The Knowledge Project: A Farnam Street Podcast

One man controls half the world's wild blueberries, built North America's largest private telecom, and did it all without ever leaving his hometown of 1,100 people. In this episode, we decode the counterintuitive playbook of patient capital, rural advantage, and why Bragg's refusal to sell a single share made him unstoppable. My interview with John (#204) was the class. This is the homework.  ------ Approximate Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:09) Part One: The Renegade’s Choice (23:47) Part Two: Eastlink (41:16) Part Three: John Bragg: Serial Entrepreneur (52:15) Epilogue: The View from Oxford (54:34) Reflections / Afterthoughts (58:00) John Bragg’s Lesson Upgrade: Get a hand edited transcripts and ad free experiences along with my thoughts and reflections at the end of every conversation. Learn more @ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fs.blog/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ------ Newsletter: The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read

This conversation will change how you handle your relationship starting tonight. The late Dr. Sue Johnson basically gave me a cheat code for relationships that not only last but amplify. She breaks down the real signals to look for in a partner.  Why people actually cheat (not what you think) and how to spot it coming a mile away. Plus she offers a simple framework that can turn fights from something that pushes you away to something that brings you closer than ever.  We dig into how to keep the spark alive (even after kids), how to survive the empty-nest phase, and three simple things you can do to strengthen your relationship.  Doesn't matter if you're single, dating, married, or divorced. You need to hear this. ------ Approximate Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (07:11) The Life Cycles Of Relationships (08:13) How Do We Choose A Mate? (17:42) Emotional Responsiveness (24:18) Attachment Panic (32:31) How To Deepen Romantic Relationships (43:53) Isolation In Parenthood (59:50) Sexual Problems Un

The most influential retailer you’ve never heard of. How Sol Price invented the warehouse club and a philosophy that still runs Costco and Amazon. Have you ever wondered why you can still buy a hot dog and soda for $1.50 today at Costco? We can thank Sol Price for that. To him, keeping promises to customers mattered more than profit margins. Sam Walton said he borrowed more ideas from Sol Price than anyone else. Jim Sinegal of Costco said, “I didn’t learn a lot from Sol. I learned everything.” Jeff Bezos studied him. Home Depot echoed him.  He invented the warehouse club, pioneered membership retail and built two multi-billion-dollar companies. The real lessons aren’t about what he built, but how he did it.  This is the story of how a lawyer with no retail experience created an industry, mentored his competition, and proved that nice guys don't always finish last. Sol Price founded FedMart and Price Club, pioneering the membership warehouse model that inspired Costco and Sam’s Club. His principles—limit

Build the system behind the system. Flexport founder Ryan Petersen shows how to turn messy, multi‑party operations into a simple, scalable system that compounds growth without sacrificing trust. He explains: The iPhone clue: using public shipping data to predict launches—and create pull from zero Retention is destiny: the equilibrium math that caps growth (and how to bend it) Full‑stack or bust: customers buy outcomes, not point tools 108 steps to scale: structure the workflow, then automate or offload 90%+ Freight whiplash playbook: win share at $600 rates, keep trust at $20,000 The YC clarity rule: say it simply, make upside legible, accelerate yes Crisis ops at speed: repurposed jets and 500M masks during a global shutdown The confidence gap: why stepping away was rational—and what evidence made the comeback inevitable Choosing bottlenecks: sequence capability buildouts so quality scales with volume Automate vs. outsource vs. in‑house: a decision rule for cost, qual

When Katharine Graham took over the Washington Post in 1963, she was a shy socialite who'd never run anything. By retirement, she'd taken down a president, ended the most violent strike in a generation, and built one of the best-performing companies in American history. Graham had no training, no experience, not even confidence. Just a newspaper bleeding money and a government that expected her to fall in line. When her editors brought her stolen classified documents, her lawyers begged her not to publish. They said it would destroy the company. She published them anyway. Nixon came after her, attacking her with the full force of the executive. Then Watergate. For nearly a year she was ridiculed and isolated while pursuing the story that would eventually bring down the president.  Graham proved that you can grow into a job that initially seems impossible and no amount of training can substitute for having the right values and the courage to act on them. ------ 10 Lessons from Katharine Graham: ⁠⁠⁠https:

Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for proving we're not as rational as we think. In this timeless conversation we discuss how to think clearly in a world full of noise, the invisible forces that cloud our judgement, and why more information doesn't equal better thinking. Kahneman also reveals the mental model he discovered at 22 that still guides elite teams today.  Approximate timestamps:  (00:36) – Episode Introduction   (05:37) – Daniel Kahneman on Childhood and Early Psychology   (12:44) – Influences and Career Path   (15:32) – Working with Amos Tversky   (17:20) – Happiness vs. Life Satisfaction   (21:04) – Changing Behavior: Myths and Realities   (24:38) – Psychological Forces Behind Behavior   (28:02) – Understanding Motivation and Situational Forces   (30:45) – Situational Awareness and Clear Thinking   (34:11) – Intuition, Judgment, and Algorithms   (39:33) – Improving Decision-Making with Structured Processes   (43:26) – Organizational Thinking and Dissent   (46:00) – Judgment Qualit

They weren’t employees. They were partners. Les Schwab didn’t build a company. He built a culture. This episode reveals how one small-town tire dealer scaled to $3 billion by turning customers into evangelists and employees into owners. Somewhere between changing his first flat tire and opening his 410th Les Schwab Tire Center, Les discovered something profound: his people weren't just working for him, they were working with him. They weren't building his dream, they were building their own. This episode is a case study on how strategy, incentives, and trust create massive advantages that resources can’t buy. When investment bankers offered Schwab billions to sell his empire, he refused after asking himself just one question: “What would I do with the money?” Les Schwab understood something most never learn: the real wealth isn't in what you keep.  Approximate timestamps: Subject to variation due to dynamically inserted ads:  (01:49) Roots   (11:21) In Business  (27:50) Building an Empire  (40:18) Matur

Shopify’s Harley Finkelstein reveals the one standard that actually scales your career and your family. Harley shares why stepping down as COO was his hardest choice, the family motto that guides his daughters, and what makes someone good at storytelling. They discuss AI's real advantage, the calendar system that keeps him accountable, and how he maintains high standards. If this gives you one standard to raise your team—or your family—share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. ------------ About Harley: Harley Finkelstein is the President of Shopify. He leads storytelling, external relations, and company energy—translating world-class product into world-class adoption. Approximate timestamps:  (00:02:10) Living With Unreasonably High Standards (00:03:40) Generational Trauma and Family Relationships (00:07:52) Growing Up With Adverse Circumstances (00:14:42) Prioritizing In Life And Becoming World Class (00:24:45) Requalifying For Your Job (00:30:05) Mindset for Professional Growth and Success

Jimmy Pattison still runs his $16 billion empire personally at 96 years old. He’s built The Pattison Group over the last 63 years without outside capital or a college degree. He owns 100% of car dealerships, grocery stores, billboards, radio stations and even Ripley’s Believe It or Not—with a philosophy of: "No partners, no shareholders, no relatives."  This episode reveals the principles behind one of North America’s great private empires ------ Get a summary of the 11 key lessons you can learn from Jimmy here: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-jimmy-pattison/ ------ Approximate timestamps:  (01:10) Jimmy Pattison’s Billion-Dollar Playbook(03:24) The Debt That Built Character(05:41) Part 1: Foundations - The Boy Who Sold Seeds Door-To-Door(06:52) When Victory Becomes a Liability(08:46) The University of Used Cars(10:02) The Art of the Close(13:30) When Business Becomes Theater(15:22) The Price of Independence(16:36) The Pattern(17:44) Part 2: Starting to Build - Back to Zero(18:09) T

On her first day as CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi fired her general counsel. Then rehired him before dinner. It wasn’t a stunt. It was a signal.  She ran a $200 billion empire the same way she ran her life: with surgical precision, uncompromising standards, and an allergy to corporate theater. But here's what separates this conversation from every other CEO interview: she tells you what her massive ambition cost her and her family. What it means to carry the hopes of millions who look like you. What happens when a strategy you bet your career on starts to crumble. She reveals her private system for tracking 400 rising stars inside of a corporate giant and the advice Steve Jobs gave her that changed everything.  If you’ve ever felt the pull between ambition and identity, this one’s for you. Indra doesn’t just talk about power. She shows what it costs.  Approximate timestamps: Subject to variation due to dynamically inserted ads: Thanks to our sponsors for s

The job was editor-in-chief. The goal was to become the platform. And she did.  Once she made it to the top, she didn’t just edit Vogue. She reinvented the power structures beneath it. This episode unpacks how a British girl who couldn’t type built the most bulletproof career in media, survived five decades of disruption, and made herself indispensable to fashion, politics, and culture.   You’ll hear how she weaponized speed over perfection, fired half the Vogue staff in three days, and turned a porn-funded job into a fashion laboratory. Why she said “Your job” when asked what she wanted. Why she put Madonna on the cover at the peak of a scandal. Why standards—not popularity—are her real moat. It’s not about fashion. It’s about building systems no one can take from you.   Most people aim for realistic. Anna Wintour named her destination—Editor of Vogue—at sixteen, then built a ladder no one else could climb.  This episode is for informational purposes only and is based on Amy Odell’s Anna: The Biography.

How do you build a high-performance culture without turning your company into the Hunger Games? Reed Hastings, co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, shares lessons from a career spent rewriting the rules—from severance as a management tool to “big-hearted champions who pick up the trash.” In this episode, he reveals how Netflix scaled trust, made bold bets before the data was in, and kept its edge by treating employees like adults—not assets. You’ll hear how Hastings evaluates talent beyond the interview, the reason he avoids performance improvement plans, and what most leaders misunderstand about judgment, feedback, and innovation.  You’ll also hear why he placed a $100 million bet on House of Cards with no pilot, how Drive to Survive changed an entire sport, and why Squid Game caught even Netflix by surprise.  Now focused on a new chapter—owning a ski mountain, reshaping education through AI tutors, and supporting charter schools—Hastings is still doing what he does best: building systems that scale cultu

Harvey Firestone built one of America’s great industrial empires from scratch, transforming from a farm boy to Henry Ford’s key partner. This episode reveals timeless principles about building businesses through booms, busts, and technological disruptions. This episode is based on the biography Men and Rubber: The Story of Business. Check out The Firestone Principles: 12 Timeless Lessons from an Industrial Pioneer: ⁠⁠⁠https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-harvey-firestone/ (03:00) PART 1: The Best Businessman I Ever Knew(06:50) The Vanilla Extract Lesson(10:23) When Premium Doesn’t Matter (12:05) PART 2: Right Beneath the Wheels(14:21) The Back of an Envelope(16:36) If Two of Us Stay, Neither Makes Money(18:39) Betting on what Doesn’t Change(20:55) The Accidental Breakfast(24:53) The Third Option (28:19) PART 3: The Innovators Dilemma: Pneumatic Tires(32:24) The Ford Connection: A Partnership of Outsiders(35:23) Navigating the Crisis(37:17) The Underdog’s Advantage(39:24) The Million Dollar

Eight Super Bowl rings. Six with the Patriots. And a mindset that goes far deeper than football. In this rare, wide-ranging conversation, Bill Belichick breaks down the invisible factors behind sustained excellence: discipline, preparation, and the mental edge that separates contenders from champions. He shares the surprising reason he kept Tom Brady as a fourth-string rookie, why talent alone is never enough at the highest level, and how true competitors find ways to win long after their gifts fade.  You’ll hear why Belichick cut a player the week of the Super Bowl, how technology is changing player preparation and locker room culture, and why “we have control of the game” became the rallying belief in the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. This episode covers everything from how he decides when to push a player—or pull back—to how trust is built inside elite teams. Belichick also explains why the price of success is always paid in advance—and why there’s no shortcut around the work. If you lead a tea

Most people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite his, again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and finally the CEO who built Intel into a global powerhouse. He didn’t cling to credentials or titles. When a challenge came up, he didn’t delegate, he learned. This episode explores the radical adaptability that made Grove different. While his peers obsessed over innovation, he focused on something far more enduring: the systems, structures, and people needed to scale that innovation. Grove understood that as complexity rises, technical brilliance fades and coordination becomes king.  You’ll learn how he redefined leadership, why he saw management as a creative act, and what most founders still get wrong about building great companies. If you’re serious about getting better—at work, at thinking, at leading—this is the episode you’ll be glad you didn’t miss.  This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research cam

