Episode 001 Kevin Rose

Summary

• Tim Ferriss is the author of The 4Hour Workweek, The 4Hour Body, and The 4Hour Chef, which have been translated into more than 35 languages.
• The Tim Ferriss Show is an indepth conversational podcast with actors, investors, hackers, professional athletes, black market chemists, and everybody inbetween.
• The goal is to suss out the 20% of tactics, philosophies, or principles that they use to get 80% of the results they’ve had.
• The first guest is Kevin Rose, a worldclass investor and entrepreneur.
• They are drinking a bottle of wine from a friend of Kevin's, Chris, who owns a small wine bar in San Francisco called Hotel Biron.
• Kevin grew up in Las Vegas and has had a successful career in tech and investing.
• Kevin Rose moved to the Bay Area in 2000 and started working in the tech space.
• He worked at Tech TV and eventually ended up doing segments on a show called The Screen Savers.
• He started his own first startup called Digg, which is a social news site, and grew that to a pretty decent size.
• He sold a few companies, got acquired by Google, and eventually ended up as a venture capitalist at Google Ventures.
• He has always been the kind of person that just starts to think about trends and ideas.
• He is good at predicting what will pop or what will not pop and attributes this to his natural curiosity and ability to analyze people and trends.
• He looks for insights and something that plays to him as a consumer when investing.
• Kevin Rose looks for products he can use on a daily basis and that will take up a spot on his home screen.
• He looks for products that are not the hottest girl at the dance, but have potential.
• Examples of investments he made that worked out include Nextdoor, a neighborhood social network, and he missed out on investing in Pinterest.
• His investment mistakes include passing on deals that were 8s out of 10 and investing in people he liked, but the product wasn't necessarily a good fit.
• His first business was Foliage Software when he was 12, and his shittiest job was working at Olive Garden making breadsticks.
• Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss discuss the upcoming JOBS Act, which will allow Average Joe and Jane to access deals previously only available to a small club.
• They recommend reading Warren Buffett's annual letters to develop rules for investing.
• Kevin Rose's favorite time of day is evening, when he can decompress with dinner and a glass of wine.
• His favorite meal and wine is a 100day dryaged sousvide beef with a cabernet.
• As he's gotten older, Kevin has become more focused on staying in shape and less focused on tinkering with computers.
• When he hears the word "successful," the first person to come to mind is Philip Rosedale, who created Second Life and is now working on High Fidelity.
• Kevin Rose talks about Philip Rosedale, a big thinker and mad scientist, who is rare to find and has the potential to change the world.
• Reid Hoffman and Elon Musk are also mentioned as examples of big thinkers.
• Philip has a background in computer science and Reid has a Master's or Ph.D. in philosophy.
• Kevin Rose talks about his experience of keeping in touch with friends from his past, as he has had more success.
• Tim Ferriss talks about his experience of transitioning from having more in common with townies to city people, and how it has been a challenge for him.
• Kevin Rose grew up in a lowermiddle income family and has a lot of 90's tattoos.
• He feels most at home with people who understand that.
• He knew he wanted to be in computers since he was 10 or 12 years old.
• He would like to study with a meditation guru to gain his soul back.
• Tim Ferriss has been meditating twice a day for 11 weeks.
• Kevin Rose's friend who owns a wine bar said 30% of signatures on the iPad are penises.
• Kevin Rose believes technology blurs personal and work time and he would like to cut out some of it to be a successful entrepreneur.
• The 4Hour Workweek is about optimizing perhour output and maximizing time spent on things one is passionate about.
• Kevin Rose's favorite documentary is Food Inc.
• If he could stop the clock and live forever at a particular age, he would choose 24.
• His pet peeve is people who are not direct and beat around the bush.
• He believes that being direct, even if it stings, is the best way to communicate.
• He is not a great negotiator, as evidenced by a recent car lease negotiation.
• He believes that a good communicator/negotiator is one who is direct and honest.
• Kevin Rose is comfortable having uncomfortable conversations because he wants to avoid an even more difficult conversation down the road if he is caught not speaking the truth the first time around.
• He believes that if you admit your faults, then other people can't point them out in you.
• He is worldclass at coming up with ideas that have never been done before and prototyping them.
