#759: Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Todd McFarlane

This episode is a two-for-one, and that’s because the podcast recently hit its 10-year anniversary and passed one billion downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best—some of my favorites—from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited.

The episode features segments from episode #691 "Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Scott Patterson — How Traders Make Billions in The New Age of Crisis, Defending Against Silent Risks, Personal Independence, Skepticism Where It (Really) Counts, The Bishop and The Economist, and Much More" and #639 "Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline."

Please enjoy!

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Timestamps:

[00:00] Start

[04:51] Notes about this supercombo format.

[05:54] Enter Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Scott Patterson.

[06:32] The joy of writing a preemptive resignation letter.

[07:13] Developing resilience against criticism.

[10:04] Nassim: contrarian, or simply independent?

[12:27] Jiving with skeptical turkeys.

[17:21] Persisting through the polycrisis.

[19:18] Introducing the precautionary principle.

[21:37] Nassim's preferred legacy.

[23:50] Precautionary principle 101.

[25:14] Fat tails, thin tails, the COVID vaccine, and GMOs.

[32:51] Enter Todd McFarlane.

[33:21] Baseball.

[38:46] Rejection letters.

[42:38] Compelling storytelling and meeting deadlines.

[45:46] Deadlines pre-Internet vs. deadlines today.

[48:36] How industry status quo led to the founding of Image Comic Books.

[1:00:30] The Comics Code and the last straw.

[1:06:52] The Marvel Dream Team exodus.

[1:25:13] How is Todd's camel bladder a competitive advantage?

[1:31:02] Career bouncing and double-shifting as a penciler and inker.

[1:49:08] The happy accident of Venom.

[1:55:46] De-Rockwelling the company icon and inventing "spaghetti webbing."

[2:03:31] Bucking the status quo to become the status quo.

[2:07:13] Parting thoughts and a promise for round two.

*

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.

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