Drive with Dr. Peter Attia: #74 – Jason Fried: Optimizing efficiency and work-life balance

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Much of success is due to luck, time, talent, and skill – NOT hard work“I don’t even know what ‘working hard’ means. If you get to sit behind a desk all day in an air-conditioned room, there’s no such thing as hard work.” – Jason Fried“If lightning strikes, keep that lightning in the bottle” – Jason Fried“If you’re lucky enough to have a hit business, ride it out until it’s over as opposed to stopping and trying to do it again. Chances are very slim that you’ll be able to do it again.”Venture capital is a slippery slope. Think twice about raising money for your business.“A lot of businesses are destroyed by unreasonable expectations of growth and having too much money in the bank” – Jason FriedReconsider setting goals for yourself or your companyInstead, just try to do the best job you canMuch of the busyness that people experience is due to a constant interruption of meetings, phone calls, and emailWith whatever you’re working on, find the epicenter (the essence of its value)This quote from Jason is an excellent way of explaining it: “If you try to build Google calendar in 6 weeks, you can’t do it. But there’s a version of Google calendar you can build in 6 weeks that solves 80-90% of the issues.”Most projects can get done in half the time if they’re 95% as goodTo become better at saying “no”:Ask yourself: “If X was tomorrow, would I still say ‘yes’ to it?”Realize: When you say “yes” to something, you’re basically saying “no” to 1,000 other things

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In this episode, Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, shares his beliefs around achieving business success in a modern world which tends to disproportionately focus on the massive success stories (the outliers). Jason gives his honest take on companies like WeWork, Uber, and Lyft that may give off the appearance of wild success but may instead provide an example of the dangers of perverse incentives. We get into Jason’s backstory, and how his affinity for optimizing efficiency and production in the workplace culminated with the creation of Basecamp, his very successful web-based project management software business. Perhaps most importantly, we get really deep into all aspects of work-life balance and what it really means to “work hard” (Stay tuned for an AMA-style deep dive into the topic of work-life balance with Jason in the near future). In addition, Jason provides many more valuable nuggets including thoughts on some common mistakes made by businesses today, the value of giving employees autonomy, how to take the right types of risks, why he doesn’t set any goals, and much, much more.

We discuss:

Jason’s background and his early entrepreneurial spirit [9:45];
Views on completing higher education and the notion of hard work [24:00];
Beliefs around success in business [35:00];
WeWork, Uber, and Lyft: Poor business practices and the dangers of perverse incentives [41:30];
Jason’s early career: his redesign approach and personal motivation [56:00];
The genesis of Basecamp [1:10:00];
Why Jason does not set goals but instead focuses on a vision [1:12:15];
Workplace motivation and hiring practice [1:20:30];
The importance of luck and not overworking [1:32:00];
A framework to work less and optimize for workplace autonomy [1:38:00];
The importance of saying ‘no’ more often (and tips for doing so) [1:55:00];
A shared passion for watches [2:03:30];
Guarding against the perils of phone addiction [2:08:45];
Jason’s views on email and chat for communication [2:15:00] and;
More.

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Show notes page for this episode:peterattiamd.com/jasonfried

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