YouSaid · the spoken record

Sahil Lavingia

lines on the record: 84
first: 2020-12-08
most recent: 2020-12-08
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

“It has to hurt almost. Like you have to be so focused, like you're working out. Like I'm spending an hour trying to figure this problem out. And I think most people, they might think about it like, oh, I just need to meditate. But meditation is almost work. I think it is. It is like exercise, physical activity.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you can't really, it's like, you know, you got to learn addition to learn math, to learn multiplication, you got to learn multiplication, learn division, you got to learn both of those things to learn algebra, you got to learn algebra to learn geometry, I think those things to learn trigonometry, you need those things to learn pre-calculus, like etc, et cetera, et cetera. And if you miss one of those things, you can still get by in life, right? Like you can still ace the tests and draw the things when you need to. You can memorize, but you don't really have a deep understanding of that. And it's kind of the same thing with being present. It's just like, I think some people go really far and they just, they feel like they need to do all of these things. But the truth is you just need to be there.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know, drawing dragons out of my head, but I'm actually figuring out okay, what are the fundamental building blocks that lead to me being able to do a certain skill? And then, you know, kind of a tree structure and then figuring out, okay, that means I need to learn perspective. That means I need to draw hundreds of boxes in perspective. Once I can do that, then I can draw ants because ants are a little bit more structural or something like that. Then I can draw maybe like looser animals like things with fur and things like that. And then I can do cars and blah, blah, blah. You can scale that up. And then you like a dragon is sort of like a cat with wings that breathes fire. Like it has the body proportions roughly of a cat. And that's where the dragon dragon comes from. But like some people, I think they just look at, they don't do the work of figuring out what is the path that leads to this. They just say, oh, I want to do that, right? So it's kind of the same thing. It's like the way you have to learn what you need in the moment.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Somewhere in the last, like your eyes aren't drying out, right? But this is something that you literally saw. You saw yourself do that. But it's gone. Like, your brain didn't even remember any of that stuff. And so I think that's a big part of it is your brain, unless you tell the brain you signal to it, hey, this is important. Like make a note of this because I'm going to need this later to survive or, you know, like some of these very fundamental biological incentives, it's going to forget because guess what? Like you have a finite number of neurons. You have energy is being expended. Like, you know, there's this sort of the famous adage of the sort of like the chess players that burn like eight, nine thousand calories a day like doing this insanely intense exercise, effectively. And so I think that's a big part of it is like you need to figure out like what is the uncomfortable, what is like the exercise version of what I'm doing, right? Where I'm not just”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's like when you're a kid and you draw the sun and you have the rays, right? Like there's a symbol that you're storing, you have the almond eyes, you have, you know, like the nose that's like three kind of three semicircles. But you never actually like studied what this thing actually is and looks like. And so I think a lot of it is just doing that. I think you can improve like the time that you're taking. And that's what being present is to me is like just really focusing on the present moment and like noticing as many things as possible, which sounds easy, right? And it's almost paradoxical. Like you're obviously here. Like, what does that mean? You're obviously looking out through your eyes. You're smelling things through your nose. But if I said, okay, how many times did you blink in the last three seconds? You wouldn't even remember the last time you blinked. Clearly you blinked.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is paying attention and taking notes. This was one of the first times I had this experience was I was painting a rock. I was in southern Utah with like an oil on canvas and I was painting a rock. And I spent three hours. It takes me roughly like two to three hours to plain air paint something. And I remember for months I could immediately, probably even today, I could draw I could draw that rock out for you. Like the angles and the shape, the proportions roughly. If I asked you to draw a dollar bill, like you wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to do it. You wouldn't be able to do it. We've never spent that time genuinely staring and paying attention to a dollar bill. I know what you would draw. I know what I would draw. We draw this rough thing with like a one here and a one here and like a circle on this side, something.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For myself, I've digested this thing. Here you go. Have fun with it. And that's a lot of how I kind of how I sort of like to think. And I would say the other insight that I think has really worked for me is I always try to figure out like, does this apply to a lot of the things in my life? Like I think if you take a You take it from a very sort of entrepreneurial business focus, you're going to end up with a very kind of narrow set of thoughts. But if I often will, and that's a lot of the conversations that I'm having, but also as a writer, as a painter, as an investor, as a husband, as other things that I do now. I can take the same lesson and apply it to these other things, and it sort of feels like a universal truth, then I often that's sort of a filter that I use to like vet the quality of something that I would share as well.