Podcast Of The Week: The Best Businesses Almost Spin Out Of Control

There was an abundance of great podcasts this week, but the top pick has to be Vaughn Tan on the Invest Like The Best Podcast (ep. 150) with Patrick O’Shaughnessy. It’s a beautifully sprawling conversation. Tan’s work on quality and innovation, particularly in the restaurant industry is like Clayton Christensen (disruptive innovation) meets Brunello Cucinelli (work with dignity). He’s looking at the speed and time by which a new dish or process can be designed, implemented, and then alive for – with success or failure.

One of the biggest takeaways is how the best businesses and opportunities often start by almost spinning out of control. They’re terrifying, exhausting, and exciting at the same time. We all can relate. These stressful periods are where changes start to compound on each other. In most cases, the biggest and most successful changes only look massive on the outside, while on the inside they were a part of a complex sequence of events. There’s also a ton of “California Roll Theory” embedded here.

Vaughn Tan is an important thinker – being a fly on the wall as O’Shaughnessy throws interesting questions (and his own insightful additions!) is priceless. Check it out.

Honorable mentions (there really was an abundance this week):

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant with Tom Ferriss.

Economic philosopher Gerd Gigerenzer on EconTalk discussing gut feelings.

Comedian Jeff Garlin on The Moment with Brian Koppelman.

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea on the Broken Record Podcast being interviewees by Malcolm Gladwell.

BluegrassCap on The Acquirers Podcast with Toby Carlisle discussing unit costs (if you like customer acquisition cost and lifetime value of client calculations and analysis, don’t miss this one).

I’ll stop there, but man – what a great week for content!