@2mavin
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I study people, persuasion & AI. Practical psychology for reading people, protecting yourself and communicating with more control.
Planet Earth
Joined April 2008
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If you have time, watch Newmann speak.
I never liked him. I find him misogynistic, racist, and prone to other biases which make him a bad human being, by any way you look at him.
But he may indeed have depth and philosophy which will contrast with the brass of Silicon Valley.
13,000 employees became 3 in the space of one week.
It’s quite difficult to comprehend what that would do to a person.
Adam Neumann is the co-founder of WeWork. He grew the company to a $47 billion valuation before its failed IPO, his departure as CEO and one of the most public corporate collapses in recent history.
I’ve met hundreds of extraordinary people doing this podcast, but within a few minutes of meeting Adam I realised he was quite unlike almost any founder or CEO I’ve met before.
There’s a depth, philosophy and perspective to him that is incredibly rare.
So I wanted to understand where that came from and what the last few years had actually done to him.
We talked about:
- His relationship with money and where it went wrong.
- The friends who disappeared when everything changed.
- The mistakes he made as a leader.
- Why he now surrounds himself with people willing to tell him no.
- Why he disconnects from technology for 24 hours every week.
One thing that stayed with me is how easy it is to believe in yourself when everything is going up and everybody wants to be around you.
The more interesting question is what you believe when everything is crashing.
You can have your own view on Adam and WeWork. That tension is partly why I found this conversation so interesting.
I wanted to know what all of it taught him.
Out now on all platforms ❤️👊🏾
People laughed at Elon in 2008.
Now he laughs at even likes of Tim Cook on a photo.
The same pitch sounds “delusional” before success and “visionary” after it. That’s outcome bias: we judge the original idea through what happened later.
Power changes the lens, too. Wealth and status make people seem more credible, even when their past words haven’t changed.
So “keep building while they laugh” is incomplete advice. Ignore ridicule; examine evidence. The crowd’s perception can be wrong in both directions.
The hidden effect of a stock windfall: it changes what work costs.
As wealth grows, another dollar may matter less. Another year of missed family time does not become refundable. Financial freedom also gives people the autonomy to act on priorities they already had.
We can’t know why these individuals left. But the #psychology is clear: once staying becomes optional, the question shifts from “What will I earn?” to “What am I giving up?”
BREAKING: Anthropic’s founders reportedly want 50.1% of the voting power before going public.
Dario Amodei and his six co-founders are asking shareholders to approve a super-voting share structure that hands them 50.1% of the vote on most corporate matters.
Here's what makes this unusual:
They each own roughly 2% of the company.
They've pledged to give away 80% of their wealth.
They're not taking extra economics. Just control.
This is a group of people who believe they're building something existentially important and refuse to let public markets override their judgment at the critical moment.
At a $1.5T secondary valuation, the stakes for getting post-IPO governance right are enormous.
Smart structure or a red flag for public market investors?
Something you can ask your partners/spouse for a dinner conversation.
These type of open-ended questions help you both to get to know each other well and grow together.
#psychology #relationships
Seven rules for reading people more accurately:
1) Look for patterns, not isolated moments
2) Compare words with behaviour
3) Notice what happens after you say no
4) Don’t treat confidence as honesty
5) Ask before assuming
6) Watch how they handle accountability
#psychology #practicalpsychology #neuroscience
Someone may enjoy your attention without wanting a relationship with you.
Watch for the pattern:
- They appear when they need reassurance.
- Disappear when you need consistency.
Flirt when you pull away.
- Avoid clarity when you move closer.
Intensity is not the same as intention.
So this is an interesting situation.
Context: dopamine is called a happiness drug, but it should be called more of an anticipation drug, as it hits hard to the run up of you achieving your goal.
Achieving a major goal can paradoxically trigger a crash or "burnout" phase characterized by anxiety, restlessness, and mental exhaustion, a phenomenon closely tied to glutamate dysregulation and psychological decompression.
During a high-stakes pursuit, your brain relies heavily on glutamate, the primary excitatory neurotransmitter, to maintain focus, fast information processing, and working memory.
When the goal is suddenly reached, the abrupt shift from high-arousal drive to a structural vacuum can disrupt this delicate neurochemical balance.
#neuroscience #neurology #psychology #mentalframework #mentalreward
Warning to IQ 130+ ambitious young men:
One of the great ironies of life is that,
the kind of man that can reach his goals is the same that finds it hard to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
I already hit my major targets in life:
- children with a top-notch woman
- financial freedom
- work I enjoy
- first-rate friends
- excellent health
- a lovely home in a place I like
- travel the world in comfort
But the man I had to become to get those things, is one who
- constantly asks what’s next
- feels uncomfortable idling
- feels guilty when not productive
For 15 years I trained my prefrontal cortex to live in the future.
And while there is always room for growth, all my gains from here on out will be marginal.
My present is the future I was planning in the past.
Well, now I am here and I am STILL living in the future.
That’s a problem because, in the future, I will look back at today with nostalgia.
My children will move out, and I will age. Things will go wrong. I will lose people I can never get back.
The minor problems I have today will seem inconsequential in comparison.
And I would hate to reach that point and think I didn’t fully enjoy this period while I was actually living through it.
So learn how to recognize peak existence.
Sacrificing today for tomorrow only makes sense when your best days are still ahead of you.
If you’re living through your best days right now, you need to work on rewiring your brain for present-maxxing.
Easier said than done. Take it from me.
Why you can’t get much done in the evening?
Why you just want to lay on the sofa and scroll mindlessly through Instagram?
Your willpower, which is energy in your prefrontal cortex is depleted. You can replenish it by putting your cortex “offline”
#neuroscience
Steve Jobs on managing talent:
▫️rare people can leave in 10 minutes
▫️employees are empowered and autonomous
▫️the hierarchy of people inverts (CEO works for his employees)
▫️the CEO ends up at the bottom
That's how he ran Pixar
#servantleadership #stevejobs #apple #pixar
An anthropologist proposed a game to children in an African tribe.
He put a basket of fruit near a tree and told the children whoever got there first won the sweet fruits.
When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats.
When he asked them why they had run together like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: 'Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?'
Ubuntu in their civilization means: (I am because we are).
That tribe knows the secret of happiness that has been lost in all societies that transcend them and which consider themselves civilized societies!
Wow really ?
This is taking the whole “drop out of college and start a company” approach to the next level…
Maybe the person starts a company then fails.
Can this person not go back to college?
Just because someone runs a company, doesn’t mean the person cannot study?
What’s with exclusivity?
Person can choose what works for him/her best at any given time?
A wise man once said:
"Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself."
Disappointment is painful, especially when you genuinely believed things would turn out differently.
Sometimes you’re not angry, you’re just tired of being let down. Tired of hoping, trusting, and having to pretend you’re okay when you’re not.
But life will disappoint you sometimes. People will too. And that’s okay.
Just don’t let what hurt you convince you to stop believing in better days.