Eric Jorgenson talks sandwiches, book writing and leverage.
Eric Jorgenson is a man of many projects. He’s a startup growth guy, writer, and (rarely) an angel investor. He is on the founding team of Zaarly and has been publishing online since 2014. He builds books, products, and courses and writes about wealth, startups, and leverage. He most recently wrote the best seller "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”. Naval is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList, as well as a prolific angel investor. The book collects and curates Naval's wisdom from Twitter, Podcasts, and Essays over the past decade.
Eric is also something of a sandwich connoisseur.
Eric's website: https://www.ejorgenson.com/
Eric's course: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage
Eric Jorgenson
Alex: [00:00:00] Eric Jorgensen is a man of many projects. He's a startup growth guy, writer, and rarely an angel investor. He's on the founding team of Zaarly and has been publishing online since 2014. He builds books, products, and courses, and writes about wealth, startups and leverage. He most recently wrote the bestseller, the Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Naval is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList, as well as a prolific angel investor. The book collects and curates Naval's wisdom from Twitter, podcasts and essays over the past decade.
Eric is also something of a sandwich connoisseur. Today we talked about sandwiches, book writing, and leverage.
So--
Eric: [00:00:43] that's a joke. That's a joke.
Alex: [00:00:46] Um, where the hell did I want to start? Where are my notes? Here are my notes. I'm very prepared. Okay. So for starters, I always like, you know, hard hitting journalism, obviously. Um, I don't think I've ever talked to anybody as like, deeply invested in sandwiches as you are.
Uh, so it's just like not the usual opener, right. So I wanted to, to start with you know, the very fundamental question of what your favorite sandwich is and where I can get it.
Eric: [00:01:16] Oh, you're you're in luck, so because you're in DC, you may already be familiar with one of my favorite sandwiches on earth which is at the Italian store in Arlington.
Alex: [00:01:26] I haven't been there.
Eric: [00:01:28] Oh shit. It's a, it's absolutely delicious. It's like an Italian deli slash grocery store. I think there's two Virginia. Maybe more, but like they have maybe the best executed, just like classic Italian sub I've ever had. And that's like my favorite type of sandwich and Italian store for whatever reason seems to totally nailed it.
So yeah. Next, next time you're back in town
Alex: [00:01:47] I'm going to check that out man.
Eric: [00:01:49] It's as simple as that.
Alex: [00:01:51] All right. That's all I wanted from you. We can, we can be no, I'm joking. Um, all right. So, so to get into--
Eric: [00:01:57] It's all, I have to offer.
Alex: [00:02:00] To get into it, to all this stuff man, like to anybody who wasn't aware for whatever reason as of late you've come out with a crazy ass book, the Almanac of Naval Ravikant, got it right here for anybody-- well, I'm not recording video so nobody can see it, but I'm holding it up. It's great. Yeah. I wanted to start with this because there's-- it seems like the story has a little bit of an analog to what I've been doing. Like I hit you up via email, like a couple of weeks ago, just out of the blue.
Was this like a premeditated project? Did you just sit down and be like, I want to write a book about this guy? Did it come up more organically? Like how did this all come about?
Eric: [00:02:35] This was, uh, deeply accidental and one of 50 stupid ideas I have at any given time. And I just happened to tweet this one out and was like, maybe I should do this.
And evolve also just happened to retweet it. And like 5,000 people answered this dumb look, Twitter poll I put out that was like, hell yeah, like we want that. You should do it. And. So the prep, the like validation and pressure of that being a public thing from the very beginning was kind of like, okay, now I absolutely have to do this.
And the alignment with like where I was and what I wanted to learn was pretty perfect. So I was very happy to spend. What I'm being hundreds of hours, like studying these ideas and trying to like grok each one of these little puzzle pieces, which was all of this content that he had put out. I mean, over a million words of source material across all the podcasts and transcripts and blog posts and beats and all this stuff.
And I mean, it was like a, the book ended up being just kind of like me reassemble it. All of the most valuable pieces of knowledge that I could find in such a way that they very logically ran together and it was just spending for me, it was just having a lot of time with these ideas and like making a lot of connections between them and organizing them in such a way that it was useful for other people and transforming the medium, but like, I cannot overstate how I had no qualifications experience, special access, special permission.
Like I had like that one retweet from Naval and the reply from him. And it was like, Hey, yeah, this is a good idea. But like I have, I have wondered, like if I would have done it without that, and like, the answer is maybe not. And I made it, even if I did it, it might not have done it to the like quality bar that I did it, knowing that he was watching and at some level had like, he has not officially endorsed it or anything, but like had supported the idea.
So I really like reached for quality in a way that I might not have otherwise, but. Having done it well now I'd like no longer have a fear of reaching like duty for somebody else with, even without that.