• He experienced this feeling of accomplishment when millions of people ended up using something he created.
• Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss discuss the early days of Digg and how some of their ideas were used in other products, including Facebook.
• They talk about the quantified self movement and how it is now hitting mainstream.
• Tim Ferriss talks about his experience with a continuous glucose monitor implanted into his abdomen.
• They discuss the potential of a nicotine patch that tracks biometric data 24/7.
• They also talk about the latency of getting test results back and how it takes 37 days.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the idea of outsourcing daily tasks and the cognitive tax that comes with white collar work.
• They also discuss the idea of working in fast food to gain an understanding of the processes and efficiencies in place.
• They both have a fantasy of working on the Chipotle line in a meditative, repetitive context.
• They also discuss the idea of joining the Boy Scouts to help out and mentor kids who don't have father figures.
• They also discuss the idea of the unschooled movement, where kids can pick classes at their own leisure.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the importance of having a mentor or leader to provide structure and guidance in life.
• Tim Ferriss believes that having a mentor or leader to push you to the breaking point is beneficial in developing as a person.
• Kevin Rose believes that everyone is different and that it is important to choose your own path and have a mentor in that particular vertical.
• Kevin Rose also believes that it is important to be honest with yourself about what you don't know and to pair up with mentors to fill in the gaps.
• Kevin Rose is currently looking for a mentor to help him understand legal documents and financing documents.
• Kevin Rose discussed the importance of understanding business terms and the value of having mentors.
• He suggested reading Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson to learn more about venture capital and startup finance agreements.
• He also suggested having an outlet to vent, such as a spouse, close friends, or counseling.
• He advised his 25yearold self to drink less and to do more with less in business.
• He suggested Tim Ferriss interview people from different cultures to bring a different flavor to the podcast.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the podcast episode and ask listeners to provide feedback
• They ask listeners to reply to @kevinrose on Twitter with #timtimgoodgood as the hash tag
• They also ask listeners to send feedback to @tferriss
• They thank listeners for listening and say they will do more episodes if people like it
• They end the episode with "Namaste" and "Till next time. Good night guys"
• Tim Ferriss is the author of The 4Hour Workweek, The 4Hour Body, and The 4Hour Chef, which have been translated into more than 35 languages.
• The Tim Ferriss Show is an indepth conversational podcast with actors, investors, hackers, professional athletes, black market chemists, and everybody inbetween.
• The goal is to suss out the 20% of tactics, philosophies, or principles that they use to get 80% of the results they’ve had.
• The first guest is Kevin Rose, a worldclass investor and entrepreneur.
• They are drinking a bottle of wine from a friend of Kevin's, Chris, who owns a small wine bar in San Francisco called Hotel Biron.
• Kevin grew up in Las Vegas and has had a successful career in tech and investing.
• Kevin Rose moved to the Bay Area in 2000 and started working in the tech space.
• He worked at Tech TV and eventually ended up doing segments on a show called The Screen Savers.
• He started his own first startup called Digg, which is a social news site, and grew that to a pretty decent size.
• He sold a few companies, got acquired by Google, and eventually ended up as a venture capitalist at Google Ventures.
• He has always been the kind of person that just starts to think about trends and analyzing people.
• He has a natural curiosity and gets excited when he sees something that is new and original and has never been done before.
• He invested in Twitter early on and saw that Jack Dorsey had created a model that was not about mutual friendship and that celebrities could easily use it.
• He also saw that the follower count was not portable and that it was defensible in that way.
• He invests based on his gut and looks for insights and something that plays to him as a consumer.
• Kevin Rose looks for products he can use on a daily basis and that will take up a spot on his home screen.
• He looks for products that are not the hottest girl at the dance, but have potential.
• Nextdoor is an example of a product he invested in that was not popular at the time, but is now successful.
• His investment mistakes have been passing on 8s and investing in people he likes, but the product may not be successful.
• His first business was Foliage Software when he was 12, and his shittiest job was working at Olive Garden making breadsticks.
• He believes it is important to have had a shitty job, preferably in the service industry, to learn about service and humankind.
• Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss discuss the upcoming JOBS Act, which will allow Average Joe and Jane to access deals previously only available to a small club.
