Ted Turner

The pre-mortem: why will this have failed 6 months from now?

Shaan's decision-making habit: imagine fast-forwarding 6-12 months to a future where the project has failed, ask what the most likely reason would be, write it down now, and start working on it immediately, then revisit to see what he was right or wrong about.

“What's the, 6 months from now, if we fast forward to there and it's failed, what's the most likely reason I'd be giving you over a beer when we're like, dude, what happened? That was great. And then I write that down now and I start to work on it now.”

Steal thisRun a pre-mortem on every project: name the most likely failure reason 6 months out, write it down, and start mitigating it today.

The Hustle hit ~$1 million a month in sales

Sam reveals he grew his company to roughly $1 million per month in revenue before realizing he was a poor manager and needed to hand off operations.

“I did a pretty good job of getting us to about $1 million a month in sales.”

Ted Turner recorded a goodbye tape for when the world ends

Sam shares how Ted Turner built CNN as the first 24-hour news network and was so committed to never going off air that he pre-recorded a goodbye segment to play only when the world ends. Turner started on third base with family wealth but parlayed it into CNN, TBS, and becoming one of America's largest landowners.

“It's going to be a 24-hour news network. And the only time we're going to go quick, go off air is when the world ends. So we recorded the like a goodbye segment. It's like the world's about to end. We thank you for tuning in.”