Transcript

#447: Books I've Loved — Ann Miura-Ko

Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I'll save your personal question. Now it is. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscalet. S

Books I've loved on the Tim Ferris show is exclusively brought to you by Audible. There couldn't be a better sponsor for this series, my dear listeners and readers. I have used Audible for so many years. As long as I can remember, I love it. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. I listen when I'm taking walks. I listen while I'm cooking. I listen whenever I can. And if you're looking for a place to start, I can recommend three of my favorites. The first

Is the Tau of Seneca. by Seneca, if you want to hear my favorite letters of all time. Touches on stoic philosophy, calmness under duress, etc. The next is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, G A I M A N, one of my favorites. Even if you're a nonfiction purist, this is the fiction book that you need to listen to. Neil also has perhaps the most calming voice of all time. And third, Greg McEwen's Essentialism. Subtitle The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. This is one of my favorite books of the past few years. Combines very well with the eighty twenty principle.

But more on Audible. Every month, Audible members get one credit for any audiobook on the site, plus a choice of multiple Audible originals from a rotating selection. They also get access to daily news digests from the likes of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. as well as guided meditation programs. And here are some other amazing audible features. And I use a bunch of these. You can download titles and listen offline anytime, anywhere. I use this feature. Even when I could get access, I'll put my phone on, say airplane mode, because I don't want to get bothered with notifications and I'm taking a walk to clear my head and you can listen to titles offline in a case like that, or on a plane or whatever. Obviously I'm not flying much these days. The app

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That's Tim Ferris Show listeners, a free audiobook with a thirty day trial. Membership. And uh again, my list if you want to check them out, the Tower of Seneca. The graveyard book? Essentialism, those are just three. There's so many good ones out there.

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Check it out, audible.com slash Tim. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is usually my job to sit down with world class performers of all different types. Startup founders, investors, chess champions, Olympic athletes, you name it. to tease out the habits that you can apply in your own lives.

This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a short form series that I'm doing simply called Books I've Loved. I've invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books. describe their favorite books, the books that have influenced them, changed them, transformed them for the better. And I hope you pick up one or two new mentors. In the form of books. from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

I had a lot of fun. putting this together, inviting these people to participate, and have learned so, so much myself. I hope that is also the case for you. Please Enjoy. Yeah. Hi.

My name is Anne Miraco. I'm a co-founding partner at Floodgate, which is a seed stage venture capital firm. in Palo Alto, California, our firm is known really well for investing early or way too early into the world's craziest startups. And as a result of my investing experience, I was named to the New York Times top twenty venture capitalists worldwide in twenty nineteen. And that is because I have backed Companies like Lift and Refinery twenty nine. before they were even known. I'm also a lecturer at Stanford, where I'm a co director of the Mayfield Fellows Program

I also got my PhD in math modeling of cybersecurity at Stanford back in the day. And I am also a co-founding member of All Ray's, which is a nonprofit committed to improving diversity in funders. And founders. I am so excited to talk to you today about some of the books that I have found to be really important in my life. And to tell you a little bit about why it's been life changing for me. So to start off, I thought I would talk about this book called How Will You Measure Your Life.

And it's written by a Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen. I love Clayton Christensen's story. Because he wrote this book after he suffered some very significant health issues. And in overcoming uh the same type of cancer that had taken his father's life, he started to think about not just business questions where he had excelled, but really

How do you measure your life? And As he thought about this, he wrote this book, this very groundbreaking book about How do you balance your career and your personal life and what is the source of happiness even within your personal life.

And there's a few lessons that I thought I would share with you today. About why it made a difference for me. And some of this is actually backwards looking and some of this is forward looking. So in backwards looking, he has actually even in business uh a a framework that he talks about around emergent versus deliberate strategies. And he applies this actually in life. And an emergence strategy is something that sort of comes up and it's not planned. And the obviously the deliberate

uh is actually something that is Very planned. And He talks about how you balance These emergent and deliberate occurrences in your life.

And I think that in my life When I look back I was fortunate enough to have incredible balance between what emerged and some crazy luck that came into my life.

And then also planning for how I made myself lucky. And to give you an example of what that was like, I took a job. Um I took almost all of my jobs actually, not because of some I really thought that the person I was gonna work with

Was incredible. And sometimes it fit into some plan that I had for my life and sometimes it didn't fit in at all. But every time I took those steps and Even when I couldn't explain it from a logical standpoint to anyone else, if I knew that the person that I was working for was going to be A huge source of inspiration.

Someone I could learn from. It was always the right decision. As an example, in two thousand three I decided to go back to my PhD at Stanford and I knew that was gonna be a five to maybe eight year commitment. And a lot of people actually question why I would do that. I was five years into my career, most people went straight into a PhD and yet I felt this urge this calling to actually go back and study. And this was in two thousand three. And in two thousand three, uh Google had yet to go public.

