# Ryan Petersen: Building Flexport  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Ryan Petersen: Building Flexport - Show: The Knowledge Project - Owner / Host: Shane Parrish - Guests: [Ryan Petersen](https://share.snipd.com/person/fe1067c9-b178-4bc2-939f-23f63576d014) - Episode publish date: 2025-08-05 - Episode AI description: Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, shares his journey through the complexities of global logistics and leadership. He candidly discusses the lessons learned from stepping down as CEO and what it took to reclaim his position. The conversation reveals the nuances of micromanagement in leadership, the challenges of navigating tariffs during the Trump era, and the critical role of logistics during the pandemic, including the extraordinary feat of airlifting 500 million masks. Petersen offers insights that blend personal anecdotes with invaluable business wisdom. - Mentioned books: [Poor Charlie's Almanack](https://share.snipd.com/book/58ce8ed6-9129-446c-8544-97015ca42aa1) by [Charles T. Munger](https://share.snipd.com/person/6293ff50-d930-4fd8-8a10-91d999ec6ac2), [Peter D. Kaufman](https://share.snipd.com/person/6d94a1c7-3bd3-4798-981e-040e62170b32) - Duration: 01:40:59 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/c4b0692a-82a2-4b3b-a80a-b53ec09057a0) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/82276930-d446-4ee1-b204-84198acb5bfc) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:34:03 ## Snips ### [Steve Jobs & iPhone 3G Leak](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7d5e73d7-6888-407b-9d3c-f192aa594265) 🎧 11:16 - 13:29 (02:13) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/f507f3fe-e703-4366-947f-a5e0860d2a62" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Ryan used Import Genius data to predict the secret launch of the iPhone 3G before anyone else. - This attracted rapid customer growth and even a call from Steve Jobs due to the data leak. #### 💬 Quote > Steve Jobs was furious. Ryan had just used public shipping records to predict April's secret iPhone launch. > — Shane Parrish Intro about Steve Jobs moment #### 📚 Transcript **Shane Parrish:** jobs moment that we we need to capture here with the Import Genius. You want to tell us the story? **Ryan Petersen:** Oh back in one of the early we had built Import Genius. It's a great data set. It's really powerful and you can look up companies and see what they're shipping who they're're buying, who buying, they're stuff. And at that time, I guess still, the big thing was, when's the new iPhone going to come out? I think we were just on that. There was the 3G iPhone. Forget it. I think that's just like the second iPhone ever. It was kind of crazy. Where are we on 5G now? But it was the 3G iPhone. We had built this product, and we had like no users for it. It was a great example of like, if you build it, they will not come. Well, you have to go get customers. We had a couple of customers, but not really any. So I knew we needed to get some attention. People needed to know that this data is out here. And we had such interesting data by companies. And so I was searching in the data set for Apple shipments and saw, it's public record, you can look it up, saw that they were importing a new product they'd never imported before called an electric computer, which is very interesting. All computers are electric. It like a silly name. And it was a perfect storm, perfect moment. Everybody knew. was already being rumored that the 3G iPhone was arriving. I didn't even know if it was right. I just put out this blog post being like, Apple has this new thing. Maybe it's the 3G iPhone. And it went very viral. We within a week, we were doing like $50,000 in monthly revenue. Like all of a sudden, you know, from zero to $50,000 in a couple of weeks. And I got a call from U.S. Customs saying, hey, we just talked to Steve Jobs and he's really pissed about this. You need to explain where you got this data. Sort of like threatening to show us out. I'm so I showed him the letter. We showed him the letter of the law explaining why this is public record and this public record. And then he sent us a letter, an email later saying, hey, thank you so much. I had explained, I shared that with Apple's team. Thank you for taking the pressure off of us. But it was a bit of the early days of like, you know, how do you get attention and traffic for a new product? That's --- ### [Flying Masks Amid COVID](https://share.snipd.com/snip/151b02b1-0477-427d-aad8-6adb3eb3dfe1) 🎧 36:23 - 39:07 (02:44) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/f19ff961-56a4-4f5d-be8e-2e6882ef483b" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Flexport flew 500 million masks into U.S. hospitals during early COVID by chartering grounded passenger planes as cargo flights. - This unique logistics effort helped hospitals receive crucial supplies when air freight was largely halted. #### 💬 Quote > So we got 80 plane or aircraft and flew them to China... We flew 500 million masks and other object, other PPE items in for us hospital network in March and April of 2020. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan on Flexport's COVID-era operations #### 📚 Transcript **Shane Parrish:** before it actually hit. **Ryan Petersen:** January even. Yeah. I mean, well, it was, it was in the newspaper, but we have a group called flexport.org. We do shipping for humanitarian causes, like refugee camps and hospitals, nonprofits at cost, sometimes below cost. We had been part, we're partnered with a lot of great groups like international aid groups and things like this. COVID, it was in the newspaper, it would hit in Wuhan. And we actually got a ton of demand to ship masks to China for the doctors in China. And so in January of that year, we shipped about 300,000 N95s from the U.S. to China, which then like two months later, when there were no N95s masks in the U.S., we're like, whoops. So yeah, we saw that pretty early. And then the other thing that came out in that period was people, about 50% of the world's air freight travel. We do air freight too, non-troposal freight. And about 50% of the world's air freight flies in the belly of passenger planes. And those all got grounded because of COVID. There was no reason to, you know, I think they're actually grounded legally. And so we saw, we were at the heart of kind of bringing masks, bringing PPE generally in for U.S. hospital networks from mostly produced in China. And so we saw this insane demand for air freight and there were no ships, no planes to move it. And the ships are too slow. Like hospitals are running out of masks. So we saw that and got pretty active like well you can kind of see the solution to that problem is in the problem itself it was like well all of the passenger planes are grounded so we can't ship any masks you're like wait the passenger planes are all grounded and so with some of our connections we got in touch with all the major passenger airlines and we got 80 plane or aircraft and flew them to China. Because cargo planes are allowed to travel on the internet. Well, passenger planes can travel too, just not with passengers. Right. So we got the airlines to give us great deals. Because otherwise the planes are just idle. Just sitting there in the desert and stuff and just sitting at the airport. So we got all of this. We got 80, we did 88, I think it was 87, 88 passenger planes full of masks in the overhead compartments and every seat, obviously the belly. And we just, we flew 500 million masks and other object, other PPE items in for us hospital network in March and April of 2020. Do **Shane Parrish:** you ever struggle to stay focused? There's a reason I reach for my Remarkable Paper Pro when I need to think clearly. If you're looking for something that can help you really hone in on your work without all the distractions, Remarkable, the paper tablet, might just be what you're looking for. --- ### [Micromanagement Is Attention To Detail](https://share.snipd.com/snip/27c3f35f-e0b3-40c3-9d3d-e0de79ade878) 🎧 54:37 - 01:01:09 (06:32) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/52e3b181-067b-424c-846b-1172f2b4addb" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Embrace micromanagement as leadership; inspect everything and don't blindly trust executives. - Engage with all levels of your company to address problems directly and maintain quality. #### 💬 Quote > Micromanagement's a bad word. Toby's the first person I ever heard that from. They're like, it's not a bad, it's like a great thing. Get involved. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan on learning from other CEOs about leadership #### 📚 Transcript **Ryan Petersen:** the way, yeah. Walk me through some of those. Well, the number one thing I think is I learned from Toby from Shopify and Brian Chesky, who've been good advisors for me. The micromanagement is not a bad word. It's a good word. You got to, like, stay involved in all the details. And that's very hard in my company. We're, like, big and sprawling and do a lot of stuff. But you need to be way more hands-on. Do lots of skip levels don't trust don't like hire big executives and then just trust them like treat them like a black box like i had when i heard him say this i was like oh my god he's committed the sin at the highest possible level right but like don't do that at any level like it's all my company audit everything inspect everything it's you can't just like give people too much leash to run things their way and if they disagree with me like sure i want to i want to debate it i want to hear from them but like at the end of the day i know i'm going to still work at flex sport in 10 years and i don't know if that's true about anyone else and that that's that's how they heard from chesky and i was like you know it's like it's probably true like i hope that my team stays and i got the team for 10 years but i'm positive that I'll be here. And so if they really don't like the way I want to do something, like, okay, no problem. But it's my company and, like, they can move on. And, like, that's the level of confidence that I didn't have prior. I **Shane Parrish:** heard from people that we have in common that when you came back, you were a different CEO. And you were, like, mode before it became founder mode. **Ryan Petersen:** Yeah. I mean, Chesky's like way more hardcore. I I try, but didn't have as many frameworks for it. I was just like, oh, I got to do what I have to do, you know? And there was a lot of stuff that I really didn't understand about the company. I had way too much committed all these sins of just like, okay, there's a problem in some department, hire a big exec, let them and then don't get in their way. Like that is the kind of the corporate way that most people teach or like most people expect, like this is how a company should be run. Micromanagement's a bad word. Toby's the first person I ever heard that from. They're like, it's not a bad, it's like a great thing. Get involved. You know, why would you ever want like micromanagement and attention to detail same two words for the same thing right attention to detail is great like your boss is involved in your stuff like that's only a problem if your boss is an idiot and out of touch and making bad decisions but like if your boss like genuinely cares about your work is involved in tune knows what you're doing has good judgment like why would you not want them looking over your shoulder and participating with you and what you're doing so about flash is a much, I don't know. I don't know. I've never worked at another company really, but it's compared to other businesses, I think far more complex. So it's hard. It's really actually quite hard for me to live up to Chesky's ideal of like, I think he says like, if the company should only do as many things as the founder can be personally involved in, it's a nice ideal. It doesn't work at my company. We're like in all these different countries and all these different modes of transport that like one person can't actually keep it all in their head. But I tried my hardest. How do you hire differently? What do you look for differently? **Shane Parrish:** And then how do you integrate people differently now as a result of these experiences i **Ryan Petersen:** just like only promote from within except for very rare cases where just like really can't find the person uh and then i spend a lot more time with the new hire i've only hired one person actually from external in the last couple years and i spent just like of time with him and I told him he's not allowed to make any decisions for 90 days how did that play it it was perfect honestly and he even told me like maybe I should have done more time because I remember he told me at like day 88 but no he told me day 91 that if I had let him if I told him 80 days he would have made different decisions than he made. And like even those last 10 days, there was still like learning and taking things in. You have to approach startups. If you're an executive and you're joining a company, you have to approach it with extreme humility. Like these are smart, really smart people. Like some of the smartest people I've ever met have worked come through the doors of Flexport or still work at Flexport. And we've been obsessed with the problems that we're working on for a decade. And like the idea that some big shots could have come in here, this is no knock on any particular person. It's just like a classic. Like what are the odds that anyone could come in and know, you know, on day one do figure out problems that we couldn't think of or solutions that we couldn't think of. It's why like no investor ever gives me useful advice, really. Because like, I'm not sure they can't about people and some high level stuff for sure, or markets, but like business, like strategy, like how could they ever know my business better than me? I obsess about it, like every waking hour. I'm always skeptical **Shane Parrish:** people who run businesses or even government and they contract things out to consultants. And it's like, well, how is that consultant know your business better? That scares me. indictment, yeah. **Ryan Petersen:** PG wrote about that in his founder mode thing. It's like, well, if you're a professional manager, your mindset is that you can run any companies how you go in and in that world, you shouldn't be too involved in all the things because like, hey, you don't you don't know about that particular domain that industry so just trust the people that are already there that your job is kind of babysitting it all but that's not like founder founder mode as they come to be called is like you should know all the stuff **Shane Parrish:** more or less you were at that talk what did you were you inspired by that what did you take away from it what was the moment that really like solidified things for you my god i wish **Ryan Petersen:** i could i wish it was recorded he went on a rant like four out three hours just like he's a very intense guy i took like four or five pages of notes i was definitely like enthralled in the back and like a lot of stuff deeply resonated. But I'm already, yeah, I've shared already some of the specific things. A lot of it is like, yeah, just be way more involved in the day to day. And if the people don't, and do a lot more skip levels, like meet the people who report. Don't trust the managers. Not in a bad way. Hey, like, you know, I'm here to help. Like, actually, I'll, when I go skip level, meaning, go talk to the people who work for, I talk to anyone. I've talked to 40 or 50 people every day on Slack or text or phone at Flexport. And if I talk to somebody who works for you, I'm not, like, trying to undermine you. I'm going to come back to you and be like, here's what they said. Like, here's what I think we need to do. And if the person asks me to keep it confidential, I'll do my best. But ultimately, I try to solve problems together with my exec. So, you know, and if people have a problem thus far, they haven't. But if somebody had a problem with that, I'd be well, --- ### [Promote Internally & Onboard Deeply](https://share.snipd.com/snip/180c0d16-1e47-4b27-8571-ad63a5c1586c) 🎧 57:41 - 59:20 (01:39) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/9b0ded47-9747-4aa7-9c9b-c9cb31fd2b06" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Hire from within almost exclusively to preserve culture and knowledge. - Require new hires significant onboarding time and humility to understand your complex business. #### 💬 Quote > I only hired one person from external in the last couple years and I spent loads of time with him and told him he's not allowed to make decisions for 90 days. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan describing hiring and integrating executives at Flexport #### 📚 Transcript **Shane Parrish:** differently now as a result of these experiences i **Ryan Petersen:** just like only promote from within except for very rare cases where just like really can't find the person uh and then i spend a lot more time with the new hire i've only hired one person actually from external in the last couple years and i spent just like of time with him and I told him he's not allowed to make any decisions for 90 days how did that play it it was perfect honestly and he even told me like maybe I should have done more time because I remember he told me at like day 88 but no he told me day 91 that if I had let him if I told him 80 days he would have made different decisions than he made. And like even those last 10 days, there was still like learning and taking things in. You have to approach startups. If you're an executive and you're joining a company, you have to approach it with extreme humility. Like these are smart, really smart people. Like some of the smartest people I've ever met have worked come through the doors of Flexport or still work at Flexport. And we've been obsessed with the problems that we're working on for a decade. And like the idea that some big shots could have come in here, this is no knock on any particular person. It's just like a classic. Like what are the odds that anyone could come in and know, you know, on day one do figure out problems that we couldn't think of or solutions that we couldn't think of. It's why like no investor ever gives me useful advice, really. Because like, I'm not sure they can't about people and some high level stuff for sure, capital markets, but like business, like strategy, like how could they ever know my business better than me? I obsess about it, like every waking hour. I'm always skeptical --- ### [Track Subcomponents to Cut Tariffs](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65d29d59-fcec-486f-9185-12b770e220dc) 🎧 01:15:42 - 01:18:09 (02:27) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/22286c58-5d8b-403b-98d6-f74b9dd1b811" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Track every subcomponent of imported goods to manage tariff costs and ensure compliance. - Leverage technologies like product libraries to prevent overpaying duties and handle complex trade regulations. #### 💬 Quote > You want to be able to track really every single component of the product. Where is it made? And what is its cost? > — Ryan Petersen Ryan on tariffs and trade compliance strategies #### 📚 Transcript **Ryan Petersen:** down the ability for foreign companies to import or put in new requirements for it. So that's like one creative thing that will happen is you get offered as an importer. You've been buying these goods from your factory. And then all of a sudden they offer them to you for way cheaper than the duty alone. You're like, yeah, it's not my problem. I just bought it in the U.S. Guarantee you like you are reliable for that. Like as a warning, look at the camera. UFCP DOJ has announced that their number two priority in white collar crime division of the Department of Justice is customs fraud. Healthcare fraud is number one, and then customs fraud number two. **Shane Parrish:** Are there any other creative strategies we can sort of put out there in the world today that you've seen not your customers use? Yeah, well, the good **Ryan Petersen:** strategies, let's not talk about the illegal ones anymore. I mean, but be careful, make sure you're getting good advice, is have that database, know all the subcomponents. There's a few things like valuation. There's a thing called first sale. I won't bore you all with the technicalities of it, but it's called first sale, which basically says that you pay the value of the goods based on the first time it was sold, not the price that you paid at import. So there's legal ways to do that. If you bought it, like there was a middleman or an agent that bought it in China and marked it up to you, you can actually