Rob Henderson: An Internet Academic
North Star Podcast
Rob Henderson is one of my favorite up-and-coming writers. I like him because he's one of those people who doesn't fit into a category. He's a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, but I met him in a book club about technological stagnation. He's spent years in the academy, first at Yale and now at Cambridge, but most of his influence comes from his online writing. Most of all, he's interested in human nature. In particular, psychology, status, and social class.
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Chrisman Frank and Ana Lorena Fabrega: How Childhood Education Will Change
North Star Podcast
This week, I have two guests. Both are affiliated with Synthesis, a new kind of online school where kids learn through games and simulations. One is Chrisman Frank, the CEO of Synthesis. The other is Ana Lorena Fabrega, who is their Chief Evangelist.
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Ash Fontana: Building Artificial Intelligence
North Star Podcast
Ash Fontana is an entrepreneur, investor, and author. As an entrepreneur, he was only of the early employees at an online investing platform called AngelList. From there, he became the Managing Director at Zetta, the first investment fund focused on artificial intelligence. Now, he's the author of the AI-First Company.
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Li Jin: Creating the Creator Economy
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Li Jin, the founder and managing partner at an early-stage venture capital firm called Atelier.
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Zena Hitz: Liberal Arts Thinking
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Zena Hitz, a tutor at St John’s and the author of an excellent book called Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning for its own sake, through images and stories of bookworms, philosophers, scientists, and other learners, both fictional and historical.
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Tiago Forte and Will Mannon: Building Cohort-Based Courses
North Star Podcast
I have two guests today: Tiago Forte and Will Mannon.
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Gagan Biyani: Building Silicon Valley Startups
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Gagan Biyani, the current CEO of an education startup that helps teachers run Cohort-Based Courses on the Internet and has students from around the world. Gagan also founded a multi-billion dollar online education platform called Udemy. Afterward, he founded Sprig, a food delivery platform that grew to a nine-digit valuation but eventually failed. So today, he has the distinct pleasure of being both the founder of a unicorn and the founder of a massive failure.
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Trevor Bauer: Playing Professional Baseball
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Trevor Bauer, who is arguably the very best pitcher in Major League Baseball. I wanted to interview Trevor not only because he's an excellent pitcher, but because he takes a radical approach to the game. He's a physicist and a scientist. A scholar and an entrepreneur. And you don't find that combination very often.
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Nik Sharma: Building DTC Companies
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Nik Sharma, the founder of Sharma Brands and an advisor to companies like Judy and Cha Cha Matcha. Nik is one of my very best friends, and my go-to person for all things commerce. Since we first met, we've spent hours exploring the future of marketing and commerce together, and recorded this podcast to give you a window into what our conversations are like.
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Kevin Kelly: Seeing the Future
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Kevin Kelly, who co-founded Wired Magazine in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for the first seven years. As one of the most important futurists of our generation, he's published a number of books including The Inevitable, What Technology Wants, and New Rules for the New Economy which is my favorite one. Coolest of all, he's also a founding member of the board of the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit devoted to encouraging long-term thinking.
info_outlineWill Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of WHOOP, which has developed next-generation wearable technology for optimizing human performance and health. I found him through an excellent interview he hosted with Rory McIlroy, a winner of four major championships who was once the #1 golfer in the world. Then, once we started talking, he told me about the group chats he shares with other top golfers like Justin Thomas.
The man is obsessed with health technology like nobody I’ve ever come across, so conversation topics range from the business of wearables, to the challenges of tracking accurate data. Then, he shared his philosophy for why sleep and recovery are a more important data point for an athlete than exercise and stress. My favorite part of the interview was hearing about Will’s philosophy of management, and why he tries to hire people who have high intensity and high humility. Please enjoy my conversation with WHOOP CEO Will Ahmed.
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Show Notes
2:15 - What data Will wishes he could magically track for his users and why it could drastically improve their health.
6:30 - How breathing exercises, mindfulness, and meditations help your heart rate.
11:05 - Why WHOOP has found so much success in helping golfers and baseball players over other sports.
13:20 - What Will remembers as his favorite conversations with athletes.
16:24 - Why it's so hard to capture accurate sleep cycle data.
20:43 - Why teams on average get less sleep at an away game than at a home game.
23:38 - The limits of what can or can't and what should or shouldn't be tracked.
26:38 - How WHOOP separates itself from the larger players in the health market.
31:08 - Why Will believes strongly that the branding of WHOOP products aids in developing a person's own brand.
34:30 - Why not developing your own hardware to go with your software can be detrimental to your overall design.
41:41 - The future of informed coaching using WHOOP and their membership services team.
43:19 - Why WHOOP started out as a brand-focused company, and why it was so important to go about it this way.
45:38 - What it was like playing Augusta National.
49:00 - How to know when to operate analytically versus intuitively.
56:43 - The key to being different, and why you should always be asking your customers what their problems are, not what their solutions are.
1:01:16 - What piece of advice that Will would give his younger self in the past.