Great conversation 👏
open.spotify.com/episode/1eD…
@davidsenra thank you for coming over to do this. Was fun.
Chris Ray retweeted
.@NikeshArora grew Palo Alto Networks from $18 billion to $250+ billion in market value. Before that, he spent 10 years helping grow Google’s revenue from $2 billion to $62 billion.
When he joined Palo Alto, he thought cybersecurity was two words. 8 years and 35 acquisitions later, the company has more than 70 products.
His approach: buy the winning team and put its founder in charge. If a startup beat his team with fewer resources, why make its founder report to the person who lost?
Nikesh explains why he makes founders agree to a product roadmap before signing a deal, why he wanted Google to buy Netflix, and how Egon Durban kept him bidding for a cricket team at 6 in the morning.
0:00 The Oculus deal he almost did with Egon Durban
8:45 "I thought cybersecurity was two words"
11:44 Why he buys instead of builds
14:33 Why the acquired founder becomes the boss
16:21 Why he only buys number one or number two
19:30 The 30-day test before every acquisition
33:38 Egon Durban and the 29-round cricket auction
42:32 Why nothing at work stresses him out
44:28 Selling Google ads without knowing the price
49:42 Coming to America with $200
51:58 Raising kids who didn't grow up poor
54:46 Why AI hacking has been good for Palo Alto
Includes paid partnerships.
The two brands that have control over my sleep quality!
Chris Ray retweeted
Stop overthinking your recovery.
@les7spellman has coached and tracked recovery in hundreds of athletes who have access to the most expensive recovery tools. What keeps showing up isn't glamorous: sleep a lot, eat pretty well, hydrate, do some low-level work, get sunlight early.
The two biggest levers he names are early sunlight and consistent bedtimes. That second one is tough in pro sport, where travel, practice and late starts put the schedule all over the place. Les and his team circle the late games and the long flights in advance and builds plan B: eye mask on the plane, earbuds in with no music just to block the noise, magnesium timed right, sleep.
What surprised him was how deeply the players bought in. As one of them put it, in college he was doing the light bed every week, and he feels better now than he did then.
If a consistent bedtime can out-recover a six-figure machine, you probably don't have a tools problem.
Chris Ray retweeted
Wondering why I had never seen @davidsenra podcasts and suddenly it's everywhere and it's so great quality.
Chris Ray retweeted
A transformative discussion— thanks to @RobertGreene
He explains it is possible to access the sublime every day. It takes a certain kind of focus, a few “dos” and “do nots”… Robert spells it all out.
Blessed to have had this conversation and absolutely loving Robert’s new book The Law of the Sublime.
The new Huberman Lab episode is out: Access the Sublime & Live Your Best Life | @RobertGreene
0:00 Robert Greene
2:47 The Law of The Sublime
7:40 Accessing the Sublime in Everyday Life, Drugs, Stroke
13:11 Sponsors: David & Eight Sleep
15:43 Attention, Neuro-Sublime, Tools: Self-Remembering, Meditation
23:06 Perception of the World, Emotion
29:57 Spatial & Temporal Scales, Childhood, Time as a River
39:08 Death Sublime, Near-Death Experiences
42:52 Sponsor: AG1
44:06 Octopus, Changing Our Time Perception & Animal Species
50:13 Attention, Phone & Vulnerable to Influence, Tool: Slowness
55:03 Slowness, Getting Outside of Human Social World, Tool: Mountain Climbing
1:01:53 Experiencing the World Beyond Us, Tool: Think Musically
1:07:57 Slowness in Writing, Tool: Handwriting; Cuttlefish, Hand Gestures
1:15:11 Sponsor: LMNT
1:16:31 Childhood, Tool: Uncovering Your Life’s Task
1:23:31 Stroke & Insight; Finding Sublime in Daily Experiences
1:28:55 Flow & Transcendent Experiences, Prodigies
1:35:24 Sponsor: Function
1:37:02 Love Sublime, Vulnerability & Falling in Love
1:42:33 Love, Trust; Opposites as False Enemies, Embracing Masculine & Feminine
1:47:16 Religion, Awareness of Death, Loss of Spirituality
1:56:28 Best & Worst of Being Human
2:02:49 Accessing the Best of Humanity, Tools: Slowness, Creativity & Senses
2:10:42 Next Book, Invisible, Fiction
2:16:26 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter
Includes paid partnerships.
Rafael won’t be stopped! 🫡
Rafael Vivas (@rfvivas) dropped out of high school, got kicked out of his house, and was a billionaire by 32.
When he joined AppLovin, he had one condition: he had to live inside the office. Adam Foroughi built him a bed from IKEA. He said:
“The only way that we’re going to win is we’re going to have to out-hustle everybody else.”
When a partner called Cheetah squeezed AppLovin too hard, he started a game studio to compete with them and named it Lion Studios, “because lion is the only animal that can kill a cheetah.” It went from zero to over $250 million in revenue in two years.
