Three Content Creators I Follow
A major benefit of the internet is the ability to find great content, often for free, for just about any interest a person might have. Over the last couple of years, I've worked to create a list of follows that continually expands my base of knowledge and feeds my curiosity. My follows are spread among articles / essays, Twitter posts and threads, newsletters, and podcasts. For many of my follows, I will drop everything when I see that they've put out something new - they're that good.
I'll share three of my favorites here, though this list could be a lot longer. If you're looking for more recommendations, please reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Invest Like the Best podcast - Patrick O'Shaugnessy (link)
The word "invest" in the title might suggest that this is a financial podcast, but Patrick thinks of investing in broad terms. We are all investors, in the sense that we choose how to allocate our resources every day. We invest our money, but we also invest our time and attention. To help listeners be better investors in all aspects of their lives, Patrick goes in-depth with his guests on their backstories, their thoughts about current events, and what developments they see in the future.
Patrick has the ability to strike a balance between being well-prepared for all his guests while being willing to go with the flow of the conversation. He spends his time listening and asking questions, not trying to introduce his own beliefs or steer the conversation a particular direction, so the listener gets a new perspective with each episode. He is able to connect what a guest shares with discussions from other episodes, enabling listeners to achieve greater depth of understanding of the topics discussed.
The episodes average about an hour in length. They are well-edited, so there isn't much small talk or downtime. The episode show notes provide a good overview so that listeners can decide in advance on committing the time to listen. In addition to the main podcast, there are several offshoots that focus on, for example, breakdowns of how businesses operate and experiences of company founders.
Despite many of the episodes being with founders, executives, and other senior business leaders, the podcast is accessible and informative. Patrick ends every episode with the question "what is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?" The answers are almost always insightful, and the question is a favorite of guests and listeners alike. With hundreds of episodes to choose from, you're likely to find one on a topic that interests you.
Farnham Street - Shane Parrish (link)
The name "Farnham Street" was chosen by creator Shane Parrish as a nod to Berkshire Hathaway and its principals: Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger; Berkshire's corporate office are located on Farnham Street in Omaha, Nebraska. Shane seeks to achieve a timeless wisdom similar to Buffett and Munger in the content he creates, which includes articles, a podcast, books, and a newsletter.
Shane has a knack for presenting things a reader may know or implicitly understand in a way that invokes deeper thinking about the subject and its implications in other areas. Many of his articles focus on mental models, which are frameworks for effective decision making. First principles thinking, probabilistic thinking, and thought experiments are just three of the models that Shane encourages us to make part of the "latticework" that will make us better decision makers. Regardless of the decisions we face, FS provides useful information to give us a better chance to make good ones.
Farnham Street sends out a "Brain Food" newsletter each Sunday, with highlights of its articles and podcasts and other interesting finds from across the internet. It's an excellent place to start consuming FS content. I also enjoy following Shane on Twitter - his posts are short, to the point, and come at just the right frequency.
Paul Graham (link)
Paul Graham has been writing thoughtful essays for over 20 years, dating back to the time he sold his tech startup to Yahoo!. Since that time, Graham launched Y Combinator, a startup accelerator which provides seed venture capital funding, mentoring, and networking assistance to a cohort of 125 startup companies twice each year.
In an essay titled "Write Simply," Paul speaks of the benefit of using ordinary words and simple sentences to convey his thoughts. He believes readers will engage with simple writing more than complicated writing, and are more likely to read more of what he has written if he uses this style. Paul applies this process to essays many different topics, with investors, startups, and writing as recurring themes.
Paul has a gift for writing about his chosen topics at a level which allows the concepts to be applied to aspects of life distinct from the essay's theme. I believe that the person who can explain things in the simplest terms often has the deepest understanding of a subject; the same is true for someone that can generalize learnings from one field and apply them usefully in another.
Paul puts out an article every month or two. He has written that he'll only publish something when he thinks it's interesting, when he thinks he has something to offer with his thoughts on the matter, and after he's discussed it with a group of trusted friends and advisors. The result is a collection of thoughtful, accessible, useful essays.
What's great about these creators is that they are curious by nature and enjoy consuming good content, not just creating it. As a result, by following them, I find more interesting content and potential follows. So I'm not just getting their content, I'm getting free curation of other content around the internet. That's inspired me to do the same for my readers by sharing my follows and the other things I find interesting around the internet.
Jump Start
Type the last activity you did for fun into your internet search bar and add the word "podcast" at the end. For me, it's "escape room podcast."
If you're looking for more recommendations, there are many more follows in my Twitter feed. If you know someone that's a good follow for you, please DM me and let me know.