import the goods at the price they paid, not the price you paid. You can deduct the portion, if you file it all correctly, and don't quote me on this because you want to get good legal advice, including from a sports team, but you can deduct the portion that's U.S. made. But you don't just get to automatically do that. You to file all the right paperwork and stuff. And then importantly, if you import something, you pay duties, and then you later export a product with the same classification, you're owed a refund on that first pass. **Shane Parrish:** Okay. You get your import back, the imported duties you pay. **Ryan Petersen:** Yeah. And so every year in the United States, $7 billion goes unclaimed. And that was pre these new tariffs. So it's presumably much higher. Yeah. So we help companies with that. We've been getting people like big checks back that haven't, and you can go back five years in time. So that's like a really important one. If you haven't done, it's called duty drawback. If you haven't done that and other countries offer this to most countries. So yeah, there's a lot of strategies. In fact, the one thing that people should really know is your data on all your past transactions with the U.S. or with U.S. Customs are your, it's your data. You have the right to it under the Freedom of Information Act. So you can pull your last five years of transactions from CBP. Now they won't, they give it to you in a very unusable format. I think like giant CSV dump basically, maybe even on CDs, I forget, but they give you like this. --- ### [Choose Your Bottleneck Wisely](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9bb6d2b6-e7b2-405b-86d1-add4df53a165) 🎧 01:21:58 - 01:26:23 (04:25) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/ad33089f-48c4-4d39-8f6a-f1e16387fd86" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - The bottleneck in operations should be customer demand, not internal constraints. - Companies must identify and control bottlenecks intentionally to maintain smooth workflow and customer satisfaction. #### 💬 Quote > When you're designing an operation, you're choosing your bottleneck. If it appears somewhere, you didn't choose it. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan explains operations management and bottlenecks #### 📚 Transcript **Ryan Petersen:** on like big government data sets. **Shane Parrish:** One of the things that you said that I came across that really stood out for me was when you're designing an operation, you're choosing your bottleneck. If the bottleneck appears somewhere, you didn't choose it. You aren't running an operation. It's running you. Double click on that for a moment. **Ryan Petersen:** Bottleneck is going to be, you know, the point, the choke point, the point at which the, um, the limiting factor. And I think you're in a, in a company, your bottleneck should always be customer demand. Should never be like bottleneck. Oh, I can't right now. We're bottlenecked in our customs team, our trade advisory team, the people that are helping solve these problems that I was describing around how much dues you owe and how to minimize it, how be compliant. That team is super bottleneck. didn't plan for a world that would require this much expert headcount. And it's hard to find these types of people that really know the space. So we're bottlenecked in a place that we didn't plan. The bottleneck should be, I don't have enough customers wanting my thing. You'd like that to be in a B2B environment. That should be the bottleneck but if it shows up somewhere else yeah i'm not in control right now it feels very uncomfortable i'm though i want i don't want to just hire more people especially if it's not if it's a temporary surge so what uh it feels out of control as it um and we need to get get our handle on that and i i hate that i want my problem always to be like oh i need to be more creative in my marketing and sales and like work on the pitch and the user experience and the things there and so yeah if you're bottlenecked and how much space we've had a number of it this has been we've had bottlenecks move all over the place during covid and since um how much space there is on ships there's been a bottleneck for us even as recently as last couple weeks with this huge surge of new bookings following the relaxation of the terrace. That's not right. Like there should not be a bottleneck for I can't get cargo loaded on a ship and therefore I can't help the customer or the customer's getting this huge delay and getting loaded and getting their cargo delivered. It is a fact of the industry right now, but that bottleneck shouldn't be in a warehouse environment. You know, you've got a picture of this flow of goods at the loading dock. You can choose where to put the bottleneck in the flow of those goods. loading dock, unload, put away, pick, pack, outbound, you know, and ship again. And the way that Amazon does this, as I understand it, is they try to make the bottleneck the most capital-intensive piece, and then they over-stack it so that there's plenty of capacity on that. Whatever the machine is probably that is capital-intensive, it requires a lot of capital and I have like lots and lots of that machine so that that way they're never, it just keeps flowing the goods. You don't hit the bottleneck. You don't actually hit it. And if you do, it's because, oh, okay. Didn't, nothing I could do there is like more capital needed rather than if it's labor, you're like, cool, just throw more labor at it. That should never be the bottleneck. It's only where, oh, I need a lot more capital here, even than I planned. And then they over-invest in CapEx so they don't hit the bottleneck. Because **Shane Parrish:** you want the most asset-intense part **Ryan Petersen:** sweating **Shane Parrish:** just nonstop. **Ryan Petersen:** Yeah, the asset-intense part should be operating. No, but you should have excess capacity there. That way you don't get stuck with this machine holding you back. Like you have an extra machine. But that's a strategy for people with a lot of capex. That's Amazon's model, but plenty of capex. And I'm not sure that they do it right. Like one of the things that they do that pisses off their merchants is they have this endless line of trucks at the warehouse they can't unload. They've pushed the bottleneck off into the unload piece, the loading docks and truckers and can't get appointments and stuff so i think that'd be wrong in that framework that like they should allow the goods to flow through it's a it's fascinating world of like uh you know wd w.e deming is the um kind of business philosopher of quality he's written a lot on um statistical process control and creating even flow through a system that you don't want to have these spikes of flow because it makes planning really hard and labor and assets or people become idle. You don't want any variants. Yeah. Eliminating variants is like Lean Six Sigma type stuff'm it's one of these things that doesn't come naturally to me --- ### [Key To Success: Dumb Competition](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ae9caebe-bb7c-4558-ba9e-cb4a0e73a60f) 🎧 01:28:24 - 01:31:39 (03:15) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/6304a085-b85b-4552-b7dc-f2db51e7173b" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Success depends on competing where rivals are weak, not where they're strongest. - It's smarter to apply strengths in less contested domains rather than face top-tier competitors head-on. #### 💬 Quote > Charlie told me... the key to success is dumb competition. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan sharing lessons learned from Charlie Munger #### 📚 Transcript **Shane Parrish:** I got to become friendly with Munger towards the, with Charlie, towards the end of his life. I to his 99th birthday party that last year, actually, **Ryan Petersen:** um, before he passed. I got lucky. I got, in fact, his, um, the person I'm closer with is Peter Kaufman, who's the author of, uh, Poor Charlie's Almanac. And that's like one of my favorite books. And when I lived in China, I got a copy of that book. And really, it's like a coffee table, but Stripe just re-released a copy of it. It's now available in print again. It used to be kind of out of print. And I had that book and I loved it. It really inspired me. Munger has this really wonderful essay, which I actually discovered on the Y Combinator website called The Art of Worldly Wisdom or something to that effect. If you Google Munger Worldly Wisdom, you'll find it. And it's a speech that he gave at USC. It's a graduation speech. We'll link to it in the show. Yeah, you should link to it. It's wonderful. And it's about this idea that there's like 300 domains in the world of knowledge, 300, it's kind of an arbitrary, I don't remember he says 300 or not, but there's some number of limited quantity of domains. in each of these, are two or three big ideas that carry all the 80% of the freight, as he said it. And so if you were to go and learn those two or three big ideas from each of the disciplines, up your alley, I'm sure you've written about this before. You have all these mental models and you have lots of stuff to hang things on. And then also a lot of the innovation in the world comes from taking an idea from one domain and applying it elsewhere, a mental model from one applying it elsewhere. So I learned about this when I was like 25 or so living in China. And that really set me off on a lifetime journey of like trying to read, like learn as many of these domains as I could, just try to be worldly wise. And so I, I, I loved that. It really inspired me. And then one day I was at a party at a house in Silicon Valley, not like a fun party, but like, you know, gathering a cocktail event or something. And, um, I didn't know anybody. And I, this older guys, older gentleman was there and I struck up, he struck up a conversation. He saw me not talking to anyone or something. We started talking to each other. And he, at some point asked me what my favorite book was. I told him, oh, it's poor Charlie's almanac. And because he's like, why do you like that book? And I told him all this. And he's like, well, I know that book really well, actually. I'm the author of that book, uh, Kaufman and so he's like one of Munger's really good friends for many many years and he's the one that put together this almanac so he just