And there were a lot of people with my work background who were starting to work there. And for a moment I considered Working in a place like Google. And I remember talking to my now husband about this and saying I just don't know it's hard to explain

But I have to scratch. This itch to get My PhD and Ultimately, I remember when Google IPO'd, I felt like maybe I had made the wrong call. I was making I think twenty six thousand dollars a year with a graduate student stipend. But

Even that didn't feel bad at the time. And when I knew that I didn't feel badly about it, that's when I knew I'd made the right decision. And so, you know, sometimes there are are things that you can plan out and there are other things that you also realize in retrospect was the right decision and it doesn't look like it makes sense in the moment, but your gut tells you it's the right decision, then sometimes I've learned it's really important to follow your gut. Then Clayton Christensen talks about that. The second thing that I really learned was he talks about

Uh The difficulty of of figuring out what your job is in human relationships. And this comes from a a business framework that Clayton Christiansen talks about, which is What's the job to be done? And when he originally talked about it, it came from um a study he'd done at McDonald's where he Where they studied for

How people bought breakfast items. And it turned out that a bunch of people were buying milkshakes for breakfast. And so McDonald's was trying to figure out What is this all about? Should they sell more milkshakes, more flavors of milkshakes? And Clayton Christensen's group went in and instead of just diving into the question of how do they grow this revenue source, they asked the question What job did you hire that milkshake for? And it turns out the consumer who was buying the milkshake for breakfast needed something that was portable.

An easy To eat or drink. And so because the form factor of a milkshake was high calorie, it was easy to hold and it was something that they could drink in their truck, there was like a lot of people uh who needed this sort of high calorie. They were usually doing a lot of physical labor. Um That's what they needed this milkshake for. And and so he uses this framework of what job are you hiring a product to do? in a lot of different different areas to to great effect. And I I even use that framework for a lot of my portfolio companies. But he applies this actually in life, especially as a parent

What job does my child need me to do? Uh, and I think that's a really interesting question to ask. What job does my spouse need me to do, or what job does my parent need me to do? And I try to actually think about this. Every morning. Uh and

When I wake up in the morning I I sit and I I think about the most important people in my life. And this is exactly the question I try to ask myself. And it's been incredible. how I have figured out things that people need me to do for them in those really early hours of the morning because I've really reflected on it.

And I'm not Reacting from a place of what I want to do for them. But rather what they need me to do. And then the third lesson that I extracted from this was More recently, um In chapter eight

Clay Christensen talks about the school of experience and I really reflected on this chapter because a my daughter, who's now twelve years old, was going through something at school that really made her have to advocate for herself. And in this chapter, he talks about how you have to help your children learn how to do difficult things, and that's probably the most important role that we play as a parent And we have to equip them for the challenges of life. And one of the things that I've really thought about is that

Advocating for yourself. And figuring out what's the right solution for you. Is an important skill set for kids to have, and I felt like at twelve my daughter should have that by now. So recently she was in a class that she was deeply unhappy with.

And she decided she wanted to drop the class that she felt she wasn't learning anyway. And so she wanted to find an opportunity. Two Drop the class and potentially do something else with the time. So I asked her for a plan. And I didn't help her with it.

But when she came back, she had not only figured out how to drop the class, she had gotten all of the signatures she needed from the teachers. She also had figured out a new class that she could TA for so she could have credits during that period. She figured out an online course that she could sign up for. She found other students to take the online course with her She found a teacher who was willing to tutor her because she wanted an in person experience as well. And she had done all of this on her own at the age of twelve. And it was amazing to me mostly because I wouldn't have thought

that she was capable of that if I hadn't kind of forced her into that role Uh and I think that it gave her self confidence as well. It gave it gave me self confidence as a parent. Uh but this book, How Will You Measure Your Life, I recommend it for anyone who's starting off in their career, in the middle of their career, if they have kids, uh it's it's relevant for almost everyone because it'll make you stop and think about Where you spend your time, how you spend your time, and why you do it. Just to change things up a bit, I'm going to talk about a second book, which is

fiction and I read about fifty percent fiction and fifty percent uh Uh, nonfiction. And Uh my favorite book

that I keep recommending to every single person I meet is this book that I read probably six or seven years ago it's called the Dove Keepers. And it's by one of my favorite authors. Her name is Alice Hoffman. And this book is about a fictionalized account. Two thousand years ago

Uh Nine hundred Shoes. Held out. Against Roman armies.

Uh on the in the Area in Israel called Masada. It's a mountain in the Judean desert. It's a place that you can still actually visit. And it is long known that it was the last stronghold of the Jews in this period.

