Startup Geometry Podcast
46 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 9 ratingsConsulting, Advisory and Business Development Services
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Episodes
EP 044 Greg Kaminsky on Eastern and Western Esoteric Systems
November 25, 2021 02:10 - 5 MBHello and welcome back to the Startup Geometry Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Windcastle Press, where a new pair of hardbacks of my translation of Giordano Bruno's On The Shadows Of Ideas will soon be available. We're back after a long break to talk to Greg Kaminsky, host of the Occult of Personality Podcast, and author of two new books: Pronaos, dealing with the ngondro or preliminary practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, and Celestial Intelligences, dealing with the esoteric writing...
EP 043 Vinay Gupta on Survival and Enlightenment
May 19, 2018 14:56 - 1 hour - 81 MBI am, by temperament and experience, more sanguine about all of this than he is. I tend to think things will eventually work themselves out over time. My enlightenment experiences have been mild and pleasant; if mine had been as harrowing as his, I would probably feel as he does. As a technical note, there were some sound issues on our Transatlantic Skype call, which occasionally made it sound as though one of us was conducting the call while having a bath or as if we had ghost hunter-style ...
EP 42 Camelia Elias on Clear Sight and Clean Cuts
April 15, 2018 01:30 - 1 hour - 80.2 MBCamelia Elias holds a PhD and DPhil and spent the last twenty years as a professor of literature, most recently at Roskilde University in Denmark. Recently, she escaped academia to start an online school, Aradia Academy, where she teaches cartomancy (card reading); that is, how to read—yourself, someone else, books, pictures, films, the situation, the problem, or anything else—without belief, emotion, preconceptions or other obscurations getting in the way. She recently said, "Why is read...
EP 041 Gary Lachman on the Lost Knowledge of the Imagination
March 29, 2018 17:46 - 59 minutes - 68.7 MBToday, I talk with Gary Lachman about his latest book, The Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. We discuss the need to balance the analytic "survival mode" consciousness of the external world with an older way of thinking that prioritizes the inner landscape and the imagination. We also discuss the necessity of creative outlets to regulate how much of the sensory world we take in and process, to open the valve all the way for peak experience and dial it down so we remember to do the dishes. I ...
EP 040 Jason Fagone on Elizabeth Smith Friedman, Codebreaker
November 06, 2017 21:35 - 47 minutes - 54.4 MBI used to see some amazing obituaries, often in British newspapers, detailing a remarkable life lived by someone who had worked undercover during WWII, escaped from Nazis, and gone on to live to a great old age. Frequently, these people were forgotten or never spoke of their adventures. Elizabeth Smith Friedman, the subject of Jason Fagone's new biography, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, is one of those rare people, though her story begins with a search for the true author of Shakespeare, runs ...
EP 039 Daniel Ingram on Meditative States, Paths, and Ethical Living
October 24, 2017 02:50 - 1 hour - 70 MBDaniel Ingram has a successful career as an ER doctor, but he's best known on the Internet for being a meditator and meditation teacher. He's the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book, which I first read about over on Scott Alexander's blog Slate Star Codex here and here. Daniel made some waves in the dharma community by claiming to have attained enlightenment as an arahat. On today's podcast, we talk about the different ways to assess that c...
EP 038 Lynne Kelly on The Memory Code
September 04, 2017 19:34 - 1 hour - 72.9 MBLynne Kelly is a teacher, science writer and anthropologist of oral and pre-literate cultures. Her most recent book is The Memory Code, which deals with the use of memory techniques including rituals, songs, dances, portable devices, and large-scale geographic features and built structures as memory aids. She has conducted a series of experiments to replicate memory techniques from the classical memory palace to handheld memory devices such as the Lukasa to rituals and storytelling. Today...
EP 037 Phil Stutz and Barry Michels Return to Talk about Coming Alive
August 25, 2017 16:47 - 1 minute - 2.11 MBThis is an unpodcast episode, consisting of a transcript only. Read the full interview over at bottlerocketscience.net. Today on Startup Geometry, we're talking with Phil Stutz and Barry Michels, authors of the new book Coming Alive. Since we last talked to them, they've been keeping busy with their highly successful psychotherapy practices, where much of their clientele consists of Hollywood creative professionals; running multiday retreats and seminars; and writing their second book, which...
EP 036 Eric Obenauf of Two Dollar Radio on Indy Publishing
August 06, 2017 06:00 - 47 minutes - 54.3 MBEric Obenauf founded Two Dollar Radio to publish daring, experimental fiction that wouldn't otherwise find its audience. On this episode, we talk about how indy and small press publishing works, the importance of having your own taste, and the art of branching out (Two Dollar Radio now makes films, and they're opening their new Headquarters store to be a hub for literature in the city and a cool place to hang out.