• They recommend reading Warren Buffett's annual letters to develop rules for investing.
• Kevin Rose's favorite time of day is evening, when he can decompress with dinner and a glass of wine.
• His favorite meal and wine is a 100day dryaged sousvide beef with a cabernet.
• As he's gotten older, Kevin has become more focused on staying in shape and less focused on tinkering with computers.
• When he hears the word "successful," the first person to come to mind is Philip Rosedale, who created Second Life and is now working on High Fidelity.
• Kevin Rose talks about Philip Rosedale, a big thinker and mad scientist, who is rare to discover.
• He is passionate and has big ideas, such as virtual economies and currencies.
• Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman are also examples of big idea people.
• Philip has a background in machine code computer science.
• Tim Ferriss talks about his experience transitioning from townies to city people and how it has been a challenge for him.
• He is closest to his friends from boarding school and has found it harder to develop close friendships in the Bay Area.
• Kevin Rose grew up in a lowermiddle income family and has a lot of 90's tattoos.
• He feels most at home with people who understand that.
• He knew he wanted to be in computers since he was 10 or 12 years old.
• He would like to study with a meditation guru to gain his soul back.
• Tim Ferriss has been meditating twice a day for 11 weeks.
• Kevin Rose's friend who owns a wine bar said 30% of signatures on the iPad are penises.
• Kevin Rose believes technology blurs personal and work time and he would like to cut out some of it to be a successful entrepreneur.
• The 4Hour Workweek is about optimizing perhour output.
• The objective is to use time wisely and allocate it to things that are passionate about.
• Kevin Rose's favorite documentary is Food Inc.
• If he could stop the clock and live forever at a particular age, he would choose 24.
• His pet peeve is when people are not direct.
• He believes that being direct is the right thing to do, even if it stings.
• He believes that being a good communicator and negotiator go hand in hand.
• Kevin Rose is comfortable having uncomfortable conversations because he wants to avoid an even more difficult conversation down the road if he is caught not speaking the truth the first time around.
• He believes that admitting his faults prevents other people from pointing them out.
• He is worldclass at coming up with ideas that have never been done before and prototyping them.
• He experienced this feeling of accomplishment when millions of people ended up using something he created.
• Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss discuss the early days of Digg and how some of their ideas were used in other products, including Facebook.
• They talk about the quantified self movement and how it is now hitting mainstream.
• Tim Ferriss talks about his experience with a continuous glucose monitor implanted into his abdomen.
• They discuss the potential of a nicotine patch that tracks biometric data 24/7.
• They also talk about the latency of getting test results back and how it takes 37 days.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the idea of outsourcing daily tasks and the cognitive tax that comes with white collar work.
• They also discuss the idea of working in fast food to gain an understanding of the processes and efficiencies in place.
• They both have a fantasy of working on the Chipotle line in a meditative, repetitive context.
• They also discuss the idea of joining the Boy Scouts to help out and mentor kids who don't have father figures.
• They also discuss the idea of the unschooled movement, where kids can pick classes at their own leisure.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the importance of having a mentor or leader to provide structure and guidance in life.
• Tim Ferriss believes that having a mentor or leader to push you to the breaking point is beneficial in developing as a person.
• Kevin Rose believes that everyone is different and that it is important to choose your own path and have a mentor in that particular vertical.
• Kevin Rose also believes that it is important to be honest with yourself about what you don't know and to pair up with mentors to fill in the gaps.
• Kevin Rose is currently looking for a mentor to help him understand legal documents and financing documents.
• Kevin Rose discussed the importance of understanding the terms of a venture capital agreement and recommended the book Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson.
• He also discussed the importance of having an outlet to vent and to have mentors.
• He advised his 25yearold self to drink less and to do more with less in business.
• He suggested that Tim Ferriss interview people from different cultures to bring a different flavor to the podcast.
• Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose discuss the podcast episode and ask listeners to provide feedback
• They ask listeners to reply to @kevinrose on Twitter with #timtimgoodgood as the hash tag
• They also ask listeners to send feedback to @tferriss
• They thank listeners for listening and say they will do more episodes if people like it
• They end the episode with "Namaste" and "Till next time. Good night guys"