Tren Griffin: The Love of Learning

Jul 29, 2019

My guest today is Tren Griffin, a Senior Director at Microsoft and the man behind an excellent blog called 25IQ. Tren is one of the most prolific writers I know. He’s written books about negotiation, entrepreneurship, and Charlie Munger. He published an article every week for almost six years, and because of all that hard work, he’s now posted more than 1.3 million words online. We start the conversation by talking about his writing process. Then, we talk about distribution in the cellular business, Software-as-a-Service business models, and lessons from his legendary entrepreneur Craig McCaw. After an afternoon with Tren, I feel like he gets more excited about ideas than anybody I’ve ever met. Tren loves life, loves people, and in this conversation, you’ll see just how much he loves ideas.

 

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LINKS:

Find Tren online:

• Twitter

• 25iq

Other links:

• Bill Gurley 

• Benchmark Capital

• Craig McCaw

• Santa Fe Institute

• Patrick Collison

• Richard Zeckhauser

• Charlie Munger

• Ed Thorpe

• Lil Wayne

• Nassim Taleb

• John Malone

SHOW NOTES

1:46 How did Tren get started with writing, why he is so disciplined about the writing process, and  

9:44 What Tren told data scientists during his talk on complex adaptive systems, how to calibrate yourself to business cycles, and trusting the process

21:21 Acquiring judgment through seeing smart people make decisions and what Tren learned from Craig McCaw

33:25 The genesis of the software in the box business model, what the future of the book is going to look like, and the importance of curated marketplaces

41:02 The influence of the Santa Fe Institute, why distribution is so hard, and the key elements of defensibility of companies

54:03 Patrick Collison on raising the intellectual bar at Stripe, what Tren has learned from Richard Zeckhauser, and the importance of first party stories

1:05:02 Demand side economies of sale and what Tren has learn from Charlie Munger, Ed Thorpe, and Lil Wayne

1:17:48 How Tren got into hip hop, Nassim Taleb, and John Malone

1:29:53 What Tren has learned from Bill Gurley