Apolo Ohno
person on 4 shows · 19 statements across 2 episodes · said 8 times in 3 episodes since 2021
Founders 4 
David Senra 3 
the Startup Ideas Podcast 1 
the Knowledge Project
On the record as a speaker too: Apolo Ohno across every show, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
Founders 4David Senra 3the Startup Ideas Podcast 1
2025 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
19 statements about Apolo Ohno, every show
Apolo Ohno: Olympic athletes do not own rights to their competition moments
“The challenge that we had that I ran into very quickly was that the athletes actually don't own the rights. To their own shit.”
Ohno: 24/7 crypto traders live no better than 18-hour shift workers
“If you're a trader in crypto, and it requires you to be so glued to your devices all the time, and if you can't disengage for periods, you're actually no better off than the guy who's working 18 hour shifts. Like, you're exactly the same. Your number on the sc…”
Ohno: Combining innate predisposition and training yields the greatest work ethic
“I'm sure that there's some encoding of some DNA at some kind of a hard wiring level that enables you or your previous experiences that you've inherited. I would bet on that. I also believe it can be trained. It's obviously much different, right? So if your nat…”
Ohno: Short track skating's volatility yields different winners each race
“So you can run the same race several times over in short track and probably get several different winners just because of the different strategies and techniques associated. You probably will have the same type of individuals in the final, but you can run it s…”
Ohno: I won the US world team trials after seven months' training
“Within, I think, seven, little over seven months, I went from Essentially becoming unknown to anyone in the world cup circuit, international circuit, or even the U S circuit to then going to the world team trials, winning the competition, which was very strang…”
Ohno: Subconsciously Thrived on Hitting Rock Bottom to Make Comebacks
“I've had my bouts with self sabotage almost my entire career as an athlete. And even I think post career as a human. And these are probably deeper psychological kind of traits and micro traumas that I think we all deal with on a day to day basis as we grow as …”
Ohno: A smarter, predictable racing strategy could have doubled my career results
“Your actual results could have been two X of what they ever were. Had you been a smarter, more predictable athlete?”
Ohno: I went from first place to dead last within one year
“And so I arrived at the 1998 Olympic trials. No longer overweight, but mentally going into the competition thinking that I wasn't going to make the team, and so within one year, I went from first place, which was being at the top of the mountain, to finishing …”
Ohno: My father isolated me in a remote cabin to decide my future
“So my dad took me to this area about three and a half hours Southwest of downtown Seattle, and it's right on the Pacific ocean. This area he would take me to when, you know, when I was very young and we spent our holidays there and we used to rent this at the …”
Ohno: Cutting off unproductive peers was necessary to make the Olympic team
“Had I not done that, I, we wouldn't even be having this conversation today, because I don't believe I would even have made that team.”
Apolo Ohno: Extreme success is impossible to achieve with a balanced life
“From my personal view, I don't think it's possible.”
Ohno: Obsession is the common denominator across all top performers
“I think in terms of sheer performance when it comes to sport or other tasks, Everyone has the same common trait, which is obsession.”
Ohno: Embracing Sports Psychology and Mindfulness Transformed My Career and Life
“That began my process into the world of meditation, visualization, and self-talk, and the world of sports psychology, and it was from that moment that not only my career changed, but I would say that my life had really changed.”
Ohno: Trying too hard and fighting the ice actually decreases top speed
“So there's a fine line between trying way too hard and not trying enough. And it requires a level of relaxation that almost feels easy at its highest speeds and then trying so hard and fighting and fighting against the other athletes and fighting against yours…”
Ohno: Usain Bolt joked before races to prime a hyper-reactive physical state
“Usain Bolt is my favorite example. Here you have one of the world's greatest track and field athletes of all time preparing for a moment in front of 80,000 screaming fans on the Olympic stage, a billion people watching. And this guy's joking around towards cam…”
Ohno: Disregard past mistakes unless they provide actionable racing lessons
“What happened before doesn't matter unless it's insight, learning lesson, or information about how you're going to race moving forward. If it's not in that realm, it's disregarded. It's completely out.”
Ohno: Clutch athletes demand final plays because they believe they dictate outcomes
“And I think that that's the belief and confidence in alpha that comes with, if there's anyone going to be responsible for the outcome of this, I believe I can dictate that outcome.”
Ohno: Olympic athletes fail Navy SEAL training due to strict psychological limits
“By the way, there's been many Olympic athletes who have actually gone on to try to become Navy SEALs, for example, and they can't, and it's not because they don't have the genetic ability. It's just because they weren't willing to go to those. Maybe perhaps it…”
Ohno: I intentionally trained to exhaustion to dominate teammates while physically weakened
“Even in my own team, I would, you know, the level of standard that I had for myself was that I would train more than they would. I would be more tired the next morning when we woke up and when we got to the ice rink, I expected that I could still dominate them…”