EP 035 Stephen Buranyi on Science Culture, Bad Data and Scientific Publishing
July 27, 2017 18:33 - 36 minutes - 41.9 MBStephen Buranyi writes about science and the socioeconomic structure of the scientific research system in place today. We talk about the joys and sorrows of being a scientist who has escaped the academy, how to pitch ideas for articles for general audience news publications, intentional and unintentional bad data, and the incentive structures surrounding scientific publication. My apologies for the delay effect on Stephen's end of the conversation. I like to think that it's because we were u...
EP 034 Jon Taplin on Tech Monopolies and the Creative Economy
July 11, 2017 00:21 - 46 minutes - 53.9 MBJonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. he was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin's areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Fi...
EP 033 Shava Nerad returns to talk politics
June 27, 2017 22:54 - 1 hour - 88.2 MBPublic Service Announcement: This week, the Senate released their version of the AHCA, which would cause 25 million people to lose their health insurance. Access to individual health insurance markets enables entrepreneurs, among others, to take the risk of leaving full time jobs with large corporations to build companies of their own. Without full funding for Medicaid, the cost of delivering healthcare to everyone rises. Please contact your Senators and representatives to tell them your posi...
EP 032 Frederick Schilling on Chocolate and Growing Sustainable Businesses
May 25, 2017 19:52 - 1 hour - 84.4 MBFrederick Schilling loves chocolate. He is the founder of Dagoba Chocolate, AMMA Chocolate and Big Tree Farms. He's made a career out of launching products that are not only delicious and luxurious, but also environmentally and socially responsible. When he founded Dagoba, he launched the organic chocolate category. When he founded Big Tree Farms and AMMA Chocolate, he changed the lives of farmers on two continents. Today, we talk about: How he got interested in chocolate while a rel...
EP 031 Sid Kemp on Preparing for Success & Failure
May 03, 2017 01:43 - 57 minutes - 65.9 MBSid Kemp is a coach, consultant and the author of ten books on business success published by McGraw-Hill and Entrepreneur Press. Until a decade ago, Sid worked with top Fortune 500 companies, government agencies like the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and think tanks such as McKinsey Consulting and Deloitte Touche. Then he took their best practices and wrote the best seller, Entpreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Project Management for Small Business. Today, we talk about the ins and...
EP 030 Ben Joffe on Tibetan Ngakpa, Tantra and Medicine
April 18, 2017 14:27 - 1 hour - 85.3 MBBen Joffe is a scholar of Vajrayana Buddhism, currently finishing his PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder. On this episode, we talk about his first career as a teenaged tarot reader, the question of how Vajrayana and tantra have been impacted by the Tibetan diaspora and encounter with the global monoculture, the role of the ngakpa (non-celibate yogi), and Ben's translation of Dr. Nida Chenagtsang's books on traditional Tibetan medicine. We experienced some technical difficulties durin...
EP 029 B Alan Wallace on the Great Perfection of Dudjom Lingpa
March 19, 2017 03:27 - 58 minutes - 67.7 MBB. Alan Wallace Today, I talk with B. Alan Wallace about his multiple careers as Buddhist contemplative and teacher, physicist and cognitive scientist, writer and translator. We discuss his road to becoming a monk and returning to laity, the meditative practices of Dzogchen, how to tell a good teacher (by the quality of their students), the remarkable career of Dudjom Lingpa, and how Buddhist contemplatives and neuroscientists can collaborate to effect a revolution in our understanding of th...
EP 028 Max Gladstone on Writing Wizards Like Lawyers
January 22, 2017 05:17 - 42 minutes - 52.4 MBMax Gladstone Today, I talk with Max Gladstone, author of The Craft Sequence, in which a magical post-Apocalyptic society turns out to be not a terribly bad place to live, thank you very much. He describes his novels differently depending on who he's talking to. For businesspeople, lawyers, and consultants, he says, "It's just like your job, only with wizards." Like many writers, he's held a number of interesting and out-of-the-way jobs, as you can see from his bio below. Bio Max Gladstone ...
EP 027 Mitch Horowitz and the Secret History of America
December 13, 2016 02:38 - 58 minutes - 70.2 MBMitch Horowitz Today on Startup Geometry, I talk with Mitch Horowitz, editor, voiceover artist, historian of alternative religion and the occult, and author of Occult America and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. We discuss the influence of experimental religions have had on American history, our favorite uncanny tourism sites, how the belief that "thoughts are causative" has affected the real world, and why having a Definite Chief Aim can help you achieve it.