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, a problem in therapy or something like that. Like, once you figure out what it is, why it is, you package it up in a way that gives you clarity, it's kind of like untying a certain, like a string with a bunch of knots in it. You finally can see this thing for what it is. And then I often share it. And the sharing is really cathartic for me because it sort of gives it to somebody else. It's like, that's your food poisoning now. Like you go, you go think about this for a while. I'm done. I did the work.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where you can't change what you're doing and saying in the moment, but maybe you can note it for the future use, and that's how you improve as a communicator and a conversationalist. And I think writing is kind of similar where I'll be having a conversation with someone and I will somehow subconsciously sort of pin that little moment, like bookmark it of like I said a sentence within a rant about a certain topic that I should tweet. I should just literally take that sentence and go tweet it. And that's a lot of my tweets. And then a lot of them are those sentences that I save and then I just like stare at for a long time. Or there are things that I just can't stop thinking about. I often feel like it's like food poisoning or something where it's just like in my system and I can't get it out and I can't stop thinking about it. Every day I wake up and I like for some reason this stupid. It's like a song suck in your head. It just comes up again. And I found one of the best ways to, it's like resolving a.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have a lot of conversations. I would say my life is sort of pretty distinct in two distinct buckets. I'm either like having an interesting conversation with someone or I'm spending time totally alone, especially with COVID. There's no kind of like in-between or social events or other background noise. Like it's really just like we're talking or we're not talking like sort of feels like that. So a lot of the tweets like when I started learning how to oil paint, I realized like the fundamental skill in painting was observation. It wasn't like paint application and like knowing color theory. It was like, can you even see what's in front of you well? And if you can do that, then like copy pasting that onto a piece of paper with some dirt and oil, it's actually the easy part. And I think the same thing with writing. It's like living a life, like having a conversation with someone. It's almost meditative. You're like having the conversation, but you're also listening to yourself have the conversation. And I think that's really important because you're sort of like your own editor.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm excited. People ask me, like, what are you excited about? Like, gum road. And I'm always like having kids. Like, honestly, like five years from now or so, like, that's definitely what I am aiming for. And I think everything else is sort of like a kind of a distraction, almost like just to keep me busy until I get there”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that will be really meaningful. But yeah, I think it's just like important for me to figure out how do I live a life that sort of like the vision of what's important is slightly larger.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I moved up to Portland, Oregon recently. That was the first time I'd ever moved to a place as a group decision. It wasn't just me just saying, hey, I'm going to go do this because I want to. And so that was like, that's a, there's a set of learnings that I need to go through, I think, having children.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It just feels like I've been so self-centered my whole life. You know, it's basically everything I've done was for me. And I got married last year in December and that was like the first time that I was like, okay, this is like we're signing up for, you know, something pretty big. This is very different from the ideal relationships that I like with most people for me.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just like figuring out, I'm sort of insecure with how much I work, like I work a lot. I enjoy it a lot. I am insecure about the fact that I enjoy it so much. Even, you know, like I go on Twitter and I talk about maybe not working so much, but I just genuinely really enjoy it. And so yeah, there's a lot of things like wanting a nice house or whatever too, right? Like the basic things that people seem to want. And then starting a family, like that's a scary prospect as well that I hope to make the focus of my life in the next like 10 years or so.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am definitely insecure about wanting stuff. I mean, I still think I am driven by a level of ambition and want for something, even though I have read all of these books and I feel like relatively good about what I understand about the world and how little it really matters. There is something satisfying about it. And so I'm definitely kind of like insecure about the fact that I have those wants and desires. Like I think, I don't know if they will go away. But I always try to try to figure that out and unearth why similar, why like why am I like this? I don't have to solve the problem, but just understanding where this comes from, it just gives me a level of sort of like closure almost like, okay, that's just the way I am. That's because of this thing. I can't change it. I can't get taller. I can't do that. Right. Like there's just certain things and that's fine. So that's probably a big one.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dots moving around and you know bouncing off each other and at you know different levels of abstraction you can use the phenomenon to explain different things just like the earth and the sun they're just two particles in space just like when you're cleaning something just two particles in space or whatever and then atoms you know there's like it kind of goes all the way up and down and it's like a fractal pattern it just makes me feel like i understand and i can like move forward without like walking through a wall accidentally or something you know like it just something like that i don't i don't know where i'm going with this but i i do enjoy like really feeling like i understand and that goes back to the entrepreneurship stuff too like just figuring out like what i can what i can deeply understand like reading the paypal wars reading in the plex a lot of these books are just really important because you you are building a company you're hiring folks it's like why start from scratch right when you have all of these resources from people who've done it before and and the lessons aren't that like the world hasn't changed them”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But just like things like that, where you just like, I don't know, it feels very satisfying for me to know life is weird. I mean, like life is very strange. And I think you go through this middle where you're born and you're like, the world is flat. And like the sky is above us. And gravity just makes sense. You can obviously flying would be weird. Like, you know, like you just kind of take these and then you learn all of this weird stuff. Like we're on a ball of fire, just like shooting through like the void. Like right now, like what, you know, just crazy. And luckily we have like some rock around the ball of fire. The sun doesn't even have that. You know, just like just weird stuff. And then, and then I feel like just I'm just like floating. Like I have no grounding in reality. I'm just like learning all these things. My life is like, what is death and this? And it's just crazy. And then once you start to read that stuff, I feel like I'm going back to that first place where it's all actually incredibly simple. It's just a bunch of.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think it's because temperature and heat is just the particles are moving faster. There's just more things moving around, bouncing stuff. So I think when you're cleaning stuff, you just have more particles hitting stuff off that, you know, ends up dislodging these molecules or what have you from the material. And so I think it's literally just like the collisions are happening at a faster rate. I think.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Weird. And so I've been like really interested in the sort of parallel universes and quantum mechanics because I really think like when you learn the answer, like there is an answer. Like one, you got to believe that, I think, to keep to keep pursuing this kind of stuff. But when you figure it out, like when you realize, oh, the reason that, you know, like, I don't know, like a hot water clean stuff faster than cold water, like when you know the physical reason behind that, it feels good. It feels like you have a grip on your life, you know, like you can actually apply it in a way, you know?”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“David Deutsch's books, I just read the beginning of infinity and the fabric of reality, those books. It's actually currently the thing that Is the fabric of reality. I don't know, you learn about parallel universes and sort of quantum mechanics and things in high school. You take an elective or what have you and you kind of get it intellectually, but really spending hundreds of words or hundreds of pages in this person's head and the way they think about it and how that relates to like free will and it's just like really been interesting for me because that's one you know one question I always think about a lot is like when you decide to do something like you know like when I decided to leave San Francisco and move to Provo was it the stuff in Provo that made me open-minded was I open-minded when I decided to move like where did I have the learning where is that like is it a discrete system is there a point is it you know and so I've just been thinking a lot about like you know like when I have an idea when I decide to respond to a question you have where is that even coming from like I just speak I can't tell you like where you know it's very”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How to win friends is my sort of top recommended book. It's almost kind of a cliche. I feel like at this point to recommend that book, but it is like the canonical example for me of this saving other people time. Like that whole book is about like, how do I operate in a way that makes everyone's else's life just really clean, really stress-free, really easy? And so then everyone's going to want to work with you and be your friend. And so I think that is a really great book, thinking fast and slow is a really great one. All of the Matt Ridley books, I think, are really, really, really good. I think understanding your mental prison almost, like understanding the constraints of your brain physically and your body, like just where you came from, like what led to this moment, I think is just so helpful in terms of like feeling like, oh, these are the things you have control over. These are the things you don't have control over.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Four of you, you know, there's like four people on Twitter that are talking about the commonality between like, yeah, like animal relationships and like company organization dynamics. It's, yeah. So I always think that's a better, that's a better approach. I frankly very, rarely go deep on reading at least.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“resemble like the way humans used to be and maybe like they're sort of we figured out that there's this sort of like middle ground of social you know there's like packs there's like pack animals and then there's like you social animals the collie animals that are like bees ants and mole rats for some reason mole rats are also part of this group and then there's humans there's all you know it's just interesting i just think it's like oh maybe maybe there's a way to apply like this is like a startup and this is a midsized company this is a large company i don't know but i think so for me so many of the insights like the easy insights have already been solved if i just go deep it's going to take like literally you have to go to the bottom of the ocean to get like if you go deep in quantum theory there's a lot of books you're gonna have to read to get to really the frontier but if you go broad i feel like i feel like there's just so much more avenue there like there's just so much more freedom like it doesn't take that far to to end up in like totally unknown territory uh it's it's and even if it if there are other people there's like”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say I spend almost all of my time exploring broadly. Like I go deep very, very, very rarely. Even with authors, like it's pretty rare where I find an author where I am like, this person is so good. I need to read everything that they've written. That's happened a couple times. Like Matt Ridley recently was one of those people for me. But even like when you read his books, it's like every book is different. One's about genomics, one's about risk, one's about virtue, one's about evolution, one's about innovation now. And there's clearly a thread, right? Like you can kind of see the rational optimum. You can see what's where he's coming from. And his sort of fingerprint is certainly on those books. But even he is, it seems to me, is just exploring these things broadly. Because I think like it makes those connections when they happen, like just so much more satisfying. When you find a connection between, I don't know, the way that mole rats like.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of sort of thing impatient, you want to be impatient with results, I guess. But I definitely noticed that in people like it's very rare to meet someone who's genuinely just like exploring things that are at the sort of limits of their interest to kind of figure out what's new and different. And it's selfish of me. I like those people because they can teach me about all this new weird stuff that I can go explore myself. But I find that sort of innate curiosity that isn't tied to a social thing or a financial thing is relatively rare. And maybe that's just quote unquote privilege, right? Where it's like, oh, you've achieved XYZ thing is sort of the philosopher king thing. Like now that you're here, you can spend all this time messing around and figuring out these things. But regardless, I mean, that is something that I look for in the people that I hang out with.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Full of really fascinating stuff, but like very, very few people I think do that, you know, and but ironically, almost almost in this sort of paradox, when you do stuff like that, short term, I think that's true, but long term over time, I really think that's clearly I'm doing it. Like there is still a reason I'm doing it, just like a much larger, longer time horizon. And this has happened so many times where I'll randomly run into somebody, someone who maybe is exactly the perfect person to like propel me in my career. And they'll be like, what book are you reading? And I'll be like, oh, I'm reading like a face like glass. It's like young adult fantasy thing or whatever. And they'll be like, that is my favorite book. That has happened to me so many times. And guess what? I'm now, they want to hang out with me all day long. And not to talk about this other stuff, but just to talk about, you know, like they finally have someone else that they can talk about. So I do think it's sort of that sort of impatient with, you know, impatient patients, you know.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I can't. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like, oh man, like, I read this phenomenal book on, like, I'm reading a book right now on whales. I don't know why. Like someone I like tweeted about the book and it seemed interesting. And it's interesting. It's a very interesting book. I don't know why I'm reading it. I haven't talked to anyone about it.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Social incentive. So much of this you've done because of the social incentive. It's to comment, it's to go to work and talk about something. The reason I think people don't often read a lot of these old books is because that social incentive goes away. You read this book and then you're smarter. That's it.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About anything, let alone their subject, I mean, their own industry, their own set of problems that they're interested in. Someone might say, hey, I'm really interested. From their tweets, it seems like they're really interested in healthcare. Like they think healthcare is fundamentally broken. It's totally messed up in the US. We need to go. And by the way, this could be someone who's like, we need to go this way or that way. Like, I don't know exactly what, you know, this is an abstract example. But if you said, hey, okay, cool, what's the best book that you've read on healthcare in America and like why it's gone to the way it is and what the right answer is, a lot of them will say, I haven't read a book. I haven't read a book about it. I've read a lot of tweets. I've read a ton of tweets. I've listened to a lot of podcasts with politicians about this and celebrities about this. I've read some Atlantic thought pieces or something like that. I'm subscribed to a few subsecs, but to like, have you deeply gone into the subject? And the filter that I use is if you remove the”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How to do it. And they're okay with not maybe sort of having their first thing be just like the dream project. They just get started and then they figure things out as they go. And so building stuff people who don't ask for permission, people who have hard skills, people who really try to save people time and really feel grateful, you know, like they feel like, wow, I'm so lucky to be in this place. Like, how can I make it as easy as possible for everybody? People who don't think of it like a numbers game where I just need to send 100 emails and what three people are going to say yes, it's like, I'm going to send three emails. I'm going to spend three hours on each one. And all of them are going to say yes. I think that's possible. I think a lot of people underestimate how possible that is. And people who read a lot, I would say this is the other thing is people who, and again, sounds, I don't know, like when I say these things, it makes it, I'm like, these are just basic expectations I have almost, but you might be surprised at how few people deeply”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Uncontrollable way to live your life, right? Like to say it would be the equivalent of saying, I want to make a movie. I have a great idea, right? And the world is full of these kinds of people. And so that's a big one is like, well, make a movie. You have an iPhone. Like, show me. Show me a cool thing that you've made. There's TikTok now. I mean, like, there's things you can even put this stuff on. Like, show me what you've made. There's a great book, Rebel Without a Crew, by Robert Rodriguez, who directed Alita Battle Angel and Taxi Driver. And it basically talks about his journey. And it's like the lean start of apply to filmmaking or something like that where he just, he literally says, okay, I live in this town. These are the things I have in my town. I'm going to make a plot that involves these things because that's what I have right now. And then I'll make another movie, you know, like we'll take it, you know, one Sunday answer or whatever. That's what got him started. And those are the people that I look for, the people who want something so badly that they just figure out.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think one big one is they build stuff. They actually build stuff in the early days. It was the only group of people that I hung out with. Like I wasn't just hanging out with startup people. I was hanging out with the people who went through some stuff to get there. It's like often the people, the best people in the industry are the ones that didn't go to school for that industry because it means that they had to cross all of these things to get into it, if that makes sense. So people who build stuff, I think I was surrounded by those people when I started getting into it more and meeting thousands of people realize a lot of people don't actually build stuff. They don't know how to build stuff. They need help. This kind of goes back to what we're talking about again. Like, you know, there are people who need all of these things from other people. And I don't like those people. I like the people who are like, I want this for my life. I want to build a company. I want to build an app. I want to be a musician. I want to write a book. I need all of these things from other people in order for me to do that. I mean, that is a very...”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, with the blurb in the deck, and I'll forward it and ask for an opt in. Like, that's purely automated. That's purely a process that I go through. I could, I could at some point and will automate that completely”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, this is the person that I talk to, and we'll talk for hours about it. And then it might be like six months until we talk again. And it's fine. Like, we might even forget that the other person exists. And I actually think like a life built of relationships like that, it gives you way more relationships. It's sort of like having a friend group of thousands of people or having a company of all these sorts of people. And so I really like people who think like that where they're very sure about what they want. They feel very good about where they're at in life. And all they're looking for is this our relation to feel like one thing that they need. They're trading X for Y. And I just, I really like knowing that that's what someone is expecting of me. And I can just offer that and feel, you know, and feel really good about that and focus on that, you know. And so it's like when someone's like, how can I help? You get nowhere. But if you say, hey, I need help with this very specific thing, an intro to X, I can do that. Like that's, I'll do that, you know, forward me an email.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would also say, like, I like people who are very kind of transactional, frankly. Like, I like people who are like, I'm here. There's to do this job. This is what I came here to do. I'm really excited about speeding up the site. That's all I care about. And like 99% of our conversations are around that. And I spend, you know, I might be working with these people on a daily basis. And so I think I like that too. When people don't feel the need to package up or bundle a relationship and say, hey, we're coworkers. So we need this, this, this, this, and this. You need to come to my birthday party. I like, you know, and that's definitely a change for me sort of 10 years ago, but I like people who are like, this is the way that we interact. Like we talk every day, but it's about investing or it's about, you know, we talk every day, but it's about this other thing or, you know, and sometimes it's just like totally random stuff. Like there are people that I would never consider quote unquote friends of mine, but like when I need to talk about like oil painting or something.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can get it to level 50. And I'll give you the time that you gave me. I'll pay you back very, very quickly and we'll build a very high quality relationship.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good at sort of ambient signaling saying, like, I don't need to ever go to them and say, what's going on? Like, I just know. I wake up, I check Slack, I do whatever. I just know what they're doing. To me, that's the dream. That is just a phenomenal, phenomenal thing. I think an ability to write really, really well is key to that. Part of that is just the medium in which so much of this communication happens is via writing, especially now with remote work, et cetera. But in general, I just love when people do the work of, you know, not just sending me the email, but writing the email, revising the email, revising the email, sending that email. Like the brain waves that they've sort of like spent on that with the context they were already in is going to save net net, save so much time for everybody involved. And then the level of conversation is so much higher because instead of going like, it's just like, I'm going to spend five minutes on this thing. But when you get it, it's already going to be at like level 10 because it's already at level 10.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Communication is a huge one. It's similar to that, but people who overcommunicate, people who are always thinking about the next day, the next week, the next two weeks, the next month, the next year, and telling me what they need from me, how they feel about our relationship, people who are very good at doing that, it's low stress. It lets me solve their problems before they need them solved potentially. It makes me feel confident that they're in a good place and that they have what they need. It's like static electricity where like you, you know, you ever go too long without touching something, you hit something and you just like your like skin fries for a second. It's like, but if you did that all the time, it would never happen. Like that's how I think about communication, especially within sort of like a high stress, high functioning organization where that's going to happen very quickly. And you need to constantly be like tapping and like being like, hey, this is what's happening now. This is what's happening now. This is what's happening now. And so I think people who are really”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then people who sort of like can transition to value. For example, if you're a founder, you want $100,000 from me or something like that. As you mentioned, like you're doing me a favor in a sense, like, how can I easy can you make it for me? How easy can I make it for you? And there's certain founders who make it so easy for me. I just reply to the email and I just say, I'm in for that, like ceasing, you know, angelists to wire the money. Like they made it so easy for me. They gave me all of. And then there are other folks who are like, hey, I have a great idea. Do you have time next week?”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's like when people ask you, even people who I know, they're like, hey, do you want to catch up next week? And I know that they have a reason for this, but they won't tell me the reason. And I just ask people now, I'm like, hey, what? What do you want to talk about? I don't know. It's like a power information asymmetry thing, but I think it's mostly just time. It's mostly like I want to I need to do something. Hey, Saho, can you talk about this next week? Not really maybe even thinking about the fact that like you know exactly you're going to show up and know exactly what we're talking about. And I'm going to show up and know nothing. And by the way, if you tell me, I'm happy to do the work ahead of time. Like I'll go read stuff. I will get you the answers. So when I show up, and then the other great thing is maybe we don't even have to have the meeting. Like maybe everything that you need for me, I can just give you, but you don't give me that opportunity. And so there is this like interesting, like people who view time as the thing that they're trading.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Their calendar, it shows up. Otherwise, you have all these calendar events of just your name and you can't see who you're actually talking to. There's like small things where I'm like, how can I just really streamline everybody else's life? And the beauty of software is you can now use a lot of software like Calendly and Zapier and these Airtable, et cetera, and these tools to like hook up these things so that everyone, I think, can operate as if you had a full-time EA running your life for you. You just now pay couple hundred bucks to three or four different tools that give you that's actually an even better experience because software is often a little bit more foolproof than a human being.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Level of stress in everybody else around their lives. And it's so rare. It's so rare I found. And I think it's because everyone else is also trying, you know, is very time sensitive too about their own time. And so they end up sort of operating in a way that's saving them time by sort of maybe pushing that burden onto other folks. You're sort of like playing hot potato with the task that no one really wants to do. But it's the people who are like, I'll do that. I think that I think people underrate and you're that type of person as a CEO, as a founder, those employees that do that will win. Like they will get whatever they want because those are the folks I really want to surround myself with because I care about my quality of life and my time. And as an investor, even as a, I don't know, all of these other roles, I really like how can I save you clicks? How can I save you time? Like when I send calendar invites, I put my name first instead of the other person so that in”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the skill that's been really top of mind for me right now is the ability to save other people time. Basically what I mean is there's certain people that go about their lives. I try to be like this, but they just operate in a way that requires less of everybody else for them for the equivalent amount of success in that relationship, right? So for example, someone who sends calendar invites, someone who's very diligent about taking notes and following up and people like you put like the link to have this conversation right into the Google Calendar invite a lot of people like they'll just put in the email go find the email like there's just a level of care it feels like you're you're almost like it's like a concierge service for like getting to spend time with this person and then there are other folks they're just being responsive like there's just things that like lead to a less less”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People like me just frankly want like we want to hang out with these sorts of people and have these interesting conversations and it makes it easier to do that. But it is weird. It does feel like even acknowledging it, like being aware of it doesn't make it go away, you know?”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Folks that I know who are on paper with a lot of more money, I still haven't resolved that for myself because I still feel that sort of aspirational quality, right? Like I still feel there's something about stripe. Like there's something about Airbnb. There's something really cool about building something so meaningful. And I think part of that for me is it's a unique experience. There are a lot of these other businesses and they're great and they give you like a phenomenal quality of life and tons of freedom and time. And certainly if you are running one of these other companies, you don't have a lot of those things. You don't have a lot of freedom. You don't have a lot of time. Like you're living in San Francisco, regardless of what happens with COVID and remote work because you need to be there. But yet there's still something about that. I think it is that like you have a certain set of experiences when you get to this place that”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so there is like this kind of, I think people might sort of forget when you get through the whole thing that you're still taking advantage of some of those things. And maybe it's kind of like maybe you should get into Harvard and put this acceptance letter on the wall, but not actually attend, especially now, right? It's sort of that like maybe you should like say that they were going to give you the money and not take it or something. I don't know how you would frame that in a way that doesn't make you sound bad. or maybe raise a small seed round or something. But again, like being that strategic about it feels manipulative, like venture is such a long-term game. You can't think like that and I wouldn't recommend it, but there is an outcome bias. I mean, I do agree with you almost every single person I meet who runs a profitable business, especially one powered by software, they wouldn't trade it for the world. And frankly, like their cash flow looks better than most.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, totally. I do think there is a level of outcome bias. I think there is also a level of one of the reasons to raise money is a social one where it gives you a sort of credential that is very useful. I can still to this day go into a room and say, hey, I raised money from Naval, Max Lefgen, Kleiner Perkins, Krisaka first round. And people will take me seriously for that, right?”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was evident to me, but I didn't make the connection with how important it was, how fundamental it was for this path. And I wish, you know, a year before I did or so, you know, we said, hey, look, we're not growing as fast as we need to be growing. Like, let's pause. We don't have to do anything drastic because it's still early, but let's pause. Let's recalibrate and let's figure this out. And certainly, certainly wish I would have done that. We would have avoided a lot of pain, but it is what it is.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that is a decision that I think, and this is as I sort of do more investing, it's something I communicate to founders a lot too is like, look, this is what you need to stay on this path. This is the venture back path. It's actually relatively objective. You need to be growing. In the article, I say 20% month over month, but it can be 10%. It just needs to be sort of exponential or so or polynomial or whatever the correct math term is. And if you're doing that, you can stay on this path. If you're not doing that, it's going to be tough. It really, you know, maybe precede seed A little bit different. But if, you know, sort of at some point around Series A, Series B, that becomes sort of like the end all be all. It becomes the most important thing in which all of the other things can't outweigh that. And I knew that I saw that in the numbers.”
2020-12-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #98 Sahil Lavingia: Observing the Present · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT