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David Perell

@david_perell

Aug 27

Kobe Bryant spent 15 years writing every day because he wanted to become the next Walt Disney.

Now, Jimmy Soni is telling that story.

The first part of our conversation is Kobe’s secret obsession with writing. Then we got into why Michael Lewis once wrote under a pen name, why the publishing industry is broken, and why Jimmy loves writing with AI.

Highlights:

1. The world is a conspiracy designed to prevent you from writing.

2. Jimmy sees himself in a battle against that world to find four hours per day to do focused writing.

3. “I’m researching” is often an excuse not to write. People spend decades researching books they never write, and it’s a writers' job to come up with ways to get research done without falling down a black hole.

4. Using AI to write is like using a very sharp knife to cook. The tool might make it easier, but you still have to cook the meal.

5. If you can’t out-write the AI, what are you doing writing in the first-place?

6. Find a Model Book to serve as the "plaster cast" for the book you’re writing and study it obsessively. Jimmy wanted his book, “The Founders” to be like “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone, and read it more than 20 times to understand what made it so good.

7. People think that being a professional writer means going to a lot of cocktail parties. Nope... the reality is that the craft of writing involves showing up to work every day, putting away the distractions, and focusing for many, many hours. You go to bed early, you wake up early, you get your work done. Do it every day for months in a row and you’ll have a book.

8. A problem with traditional publishing is that the entire system is predicated on your book being a hit within the first two weeks. If it’s not, publishers largely give up and move onto something else.

9. What looks like a talent gap is often just a focus gap. Amateur writers severely underestimate just how much time and effort goes into great books.

10. A/B test the cover art for your book. It’s so easy, so cheap, and the saying is true: People judge a book by its cover.

11. Before Michael Lewis was “Michael Lewis,” he wrote under the pen name of Diana Bleecker because he was writing about Wall Street while working on Wall Street, and didn’t want people to know who he was.

12. Michael Lewis was an art history major at Princeton, and once recounted that a lot of Renaissance-era paintings look quite similar. But if you want to see the idiosyncrasies, look at the toenails. That’s where the artists would lose their steam or put in the most individuality, so they’re some of the most distinctive parts of the art. Many fields have an equivalent — a place where you can find hidden answers, if only you know where to look.

13. Ambition is fuel that can burn relatively clean for a little while, only to become dirty later on. Jimmy says: “For the true greats, the sustained motivation needs to come from something deeper. It needs to come from love. That’s the only sustaining force there is.”

14. Kobe built his own publishing company because he didn’t feel like the big publishing houses could deliver the level of quality he demanded.

15. Kobe once spent two weeks redesigning the barcode on one of his books because he wanted it to blend more fluidly with the back cover design (no traditional publisher would do something like this).

I've shared the full conversation with Jimmy Soni below. The first ~25 minutes are about Kobe Bryant. The rest is about a hodgepodge of other topics.

If you'd rather watch the full thing on YouTube or listen on Apple / Spotify, check out the links in the reply tweets.

Links...

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jim…

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0GDs9K…

YouTube

youtube.com/watch?v=mqupPp…

Kobe Bryant started his own publishing company because he didn't think the traditional ones met his quality bar.

And he was as obsessive about publishing as he was about basketball: he once spent two weeks with his team redesigning the barcode on a book because he wanted it to more fluidly blend in with the rest of the design.

At every part of the process, he'd ask: What's the highest quality thing we can do?

Read 6 tweets

David Perell

@david_perell

Jul 16

Alain de Botton has written ~17 books and runs the School of Life YouTube channel, which now has almost 10 million subscribers. And this is a rare interview for him.

Some highlights:

1. A clear night sky is a challenge to everything we think we know.

2. If we really took on board what that night sky is telling us, we'd have to lie down and just question absolutely everything.

3. Writer's block is a conflict between shame and the desire for honesty.

4. The effect of mass media is to industrialize and commercialize our thinking, which leaves no room for the free thinker, the honest thinker, and the authentic thinker.

5. You've got to be attentive to your own sensations and thoughts. That's the real work of writing.

6. Every person is an incredible library of sensations but so often, particularly in the academic world, people think: “Let’s ignore ourselves as a source of data and find out what Cicero said, or what Socrates said, or what Michel Foucault said."

7. Writing can be revenge for the silenced person, which is why so many writers are meek in person but fierce on the page.

8. A work of art is the best thing you can do with your dislocation and distress, and sometimes, it’s even an alternative to losing your mind.

9. Emerson said: "In the minds of geniuses, we find our own neglected thoughts."

10. The thoughts of geniuses aren’t fundamentally different from others. It’s just that they’re able to put words to sensations we’ve long felt but couldn’t articulate.

11. Writing prompt: If there were no rules, if you couldn't fail, if no one was going to laugh, if you were going to be dead tomorrow, what would you actually do and say? How would you write, let's say? That's the thing you should write.

I've shared the full conversation with Alain de Botton below. You can watch here or on YouTube, and listen on Apple or Spotify. You'll find the links in the reply tweets.

Watch on YouTube

If we knew the complexity of the world, we'd know that we need hours and hours to process every waking minute.

George Eliot said something like: "If we were truly attentive to the mystery and complexity of things, we would hear the squirrel's heartbeat and would hear the grass grow. And we'd go mad from the multiplicity of things. We'd lose our minds."

Now that's a paraphrase but the point stands. Can you imagine what it'd be like to hear the heartbeats of squirrels? We repress those things. They're in us, but we don't pay attention to them because, if we were alive to all that's going on in the world, we'd lose ourselves.

Read 8 tweets

David Perell

@david_perell

May 7

Dean Koontz has published more than 140 novels, 74 works of short fiction, and sold more than 500 million books.

Simply put, he’s one of the most prolific writers alive today. Some highlights from our chat:

1. Dare to love the English language.

2. Characters come alive when they're given free will. Instead of constraining them in an outline, let them go where they want. You know they’re alive once they start surprising you. He says: “I give the characters free will like God gave it to us.”

3. Everything a writer believes about life and death, culture and society, relationships and the self, God and nature will wind up in their books. A writer’s body of work, therefore, reveals the intellectual and emotional progress of its creator, and over time, becomes a map of their soul.

4. To think you understand the world is to be foolish in the extreme. The world is too complex for us to understand it. To see reality clearly is to be utterly enchanted by its staggering complexity.

5. Where should you look? Well, the supernatural enters the world in mundane ways, and rarely the great and glorious flashes of drama.

6. Dean writes his novels page-by-page, and doesn’t move onto the next page until he nails the existing one. There’s no messy first draft. Because of that, he’s basically done with his novels once he finishes the final page.

7. Where does a unique writing voice come from? Three places: style, perspective, and a philosophy of life.

8. Be skeptical of conventional wisdom. There’s an encyclopedia of common wisdom in publishing. All of it is common and none of it is wise. You have to become aware of that, go your own way, and just stick with it because there are so many ways you can be sent wrong based on "that's the way we always do it."

9. The aesthetic plainness of contemporary writing (and culture at large) is crushing our souls.

10. Contemporary fiction is suffering from plainness in particular. It started when writers started imitating Hemingway (who stripped his prose down but kept the mystery and underlying strangeness of the world by implication). But the imitations that came later stripped the prose down while also removing the underlying depth that made Hemingway so great.

11. Koontz Law of Writing #1: Never go inside more than one character's mind in a scene. Each one should come from a singular viewpoint.

12. Koontz Law of Writing #2: Metaphors aren't meant to dazzle readers, but to seduce them into a more intimate relationship with the story.

13. Koontz Law of Writing #3: Metaphors and similes describe a scene more colorfully than a chain of adjectives — while reinforcing the mood. The point is that you can create depth by describing things metaphorically instead of using blunt adjectives. That’s what poetry does: it uses words to say more than the word itself says, which creates a mood.

14. Great prose doesn't come from piling on adjectives. It comes from finding the perfect metaphor that does triple duty: describes the scene, reinforces the mood, and reveals something about the character.

15. The goal is for metaphors not to pop out like showmanship, but to flow into the music of the language.

16. Develop an ear for the musicality of language.

17. A book can succeed with a mediocre plot if the characters are compelling. Character is the center of good fiction. If the characters work, the story works.

18. From the afterword of his book, Watchers: “We have within us the ability to change for the better and to find dignity as individuals rather than as drones in one mass movement or another. We have the ability to love, the need to be loved, and the willingness to put our own lives on the line to protect those we love, and it is in these aspects of ourselves that we can glimpse the face of God; and through the exercise of these qualities, we come closest to a Godlike state.”

I've shared the full conversation with @deankoontz below.

The YouTube video link is in the replies, and so are the links to Apple and Spotify.

Watch the full thing on YouTube

Listen to the interview...

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dea…

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/5TzjVZ…

Read 4 tweets

David Perell

@david_perell

Mar 5

The world of writing has changed forever.

AI is getting really good, really fast. ChatGPT is already a better writer than most humans and some professional writers. So, what’s the future of writing?

18 thoughts from Tyler Cowen:

1) Don't let AI smooth out your idiosyncrasies. Let your writing stay weird and uniquely yours.

2) Generic content is dying and the burden is on you as the writer to be distinctive.

3) The more personal your writing becomes, the more future-proof it is. Nobody wants to read memoirs from AI, even if they're technically "better."

4) Use AI as your secondary literature when you read — not just for quick answers, but as a thinking companion. As Tyler puts it, "I'll keep on asking the AI: 'What do you think of chapter two? What happened there? What are some puzzles?' It just gets me thinking... and I'm smarter about the thing in the final analysis."

5) Hallucinations aren't the crisis everyone makes them out to be. No matter the source, if you're going to use a piece of information, you should double-check it. This is true for both books and AI.

6) Secrets will become more valuable in an AI-driven world.

7) One way to use AI as a writer is to research fields you aren't as familiar with before you start writing about them. Tyler said: "I just wrote a column about declassifying classified documents. I don't know that law very well. I asked the AI for a lot of background... now I feel like I'm not an idiot on the topic."

8) AI changes what books are even worth writing. "Predictive books and books about the near future. They don't make sense to write anymore."

9) Editing trick: Try running your writing through AI and asking what some people might find obnoxious. It’s a surprisingly powerful editing trick.

10) When prompting AI, put humans out of your mind and imagine you're talking to an alien or a non-human animal.

11) Many of the most significant AI advancements are likely happening behind closed doors. For example, I hear that Google allows employees to use Gemini with virtually unlimited context windows.

12) What possibilities do large context windows open up? Researchers will be able to load entire regulatory frameworks, historical archives, or massive datasets like "tax records from Renaissance Florence" into a single query.

13) The rate of AI improvement matters more than its current capabilities. As Tyler puts it, "This is the worst they will ever be" is key to understanding their trajectory. "A lot of people don't get that. They're impressed by what they see in the moment, but they don't understand the rate of improvement."

14) The best way to appreciate the current rate of improvement is to use the latest models.

15) Being non-technical can sometimes be an advantage when thinking about AI. Here’s Tyler: "If you're not focused on the technical side, you will see other things more clearly... You just focus on what is this actually good for? And not, am I impressed by all the neat bells and whistles on this advance with AI?"

16) How Tyler uses AI to prep for podcast interviews: Don't waste time asking AI for generic interview questions or broad topics. Tyler says that's the worst question you can ask an AI. It’s “too normy.” Instead, ask specific questions about historical examples and get context. Then, let your own creative questions emerge.

17) Your relationship with mentors and peers becomes more crucial, not less, in an AI world. "Two pieces of general advice with or without AI in the world." Tyler says: "Get more and better mentors and work every day at improving the quality of your peer network."

18) The divide between AI and humans creates a striking paradox. As Tyler puts it: "On one hand the AIs are getting so much better, so learn how to use the AIs. On the other hand, the AIs are getting so much better, so invest in these other things that aren't AI—pure networks. You've gotta do both."

I've shared the full conversation with @TylerCowen below.

In the replies, I've also linked to a full transcript and relevant links to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts if you want to listen there. And if you want a bite-size entry to the episode, I've shared some clips in the replies too.

Watch the podcast on YouTube

Listen to the episode...

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tyl…

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/7bLxn6…

Read 5 tweets

David Perell

@david_perell

Oct 3, 2024

Announcing: Writing Examples

Today is launch day! We built this website to celebrate great writing.

It’s 100% free. Each article deconstructs a piece of writing from an iconic writer. The goal is to give you X-Ray vision into what makes sentences and paragraphs come alive (so that you can improve at your craft).

Every example has an analysis of why the writing works. Analytical often means dry. But instead of going technical, we’ve gone technicolor. There are text-explainers, summary graphics, and videos that come together to make the writing instruction lively and multi-dimensional.

It’s a place where you can discover how great writing comes together. Where we lift up the hood and see the mechanics in action. It isn’t about giving you a set of rules to follow. It’s about showing the diversity of ways writers approach their craft, so you can develop your own style.

What are some of the articles about? You’ll learn how to describe a party like F. Scott Fitzgerald, how to tell a story like George Orwell, how to write a speech like John F. Kennedy. There are other articles inspired by the likes of John Steinbeck, James Clear, Winston Churchill, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Steven Pressfield, and Jerry Seinfeld.

Writing Examples is a crusade against the sterility of contemporary writing. So much of the advice you read says the same thing: “Be direct. Cut the fluff. Get to the point. Stick to short sentences.” And yeah, sure, this advice has merit. It’s useful in certain cases, but the problem is writers take these rules to be universal, which has homogenized writing styles. Even in my own writing, there’ve been so many times where I’ve stripped away my own voice in the name of “correctness.” I regret that.

