Podcast Notes Playlist: Startup Podcast Notes

What I learned from reading The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.

We finally sit down with the man himself: Nvidia Cofounder & CEO Jensen Huang. After three parts and seven+ hours of covering the company, we thought we knew everything but — unsurprisingly — Jensen knows more. A couple teasers: we learned that the company’s initial motivation to enter the datacenter business came from perhaps not where you’d think, and the roots of Nvidia’s platform strategy stretch back beyond CUDA all the way to the origin of the company.
We also got a peek into Jensen’s mindset and calculus behind “betting the company” multiple times, and his surprising feelings about whether he’d go on the founder journey again if he could rewind time. We can’t think of any better way to tie a bow on our Nvidia series (for now). Tune in!

Sponsors:
Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get:
Your product growth powered by StatsigScalable, clean and low-cost cloud AI compute from Crusoe (and listen to our recent ACQ2 interview with CEO Chase Lochmiller)Free access to Jensen’s favorite business books on Blinkist, plus our favorites on Ben & David’s Bookshelf
More Acquired!:
Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and moreMerch Store!
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Deep Questions with Cal Newport
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One of the most common strategies for achieving a powerful ideal lifestyle vision is to leverage entrepreneurial activities to find a stable source of income that allows autonomy and flexibility. To help understand how to succeed in such ventures, Cal interviews the entrepreneur and author Noah Kagan about his new book, "The Million Dollar Weekend." Recording on the road as part of his book tour for "Slow Productivity," Cal also shares some lessons about what he's been observing.

Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo

Video from today’s episode:  youtube.com/calnewportmedia

INTERVIEW: Marketing guru Noah Kagan [11:06]

Links:
Use this link to preorder a signed copy of “Slow Productivity”:
peoplesbooktakoma.com/preorder-slow-productivity/
FREE download excerpt and 2 Bonuses for “Slow Productivity”:
calnewport.com/slow

Thanks to our Sponsors:

This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at
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Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, Kieron Rees for slow productivity music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

Delian Asparouhov is the co-founder, President and Chairman of Varda Space Industries, a company building spacecraft to manufacture materials in microgravity that are difficult or impossible to produce on Earth— starting with pharmaceuticals. He’s also a Partner at Founders Fund.

Previously, he was a principal at Khosla Ventures, head of growth at Teespring, and founder of a healthcare company called Nightingale. Delian is Bulgarian, attended MIT, and likes to ski and play soccer.

0:00 - Intro
3:14 - How Does Innovation Happen?
6:23 - Varda and the No Science Allowed Rule
7:52 - A Primer on Solid State Microgravity Manufacturing
18:25 - Space Industrialization, Trading Posts, and the Chinese and Portuguese Navies
21:13 - Economic Incentives and Future Business Models in Space
24:24 - SpaceX and The Costs of Mass to Orbit
27:45 - Demand for Space Manufacturing and Varda at Scale
33:44 - Manufacturing, Servicing, Machining, and Future Markets for Space
36:42 - Incubating Companies
40:33 - When Would Varda Have Been Started Otherwise?
42:19 - The Hollywood Model of Startups
45:20 - Future of Incubations
47:47 - Media’s Role in Technology
50:39 - What Media Inspired Varda’s Founding?
52:38 - Talent, Culture, and Cementing Company Trajectory
53:57 - Narratives and Talent Recruitment
55:28 - Traits Delian Looks for in Founders
57:38 - The ‘Why Now’ When Investing
1:00:08 - Bring Non-Consensus and Right
1:02:53 - Is Varda Consensus Yet?
1:03:24 - Identifying Non-Consensus Opportunities
1:05:12 - Lessons from Founding and Investing
1:07:40 - What Skill Do You Wish You’d Developed Earlier?
1:10:11 - Immigrant Mentality
1:11:24 - Less Obvious Reasons for Success
1:12:55 - On Speed
1:14:23 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

🎙️More Episodes🎙️
YouTube: https://bit.ly/3QDLQFt
Apple: https://apple.co/478Be6M
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sfiFiE

📲Socials📲

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adlabossiere

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexlabossiere/

Joe Lonsdale is one of the most prominent investors in technology. He's the co-founder of Palantir, 8VC, Addepar, and the Cicero Institute — and one of Balaji's longtime friends. We have fun talking about education, longevity, space, and the little matter of completely reforming all governments with the internet.

OUTLINE:
00:00 - How Silicon Valley got expensive
09:18 - Tech founders as philosophers
17:39 - 100% Democracy and .01% Democracy
28:51 - Internet Values vs Western Values
36:05 - How Academics Become Capitalists
46:40 - Red States, Purple States, Foreign States for AI
58:11 - Thoughts on Space, Robotics, Longevity



VIDEO

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ny93ZjlR93g

SOCIAL
https://ciceroinstitute.org
https://www.8vc.com
https://thenetworkstate.com/podcast
https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale
https://twitter.com/balajis

Read Write Own (readwriteown.com) is a new book by Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and founder of the largest crypto fund in the world. It's an important work that is simultaneously the best crypto tutorial for newcomers and an accessible reference for experts. Balaji and Chris are long-time friends and worked together at a16z for years. Here they discuss Read Write Own and the state of crypto in 2024.

OUTLINE
00:20 - Chris Introduces Read Write Own
05:04 - Why Books Are Harder than Essays
11:40 - Overview of Read Write Own
18:01 - The 2000s: Open RSS vs Proprietary Social
25:32 - Every Protocol Now Gets Global State
31:42 - Web3 Versions of Web2 Apps
35:27 - Proprietary Networks Are Locking Down
38:47 - Crypto Subsidizes Creatives
42:53 - Virtual Goods and Online Status
44:13 - Own Usernames Like Domain Names
47:55 - What Digital Ownership Means
48:52 - Tech Giants' Power and User Leverage.
58:28 - Collaborative Storytelling
01:02:06 - Digital Identity with Web3
01:09:36 - Conclusion



VIDEO

YouTube: https://youtu.be/_nIQztk5KWY

SOCIAL
https://readwriteown.com
https://thenetworkstate.com/podcast
https://twitter.com/cdixon
https://twitter.com/balajis