What if the world’s most connected tech investor handed you his mental playbook? Elad Gil, an investor behind Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase and Anduril, flips conventional wisdom on its head and prioritizes market opportunities over founders. Elad decodes why innovation has clustered geographically throughout history, from Renaissance Florence to Silicon Valley, where today 25% of global tech wealth is created. We get into why he believes AI is dramatically under-hyped and still under-appreciated, why remote work hampers innovation, and the self-inflicted wounds that he's seen kill most startups.   This is a masterclass in pattern recognition from one of tech's most consistent and accurate forecasters, revealing the counterintuitive principles behind identifying world-changing ideas.  Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in January. The pace of AI development is staggering, and some of what we discussed has already evolved. But the mental models Elad shares about strategy, judgment, and high-agency thinking are

Rose Blumkin didn’t just build a business. She revolutionized retail. After fleeing Russia with $66 in her purse, she opened a basement furniture store in Omaha at 43 years old—with no English, no education, and no connections. Her formula? Sell cheap, tell the truth, don't cheat the customer. Nebraska Furniture Mart would survive depressions, fires, lawsuits, tornadoes—and eventually become a billion-dollar empire Warren Buffett called “the ideal business.”  Learn how Mrs. B’s relentless focus, radical simplicity, and unbreakable work ethic built an empire from scratch—and what her story teaches us about business, resilience, and the power of earned trust. This episode is for informational purposes only and most of the research came from "Women of Berkshire Hathaway" and oral history interviews with Rose Blumkin and her daughter Frances. Check out highlights from this book in our repository, and find key lessons from Blumkin here — ⁠fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-rose-blumkin (03:20) PART 1:

Most accelerators fund ideas. Y Combinator funds founders—and transforms them. With a 1% acceptance rate and alumni behind 60% of the past decade’s unicorns, YC knows what separates the founders who break through from those who burn out. It's not the flashiest résumé or the boldest pitch but something President Garry Tan says is far rarer: earnestness. In this conversation, Garry reveals why this is the key to success, and how it can make or break a startup. We also dive into how AI is reshaping the whole landscape of venture capital and what the future might look like when everyone has intelligence on tap.  If you care about innovation, agency, or the future of work, don’t miss this episode.  Approximate timestamps: Subject to variation due to dynamically inserted ads. (00:02:39) The Success of Y Combinator (00:04:25) The Y Combinator Program (00:08:25) The Application Process (00:09:58) The Interview Process (00:16:16) The Challenge of Early Stage Investment (00:22:53) The Role of San Fran

If Warren Buffett is the king of capital allocation—Henry Singleton is the ghost. Singleton built one of the most successful conglomerates in American history, transforming business while remaining virtually unknown. While Wall Street chased fads, Singleton, who could play chess blindfolded, quietly turned industrial conglomerate Teledyne into a business juggernaut with 20.4% annual returns over nearly three decades—outperforming Buffett, outmaneuvering rivals, and outlasting the hype. Dive into the mind of a man who Charlie Munger said had "the best operating and capital deployment record in American business—bar none." This is a masterclass in disciplined capital allocation and long-term thinking on the most underrated business genius of the 20th century.  If you're building a business, allocating capital, or simply trying to think more clearly in a noisy world, you cannot afford to miss this one.  (03:16) Prologue (05:59) PART 1: THE MAKING OF A MAVERICK (07:48) After MIT (10:24) Founding of Teled

What happens when one of the most legendary minds in tech delves deep into the real workings of modern AI? A 2-hour long masterclass that you don’t want to miss.   Bret Taylor, current chairman of OpenAI, unpacks why AI is transforming software engineering forever, how founders can survive acquisition (he’s done it twice), and why the true bottlenecks in AI aren’t what most think. Drawing on his extensive experiences at Facebook, Google, Twitter and more, he explains why the next phase of AI won’t just be about building better models—it’s about creating entirely new ways for us to work with them. Bret exposes the reality gap between what AI insiders understand and what everyone else believes. Listen now to recalibrate your thinking before your competitors do.  (00:02:46) Aha Moments with AI (00:04:43) Founders Working for Founders (00:07:59) Acquisition Process (00:14:14) The Role of a Board (00:17:05) Founder Mode (00:20:29) Engineers as Leaders (00:24:54) Applying First Principles in Business (00:28:43) T