Startup Rebels

George Orwell: Animal Farm

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" - George Orwell.

Tune in for our take on Orwell's satirical "Fairy Story" which follows a group of animals as they rebel against their farm's cruel master and try to establish a government based on high-minded revolutionary ideals. Orwell's allegory is a scathing critique of totalitarianism and Stalinism, and one of the great political novels of the 20th century.

You can buy Animal Farm here: https://amzn.to/3NbroGS (paid link).

We'd love to here from you at contact(at)rdmr.io or @rdmr_io on Twitter.

 

The Psychology of Money

Let's say you have two people, a janitor and a Harvard trained financial executive. Would you believe it if I told you the janitor ended up wealthier than the Ivy League financier? How could that be?

 

Join us on this episode of Reading Rebellion to learn how to navigate the maze of your mind and understand the psychology of money.

 

Short: Fallacies Are Undermining You

What if I told you your brain is careening onto icy off-ramps of falsehood on the road to truth? And what if I gave you a map to stay on that road?

 

To give you guys a taste of our short podcast channel (Reading Rebellion Shorts), I'm crossposting this episode here. The regular long episode will be out tomorrow!

Alcibiades: The Original Demagogue

"Suppose that at this moment some God came to you and said: Alcibiades, will you live as you are or die in an instant if you are forbidden to make any further acquisition?—I verily believe that you would choose death." - Socrates

 

What happens when a power-hungry demagogue who believes in his right to rule over others meets a deep philosophical mind, bent on unwinding demagogic delusion? And what happens when we listen in and walk away questioning our own fundamental beliefs?

 

Find out on this episode of Reading Rebellion.

 

How Evil Are Politicians Feat. Bryan Caplan

Power-hunger, false rhetoric, and the lowest common denominator: Politics is a dirty business and nobody knows that more than Bryan Caplan.

Bryan is a philosophically-minded economist and intellectual rebel trained at Princeton and Berkeley. He's a professor at George Mason University, an author of several other books, and deep thinker on many crucial issues.

 

Talk a walk on the dark side with us on this episode!

 

You can buy “How Evil are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery” here: https://amzn.to/3Mvhi40 (paid link). You can also find Bryan on Substack (https://betonit.substack.com/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan).

Rationality I: Map and Territory

“I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?” -Eliezere Yudkowsky

 

Our mental maps do not conform perfectly to the territory of reality. Sometimes, they systematically and significantly vary from the terrain of reality. But what if there was a mental martial art of rationality that could help us see the world more clearly?

 

 

Network Effects: Creating the Next $1B Company

Ever wonder what makes tech giants tick? Companies like Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB, Amazon grow exponentially with small, efficient teams and low customer acquisition costs. Instagram grew to 30 million users with just 13 employees.

 

How can you grow your company exponentially from scratch like a tech unicorn? We'll answer all this questions and more in our deep dive on network effects, based on Andrew Chen's book The Cold Start Problem.

Andrew Chen was VP of growth at Uber and is a venture capitalist at a16z.

 

Teddy Roosevelt: The Man In The Arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds" - Teddy Roosevelt.

 

We'll be discussing Roosevelt's 1910 speech in the context of my first ever jiujitsu tournament, and generally, the challenge and reward of trying to do hard things.

Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Imagine an ultra-rational, emotionless, being who always makes judicious and perfectly calibrated decisions. Picture someone like Plato, Descartes, or maybe Spock. This is who you would want managing your investments, right? Wrong.

People who suffer damage to their emotional centers lose the ability to make complex decisions in personal and professional life. How can this be? What is the relationship between reason and emotion in the human brain?

This is what we'll discuss in today's episode based on Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at USC.

 

Utilitarianism II: J.S Mill

Is maximizing pleasure and reducing pain an appropriate goal for moral living? Is it realistic to expect us to consider the greatest happiness of all people as we try to act morally in our lives? Is it better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied?

In this episode we'll discuss J.S Mill's essay "utilitarianism" where he lays out and defends a moral framework dedicated to reducing suffering and maximizing human happiness.