Joe Lonsdale is an entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Palantir Technologies. What is Palantir really about? You’ve probably heard the name, but what do they actually do, and who’s the brains behind it? Today, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale joins to break down the company's origins, his story, and where the future of the world is headed. Expect to learn how Joe got Peter Thiel to mentor him, how Joe thinks about ambition and drive, how to avoid cynicism, the advice Joe has for people who want to become best at what they do, if Trump is a mastermind with these tariffs, the biggest problems Joe see’s with higher education at the moment, how to judge a good founder, what the future of warfare looks like, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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You mentioned you'd just been with Peter there. I was explaining an idea from a friend earlier on, George. He talks about non-fungible people, like N of ones. Mike Israetel, good non-fungible person. Yes. Who are some of the most non-fungible people that you've met across?
I mean, of course, you know, you have to go with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, but also people early in my life. My original chess teacher, Richard Sherman, he passed a few years ago, but he was like an intelligence officer and he dropped out.
I think he faked his own death and he was kind of living like in poverty, teaching chess and was like this chess master sensei who taught me Eastern philosophy. So I've had some interesting, crazy people I met over the years, you know, really shaped my life. Talk to me about the story of how you sought Peter out as a mentor.
Well, Peter was the founder of the Stanford Review, and he was just someone who I thought was just a fascinating intellectual character at the time. And, you know, honestly, what it was also is tracking talent. And so I think that's something I've always been interested in is what are the most interesting, brightest, harsh-working people doing.
And a lot of the smartest people at Stanford when I was there were going to work at PayPal. And these are people I was really impressed by. So I said, wow, this is really interesting. I want to get to know this group. I want to learn from them too.
And I mean, I didn't know at the time, of course, that it was going to be Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and who they are today and that all these companies would come out of it, like LinkedIn and Yelp and YouTube and 16 others. But I did know it was a lot of the brightest people and I wanted to learn from them.
And, you know, I had a very strong interest not only in computer science, but in economics and history and philosophy, which is all stuff that Peter's very interested in. So when we did meet, you know, through the Stanford Review, I think you got along intellectually.
Hmm. How do you come to think about identifying people with that talent and that drive? It was something that helped you before you were successful. And it's obviously something that you need to do now. You need to assess founders. You need to assess businesses. Yeah. Everybody can pretend to not be a psychopath for 30 minutes.
Well, it's interesting because you said earlier, I'm not going to say who you're saying it about, but anyone who is the one guy we both know who's done a lot of drugs and he's still pretty sane and functional and that's really impressive, right? It's extreme.
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