thought that was so funny that he started bringing me to Charlie's house and like tell Charlie the story one of my favorite things that Charlie told me at one of these dinners at his house was when I told him about Flexport, he was like, oh, you had a great business because the key to success is dumb competition, which that's kind of insulting. We have some really smart competitors, but I always say that to people who are like building AI companies. It's just like, what a nightmare. Your competitors are literally AI geniuses. Like you should find a way to apply AI in some other domain. So you're not competing with the smartest people on planet earth. Cause like the odd, it's like trying to be a boxer. Like you're gonna, you might beat all the people in your local gym, but at some point you're going to run into somebody bigger, stronger, faster, John Jones or somebody you're going to kick your --- ### [Worldly Wisdom For Innovation](https://share.snipd.com/snip/70847b82-9ae8-409b-a1d3-d6a6dec67ca4) 🎧 01:36:20 - 01:37:56 (01:36) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a42e2c05-4c0a-43cf-b02a-f78c9405876e" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Applying ideas from diverse disciplines fuels innovation and understanding. - Learning key principles from multiple domains builds effective mental models for problem-solving. #### 💬 Quote > There's like 300 domains in the world of knowledge... each has two or three big ideas that carry all the 80% of the freight. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan on influence from Charlie Munger and mental models #### 📚 Transcript **Ryan Petersen:** just generally Peter's whole thing is, um, is the worldly wisdom ideas, taking ideas from biology and physics. And what's his other one is the formula for kinetic energy. It's one half of mass times velocity squared. We use velocity as like our main word at Flexport velocity. Go deeper on that **Shane Parrish:** because velocity matters more because it's it's power log right from **Ryan Petersen:** the kinetic energy formula it's a square function and mass is only a linear and so this is why um in football american football is hitting so hard knocking often it seems like this little guy can just like create more way more energy well they are they their velocity they're running really fast yeah it's more important than how big you are is how fast you're moving and now velocity is different from physics than speed velocity has a vector so you got to go in the right direction in business but it also it's kind of an explanation for why startups outcompete big companies have way more mass but they start to become slow and bureaucratic **Shane Parrish:** and three guys in the garage can often outcompete. It's interesting to sort of visualize as like the incumbent being fat and you being, you know, skinny and quick and agile. And you kind of want to run upstairs and it sucks for you, but it really sucks for them. Yeah. That's how I sort of think about that. Yeah. Like, how do you, how can you cause pain in a way that like, it's going to suck for you, but it sucks more for them. What are some things that you got from Peter? Well, the go positive, go first thing is just such an unlock in life. And the demonstration, like I'd never talked to him or sort of like had any conversations with --- ### [Velocity Beats Mass in Business](https://share.snipd.com/snip/422d9a61-5480-496b-acac-bb93ca1e55d8) 🎧 01:36:35 - 01:37:38 (01:03) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/2b813bb6-d390-4d5a-b7ba-591ad2147a60" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Velocity matters more than mass in business success, paralleling kinetic energy's formula. - Startups win by being fast and agile, even though incumbents have more resources. #### 💬 Quote > Velocity is like kinetic energy and mass is linear. Velocity squared dominates, so speed and direction beat size. > — Ryan Petersen Ryan explaining the importance of velocity in startups #### 📚 Transcript **Ryan Petersen:** We use velocity as like our main word at Flexport velocity. Go deeper on that **Shane Parrish:** because velocity matters more because it's it's power log right from **Ryan Petersen:** the kinetic energy formula it's a square function and mass is only a linear and so this is why um in football american football is hitting so hard knocking often it seems like this little guy can just like create more way more energy well they are they their velocity they're running really fast yeah it's more important than how big you are is how fast you're moving and now velocity is different from physics than speed velocity has a vector so you got to go in the right direction in business but it also it's kind of an explanation for why startups outcompete big companies have way more mass but they start to become slow and bureaucratic **Shane Parrish:** and three guys in the garage can often outcompete. It's interesting to sort of visualize as like the incumbent being fat and you being, you know, skinny and quick and agile. And you kind of want to run upstairs and it sucks for you, but it really sucks for them. Yeah. That's how I sort of think --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts