Kevin Kelly - Be Generous and Unique - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS]
Episode publishedPodcast: Invest Like the Best with Patr...Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Transcript preview
Preview only
Welcome to this Classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past ten years, published once a month. These are N of one conversations with N of one people. Kevin Kelly is one of the most original thinkers alive and has built a life around curiosity, creativity, and generosity. The central theme of this episode is that we should be as generous and as unique as possible. We wrote a Colossus profile on Kevin and June called Flounder Mode. It describes how he works Hollywood style through a series of creative projects instead of one big thing, and reminds us that greatness and joy d
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of positive sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit psum.vc.
My guest today is Kevin Kelly. Kevin co founded Wired Magazine and has published a number of seminal books and essays on technology over the past three decades. I have devoured everything Kevin has put out into the world and many of his ideas shape the way I live today. Our conversation explores media, family, money, his concept of the technium, AI, and more. But the central theme of this episode is that we should be as generous and as unique as possible. You will hear us refer to his latest book, Excellent Advice for Living, throughout, and I highly recommend reading it if you haven't already
You're right. There's just a whole lot to unpack in this final piece of advice in this book, excellent advice for living. And that does sum up a lot of what I'm trying to do. So the first thing is I don't think I've met anybody who has achieved this. I've met a lot of people who are absolutely in that direction and are absolutely approaching that. It's like an asymptote curve where you never actually get there. There's always some way to get a little bit closer, but from a distance you might say, well, you've arrived. And for most of us, this is a very, very high bar. Truly becoming yourself i
When did you awake to the idea yourself? What was the first time that you thought, oh, this is a quest that I could be on for myself, and now I'm curious about who I am and how I might become that fully?
I think it was actually fairly recently. I don't think you've heard things. You mentioned Joseph Campbell and the others of following your bliss and stuff, and those have been around, but the idea that there was something about realizing the essence of yourself. I think that's not something that I began with or even had an early epiphany on. It's actually more recent is to kind of reflect on things like even writing this book where you have to articulate what it is. So I think I've been doing it, not articulating it, not aware that I was doing it. And would have been easier if I had, this goes
If you had found and taken this idea really seriously, like really internalized it when you were 30, what would you have done differently, do you think? If anything, like, how would your behavior have changed?
It's a great question. I haven't done that exercise, but let me think if I take a minute now to try and do that, this is something I learned at wired magazine. And there is a piece of advice in the book. It's a little bit like this. It was has to do with there's a value in articulating what you're doing because instead of relying on other people to describe it. And so
Keep exploring with a free account.
A free account preserves the short preview. Upgrade to Pro for the full transcript and episode chat.