And according to sort of this ancient rumor there were two women and five children Who ultimately survived. And so the Romans essentially um attacked this fortress that was at the top of this mountain by building essentially a

Ramp. Up to the top of the mountain. Over two years. And so the the nine hundred Jews who were waiting it out on the top of this mountain knew that this was coming for some time and basically all commit suicide at the end. And the the rumor was that two women and five children survived. And this story takes the perspective

Uh one of the survivors and talks about how Um they escaped. And the story was so beautiful and so compelling. That

For all this time I've wanted to go to Masada and this next February We as a family are going to Israel and of course One of the stops. is going to be Masada because I absolutely Have to see this place.

And I also absolutely need to see this incredible Roman ramp. That was built To the top. Of the mountain.

So I think I'm gonna try to reread this book actually before I end up In Masada. And A few months. The third book that I really love is a book called The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

And it's written by Jonathan Haidt. H A I D T and he is a social psychologist. I love this book because it clarified for me a lot of things that I've been feeling for so long around I actually have a lot of different types of friends and and friends who I think would violently disagree with one another on a number of different topics.

I love them all and I also know that if I got on to the wrong topic of conversation and confessed my beliefs to them that we would end up in

some serious agreements with one another. And as a high school debater, I was forced to actually take the opposite side of what I believed multiple times. And I think it allowed me to explore ideas more completely as a result and

And so I've I feel like on some level I have Sympathy for when uh someone believes something Fairly different from

what I believe. I try to keep it a relatively open mind. But what I what I appreciated about what Jonathan wrote was that he said that one thing that that really struck me Morality binds. And blinds. And

What he meant with that statement was that There is this Deep seated need for people to actually belong. And

He actually says this one thing which I thought was really interesting. We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct. The actual reasons why we ourselves came to a judgment. We reason to find the best possible reason why somebody else ought to join us. In our judgments.

In other words, reasoning is used to back up. Not question judgment these days. And that's sort of A natural inclination of humans. The other thing that he points out is that there's a group of people, we're we're all kind of part of it if you're listening to this podcast.

Western educated Industrialized rich Democratic. people he calls them weird because it's Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. We are actually outliers.

When it comes to morality. The vast majority of the world Actually believes in strong communities. Sacred things, family, religion, nation states.

And people who live in Weird locations are much more into individualistic rights. And the way we perceive the world is not necessarily majority opinion.

He also talks about how Religion itself can create incredibly cohesive, altruistic moral communities. Because they create a much bigger Then sense of self.

And It made me think of this one time when I went to A volunteer opportunity, and it was The county fairgrounds and We're trying to help people get

uh free dentist work done. And y you you might think, you know, how big of a need is that. Well it turns out that In California when this was done in in the Bay Area There were people lined up for

Someone to look at their teeth or help them. Starting up. at two thirty in the morning, and they were opening up the gates at eight. And there were Літерлі Хред волонтір.

who had lined up to help these people. And Literally. Every volunteer there came from some church. And it really made me think about

how how much That altruistic moral And the Sense that there is something bigger than yourself. uh creates incredible community and an incredible sense of giving.

The other thing that I learned from this book was that There are many ways to think of about morality. And and many of us are really limiting how we look at morality.

to a few things that we think are super important, but that Налив са, Uh he talks about how important care and Release from harm is

Element of morality is fairness. He also talks about how loyalty Is important to some people. Authority.

Liberty And thank to thee. And so he calls this sort of the six kind of taste buds of morality. And

that there are many places where The idea of what care and fairness and liberty And loyalty and authority. That All these things can actually seem

Very foreign. Or the interpretation of these values can be Very different. So as an example, he talks about how care For someone

can be reflected as Freedom from oppression. And that same care can also be interpreted as How do you make sure that you help the people who have made sacrifices for their group? Or

Fairness can be interpreted as civil and human rights. And then on the other hand. Fairness can be interpreted as Rewarding in proportion to your contribution. Uh

Fairness can be social justice. And that We recognize that the wealthy exploit the middle class and the poor. And then at the same time that same idea of fairness is again rewarding in proportion to contribution.

So it's just really interesting to see how these different ideas can translate in such different ways. And how we might all say that one thing is important. but we can actually interpret it in completely different ways.

And when you look at the language that's being stated like many times you can actually agree With both sides. It's just that we might be two ships. Passing in the night.

And so The righteous mind was important to me because It allowed me to open up my mind to different perspectives. And allowed me to make sure that I know where my biases stand. And why I might have them.

And allowed me to be More empathetic to people with very different views. So those are the three books that I have really found to be profoundly impactful either in actual decisions or the way I think or travel plans. The righteous mind

The Dove Keepers And how will I measure my life or actually how will you measure your life? So the three books are The Righteous Mind. The Dove Keepers and How Will You Measure Your Life.

Thank you so much. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me and would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up.

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