/CEO of FE International

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast. David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthon...

May 03, 20222 hr 30 minEp. 46

#036 Rolling Fun #2: Q1 Portfolio Recap, Q2 Updates, Right Kind of Risks and more with Al Doan and Bo Fishback

Topics: (2:11) - Tech Gossip about Elon, Twitter & Fast (9:26) - Q1 Portfolio Recap: Gently & Terran Robotics (28:36) - Q2 Portfolio Update: Lumo, Stablegains (43:05) - How listeners can help portfolio companies (46:07) - Fund Updates (51:29) - Explaining how quarterly investments work in the fund and deadlines (53:01) - Reasons we passed on companies Links: Rolling.Fun Gently.com Terran Robotics Terran Robotics on YouTube Lumo.co Stablegains.com Other Episode You’ll Like: Shane Mac: Building Me...

Apr 26, 20221 hr 5 minEp. 45

#035 EA Delegating w/ Michelle Penczak: Founder of Squared Away - Military Spouses becoming Top Tier Virtual Assistants

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast. David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthon...

Apr 19, 202259 minEp. 44

#034 The Next Industrial Revolution w/ J. Storrs Hall: Nuclear Energy, AI and Nanotechnology

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast. David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthon...

Apr 12, 20222 hr 37 minEp. 43

#033 Channeling Anger to Fix the Finance Industry with Deregulation, Technology, and Crypto with Zach Pettet

The sponsor for this week’s episode is Founders Podcast. David Senra, the host of Founders Podcast, is a biography-reading machine. If you don’t have time to spend 40 hours reading the full-length biography of some gilded-age entrepreneur, listening to David’s high-quality recap is the next best thing. The Founders Podcast is a paid podcast that costs $99/year or $299 for lifetime access. Subscribing gives you access to more than 200 episodes including the back catalog with episodes about Anthon...

Mar 22, 20221 hr 17 minEp. 42

#032 Solocast #3: Nuclear, Nanotech, and the next Industrial Revolution (Book Recap: “Where is my Flying Car?”)

Links: Where Is My Flying Car? By J. Storrs Hall WTF Happened in 1971? To support this costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to...

Mar 15, 202254 minEp. 41

#031 I’m Building an Early-Stage Fund with Al Doan and Bo Fishback (Rolling Fun #1)

Links: Rolling.Fun Alan Doan Bo Fishback Airtasker Lambda Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Chris Powers: Starting a Real Estate Empire at 17, Focus, Podcast Flywheels Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust To support this costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in ea...

Mar 08, 20222 hr 43 minEp. 40

#030 Self-reinvention & building leverage in podcasts with Chris Williamson

Links: Modern Wisdom Podcast Chris Williamson on Twitter Eric’s leverage course Jordan Peterson & Chris Williamson Podcast Mathew Fraser on Instagram Sky King on Twitter The School of Life Sam Harris Taylor Pearson Chris Sparks Aubrey Marcus, CEO of Onnit on what he would change about his life Essentialism by Greg McKeown The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron Tim Ferriss: 11 reasons not to get famous Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sky King: The Next Lev...

Mar 01, 20222 hr 44 minEp. 39

#029 Bringing Real Estate onto the Blockchain with Natalia Karayaneva & Adam Brown of Propy

Links: Propy NAR (National Association of Realtors) Natalia on Twitter Natalia on LinkedIn Adam on LinkedIn Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions Shane Mac: Building Messaging Protocol for Web3 (XMTP), Company Culture, and Scaling Trust To support this costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: ...

Feb 22, 20221 hr 8 minEp. 38

#028 Finding an edge in HR & Culture for growing Startups, with Jeannine Seidl of Density

During this conversation on Jorgenson’s Soundbox, I have my beautiful and brilliant fiancé Jeannine on as my guest, and we talk about all things HR, now known as the People Function or People Team in many organizations. Currently, Jeannine is leading the People Team at the startup Density, which has grown from 40 employees to 180 in the last year and a half. To start our discussion, I ask Jeannine to dispel some of the misperceptions of HR – she says often they are spending more time and energy ...

Feb 15, 20222 hr 43 minEp. 37

#027 Finding the 100 highest-quality public businesses in the world with Will Oliver and Will Barnes, founders of In Practise

Will Barnes and Will Oliver are two fantastic individuals I met through Latticework and got to know by bonding over our fandom of Charlie Munger. They are the co-founders of In Practise, a company that conducts interviews with executives and sells them to investors looking at the companies and building conviction in their portfolio. They conduct one-to-one interviews in pursuit of finding the best investment opportunities for their clients. During our conversation, we talk about how they came to...

Feb 08, 20222 hr 44 minEp. 36