The Exchanges

Q And you've, you've often spoken about college and universities and your dislike for them. What would you do then if you're an Entering into the world. You could do anything. What would it be?

A Well, it depends on what Khan Academy, Code Academy, um, Udemy, um, and then, and then there's many colleges that have their entire curriculum online and, and with videos and homework and everything. So why would anybody pay a 100,000 dollars or 200,000 dollars for an education when you can get an education for free? And while I'm getting my education for free, maybe I'm learning skills that I could then charge for. So for instance, maybe I want to be a writer. So on the, so I'll start writing, uh, Books, but also I can learn how to make, uh, WordPress websites on lynda.com, and I can start charging for them by using freelancer.com. So why wouldn't I start making money right away instead of getting massively in debt while I also pursue my dreams? Maybe I'll go out at night and do stand-up comedy after I've done, spent the afternoon working on somebody's wedding website and make money.

AI assessment note: “I'll start writing, uh, Books, but also I can learn how to make”

Q Absolutely, ok. And you often talk about your idea muscle in your writing and in, in your podcasts. Um, how can we train our idea muscle and really exercise it? Are there any tactics we can use on a daily basis to really get it going?

A Yeah, so, so that's a great question, and I'm gonna bring it back to writing for a second. So Stephen King, who's one of the best-selling writers of all time, um, whether you like his writing or not, just the fact remains, you know, five hundred million people love his writing. So there's something going on there. So he got into a bicycle accident once, and he kind of was in bed for months, and he couldn't write. Um, and then when he got back to writing, he literally couldn't write. Like, he couldn't Put the words together, and it took them a while to get back into, you know, it's like a muscle. It's like if you, if you, if you don't, um, use your legs after two weeks, you need physical therapy to walk again, and it's the same thing with ideas. If you don't come up with ideas after, like, let's say two weeks, your idea muscle has atrophied. So what I recommend people do is write down just 10 ideas a day. It sounds easy, but it's not. Like, if you try it, It actually is very difficult. Now, I could write down 10 colors, and, you know, that's easy, but if I want to write down, like, let's say, 10 business ideas, or 10 ways, um, you know, Uber could improve itself, or Google could improve itself, that's actually very hard. It might be easy to come up with three ideas, or five ideas, but it's hard to come up with 10 ideas, and the purpose is not to come up with a good idea. The pur…

AI assessment note: “So what I recommend people do is write down just 10 ideas a day.”

Q So do you think at some point they'll go into, you know, massages or grocery deliveries?

A Uh, yeah, definitely. I mean, look, I was just at Google X a couple of days ago, and you got wireless, you know, not wireless, you got driverless cars driving around. I, you know, the technology's already there for, for me to, or, and, and, you know, Google's made a huge investment in Uber, so they're all kind of connected, so the technology's already there for me to send a car over to the grocery store, have the guy at the grocery store, you know, take my order over the internet, Put everything in my driverless car, and then the car drives back. Technology's already there. It's just a matter of now kind of jumping through a few hoops to, to, to make it happen.

AI assessment note: “Uh, yeah, definitely. I mean, look, I was just at Google X”

Q Absolutely, ok. And you often talk about your idea muscle in your writing and in, in your podcasts. Um, how can we train our idea muscle and really exercise it? Are there any tactics we can use on a daily basis to really get it going?

A Yeah, so, so that's a great question, and I'm gonna bring it back to writing for a second. So Stephen King, who's one of the best-selling writers of all time, um, whether you like his writing or not, just the fact remains, you know, five hundred million people love his writing. So there's something going on there. So he got into a bicycle accident once, and he kind of was in bed for months, and he couldn't write. Um, and then when he got back to writing, he literally couldn't write. Like, he couldn't Put the words together, and it took them a while to get back into, you know, it's like a muscle. It's like if you, if you, if you don't, um, use your legs after two weeks, you need physical therapy to walk again, and it's the same thing with ideas. If you don't come up with ideas after, like, let's say two weeks, your idea muscle has atrophied. So what I recommend people do is write down just 10 ideas a day. It sounds easy, but it's not. Like, if you try it, It actually is very difficult. Now, I could write down 10 colors, and, you know, that's easy, but if I want to write down, like, let's say, 10 business ideas, or 10 ways, um, you know, Uber could improve itself, or Google could improve itself, that's actually very hard. It might be easy to come up with three ideas, or five ideas, but it's hard to come up with 10 ideas, and the purpose is not to come up with a good idea. The pur…

AI assessment note: “So what I recommend people do is write down just 10 ideas a day.”

Q What are your favorite reading, what is your favorite reading materials in terms of online and then books?

A Um, I, I don't read any online sites. I don't, I never surf the web or anything. Um, and so I only read books. Uh, this doesn't, I don't want to sound like, uh, snooty about it. Um, I read them on my Kindle, so I'm, I don't have a thing about paper books, but, uh, uh, I, I like to read, uh, very high quality fiction for the writing, and I like to read very high quality nonfiction for the ideas. So, um, High quality nonfiction won't always have the best writing because the writer of high quality nonfiction is usually very good at their ideas or what they're writing about, but high quality fiction will be very good writing, so I learned from both.

AI assessment note: “I don't read any online sites... I like to read very high quality fiction”

Q I saw that. Unbelievable. Well, I mean, do you think, do you think we're in a tech bubble then?

A No, no, because ship's doing something that's, like, I've been waiting since I was a kid for ship. Uh, I've been waiting since I was a kid for Uber. Like, there's no, you know, a bubble is when the only reason something is higher today is because it was higher yesterday, right? It's, it's pure, it's purely a price-driven phenomenon. Right now, we're buying these things because we think everybody in the world is going to use them. And because they're providing an amazingly valuable, useful service that maybe a hundred million or a billion people will eventually use. You know, like you said, Uber is not just a cab company. It's a logistics service that could potentially connect billions of people. So that's why you would, if you were investing in Uber just because it was like the hot word of the day, then that's a bubble. But you, you, you, you would invest in Uber because this is changing the world. So Uber or some company like it, I, just because Uber may or may not succeed or fail, um, it doesn't matter. You're investing in it for a real reason, so that means it's not a bubble.

AI assessment note: “You're investing in it for a real reason, so that means it's not a bubble.”

Q Absolutely. And what would you advise someone potentially contemplating starting writing, whether it be a blog or a book, but haven't made that first step yet? How can they break that barrier? Yeah.

A Well, there are a lot of sites where you can kind of test the waters, and, like, Quora.com is a Q&A site, you know, people ask questions, and anyone can answer, so you have, like, people like, I don't know, Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia, he answers, you know, lots of famous CEOs and stuff answer questions, but also anybody can answer questions, and that's a good way to test the waters. You know, in order to be a good writer, you have to do Uh, two things only. And by, by good writer, I don't necessarily mean like poetic or, you know, best selling or whatever. I just mean someone who can communicate a message and do it in a way that people notice. You have to read a lot and you have to write a lot. And those are the really the only two qualifications. And when I say a lot, I mean like an enormous, enormous amount. And the more, the more you do, the better you'll be. And the same thing holds true for any field, really, but a lot of people like to be writers, and so that's what I would recommend.

AI assessment note: “Well, there are a lot of sites where you can kind of test the waters”

Q Absolutely. And what would you advise someone potentially contemplating starting writing, whether it be a blog or a book, but haven't made that first step yet? How can they break that barrier? Yeah.

A Well, there are a lot of sites where you can kind of test the waters, and, like, Quora.com is a Q&A site, you know, people ask questions, and anyone can answer, so you have, like, people like, I don't know, Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia, he answers, you know, lots of famous CEOs and stuff answer questions, but also anybody can answer questions, and that's a good way to test the waters. You know, in order to be a good writer, you have to do Uh, two things only. And by, by good writer, I don't necessarily mean like poetic or, you know, best selling or whatever. I just mean someone who can communicate a message and do it in a way that people notice. You have to read a lot and you have to write a lot. And those are the really the only two qualifications. And when I say a lot, I mean like an enormous, enormous amount. And the more, the more you do, the better you'll be. And the same thing holds true for any field, really, but a lot of people like to be writers, and so that's what I would recommend.

AI assessment note: “You have to read a lot and you have to write a lot.”

Q So do you think at some point they'll go into, you know, massages or grocery deliveries?

A Uh, yeah, definitely. I mean, look, I was just at Google X a couple of days ago, and you got wireless, you know, not wireless, you got driverless cars driving around. I, you know, the technology's already there for, for me to, or, and, and, you know, Google's made a huge investment in Uber, so they're all kind of connected, so the technology's already there for me to send a car over to the grocery store, have the guy at the grocery store, you know, take my order over the internet, Put everything in my driverless car, and then the car drives back. Technology's already there. It's just a matter of now kind of jumping through a few hoops to, to, to make it happen.

AI assessment note: “Uh, yeah, definitely.”

Q And you've, as you said, you've made 30 investments. Do you have any strict preferences or sectors you prefer, and how is your strategy developing?

A Sure. So, I don't think I'm that smart. So, and I don't think, I think most people are not that smart. Uh, and when I say most people, I would say I, I put myself in the 99% of people who are not in the one percent of intelligence. And so, I think it's very important to recognize what your strengths and weaknesses are. And so, maybe one of my strengths is, is that I am friendly and people like talking to me. And so, I get to Call up venture capitalists and say, hey, what's going on? And sometimes there, there's occasions where they say, hey, we just got in this great deal. Do you want to throw in a little bit of money with us? So I always like to invest with people smarter than me. There's a saying, always stand next to the smartest person in the room. And if you're not, and if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So, so I always find venture capitalists Who are smarter than me, who have more successful track records than me, and if they're going into a deal where I know also they're gonna, um, be in the next round, and the next round, and the next round, I'm happy to invest alongside of them. That means I, I sort of outsource the due diligence to them, and I've outsourced the second, third, and fourth round of fundraising to them. So I'm happy to just tag along.

AI assessment note: “I always find venture capitalists Who are smarter than me... I sort of outsource the due diligence”

Q Do you think you gain a lot socially from going to university?

A Well, what if I, what if you just do what I just told you? So go, go to Guam and build schools for kids who, who don't have schools. It's all going to be people your age who are taking a year off, or maybe people a little older than you, um, who are in between college and career. Uh, you'll, you'll socially is even much better than college. Don't forget, I, I'm, I'm 47 years old. I have no friends who are the same age as me. I have friends ranging from 20 years old to 70 years old. Uh, but I have no friends who are 47, other than my wife, actually. And for the, for the rest of your life, you're never gonna have friends the same age and background as you. So, college is like, just again, four years continuation of this fake world that you're never gonna see again.

AI assessment note: “college is like, just again, four years continuation of this fake world”

Q What are your favorite reading, what is your favorite reading materials in terms of online and then books?

A Um, I, I don't read any online sites. I don't, I never surf the web or anything. Um, and so I only read books. Uh, this doesn't, I don't want to sound like, uh, snooty about it. Um, I read them on my Kindle, so I'm, I don't have a thing about paper books, but, uh, uh, I, I like to read, uh, very high quality fiction for the writing, and I like to read very high quality nonfiction for the ideas. So, um, High quality nonfiction won't always have the best writing because the writer of high quality nonfiction is usually very good at their ideas or what they're writing about, but high quality fiction will be very good writing, so I learned from both.

AI assessment note: “I don't read any online sites... I like to read, uh, very high quality fiction”

Q And you've, as you said, you've made 30 investments. Do you have any strict preferences or sectors you prefer, and how is your strategy developing?

A Sure. So, I don't think I'm that smart. So, and I don't think, I think most people are not that smart. Uh, and when I say most people, I would say I, I put myself in the 99% of people who are not in the one percent of intelligence. And so, I think it's very important to recognize what your strengths and weaknesses are. And so, maybe one of my strengths is, is that I am friendly and people like talking to me. And so, I get to Call up venture capitalists and say, hey, what's going on? And sometimes there, there's occasions where they say, hey, we just got in this great deal. Do you want to throw in a little bit of money with us? So I always like to invest with people smarter than me. There's a saying, always stand next to the smartest person in the room. And if you're not, and if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So, so I always find venture capitalists Who are smarter than me, who have more successful track records than me, and if they're going into a deal where I know also they're gonna, um, be in the next round, and the next round, and the next round, I'm happy to invest alongside of them. That means I, I sort of outsource the due diligence to them, and I've outsourced the second, third, and fourth round of fundraising to them. So I'm happy to just tag along.

AI assessment note: “I always like to invest with people smarter than me.”

Q And you said, obviously, smarter people than you, but if you have a VC who says, James, I'm going in on Uber, just say, which VCs would you automatically follow, no matter what?

A You know, not a lot, because, uh, the average VC, and Paul Graham's even written about this, your, your top return will add up to a higher number than all of your other returns combined. Like, there's this power law of returns. Uh, so, you know, the average VC just performs like any other VC. So, I, I, um, I almost don't want to say who I co-invest beside, just because I don't want to I don't want their investors to think, uh, and it's, it's sort of their business. I'm always free to talk about my business, but I don't want to invade their business. So, but, but suffice to say, I, I invest with the top, uh, the top VCs I can get in touch with. Not necessarily, uh, well, no, I've invested with just about everybody. So I'm, I'm a, I'm a, a VC slut. I'll invest with, with, With all the top VCs.

AI assessment note: “I almost don't want to say who I co-invest beside”

Q And you said, obviously, smarter people than you, but if you have a VC who says, James, I'm going in on Uber, just say, which VCs would you automatically follow, no matter what?

A You know, not a lot, because, uh, the average VC, and Paul Graham's even written about this, your, your top return will add up to a higher number than all of your other returns combined. Like, there's this power law of returns. Uh, so, you know, the average VC just performs like any other VC. So, I, I, um, I almost don't want to say who I co-invest beside, just because I don't want to I don't want their investors to think, uh, and it's, it's sort of their business. I'm always free to talk about my business, but I don't want to invade their business. So, but, but suffice to say, I, I invest with the top, uh, the top VCs I can get in touch with. Not necessarily, uh, well, no, I've invested with just about everybody. So I'm, I'm a, I'm a, a VC slut. I'll invest with, with, With all the top VCs.

AI assessment note: “I almost don't want to say who I co-invest beside”