Alex: [00:04:37] I think that makes sense. And I kind of like how you put that, like, just from a perspective of having like all this information out there that you needed to distill into this book, like, I think it's important to think of writing more as a research project than just like getting information in your brain onto a page.
I, I think the big question I have for you is what did synthesizing all of that look like? Right? Like with a million plus words of source material into what is this book? Like 40, 50,000 words, something like that.
Eric: [00:05:13] Yeah.
Alex: [00:05:13] What was the process of doing that like for you?
Eric: [00:05:15] It started with, started with the tweets actually.
So I went through all the tweets and instead of very like, do I love this tweet? Do I think it's like useful stand on its own. Is it timeless? Is it valuable to a broad range of people? And that was kind of like one or zero? Yes or no. That was the first filter. And then I went through all the same, like the good tweets and categorized them.
And then those categories became like the first outline and then I would use, and then I would go through talks or podcasts or transcripts or whatever, and like, What I thought were great chunks into, into these buckets and then would arrange within the buckets. And I mean, I can't even tell you how many iterations.
I mean, maybe six iterations of outline, maybe eight pieces moved back and forth between that whole, the whole thing got like flipped and reverse and then turned inside out. It was just a process of spending a lot of time finding out where the right edges were of all these ideas and how they fit together and what the categorization made sense of, what progression made sense.
And there's good arguments to have arranged the book, like in the exact reverse of the way I arranged it. And there's people who are like mad at me for doing it that way. And like it was just. It's just judgment calls. And the more time you spend with the material, the more confident you feel making those calls then, or, or reversing what your past self had has done.
So I, it had to be material that I was very comfortable and excited to like spend a lot of time swimming around it. Definitely.
And there's an interesting dynamic there, right? Because, you know, in distilling what's, you know, effectively a huge. A huge body of someone else's work wisdom, thoughts into what you were talking about before, like things that are timeless, things that really stand on their own.
Is there anything that, you know, even is in the book now or along the way that you just don't agree with and did that like impact it now?
Oh plenty. I mean, you know, Naval's a couple of decades older than me and has had totally different life experiences and And influences and is like accomplished and extreme in ways that, that I'm not.
And so even if I agree with something directionally, I may not agree with it, like by magnitude or grow into agreeing with him more and maybe I'll grow into agreeing with him less. Like, I don't know. One of the big decisions like creative decisions to make with a book was whether or not to inject my own editorial, like, or whether it was to try to explain something or to just like, there was me writing out my thoughts and my converse conversation with novel, or it was just me trying to assemble his thoughts.
And it was, it was a very helpful thing for me to decide, to just get out of the way. And like, I, I started thinking of myself as well. I'm just doing this jigsaw puzzle and the picture is what it is like. It is not for me to design it. It is I'm trying to relay his ideas, the most faithfully that I can.
And I'm like, I'm like auto biographer in a way. That's like, I'm, I'm not putting any words in his mouth. These are all original words from him. I'm not, I'm not even writing. I'm just assembling stuff that already exists, but I'm trying to do it in a way. Represents all of those ideas really well yet serves a new reader who isn't already familiar.
And it's a really interesting exercise because what I did wasn't right. Really writing, like it was maybe just editing. And it's kind of an extreme example, but the fact that like, if I did it, I did it. And if you went out to do it with the exact same source material, what you chose to put in there would definitely be different, right?
Like there's no correct answer. And so there are creative and artistic decisions that go into that. Like, I can't pretend that there's not everybody on earth would have created a different Almanac, even if they set out with a different, with the same intent. So there is like a creative act there. And like on the spectrum from like curate.
Curation to purely original creation. Like this is as close to curation as it can be, but it was still a very like creative thing. And it is still an original work, even though none of the words are original. So we kinda, it really changed how I thought about like what it feels like for even to write a book as a novel or something like that.
Right. You know, there's, there's maybe no better example that like, Good artists steal and like, you know, everything's a remix and all of the kinds of things that like you tell yourself, or sort of creative people will tell each other. But this is a very long. Tangible example of it for me.
Alex: [00:09:49] Definitely. And, you know, I think it's okay. I think it's interesting. Like it's obviously not as simplistic as just pure transcription, but in the same way, like if I were to sit here and just copy this book down by hand, like I would become really, really familiar. But I think in the same way, you must have become like, really familiar with a lot of these topics.
So I'm curious after having gone through like all those iterations and having like, become so familiar with all this stuff, is there anything in particular, any concepts in particular that you apply most directly to your own life that you found the most value out of?
Eric: [00:10:25] Yeah. I mean, like there's definitely happiness.
Like the happiness mantra is probably the thing you like, think about the most at least for me. Right. Just the idea that like you, you get a lot more emotional, like stability and subjective happiness out of just accepting things instead of. Disagreeing with everything that you see and trying to change everything around you.
Which is, it's almost, it's very like a, non-entrepreneurial actually like an entrepreneurs thing of like trying to see an opportunity in everything. It's ways that you can improve something. And being kind of relentlessly like ambitious and persistent is very, very different from this, like, Whatever is, is that the way it is?
And because I accept what it is, I don't judge it and I don't disagree with it. And I have mental peace because there's no within me, I'm just kind of riding the waves. And so being able to like, hold both of those people inside you and like toggle between them, how you want to is still is like hard, but interesting.
And is, it is refreshing to think about both of those and thinking about the different modes, right? Because you know, there's, there's a lot of books about happiness and there's a lot of books about how to get rich, but there's not a lot about looking at both, especially in the same person and the trade-offs between them and what the conflicts.
Alex: [00:11:50] Got it. One other really big topic that I think is kind of all encompassing. You talk about, you know, getting rich and happiness is sort of being almost in conflict with one another in the book. One really big overarching concept that I thought was really interesting is just this concept of leverage and how it's applied, like universally across everything.
Eric: [00:12:12] It's, it's the thing that has been like most-- it's something that I've worked the hardest to understand and explore.
Well, I feel like you can feel like you leave the book. You know, when you read like the chapter on specific knowledge or accountability, you kind of understand those things to like an eight or nine out of 10, by the time you're done with the chapter and leverage, you're kind of like, I understand it a three or four out of 10.
So know that it's a very, very important, but I don't know how to go learn more. And that was you in my experience, really finishing the book. Right. So just keep trying to. Read more and assemble more stories and find more examples and build more frameworks and like help myself and others who ask the same question, like how to kind of keep going deeper.
Alex: [00:12:53] Got it. So, I mean, drilling into any of these, like you, you write about time, leverage a lot. Right. So what does that mean for anybody who has like, no idea what you're talking about?
Eric: [00:13:06] Yeah. I mean the, denominator of leverage is, is time, right? Like at first, the first pass is really like, okay, how do I use my resources to increase my impact the most?
But as soon as you you're out of that first round of resources, now it becomes this iterative game of like, how do I reinvest and how do I reinvest in such a way that my-- the opportunity cost of my time continues to go up. And I'm either using my time in the way that is most. Value creative or most joy creative.
Like if I'm working, how do I work the most efficiently and have the greatest impact? And if I'm, you know, if I'm not working, if I'm like deliberately and leisure, how do I ensure that I one create the most of that time that I can, but to like spend it in the way that makes me the happiest. And you start to think, you think of your resources and your capital differently when you're optimizing for maximizing your time, instead of optimizing for maximizing your resources and.
When you were playing a game where the leverage is uncapped, right. Which increasingly in technology and like digital world is what we're doing with the global markets and this kind of like very liquid meritocracy of like internet marketing. Right. The world like this, like with an uncapped game, like you have to reinvest pretty quickly and you want to be climbing that, that like leveraged ladder.
So that you're moving from a hundred dollars, an hour tasks, a thousand dollar, an hour tasks to $10,000 an hour tasks. And then that it not only like buys you quote unquote, like more leisure, but it also lets you, it makes it easier for you to create more of that. But it's, you have to get to the point where you think of the denominator as your time.
And, and you're fundamentally trying to protect your time and do it as soon as possible.
Alex: [00:15:05] So if time is the like base level to all of this is like fundamentally leverage only applied to time, or can you apply it to wealth and happiness, I guess, as an example for those two larger themes.
Eric: [00:15:20] Yeah. Yeah. yeah mean, I like, so time leverage is not, I don't really think of time leverage as like a bucket, like the four types of leverage are tools, product people, and capital. It is just that you measure your progress with time as a denominator. Not, not necessarily dollars. So, and you can apply leverage to pretty much any problem, right?
Like the leverage is a force multiplier, right? So whatever you're doing leverage will help you get more of it. If you are, who are going bankrupt and you apply leverage, you will go more bankrupt faster. But if you're making money and you can apply leverage profitably, you will be earning more money faster.
And there's a way to just kind of look at you can look at careers and that way you can look at businesses that way you can look. at Organizations that way. You look at artists building fan bases that way, right? Like there, they are all reinvesting the resources that they earn in greater leverage and trying to compound their impact so that they can have a bigger reach or more customers or more fans or more followers or more voters or whatever as quickly and efficiently as they can and using all of the different types of leverage at their disposal
Alex: [00:16:29] So what's like a practical example of that. Like, is it as simple as compounding and just, you know, using time advantageously, or is it something deeper than that?
Eric: [00:16:40] Okay. Zeus, super basic metaphor is like if you went out into the forest and tried to cut down a tree with your hands and like gather firewood, right? Like you you'd be like pulling down branches and gathering sticks. And it would take many, many hours to gather enough. firewood to Get a fire going for the night.
Let alone to like, have any, to sell or stock up. If you had an ax, all of a sudden you can like fell a tree and have, you know, a night's worth of wood in an hour. If you had a chainsaw takes 10 minutes, or you have 10 trees if you have like a tractor and another guy, all of a sudden you have like a logging Business. Right. And the only thing that's different there is how many risks, how many, like tools or tools plus people plus capital you have at your disposal to accomplish the task. So that's a metaphor level, but if you look at the difference between like a consultant, who's charging, you know, a hundred dollars an hour for their skills you know, that's maybe like a lumberjack with an ax.
You know, you got a few tools, you got some experiences. If you look at somebody who's running, maybe a small agency and has four people working under them that they've trained. Now they're billing for people out at a hundred dollars an hour and earning 50% margin on their time. So that person is probably still working right in an agency practically like they're selling, they're managing, but they're earning $200 an hour from their margin on everybody else's time.
But a founder who is running a SAS company with, you know, three or four developers and a designer and a salesperson maybe earning 10 times that because they're not tied to. Did like capacity of their employees. And they have the leverage of that software behind them. They have a leverage of the team behind them.
They have leverage of landing pages. Video recordings, demos that are kind of in the product. And they're using tools like Heroku or whatever to kind of keep serving that software. So there's you can look at different businesses through this lens of leverage and see what types of leverage they're using, how they're putting the puzzle together, how quickly they're they're iterating through or adding new forms of leverage.
And when you see people. Stuck. I was talking to somebody earlier today. He's running like a 12 person agency and he's like good at buying SAS tools. He's like, I got my Asana, I got my QuickBooks. I got all that shit set up. Like I'm good at tools. And I've got 12 people and they're all happy. And I manage them well.
But he like, doesn't, he's got like this pool of trouble and he does not know how to reinvest that capital into. Certainly into, into products or into people that break that linear reinvestment loop. Right. And so like, should he be productizing some of the knowledge of his agency into a course or into books?
Or should he be like on a speaking circuit, like trying to find new customers, should he be hiring a CEO to manage his agency so that he can go invest that capital? So there's like a disconnect between his feedback loops, how he's producing the capital and how he's investing it. And that, you know, his mountain of leverage is just like skewed towards people, which is what he's comfortable with and very, very weak in productizing his knowledge and experience.
And so he's just stuck in this like spot where he can't outgrow it because he's bottlenecked in one of these forms of leverage that he's not comfortable using it. And that doesn't have a partner or the training to like break out of that. Yeah. A lot of people, like who feel like they've plateaued running through this exercise of like inventory and your leverage and looking at the different types available to you and possible reinvestment patterns would at least maybe like the way, if not, kind of unblock it for you, depending on your, your skills and aptitudes.
Alex: [00:20:12] And I mean, in keeping in that, like, Vein of practicality. Is there anything that you see people like overlooking consistently when it comes to leverage or is it, is it all over the place?
Eric: [00:20:27] I think it's, I think it's all over the place, but it's probably consistent within a person. Right? Like what I find when I talk to people is that they have a bias towards one or two of the four types and, you know, developers almost always understand tools and Product very well, like they are super eager to automate themselves out of, or to outsource like rote repetitive work to, you know, a service or something.
Yeah. Even that they're strong in those things. Sometimes they overlook the ability to their ability to outsource something to people and just like view people, message management as like too messy or terrible or unscalable. But sometimes, you know, hiring somebody or partnering. Or even hiring an agency or whatever, unlocks the use of a ton of skills and insights that you wouldn't necessarily have on your own.
Also tend to overlook distribution problems. And so the fact that like people leverage comes not just in employees, but also in like happy customers or friends and family or supporting followers or an email or something like that. Know, truly the best product doesn't necessarily win. Like you need good distribution also.
And supporters and people tend to buy from other people recommending it, not from an objective evaluation of facts based on the product research that they themselves did. Right. And the same thing that this agency like re uh, intelligent reinvestment of capital into high opportunity things. So.
Everybody's got their own biases and their own skills and that, that lead to blind spots. I think no form of leverage is like strictly better. Although Naval says people leverage is like messy and terrible and you should avoid it. I think that comes a little bit from his bias, but maybe he's just more experienced than he certainly more experienced in this, in than me in this.
So maybe he's just right. I dunno. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of And is I think true that you both want to like lean into your strengths and shore up your weaknesses in through that perspective. But I don't think anything is like strictly better. Like you, if you look at any hugely outsized outcome, like most people are using at least a little bit of every type.
Alex: [00:22:27] Got it. So I guess it's more of a matter of sort of identifying that within yourself.
Eric: [00:22:32] Cool. Cool. All right. Good luck out there. Enjoy some sandwiches, um, and, and stay in touch, dude.
Alex: [00:22:38] I appreciate it. Talk to you soon, man. All right. Peace.