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James Altucher

Host, The James Altucher Show · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

authorhostinvestorfounder@jaltucher ↗LinkedIn ↗jamesaltucher.com ↗Wikipedia ↗YouTube ↗Instagram ↗

James Altucher is the author of the bestselling book Choose Yourself and host of the interview podcast The James Altucher Show. Over his career, he has founded or co-founded over 20 companies, managed hedge funds, and published roughly 20 books on investing and entrepreneurship.

18statements → 3claims → 0claims resolved → 4.17/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential → 4.1/5argument clarity · the sources → 4said about them ↓

1 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 5 opinions · 7 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how James argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.1 / 5 directness 4.2 · coherence 4.3 · precision 3.8 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 2 of 15 assessed questions (13%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

240 words/min while actually speaking · 19 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,901 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10
setup questions received 85%

Everything James Altucher said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2020
Altucher in 2015: Uber will become a trillion-dollar company
“They're ultimately a logistics company where on one side are people who want to do things for money, and on the other side are people who want to pay for services. So they're going to be an entire slice of kind of the world's, you know, GDP at some point. So, …”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 15:45 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Opinion
Altucher: VC success stems from Sand Hill Road proximity, not skill
“I think, to be honest, I think being in Silicon Valley on Sand Hill Road exposes you to just every company out there, and you get to see what everybody's talking about, and you just invest in what everybody's talking about.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 13:15 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Opinion
Altucher: VCs do not need a vision of the future to succeed
“I don't think you need any vision of the future because, look, don't invest in kind of a social network for left-handed people.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 13:32 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Opinion
Altucher: The best venture capitalists do not spend time sourcing deals
“The best VCs I know, which are in some sense the ones I co-invest with, do not spend a lot of time looking at, looking for investments.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 12:37 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Execution is not superior to ideas, it is a subset
“Execution, people say ideas are nothing. Execution is everything. That's not true. Execution is just a subset of ideas.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 8:26 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altucher: Students forget college lectures within 48 hours without memory training
“48 hours after you leave a college lecture, you're gonna remember nothing from that college lecture, unless you've trained yourself In memory techniques, which I don't know anybody who's really, I know maybe three people who've trained themselves in really goo…”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 21:53 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Opinion
Altucher in 2015: Tech is not a bubble; utility drives valuations
“A bubble is when the only reason something is higher today is because it was higher yesterday, right? 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 becau…”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 25:58 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Opinion
Altucher advises 18-year-old Harry Stebbings to skip college for real-world experience
“And I hope you don't go to college and instead do things that are really exciting and adventurous with your life.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 27:04 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Avoiding self-promotion and showing vulnerability led to greater business success
“I've had more opportunities in business than ever. Like, I've, like, I've done better in business than I ever have before by specifically avoiding business in, in a weird way.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 3:52 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Reading and writing in massive volume are the only requirements
“You know, in order to be a good writer, you have to do two things only. And 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. Yo…”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 4:56 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Read fiction for prose craft and nonfiction for ideas
“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.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 6:08 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Failing to generate ideas for two weeks causes creative atrophy
“If you don't come up with ideas after, like, let's say two weeks, your idea muscle has atrophied.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 7:20 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Co-investing with top VCs outsources due diligence and follow-on funding
“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 be in the next round, and the next round, I'm happy to invest alongside of them. …”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 10:23 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Disclosure
Altucher invested in Shyp's seed round without knowing what they built
“Honestly, when I put my money in there, I had no idea what they did.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 25:12 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Disclosure
Altucher invested in Shyp at a $6 million seed valuation
“I put money in a six million dollar valuation. That was their seed round. They just raised money at a two hundred fifty million dollar valuation.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 25:36 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Disclosure
Altucher never surfs the web or reads online sites, only books
“I don't read any online sites. I never surf the web or anything. And so I only read books.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 5:40 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Insight
Altucher: Health, relationships, ideas, and gratitude predict future success
“So these are the, these, if I can do these four things today, that's the best predictor of a successful tomorrow.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 15:04 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Altucher secured meetings at Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn through personal writing
“I visited Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you know, with high up people at each company just because of my people knew me for my writing.”
James Altucher Jun 4, 2015 ▶ 4:06 James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs

The other half of the tape: James Altucher's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Marvin Liao 2Harry Stebbings 1

Statements about James Altucher, by other people (1)

Opinion
Kamal Ravikant calls James Altucher the Oprah of the web
“Yeah, it does, James is, I call him the Oprah of the web.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 12:35 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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2015 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
James Altucher: Ideas, Investing and Entrepreneurs Jun 4, 2015 20m
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