EP 026 Gordon White on Podcasting and Prehistory
September 06, 2016 19:00 - 1 hour - 79.6 MBGordon White This week I talk to Gordon White, former "weird kid", proprietor of the popular Rune Soup podcast and blog. Gordon is also a documentarian, world traveler, digital strategist and practicing magician. He's the author of three books that came out in the last year or so: Star.Ships, which we discuss in this podcast; The Chaos Protocols, which takes a heterodox view of how to handle the post-financial crash economy; and Pieces of Eight, a personal history of the Chaos Magic movement...
EP 025 Robert Pool on Peak Performance
August 30, 2016 21:26 - 1 hour - 85 MBRobert Pool is a mathematician, science writer, and, together with Anders Ericsson, the author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Today, we talk about the use of deliberate practice to improve physical and mental performance, why the 10,000 hour rule isn't what you think it is, the relationship between talent and success (it's less important than you think, what good mental representations will do for you, and why taste is essential to the development of expert skills.
EP 024 Cory Doctorow on the Copyfight
August 18, 2016 02:48 - 45 minutes - 55.1 MBCory Doctorow is a bestselling author of both science fiction and techno-sociological nonfiction, one of four editors of longtime popular weblog boingboing, and an activist and advocate for intellectual property rights, working extensively with the Electronic Freedom Foundation and others to put control of content back in the hands of the users like you and me. Photo credit: Jonathan Worth 2013 Today, we talk about the EFF's plan to defeat Digital Rights Management (DRM) as a business model o...
EP 023 Kevin Kelly on Shaping the Future
July 15, 2016 14:10 - 52 minutes - 63.7 MBKevin Kelly spends a lot of time thinking about the future. He once spent six months imagining that he only had six months to live (and keeps a timer on his own life expectancy), and co-founded the Long Now foundation, built around the idea of a 10,000 year clock to promote very long term thinking. His current book, The Inevitable: Understanding the Twelve Technological Forces that will Shape Our Future, deals with the future that is happening now, the ongoing future, the one William Gibson s...
EP 022 Michelle Warnky on Overcoming Obstacles
July 09, 2016 17:25 - 29 minutes - 36.8 MBMichelle Warnky is the owner of Movement Lab Ohio, a competitor in obstacle races and a traceusse de parkour (a parkour freerunner). You can see her on American Ninja Warrior, where she's one of a small group of successful repeat competitors, and you can learn how to be a ninja in your own life at her gym. Today, we talk about her experience as an English teacher in Kazakhstan, how to develop the skills you need to move your body through obstacles, and how she's balanced her roles as solo co...
EP 021 Shava Nerad on Tech Careers, Surveillance and Privacy
June 06, 2016 13:40 - 1 hour - 122 MBShava Nerad is the former Executive Director of the Tor Project, open source software that helps users protect their online privacy. She is currently CEO of Oddfellow Studios, and a frequent writer through Quora (where I met her) and on her Patreon site. Today, we talk about her early days as the youngest female Chief Software Engineer at DEC and IT manager at MIT, how to manage and relate to very different people, how she won an argument with Richard Stallman, and how and why Tor came to be...
EP 020 Helen DeWitt
May 29, 2016 15:46 - 1 hour - 87 MBHelen DeWitt is the author of The Last Samurai, Lightning Rods, and, with Ilya Gridnef, Your Name Here. The Last Samurai, originally released by Miramax Books in 2000, is being released in a new edition by New Directions in May 2016. For many years, the book was passed along in secondhand copies among cognoscenti, and I'm glad to see it back in print. Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of tw...
EP 019 Luca Turin on the Secrets of Scent and the Scientific Method
May 15, 2016 20:52 - 47 minutes - 54.7 MBLuca Turin is a biophysicist and expert in the sense of smell. He is best known to the scientific community as the proponent of the vibrational theory of olfaction: that smell receptors detect the vibrational frequencies of the molecular bonds of parts of the scent molecule. This theory represents an alternative to the older shape-based theory of smell: that scent molecules bind to specific receptors that conform to the shape of the scent molecule. The debate on this topic is detailed in Turi...
EP 018 David Heinemeier Hansson
February 01, 2016 20:30 - 34 minutes - 39.2 MBDavid Heinemeier Hansson is the co-founder (with Jason Fried) of Basecamp (formerly 37signals) , author of Remote and Rework (also with Jason Fried), and creator of the Ruby on Rails framework. He's also a race car driver, having won the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, and an avid photographer. Today, we talk about why it's best to build products that you would (and do) use, the low-risk approach to building a company, why funding yourself helps to slow the clock, how that app...
EP 017 Andrei Codrescu
January 18, 2016 22:30 - 25 minutes - 29.5 MBLong before there were blogs or podcasts, Andrei Codrescu was writing online (much of it through his "hidden literary magazine" Exquisite Corpse) and publishing audio commentary (often as a commentator on NPR). He is the author of many books of poetry, essays and fiction, and has taught literature at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore and Louisiana State University, where he recently retired as the MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English. Now, he's planning on developin...
EP 016 Emanuel Derman
January 11, 2016 01:00 - 52 minutes - 60 MBEmanuel Derman first had a successful career as a particle physicist, and then an even more successful career on Wall Street, doing advanced mathematical modeling of financial instrument prices and volatility. Currently, he is a professor at Columbia University, where he directs the program in financial engineering. He's the author of My Life as a Quant and Models.Behaving.Badly. Today, we talk about the differences between models & theories, finance & physics, and life & experiments. We lo...
EP 015 Barry Michels and Phil Stutz, Authors of The Tools
November 17, 2015 03:00 - 1 hour - 73 MBBarry Michels and Phil Stutz are two of the most sought-after psychotherapists in Los Angeles, particularly by creative professionals. They are also the authors of The Tools, a book that teaches you the techniques they use in their practice to help unlock creativity, decrease anxiety and to correct the negative patterns that interfere with your life. In this podcast, we discuss the relationship between the Shadow (Carl Jung's term for a subconscious part of your mind that contains your in...
EP 014 Renaissance Mathematicus Thony Christie
November 10, 2015 05:18 - 1 hour - 95.2 MBThony Christie, historian of science and proprietor of the Renaissance Mathematicus and Whewell's Ghost stops by to talk about Galileo, Newton, the Copernican controversy, and why it was smart to believe that the Earth didn't move. The story of how we came to understand that the Earth was not the center of the Universe is one of the most fascinating stories in the whole of the history of science. The debate over Copernicus' heliocentric model lasted for centuries, and was carried out by math...
EP 013 Andrew Johnson on Hypnosis
October 19, 2015 17:30 - 47 minutes - 54.6 MBAndrew Johnson wants help you relax. He's an online hypnotherapist and designer of a wildly popular series of hypnotherapy apps and mp3s. Today, we talk about how to use relaxation techniques, including hypnosis and guided meditation, to change habits and improve quality of life. We also contrast the mental state of relaxation produced by hypnosis or guided meditation from that of simple mindfulness techniques and the memory palace technique I discussed with Anthony Metivier in the pr...
EP 012 Anthony Metivier on Magnetic Memory Methods
October 13, 2015 23:06 - 58 minutes - 67.4 MBAnthony Metivier, proprietor of MagneticMemoryMethod.com, has taught fifty thousand people how to improve their memory using the memory palace technique. He is a one man content factory, producing books, podcasts, online videos and courses to teach foreign languages, meditation and relaxation, and memory improvement. Today, we talk about how you can improve your memory, what makes for a good online course, and why friendship can be monstrous. Listen on iTunes. Show links and notes Anthon...
EP 011 Warren Ellis on Writing and Weirdness
October 01, 2015 01:45 - 50 minutes - 58 MBWarren Ellis is a master storyteller with over twenty years experience producing amazing stories as serials, singles, graphic novels, books and films. He is also a very funny man, in all the best senses of the word. From his website: Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. The movie RED is based on his gra...
Startup Geometry Podcast Excerpt: Warren Ellis on Politics
September 28, 2015 02:33 - 9 minutes - 11.1 MBWarren Ellis and I talk about the ways British and American politics are looking more and more like something he's writing. Why Jeremy Corbyn is a return to classic Labor, and not a baby eating monster, and what Joe Biden should do about a possible Presidential run. Download on iTunes Check back on October 1st for the full interview.
EP 010 Nicolas Cole on Transformation as Personal Brand
September 22, 2015 00:01 - 1 hour - 69.5 MBToday, I talk with Nicolas Cole, a Creative Director with Idea Booth, a branding consultancy and think tank. When he was a teenager, he was a highly ranked World of Warcraft player and blogger, spending hours online as an Undead Mage while skating through high school. Now, Cole is a Quora Top Writer, author, fitness model, and marketing expert. In this episode, we talk about how he physically and mentally transformed himself over the last seven years, and what it takes to overcome the lim...
EP 009 Alice Dreger on Galileo’s Middle Finger
September 15, 2015 08:00 - 1 hour - 76.8 MBIn this episode, I talk with Alice Dreger, author of Galileo's Middle Finger and former Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. She resigned from the position following a dispute over censorship of an issue of the medical humanities journal Atrium. I first heard about Alice when she livetweeted her son's sex ed class, and in this episode we talk about the state of sex ed today, her work as an advocate fo...
