Tim Ferriss

NEW podcast episode is up! "4-Hour Workweek Success Story Brian Dean — From Dad’s Basement to Selling Two Companies" This is a shorter episode and by request. Many of you have requested more 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies—conversations with people who have read the book, applied it, and built lives and businesses I never could have imagined. Brian Dean—today’s guest—has a story that starts exactly where a lot of great stories start: broke, directionless, and eating canned beef stew in his dad’s basement during the 2008 financial crisis. He picked up a copy of The 4-Hour Workweek and took action. As is nearly always the case, his path wasn’t a straight line, but a series of winding turns, all fed by experiments. Today’s episode covers geoarbitrage, testing assumptions cheaply, building a muse, automating income, and—the chapter almost everyone skips—filling the void. His journey includes failures, two successful exits, and a hard-won answer to the question most people never think to ask: what do you actually do with your freedom once you have it? But who is Brian?  Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics, both acquired by Semrush, which itself was recently acquired by Adobe for $1.9 billion.  P.S. A special thank you to Elaine Pofeldt for getting Brian’s story on my radar. Elaine is the author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business and more recently, Tiny Business, Big Money. Please enjoy! cc: @BrianEDean

I first knew how incredible this authoritative profile of Josh Kushner and Thrive would be when the author, @JeremySternLA, sent me a 500-page document full of interview transcripts he’d done with members of the Thrive team. That dossier ended up being less than half the total background material reviewed to make this profile possible. But even still, what I didn’t expect was a story that swept this far back in history and became a series of vignettes about American history and culture coming together in a single firm, which has become one of the most important in technology, if not the most. Here is our profile of Josh Kushner, his team, and the institution they are building together

“The road to hell is not paved with good intentions. It is paved with lack of intention.” — Dr. Gabor Maté

Florida couldn't get better advertising if if paid billions

NEW podcast episode is up! "4-Hour Workweek Success Story Brian Dean — From Dad’s Basement to Selling Two Companies" This is a shorter episode and by request. Many of you have requested more 4-Hour Workweek Case Studies—conversations with people who have read the book, applied it, and built lives and businesses I never could have imagined. Brian Dean—today’s guest—has a story that starts exactly where a lot of great stories start: broke, directionless, and eating canned beef stew in his dad’s basement during the 2008 financial crisis. He picked up a copy of The 4-Hour Workweek and took action. As is nearly always the case, his path wasn’t a straight line, but a series of winding turns, all fed by experiments. Today’s episode covers geoarbitrage, testing assumptions cheaply, building a muse, automating income, and—the chapter almost everyone skips—filling the void. His journey includes failures, two successful exits, and a hard-won answer to the question most people never think to ask: what do you actually do with your freedom once you have it? But who is Brian?  Brian Dean is the founder of Backlinko and Exploding Topics, both acquired by Semrush, which itself was recently acquired by Adobe for $1.9 billion.  P.S. A special thank you to Elaine Pofeldt for getting Brian’s story on my radar. Elaine is the author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business and more recently, Tiny Business, Big Money. Please enjoy! cc: @BrianEDean

Not an accurate description. I originally wrote this in 2006 before I had real $ (it's in my first book, pubbed 2007), and I still stand by it. I'm not saying don't try; I'm saying try to be surgical. Effort only matters if it's pointed in the right direction and you can sustain it.

What's clever: this actually might be a spoof of a real company that sells stationary bikes. youtube.com/watch?v=zdkBUu…

Meet FBI's "Hollywood Guy" cc: @MichelleKhare

@BrianEDean Links to everything discussed: tim.blog/2026/04/16/bri…

Watch now on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=LlDzqK…

You don’t need a great idea to build a successful company. What actually mattered (from my experience building and selling 2 companies): -doubling down on what worked -picking something with clear demand -building distribution early -creating consistently Most people overthink the idea and underinvest in everything else. Went deeper on this with @tferriss: youtu.be/LlDzqK6MnOA?si…

The first day our new Sales VP arrived at TrueSAN in 2001, he came into the all-company meeting and made an announcement in just about this many words: “I am not here to make friends. I have been hired to build a sales team and sell product, and that’s what I intend to do. Thanks.” So much for small talk. He proceeded to deliver on his promise. The office socializers disliked him for his no-nonsense approach to communication, but everyone respected his time. He wasn’t rude without reason, but he was direct and kept the people around him focused. Some didn’t consider him charismatic, but no one considered him anything less than spectacularly effective. I remember sitting down in his office for our first one-on-one meeting. Fresh off four years of rigorous academic training, I immediately jumped into explaining the prospect profiles, elaborate planning I’d developed, responses to date, and so forth and so on. I had spent at least two hours preparing to make this first impression a good one. He listened with a smile on his face for no more than two minutes and then held up a hand. I stopped. He laughed in a kind-hearted manner and said, “Tim, I don’t want the story. Just tell me what we need to do.” Over the following weeks, he trained me to recognize when I was unfocused or focused on the wrong things, which meant anything that didn’t move the top two or three clients one step closer to signing a purchase order. Our meetings were now no more than five minutes long.

I’m going to propose that you develop an uncanny ability to be selectively ignorant. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is also practical. It is imperative that you learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three. Lifestyle design is based on massive action—output. Increased output necessitates decreased input. Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.

I read the Four Hour Work Week in 2009 and it was life changing. I want to thank @tferriss for inspiring us to travel the world. Today we are flying to Seoul South Korea, our 50th country. Living the dream baby!

“I personally believe that a really well-written email can open any door.” — Michelle Khare Listen to my interview with daredevil Michelle Khare: tim.blog/2026/04/07/mic…

Watch my full interview with @MichelleKhare: youtube.com/watch?v=fmpWGD…

This was such a great three-hour listen. So much to learn from and use. Master class.

“You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort.” — Jean Cocteau