Rational VC Podcast

The long awaited episode on Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" is now live on all platforms 🎙📺 Trailer below 👇🏻 . @iman_olya and @CyrusYari break down the key concepts from the book, discuss their experiences and provide actionable takeaways from the book rationalvc dot com

the aim is to productise urself. u should never play someone else's game. e.g. if someone launches a successful podcast and they grew up privileged but u grew up in the hood, u shouldn't try to emulate them. rather, on ur podcast u should embrace ur difference & productise it.

@CyrusYari 👌

fooled by randomness. "Consider the left and right columns of Table P.1. The best way to summarize the major thesis of this book is that it addresses situations (many of them tragicomical) where the left column is mistaken for the right one." love it.

same goes for making timeless podcasts. there are maybe 2 guys each successfully doing the monologue pod thing. or the acquired pod duo were recently interviewed by author Michael Lewis. He asked why don't more ppl do what u guys do? Answer is simple: no one wants to do the work. It's all shortcuts, hacks, context-switching, what makes a quick buck. But reading a book cover to cover submerged in highlights like I did and making an episode on it? Seems easy but it's not. Or the acquired guys spending an entire month basically doing a massive research project before making a pod ep. Find where is the real work that a) feels like play to you, & b) looks like work to others. Then do that. But pls stop falling for all the bs like "here's how to use AI to make $$" - yeah you can, but most likely you won't. And if you are one of the few w a brain geared to operate that way, are you gonna compound it for a very long time? If not play then you will burnout and crash cos it's not your game. we say we understand compounding, but even i don't truly understand power of compounding. get out of the bubble, find what's play to u but work to others, & compound the hell out of it. by all means necessary. stop playing other ppl's games. "Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own." - Derek Sivers "I am 100% happy to watch you get really rich doing something that I have no interest in doing." ― Brent Beshore

@CyrusYari 🥂

i tweeted about this a few days ago. soon, my hiatus from podcasting (and delayed output) will make sense. everything else i ever do is a means to allow me to podcast. the only “work” i’m ever obsessed about. buckle up ⏳

@CyrusYari 👌

Lessons from Derek Sivers: 1. Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. 2. Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough? 3. Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it. 4. People often ask me what they can do to be more successful. I say disconnect. Even if just for a few hours. Unplug. Turn off your phone and Wi-Fi. Focus. Write. Practice. Create. That’s what’s rare and valuable these days. You get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone else is consuming. 5. Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you're being the real you and when you're trying to impress an invisible jury. 6. To me, 'busy' implies that the person is out of control of their life. 7. In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have. 8. When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia. 9. If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you. When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like they sense a desperate lover. It’s a turnoff. When someone’s doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give. 10. A big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left. 11. When you asked what the business actually did, they couldn’t explain it clearly. Then they would talk about LOI, ROI, NDAs, IPOs, and all kinds of things that also had nothing to do with actually helping people. I’m so glad I didn’t have investors. I didn’t have to please anybody but my customers and myself. No effort was spent on anything but my customers. I’d get weekly calls from investment firms, wanting to invest in CD Baby. My immediate answer was always, “No thanks.” They’d say, “Don’t you want to expand?” I’d say, “No. I want my business to be smaller, not bigger.” That always ended the conversation.

@CyrusYari 👀

there is a whole new category of doom & gloom content on YT (not picking out this single creator, there's many) gloom -> views -> profit how is this any different to conventional news that just reports doom & fear? cover doom, yes, BUT THEN no is following it up with saying ok yes it's fucked but here are the solutions, what u can do on individual level even if hands are tied. Even maybe incorporate a bit of philosophy & timeless wisdom to help ppl have the mentality to get thru the hard times as they build their own solution. practical + philosophical/ancient wisdom. e.g. corporates suck, corrupt. YES. what to do? play them at their own game, do bare minimum in job, use as non-dilutive financing to build own biz on the side, etc. is it going to suck & be hard? Yes. but let's take some lessons from what our forefathers achieved & their advice in difficult times. PROBLEM? SOLUTION. NOT JUST PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM. If that's the case let's go back to conventional news ffs.

@GilxRamirez 🙏

👋🏼 I'm Gil, ex-Shopify, staff software engineer in California After lots of overthinking, I finally just hit record! Journey to $10K+ MRR begins now! A portfolio of bets inspired by @dvassallo, @levelsio, @robj3d3, @marclou "in my garage" nights & weekends. in public. let's go!

@CyrusYari 🍻

@CyrusYari 🔥🐐

one of the greatest lines to this day: "slavery does not decrease with wealth"

@CyrusYari 🔥🔥🔥

Claude, move my cursor every few secs so employer thinks I'm working while I ..."Mohnishmaxx" Mohnishmaxx = doing bare minimum but not so bad that u get fired. using all extra & free time to attain worldly wisdom + build ur own biz hack tech job hiring @ rational.school

@CyrusYari 🔥🔥🍻

me to rational[.]school clients, days before they secure multiple remote tech job offers, squeezing the companies for every last penny possible, leaving no money on the table in their comp package. remote. no commute. high pay. use as non-dilutive financing to build ur own thing

@CyrusYari 🐐

“Random Tinkering (antifragile) → Heuristics (technology) → Practice and Apprenticeship → Random Tinkering (antifragile) → Heuristics (technology) → Practice and Apprenticeship … In parallel to the above loop, Practice → Academic Theories → Academic Theories → Academic Theories → Academic Theories … (with of course some exceptions, some accidental leaks, though these are indeed rare and overhyped and grossly generalized).” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Happy Nowrooz // Happy Persian New Year ❤️ hungover today from a rare 2 drinks last night, game's gone. hUbErMaN wAs RiGhT. no ability to use brain today so decided to do quick makeover of personal site after yrs. was doing too much before, now nice simple: cyrusyari dot com