In 2013, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen gave a 59-minute masterclass at Oxford on why smart companies destroy themselves.
His frameworks:
- The seminary of new finance
- The steel mill death spiral
- The $35 plastic box that changed India
12 lessons on disruption:
Conor Neill: "18 years of school trained you to ruin conversations"
"You finish your pitch and the customer says, 'Your product is too expensive!' You arrive home a few minutes late, your partner says, 'You are always late.' There's a dirty plate left on the table 'You never wash the dishes.' What do you say in this moment?"
Neill explains the problem:
"Most of you, me included, went through 14 years of school where we were taught one way to respond to questions. Teacher asks, 'How do you spell cats?' Student: 'C-A-T.' Teacher asks, 'What is osmosis?' Student explains in detail. For 14 years, you've been taught to give answers to questions. If you went to university, you probably had another 3 or 4 years of giving answers to questions."
Here's what that does to you:
"In real life in persuasion, in getting to what the other person is really about, what their needs really are, the worst thing you can do is give an answer to a question."
He gives examples:
"If someone says, 'Your product is too expensive,' and you say, 'No it's not! It's only €1,000'; you've lost every chance to understand what else is behind their reasoning. If you get home and your partner says, 'You're always late!' and you say, 'No, no, no, Tuesday I was definitely here on time', you're gonna have a crap weekend."
Neill explains why this happens:
"When your partner says, 'You're always late,' emotion goes up. And what happens? The thinking part disconnects. The way to make someone stupider is to insult them, object to them, tell them they are wrong. When you're asked a question, there's an emotional reaction, and the higher emotion goes, the lower thinking goes."
He continues:
"If you don't practice this response, you're not going to be able to do it in the moment. If you don't practice repeatedly how you'll respond to 'You're always late,' 'You never wash the dishes,' 'Your product is too expensive,' 'Your competitor is better,' 'You failed us 3 years ago,' 'I don't trust your company', you're not going to be able to do it in the heat of the moment."
Here's what to do instead:
"When you are asked a question or given an objection, I want you to say: 'I understand.' And repeat in your words what they're saying. Then give an open question back."
He demonstrates:
"'Your product is too expensive!' → 'I understand that money is an important factor for you. What other criteria will be used in making this decision?'"
Neill calls this "Conversation Aikido":
"Martial arts are about using the energy and force of the opponent against them. In Judo, if someone punches you, you pull their arm and allow the energy to keep flowing. In Aikido, the concept is you go toward the punch. You go toward the energy. If someone punches you, if someone asks you a question, if someone objects, the Aikido method is to go toward them and see the world from their view."
He explains how to practice:
"'You're always late!' → 'I understand you feel frustrated.' 'I understand you feel let down.' You'll have to work on this quite a few times over the next 10 years to find the set of words that captures what the other person feels, what's behind it. Then ask: 'What can we do now?' 'What happened during the day?' 'What would you like to talk about?'"
Neill shares what happens when you don't do this:
"When a client says 'You're too expensive' and you say 'No, we're not!' you learn nothing about who else they're considering, what other criteria are important, what process they've gone through, who else is involved in the decision."
He closes with a guarantee:
"By giving the answer, we shut down the possibility of hearing what's really going on in the other person's mind. But if you say 'I understand,' accept the energy coming from the other person, and give back an open question, I guarantee that if you do it 4 times, the answer to your 4th open question begins to be the real underlying need, issue, or interest of the person you're listening to."
From Amish to Making $65K/Week Flying Drones
This is Mike. Mike started a drone deer recovery service in Ohio and made $50,000 in his first 10 weeks.
Four years later he's doing over $32 million a year selling thermal and agricultural spray drones.
He breaks down exactly
- How he got his first customers
- The economics of spray drone businesses (70%+ profit margins)
- Why this might be the biggest untapped opportunity in blue collar entrepreneurship right now.
Mike was awesome. I know you'll like this episode.
This 1 hour lecture on "Probability Theory" from MIT will teach you more about prediction markets than 2 month internship at at a Wall Street Quant firm.
Bookmark this & give it 1 hour today, no matter what. It’s the most productive start you can give your week. Then read post below.
In 2013, Yale professor Ben Polak gave a legendary 1-hour lecture on Game Theory.
It will change how you make decisions in negotiations, business, and life.
His frameworks:
• Dominance arguments
• Backward induction
• The proactive bias
12 lessons to make better decisions:
In 2014, Peter Thiel gave a 50-minute masterclass on how to build a monopoly from scratch.
His frameworks:
- Competition is for losers
- Secrets vs mysteries
- Substance over status
15 timeless lessons from his book "Zero to One":
1. Every moment in business happens only once
🚨 In 1992, a MIT lecture quietly revealed more about product and sales than most 2-year MBAs ever will.
Most people have never seen it.
It came from Steve Jobs and instead of teaching theory, he broke down how great products actually win.
Watching it today feels unreal.
He explained that people don’t buy products they buy meaning. The best products aren’t just functional, they connect with how people see themselves. That’s why some ideas spread effortlessly while others die, even if they’re technically better.
He also made it clear that marketing isn’t about features. It’s about clarity. If you can’t explain why your product matters in simple terms, it won’t matter at all. Complexity doesn’t impress it confuses.
And his biggest edge? Obsession with experience. Not just what the product does, but how it feels. The small details, the simplicity, the story that’s what separates good from unforgettable.
That’s why this MIT lecture still hits hard.
Because while most people are building products…
Very few understand why people actually buy them.
This 2 hour Stanford lecture on AI careers will teach you more about winning in the AI race than every piece of AI content you have scrolled past this year.
Bookmark this & give it 2 hours, no matter what. It'll be the most productive thing you could do this weekend.
Investors don’t realize gold ALWAYS crashes during an oil-driven crisis.
It happened in all major oil shock in the last 50 years - 1973, 1979, 1991, 2001, and 2022.
In this thread, I'll break down exactly why it happens and what institutions expect happens next:
READ THESE BEFORE YOU BUILD YOUR FIRST EMPIRE:
1. Zero to One – Peter Thiel
2. The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
4. The Millionaire Fastlane – MJ DeMarco
5. $100M Offers – Alex Hormozi
6. $100M Leads – Alex Hormozi
7. Built to Sell – John Warrillow
8. The E-Myth Revisited – Michael Gerber
9. Good to Great – Jim Collins
10. The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
11. Principles – Ray Dalio
12. Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
13. Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson
14. Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
15. Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson
16. The Innovator's Dilemma – Clayton Christensen
17. Traction – Gabriel Weinberg
18. Start With Why – Simon Sinek
19. Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss
20. Influence – Robert Cialdini
21. Dotcom Secrets – Russell Brunson
22. Expert Secrets – Russell Brunson
23. Traffic Secrets – Russell Brunson
24. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
25. The 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
26. The 33 Strategies of War – Robert Greene
27. Mastery – Robert Greene
28. The Art of Seduction – Robert Greene
29. Pitch Anything – Oren Klaff
30. The Sales Bible – Jeffrey Gitomer
31. Sell or Be Sold – Grant Cardone
32. The 10X Rule – Grant Cardone
33. Rework – Jason Fried
34. Company of One – Paul Jarvis
35. The Personal MBA – Josh Kaufman
36. Crushing It – Gary Vaynerchuk
37. The Thank You Economy – Gary Vaynerchuk
38. Building a StoryBrand – Donald Miller
39. This Is Marketing – Seth Godin
40. Purple Cow – Seth Godin