Raf has a lot of ideas on dealmaking, persistence, attention to detail, why he’s against delegation, and why retiring at 28 made him miserable.
This is a fascinating conversation about purpose, performance culture, and staying in the game.
0:00 Kicked out of his house at 16
6:42 Starting his own ad platform at 17
9:58 “Don't be mad, but I'm going to compete with you”
11:06 His one condition: living in the office
15:40 Turned down by VCs while already profitable
21:00 Why he's against delegation
24:15 Two years of persistence to land one customer
30:42 Lion Studios: built to kill a Cheetah
38:41 Walking away from AppLovin at 28
44:13 The IPO that brought him back
45:44 The stock buyback that made $50 billion
1:01:01 The mentor who redlined the NDA
1:03:54 “Do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?”
1:05:46 The best advice he ever received: stay in the game
Includes paid partnerships.
Chris Ray retweeted
“Working weekends is a must if you want to survive. Purely statistically.”
Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky: “The US is not that competitive. Europe is even less competitive.”
“China is competitive.”
“China is 9/9/6. Even if you are good in Europe, or in the US, how can you out-compete the people who work 9:00 to 9:00, six days a week?”
“I started in a co-working space with 140 companies. Within 5 years, only 3 companies survived. They all worked on the weekends.”
“Within 10 years, only 2 companies survived out of 140.”
“Working weekends is a must if you want to survive. Purely statistically.”
Chris Ray retweeted
The best response when your kid says they hate you:
- Say nothing first. Let the "I hate you" sit there between you
- Fire back and you start a ping pong match that lets them off the hook for what they said
- Stay sturdy and your kid has a much higher chance of reowning it
- Or try: "Whoa, clearly you're disappointed. I get that. I know there's another way you can say that to me"
- If it keeps coming: "I love you, you're a good kid, you're having a hard time. I won't stay while you keep saying this"
- You're not a punching bag. Separate the feeling from the behavior or your kid never will
@GoodInside on @hubermanlab
Full Episode 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Nik Storonsky is one of the most hardcore and competitive founders I’ve ever talked to. He’s the founder of Revolut, a $115 billion company, and wants to be the number one bank in 100 countries.
When someone asked Nik if he was coming for Jamie Dimon's lunch, he said “I’m coming for his dinner.”
“We want to dominate, otherwise what’s the point?”
He removed every VC from his board, and when one investor pushed him too far, he started his own fund to compete with them.
Nik has a lot of ideas on talent, product design, marketing, constraints, and what makes founder-led companies special.
This is a fascinating conversation about competition, speed, and building a machine-like company.
0:00 Coming for Jamie Dimon's dinner
2:04 Building the #1 bank in 100 countries
6:12 Why founders beat professional CEOs
8:45 Revolut's biggest mistake
12:47 Why legacy banks can't innovate
17:20 Running a company like a machine
20:28 Funding winners and cutting losers like a trader
23:31 How AI is changing Revolut's team structure
25:23 50 direct reports and spreading innovation fast
29:59 Hiring self-guided missiles
33:31 Too much money makes founders weaker
37:38 What Europe's constraints taught Revolut
41:08 Why VCs are like football cheerleaders
49:28 Starting a fund to compete with VCs
54:28 From zero marketing to buying Europe's airports
1:00:21 Funding moonshots like a global tech company
1:03:58 Building an unstoppable machine
Includes paid partnerships.
Tomorrow on @davidsenra
Chris Ray retweeted
Kurt MacAlpine’s company manages $525 billion and it didn’t even exist six years ago. At 39, he set his sights on the ultra-high-net-worth wealth management industry and decided to take it over as if he were a Canadian Genghis Khan. He went into debt to fund acquisitions, and when the stock market turned against his strategy he kept buying back shares and eventually took the company private. This is a fascinating conversation about incentives, conviction, and building a business that can compound for generations.
0:00 Building Corient and managing $525 billion
5:32 Why wealth management’s incentives are broken
11:42 Bringing the partnership model to wealth management
22:15 Sharing the benefits of scale with clients
24:25 One compensation plan, one P&L, no exceptions
27:58 Why independent wealth managers join Corient
39:21 Staying the course when the stock market disagrees
48:25 Betting on the business through share buybacks
51:52 Taking CI Financial private with Mubadala Capital
59:08 Acquiring great partners and building one company
1:04:43 Giving employees a voice in building the brand
1:12:39 Building a business that lasts for generations
Includes paid partnerships.
Chris Ray retweeted
Kurt MacAlpine. Corient. Kurt built a half a trillion dollar multi-family office in 6 years. This is a wild story. Tomorrow !
Chris Ray retweeted
Thanks to my partners @tryramp, @deel, @AppLovin for donating $100,000 each to Ben and his family.
If you can help in any way please do so here on this GoFundMe:
gofundme.com/f/help-ben-figh…