The truth is, there is no one way to write well, just as there is no one way to speak well. The way you speak in a boardroom is different from the way you speak on a first date, which is different from the way you speak with your childhood best friends. Writing is similar.

Writing Examples is the opposite of Grammarly. It celebrates the wild, wacky, and the weird because it’s the bedrock of personality. The site’s explicit purpose is to inject some High Noon Chutzpah back into the world of writing. To teach you how to write with distinctly human fingerprints in a world that’s about to be flooded with AI-generated content.

Forget playing it safe. That’s the most dangerous thing you can do in a world of instant writing. I want you to write with personality. I want you to play with punctuation. I want you to ditch the corporatized hogwash. I want to expand your sense of what great writing can be. And I want you to have fun doing it.

But there’s more to the mission. Writing Examples is a protest against today’s Internet, where people spend the majority of their time reading ad-polluted articles and doom-scrolling the same few social media sites. Remember when we used to surf the Internet? When every site was its own wave to ride? Now, we’re like phone-addicted zombies, we mindlessly scroll Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram until we feel bad about ourselves — only to repeat the cycle a few hours later.

Writing Examples is different. Heartfelt writing deserves a heartfelt presentation, so every element of the site has been designed from scratch. Energetically, we wanted to honor the gravitas of classic writing without the sleepiness of a drab old library shelf. We said no to ads. We said no to pop-ups. No hijacking your attention. None of the flat white backgrounds that make the Internet feel so homogenous. And we said no to anything that feels like your 5th-grade English class.

Writing Examples isn’t about what’s trending. It’s about learning from the great writers of times past, most of whom you know, many of whom you probably haven’t taken the time to read.

The ultimate goal is to make Writing Examples a one-stop shop to learn about any kind of writing you can think of.

Now, I dare you to dive into the site and get to work.

Here's the full site

WritingExamples.com

How to Title a Book (@JamesClear)

Atomic Habits has sold 20 million copies and was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in 2021 and 2023.

It’s found a permanent place on the recommended shelf of just about every airport bookstore, and its success indicates that people do judge books by their covers. Is it any coincidence that it has the perfect cover for a self-improvement book?

Let’s start with the title. It achieves what Hollywood writers call “Fresh Familiar.” People know about habits, but the phrase “Atomic Habits” promises an unfamiliar twist. The title is short too. It’s easy to say and easy to remember, which makes it easy to share in conversation.

The phrase isn’t just fresh and familiar though. It’s also the ultimate distillation of what the book is about. The word ‘atomic’ has three meanings:

1. Tiny: Like an atom, because the big changes people want come out of many small actions.

2. The fundamental unit in a larger system: Habits are the building blocks of your life.

3. A source of immense energy: Habits may be small, but when you combine them, they have serious power — like an atomic bomb.

That list doubles as a summary of the book: If you (1) make tiny changes and (2) layer them together like units in a larger system, then (3) you will achieve powerful results.

When somebody is thinking about buying a self-help book, they'll ask two questions: “How will my life improve?” and “Will this method work for me?” The sentence at the bottom, right above James’s name, answers these questions. Every salesperson knows that you can build trust by proactively speaking to people's objections. Calling this method “easy” lowers the barrier to entry, and calling it “proven” gives people the security that others have already been successful with it. All this analysis happens subconsciously.

Then, there’s the typography. Font size dictates the sequence that people will read the cover. They’ll read the big words first, then the smaller ones. This one works because everything reinforces itself. Each layer expands on the one before it. As the font gets smaller, the sentences get longer and more concrete, which clarify the promise of the book.

Writing a best-selling book begins with clear and distinct packaging, and the cover of Atomic Habits is as good as it gets.

Read 11 tweets

David Perell

@david_perell

Sep 25, 2024

The Sam Altman Interview

You know him as the CEO of OpenAI — but he's also an avid writer.

We spoke not once but twice about how Sam captures ideas, clarifies his thinking, edits his writing, decides what to work on, and uses ChatGPT.

Timestamps:

1:47 Will LLMs change how we write?
8:39 How does Sam use ChatGPT?
11:26 How Sam became less anxious
17:24 Sam once dreamed of being a novelist
18:37 Lessons from Peter Thiel
21:35 Lessons from Paul Graham
26:02 The book Sam Altman wants to write
28:37 Advice for startup founders
30:20 How Y Combinator shapes OpenAI
35:55 How Sam chose to work on AGI
37:35 Writing strategy memos at OpenAI
41:34 Why isn’t ChatGPT a better storyteller?
44:20 Sam's obsessive note-taking method
47:12 Will AI put writers out of work?