YouSaid · the spoken record

Nick Thompson

lines on the record: 106
first: 2018-04-27
most recent: 2018-04-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“No, it's a super good question. I think that what was interesting is that they were kind of competitive with me, right? And so the things that go into how much time you prioritize playing music, how much time do you prioritize being a journalist include factors like how much do you make per hour, but also as time goes by, how do you expect your life and ambitions to grow? And the thing about being a musician is that I kind of I could see the endpoint I didn't think I was going to become a transcendentally good musician. I didn't see a career where I would like change the way music was made or create a new sound. I didn't think that even if I devoted myself to a completely for 10 years, I would ever reach that high point. So I could kind of see the max that I would get to, whereas in journalism, the max was quite a bit higher. So as the earnings began to equal out, as it began to earn more.”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thing is that I'm not good at Beatles covers, right? And I have a limited, I'm a very strange musician. I have a limited skill set, right? I'm very good at writing my own multi-tunel acoustic instrumental guitar songs, and I'm really bad at reading music and playing other stuff. So I never had that choice. But it would be an interesting choice, right? Do you go for, if you have the capacity to do both, which do you choose? Do you choose the one that gets you more money and is a little less emotionally fulfilling? It's like a typical choice we have in a thousand moments in life. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that in this particular subway music stage of my career.”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going both west and east. And then it was kind of like perfect for me demographically because it's where all the gay guys in Chelsea get off and then we're all kind of the sort of vegan young hipsters are heading to Williamsburg. So I got like a lot of demographics who were going to like stop if they see a young guy playing guitar and possibly give money. So that was I really spent a lot of time thinking it through and that was the one I liked. So what you do is you try to get there you don't want to be there at like three o'clock when schools get out because everybody's like it's crazy people are yelling nobody can hear you the kids are jumping the kids kind of make fun of you but you definitely want to be there during commute time and you definitely want to be there at like nine o'clock at night and it's the rules at least back when I was doing it a lot are you know once you get a spot you keep that spot so it's until you either get bored or have to pee that you have it so you you try to calm right at like 330 and then hold it until”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the key things, which was kind of interesting, is to figure out the style of music you play and the demographics you're trying to hit. So if you're playing super familiar stuff, if you're doing kind of Beatles covers, you can go in a hallway, right, where people will hear you for two seconds and walk by. Or you can be on a train platform where the trains come every two minutes because people will just hear yesterday and give you money. If you're doing what I was doing, which is like weird instrumental guitar music that people will only like if they get a couple of minutes uninterrupted, you've got to find a platform where there may not be a ton of foot traffic, but where the trains don't come very often. So for me, the place that turned out to be the best was the LTRA train platform on 6th Avenue and 14th Street, people know New York to be able to visualize it. And what was good about that is that the L train comes relatively infrequently. It's one platform with both trains going on either side of it. It's not a split platform. So you get people who are booked.”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think supplement is the wrong word because I actually made more money. Yeah, I used to play when I was a young journalist, so let's say ages 21 through 24. I played finger so guitar on the platforms in New York. And you can make a good amount of money. I'd make $20 an hour. You meet people. It's really fun. You learn a lot about the city. It's good sort of forced practice for multiple hours. You learn a lot about the trains. I had a great time doing that.”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“NITSA is not an easy name to pronounce. My favorite story about it is I was given a talk about my book in Wisconsin. I'm like 10 minutes in, this guy runs out. And so Nitsah, one of the characters in my book is my grandfather, Paul Nitza. This guy runs out. And at the end, I asked the host. I said, why did that guy leave? He looks at me and he said, he thought he was going to hear from Nietzsche's grandson.”
2018-04-27 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #311: Nick Thompson -- Editor-In-Chief of WIRED · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT