Brought to you by Protekt's REST sleep supplement, Athletic Greens's AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Shopify global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business. Bill Gurley (@bgurley) has spent more than 20 years as a general partner at Benchmark. Before entering the venture capital business, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at Credit Suisse First Boston.Bill also maintains a blog on the evolution and economics of high technology businesses called Above the Crowd.Over his venture career, he has worked with such companies as GrubHub, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, Uber, and Zillow. Bill has a BS in computer science from the University of Florida and an MBA from the University of Texas. He is also a chartered financial analyst. Bill is a board trustee at the Santa Fe Institute, a research and education center focused on the study and understanding of complex adaptive systems.Please enjoy!*This episode is brought to you by Shopify! Shopify is one of my favorite platforms and one of my favorite companies. Shopify is designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. In no time flat, you can have a great-looking online store that brings your ideas to life, and you can have the tools to manage your day-to-day and drive sales. No coding or design experience required.Go to shopify.com/tim to sign up for a one dollar per month trial period. It’s a great deal for a great service, so I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today by visiting shopify.com/tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Protekt’s REST supplement! Protekt's REST is a new take on getting deeper, more restorative sleep. Protekt's REST supplement helps provide consistent, restful sleep without any habit-forming ingredients or groggy side effects. Simply add it to your last glass of water before bed, and it goes to work.REST has no added sugars, artificial sweeteners, or artificial ingredients. Protekt is veteran-owned, and they make all of their products right here in the USA. Protekt is offering you 30% off both flavors of their REST formula! Visit Protekt.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and use code TIM at checkout.*This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.*[05:51] The book Bill calls "the most efficient short-form MBA one can find."[07:31] Sell-side analysts vs. buy-side analysts.[09:45] Financial models, rules of thumb, and making (sometimes wrong) decisions.[17:28] Howard Marks and Stan Druckenmiller.[19:26] Micro vs. macro investing.[20:40] Institutional Investor's All-America Research Team.[24:16] Expanding distribution.[27:04] Return On Invested Capital (ROIC).[33:10] Repurposing good ideas for alternative applications.[37:01] The conviction of network effects.[38:58] SaaS and open source.[42:40] Bet sizing.[44:04] Equal partnership over hierarchy.[50:08] Lessons learned from partners.[52:57] Recommended resources.[58:46] Problems open source can solve.[1:09:28] Building a better network with the interest graph.[1:13:42] Dissecting Bill's Twitter thread about risks and sudden valuation resets.[1:23:50] The Metaverse.[1:29:00] Revenue and earnings quality matter.[1:31:02] Undervalued competitive advantages.[1:35:02] Jeff Bezos: corporate mad scientist?[1:40:42] The counterintuitive condemnation of company camaraderie.[1:45:37] Tobi Lütke.[1:48:51] Books Bill has gifted frequently.[1:52:29] The Santa Fe Institute.[1:54:35] Bill's board.[1:56:32] Cultivating anti-tribalism.[1:58:13] Twitter: what is it good for?[2:01:14] Newsletters and other resources Bill relies on.[2:03:05] Bill's book in progress.[2:04:12] Regulatory capture.[2:09:10] Predicting what America will look like in 10-20 years.[2:10:50] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Entrepreneur Tony Robbins discusses the success and growth of Shopify, from a small company to a global e-commerce giant with over 7,000 employees and $400 billion in total sales on the platform. Shopify offers tools to help businesses find customers, drive sales, and manage day-to-day operations.
A sell-side analyst conducts research on behalf of an investment bank to make money from trading on their trading desk. As an investor, having rules may cause you to miss out on great opportunities, but it's still essential to consider them.
The speaker discusses the challenges of making successful investment decisions in venture capital, highlighting the importance of a positive bias in asymmetric situations and being more selective than other investment firms.
Ray Dalio talks about learning more about macroeconomics, and how it helped him address problems in his industry caused by the lack of knowledge about it. He shares a framework that could be used by someone who wants to learn about macroeconomics.
The speaker shares their experience of customer acquisition in the early days of the tech industry and how connecting with a food analyst helped them present unique perspectives to clients.
Michael Dempsey, Founder and CEO of Compound, discusses the importance of synthesizing information and how it can help individuals become smarter writers and thinkers.
The criteria for investing in a business vary and may include factors such as potential network effects, total addressable market, founder, and more. Analyses such as scaling up the business plan can help determine the number of sales needed to drive productivity.
Get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and 10 free travel packs by purchasing a subscription of Athletic Greens' all-in-one formula, according to an advertisement during the podcast.
This episode delves into the importance of hierarchy in startup competition and the effectiveness of new partners in bringing in companies. Two recommended books for the startup community are also discussed.
As startups grow, they face the anxiety of change, which can lead to a loss of confidence. But having a support system in place to reassure and encourage can make all the difference in overcoming these fears and moving forward with success.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of constantly learning and educating oneself, especially for those interested in venture attacking, in order to improve one's standard of living. They also discuss the success of WordPress and Android as examples of open source models.
The Open Compute Foundation sets open standards for compatible products, effectively commoditizing the equipment. The foundation also includes patent defense to protect the open-source project from attack.
The feed feature of Twitter might not be the best way to create a top-down version. Correlating verified accounts could be useful, but since it's been pay for play, it's hard to filter now. A smarter version would unlock new connections for people interested in specific hobbies or fields.
The ease of raising money in the past few years led to a distorted understanding of startup valuations and growth. Founders adopted a short-term view of their net worth, with a lack of understanding of how this valuation will change in the long term.
The percentage of profitable companies IPOing has significantly decreased from 90% in the past to 5% in 2020-2021, according to a podcast discussion. The talk also highlighted the disparity between gaming and virtual experience companies, along with the trading multiples of successful companies, like Apple, currently trading at a low multiple of their earnings.
The quality of revenue differs across industries depending on the margin and the amount of money invested. Different factors like revenue or earnings quality are determinants of revenue quality and vary across industries.
This podcast discusses the role of switching costs in creating a competitive advantage for Uber as well as revisits the total addressable market for the company through an anecdote about the early days and rapid growth of black cars on the platform.
Startups can use hack experiments to compete with larger companies who usually run one test and quit if it fails. Large companies often lack the comfort level to run these types of experiments due to accounting and other concerns.
Jonathan Haidt and the speaker discuss the implosion of campus culture where students feel entitled to safety and comfort at the cost of intellectual discussion and exposure to different viewpoints.
In this podcast, the speaker discusses the future of e-commerce and shares his thoughts on what it may look like in the coming years.
The podcast discusses how political bias can be stronger than cognitive biases and how changing disciplines or genres can lead to big breakthroughs in science. It also emphasizes the importance of reaching out directly to people through social media to overcome barriers caused by gatekeepers and other obstacles.
In this podcast, the host suggests that Twitter should expand their platform to include long-form content, podcasts, and video containers with features similar to Pocket, and that they could learn from the UK's approach to regulation.
Shopify has grown from a small startup with only 10 to 15 employees to supporting over 1,000,000 businesses in 175 countries, generating over $400 billion in sales. As a user, you can easily create and manage your online store to drive sales and find new customers.
The transcript contains an advertisement promoting Protect's Rest Supplement and Shopify.com for growing businesses.