EP 008 Justine Simonson & Marcus Lehmann of How To Make It In
September 12, 2015 20:15 - 57 minutes - 66.5 MBToday, I talk with Justine Simonson and Marcus Lehmann, filmmakers and creators of the YouTube series How To Make It In _________. From Justine & Marcus: How To Make It In: Berlin is the premier season of a web series about small businesses and the owners who took a risk in creating them. This season features 10 unique entrepreneurs and small business owners from Berlin's street food scene, tech startups, the service industry and more. Each season will be filmed in a different city around t...
EP 007 Alex Bandar of Columbus Idea Foundry
September 01, 2015 01:43 - 36 minutes - 42 MBLive from the Columbus Idea Foundry makerspace and incubator, I talk with Alex Bandar about protoyping products, neighborhoods, cities and the Idea Foundry itself. Alex Bandar is an engineer with a specialization in materials science and computer assisted design. In 2008, he founded the Columbus Idea Foundry, which has recently moved into a new and larger space, becoming the largest makerspace in the country. It is an anchor for the redevelopment of the Franklinton neighborhood of Columb...
EP 006 Ed Cooke of Memrise
August 09, 2015 19:13 - 59 minutes - 68.3 MBEd Cooke is a Memory Grandmaster and CEO of Memrise, a company dedicated to making you better at learning and memory. Today, we talk about ways to maximize your memory, how get more out of life by paying better attention to it, and the Epicurian value of having good friends around you in life and work.
EP 005 Claudia Azula Altucher
June 23, 2015 21:34 - 29 minutes - 34.4 MBClaudia Azula Altucher is an idea machine; an accomplished yoga practitioner and teacher; and a popular podcaster, author and YouTuber. Today, she brings all of this to the podcast to help you get your life on the move. She'll teach you what you need to do to clean up your life, how to get your idea muscles sweating, and why she should be the next CEO of Twitter. You canfind her online at claudiayoga.com, through her podcasts, which include Ask Altucher and Claudia Yoga, and through the Claud...
EP 004 Brad DeLong on Macro and the Meltdown
June 17, 2015 18:17 - 1 hour - 70 MBBrad DeLong visits Startup Geometry today to talk about economic currents and current economics. He may or may not have confessed to being a hyperintelligent swarm of bees in human form, a historian in disguise as an economist, and/or a Keynesian. He reviews the effects and effectiveness of US economic policies including the 2009 Recovery Act; the Trans-Pacific Partnership; tax, education, infrastructure and other proposals. We discuss the entertainment revolution and the fall of middle class...
Startup Geometry Podcast: Excerpt on Trade with Brad Delong
June 12, 2015 01:07 - 8 minutes - 10.1 MBIn this short preview of my interview with economist Brad Delong, we discuss the economic and social impact of the trade deals currently being negotiated by the US Trade Representative, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trade Promotion Authority and related bills under consideration in Congress this month. The full interview will be available next week. Please check back regularly.
EP 003 Adam Swartzbaugh may secretly be Captain America
May 21, 2015 21:44 - 1 hour - 81.5 MBAdam Swartzbaugh, founder of the Genesis Network, works to defeat human trafficking and help rebuild local networks to help with disaster recovery. He's not only an active social entrepreneur, he's also a rapid language learner, world traveler and multi-sport athlete. He's also the only man I know who's won in hand-to-hand combat with a hawk. In this episode of the Startup Geometry Podcast, I talk with Adam about: What made him interested in the problem of human trafficking in Southeast As...
EP 002 Christoph Rehage
May 07, 2015 22:34 - 39 minutes - 45.4 MB"Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue." -Werner Herzog. In this episode, I talk with Christoph Rehage, who filmed himself walking more than 5000km across China over the course of a year. Most of you will be familiar with him from the YouTube video that resulted from the trip: He's also the author of three books, published in German and Chinese, an avid reader of travel books, collector of fine vodkas, filmmaker, photographer and newspaper columnist. We talk about his early travels, wha...
EP 001 Steven Brust, PJF
April 29, 2015 02:59 - 38 minutes - 43.7 MBWelcome to the Startup Geometry podcast, where we talk to the creators, innovators and explorers who make the world what it is. In this episode, I talk with Steven Brust, author of the Vlad Taltos/Dragaera novels. We talk about his writing process, important influences and future plans. I've been a huge fan of Steven's, ever since his first novel, Jhereg, introduced us to wisecracking assassin Vlad Taltos and his sidekick Loiosh back in 1983. His latest books are Hawk and The Incrementalists...