Farnam Street
Description
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Feed Activity
Latest Posts
Fred Smith: The Story of FedEx [Outliers]
Fred Smith founded FedEx on an idea everyone told him would fail and built it into an $88 billion empire that changed how the world moves. In this episode, we...
Benedict Evans: Why AI Isn’t What You Think
Benedict Evans has been calling tech shifts for decades. Now he says forget the hype: AI isn’t the new electricity. It’s the biggest change since the iPhone, and that’s plenty...
[Outliers] John Bragg: The Unknown Billionaire Who Controls Half the World’s Blueberries
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...
Dr. Sue Johnson: The Science of Lasting Love
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....
[Outliers] Sol Price: The Godfather of Costco, Walmart, and Modern Retail
Sol Price is the most influential retailer you’ve never heard of. A man who never sought the spotlight, but whose legacy and lessons cover the entire landscape of modern retail....
Ryan Petersen: Building Flexport
Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) is the founder and CEO of Flexport, the platform that coordinates global logistics from factory floor to customer door. In this conversation, he’s refreshingly transparent about the...
[Outliers] Katharine Graham: The Washington Post
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...
Daniel Kahneman: Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than You
Daniel Kahneman (1934 to 2024) won the Nobel Prize for proving we’re not as rational as we think. We discuss how to think clearly in a world full of noise,...
[Outliers] Les Schwab: Why Real Ownership Outperforms Experience, Capital, and Credentials [The Knowledge Project Ep. #237]
Charlie Munger once asked me: ‘How can someone give away fifty percent of profits and make billions more than if he’d kept it all?’ Before I could answer, he told...
Harley Finkelstein: You Must Requalify for Your Role—Every Year [The Knowledge Project Ep. #236]
What does it mean to live – and lead – with intention? This week, I sit down with my friend and Shopify President Harley Finkelstein to explore what happens when...
[Outliers] Jimmy Pattison: Building a $16B Empire Without Connections, Capital, or Credentials [The Knowledge Project Ep. #235]
At 96 years old, Jimmy Pattison still runs his $16 billion empire personally. He’s built it over 63 years without outside capital or a college degree. He owns 100% of...
Indra Nooyi: Lessons from the Top of PepsiCo and the Cost of Getting There [The Knowledge Project Ep. #234]
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...
[Outliers] Anna Wintour: Vogue [The Knowledge Project Ep. #233]
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...
Reed Hastings: The Netflix Playbook for Culture, Judgment, and Scale [The Knowledge Project Ep. #232]
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...
[Outliers] Harvey Firestone: Men and Rubber [The Knowledge Project Ep. #231]
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...
Bill Belichick: Inside the Mind of the NFL’s Greatest Coach [The Knowledge Project Ep. #230]
What if the greatest coach in NFL history succeeded not through complex schemes, but by relentlessly focusing on doing the simple things right every single time? In this episode, Bill...
[Outliers] Andy Grove: Only the Paranoid Survive [The Knowledge Project Ep. #229]
Most people protect their identity. Andy Grove would rewrite it again and again. He started as a refugee, became a chemist, turned himself into an engineer, then a manager, and...
Elad Gil: The Guy Behind Silicon Valley’s Greatest Unicorns [The Knowledge Project Ep. #228]
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...
[Outliers] Rose Blumkin: Nebraska Furniture Mart [The Knowledge Project Ep. #227]
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, with no...
Garry Tan: Billion-Dollar Misfits (Inside Y Combinator’s Startup Formula) [The Knowledge Project Ep. #226]
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...