Dan's idea is becoming a meme!

Dr. Emily Anhalt joins the show to discuss how bringing more awareness to your own psychology can make a huge difference in the company you build—and to your life.

Figma got bought for $20 billion! Why? And what's next? Also: how to find your next "thing" by finding the right people, and a philosophical discussion about what businesses really are.

Plus: why focus is a lie, and a discussion of a good new book called Slouching Towards Utopia.

Plus: how AI will actually evolve vs. our expectations, and why productivity systems often make our problems worse.

This week we’ve got an interview that blew my mind, a truly mind-expanding conversation with Michael Mignano. Mike co-founded Anchor in 2015 and grew it into the world’s largest podcast hosting platform, it was acquired by Spotify in 2019 and he went on to become Head of Talk at Spotify. Recently he left and has been angel investing and is on a tear writing fantastic essays about the future of content distribution technology.In this conversation we cover: Why recommendation media—entertaining content from strangers—is replacing social media—content from friends and family. What strategic motivations platforms like Meta have for making this shift How it affects creators Where traditional “social media” type content for friends and family is moving What could happen when AI content generation keeps getting better What role there is in this for Snapchat and Twitter, who are both struggling This episode goes quite deep on the topic and I learned a ton from it. We’re going to have to have Mike back on the show once some time has passed to check in on these trends and see how it’s going!To go deeper on these topics, read Mike’s essay published in Every on the End of Social Media: https://every.to/p/the-end-of-social-media?sid=9593

Dan and Nathan discuss the fraught question of how hard it is ok to work, follow up on the crying CEO discussion which was written about in the New York Times, and contemplate why people often keep trying to do things that don’t work for them (and what to do instead).

Three topics this week: The new Clubhouse. It's been a couple years since Clubhouse came out and attracted astronomical hype (which Nathan was a part of) and since then things seem to have died down a bit. But Clubhouse is releasing a new version of the app that seems pretty interesting. Dan and Nathan talk about why we and many others stopped using Clubhouse, what the new version is (Nathan got to use it), and whether we think it'll work. Arguing to Think. Dan noticed he doesn't know what he thinks unless someone is arguing with him. At first he didn't like that about himself, but now he's learned to harness it. We discuss how to deal with argumentative vs exploratory styles of conversation, and how to develop a strong point of view (which is often rewarded by the universe) without getting blinded by it. Conquering Fear / OCD with Exposure Therapy. Dan talks about his experience with OCD and how exposure therapy helped him. All of our lives are shaped by subtle fears that are not always easy to see, but we can find them by paying attention to clues (what do we say "no" to a lot? what do we judge?) and often the best way to make progress is by overcoming them.

Dan and Nathan discuss the reasons why the crying CEO selfie felt so wrong, then talk about why hiring a tutor is easier than you think and is definitely worth it, then explore the exponential impact that solid execution can have on a business, then Dan tells us all about his 7-day silent meditation retreat.

Amanda Natividad is a marketer that grew her Twitter audience from 0 to 100k in just two years. In that same span of time Nathan grew his Twitter following from like 12k to 37k. (Cue sad trombone wah-wah sound.) In this special interview episode of Ordinary Astronauts, Nathan learns everything he can from Amanda about how to grow an audience, and they even live workshop a tweet at the end. Turns out, God really is in the details. Enjoy!