Podcasts · Business · Technology

The Knowledge Project

Shane Parrish

292 episodes

Uncovering the timeless principles that drive success.

More about the show

Hosted by Shane Parrish (entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and author), the goal of each episode is simply to master the best of what other people have already figured out.

Learn More:

Timeless insights into business and life in 5 minutes a week: https://fs.blog/newsletter

Shane's Books: https://fs.blog/books

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. The Science of Doing Your Best Work

    · 1 h 06 min

    Steven Kotler is a bestselling author and the executive director of the Flow Research Collective, where he studies the science of peak performance. Most of us have felt it. Hours disappear, everything else fades away,…

  2. How to Get People to Say Yes | Ryan Serhant

    · 56 min

    Ryan Serhant is a real estate broker, founder of SERHANT., and star of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing New York and Netflix’s Owning Manhattan. He explains how to sell without making people feel sold to: build a…

  3. Charlie Munger's Interview with Todd Combs

    · 48 min

    I'm excited to share this previously unreleased 2022 conversation between Charlie Munger and Todd Combs. As with any Munger talk, the subjects are both deep and wide. You'll learn how Munger recognized people worth…

  4. Bill Ackman: The Biggest Fight of His Life

    · 1 h 18 min

    Bill Ackman is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, one of the most closely watched investment firms in the world. In this conversation, he breaks down how he tells the difference between real…

  5. Tobi Lütke: The Skills AI Makes More Valuable

    · 1 h 06 min

    Shopify founder and CEO Tobi Lütke joins Shane Parrish to discuss AI agents, better decision-making, and the future of work. He explains how he uses an AI council to examine his hardest decisions and why taste,…

  6. The 12 Years that Changed Steve Jobs

    · 1 h 04 min

    We all know the Steve Jobs who came back in the late 1990s and saved Apple from becoming a footnote. And we've all heard the story of how, in 1985, he was pushed out of the company he'd created. What we don't know is…

  7. Make Better Decisions by Fixing Yourself First | Roblox Co-founder and CEO David Baszucki

    · 47 min

    David Baszucki is the co-founder and CEO of Roblox, a platform built around a simple idea: give people the tools and incentives to create together. In this short conversation we discuss how a health decision saved his…

  8. The Mindset Behind Building a Great Little Business | Brad Jacobs

    · 1 h 40 min

    This summer, I’m revisiting one of my favorite episodes. If you haven’t heard it, now is the time. If you have, it’s a classic and worth listening to again. Brad Jacobs has built eight billion-dollar companies,…

  9. John D. Rockefeller: The Principles Behind The Greatest Fortune in History

    · 2 h 56 min

    John D. Rockefeller became the richest man the world had ever known by thinking differently about business, competition, and family. This episode isn’t just the story of Standard Oil. It’s about the principles that…

  10. The Price of Excellence Most People Won’t Pay | Kaz Nejatian

    · 55 min

    No company decides to fail. It drifts there one comfortable lie at a time. Kaz Nejatian took over Opendoor when it was just months away from bankruptcy and set out to rebuild it from the ground up. What happened next…

  11. The Mindset That Unlocks Your Full Potential | Dr. Gio Valiante

    · 1 h 09 min

    Steve Cohen and Jack Nicklaus shared the same performance coach. For the next hour, he’s yours too. Dr. Gio Valiante is the world’s leading performance psychologist. We discuss why most people never reach their…

  12. How to Repair and Nourish Your Gut | Dr. Giulia Enders

    · 56 min

    Dr. Giulia Enders has changed the way millions of people think about the human body. As a physician, microbiome researcher, and bestselling author, she has spent years studying the surprising role the gut plays in…

  13. Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley

    · 1 h 02 min

    Bill Gurley spent years on Wall Street, built his career as a partner at Benchmark, worked through Uber’s hypergrowth era, and now serves on the board of the Santa Fe Institute, where he studies complexity and systems…

  14. You Don’t Need To Innovate To Be Successful | FarmVille Creator

    · 1 h 10 min

    Mark Pincus is the creator behind Farmville and Words with Friends. He built Zynga into one of the biggest gaming companies in the world and helped shape the early era of social products on the internet. In this…

  15. The Hyundai Founder Who Put a Country on His Back

    · 2 h 20 min

    Chung Ju-yung built Hyundai because he refused to be stopped. He is known for turning Hyundai into an industrial force that helped transform South Korea. The company built highways, ships, cars, and entire industries.…

  16. Speed, Stress, and Better Decisions | Winston Weinberg

    · 1 h 04 min

    Winston Weinberg is the CEO and co-founder of Harvey, the AI platform built for the legal industry. In this episode, Winston explains how AI is reshaping legal work, why judgment becomes more valuable as routine work…

  17. Greg Brockman: How to Stay Valuable as AI Gets Smarter

    · 1 h 13 min

    In 2023, OpenAI’s board fired Sam Altman and told Greg Brockman he would remain at the company. He quit that day. In this conversation with Shane Parrish, OpenAI’s co-founder recounts the crisis: the board call, the…

  18. The Magic of Thinking Big | XPO CEO Mario Harik

    · 1 h 39 min

    Mario Harik is the CEO of XPO, one of the largest trucking companies in the world, and leads a team of 40,000 people across a multi‑billion‑dollar operation. He started as employee #3, trained under Brad Jacobs (who’s…

  19. Alpha School: AI and The Future of Education | Joe Liemandt

    · 2 h 14 min

    Joe Liemandt quietly built one of the most successful software empires you’ve never heard of—then reappeared with a $1 billion bet that AI can make kids learn ten times faster and love school more than vacation. At…

  20. Harrison McCain: The Potato Farmer who Went Big

    · 39 min

    Harrison McCain learned salesmanship by talking his way into a pharmaceutical job at 22, then spent five formative years under K.C. Irving, absorbing lessons in vertical integration, relentless deal-capture, and…

  21. Beating the Market: Connor Teskey, CEO Brookfield Asset Management

    · 1 h 25 min

    Connor Teskey is the CEO of Brookfield Asset Management, one of the world’s largest investors, managing about a trillion dollars across infrastructure, power, real estate, private equity, and credit. In this exclusive…

  22. An Unlikely Empire | J.W. Marriott

    · 39 min

    The world's largest hotel company spent its first 30 years without a hotel. It started as a root beer stand in 1927. The first room didn't open until 1957. The man behind it was J. Willard Marriott. In this episode…

  23. The Near Death Experience of RobinHood | Vlad Tenev, Co-Founder

    · 1 h 51 min

    In January 2021, Vlad Tenev made a decision that nearly destroyed Robinhood. Wall Street called it betrayal. Customers called it cowardice. He has never fully explained what happened — until now. Vlad Tenev built…

  24. The Obsession That Built Nike | Phil Knight

    · 38 min

    Phil Knight is the founder of Nike, the brand that reshaped sports and became one of the most powerful companies in the world. What would you do if your bank, your supplier, and your government all turned against you…

  25. The $2 Trillion Mind | Nicolai Tangen

    · 1 h 03 min · Episode 268

    Nicolai Tangen is the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. He is responsible for managing $2.1 trillion. That's roughly 1.7% of every listed company on earth. In this…

  26. Michael Ovitz: The Psychology of Power

    · 1 h 36 min · Episode 267

    Michael Ovitz co-founded CAA and helped reshape Hollywood, then took the same playbook into tech investing and advising founders. In this conversation, he breaks down the operating rules that kept CAA from losing…

  27. Ray Kroc : How McDonald’s Took Over America

    · 50 min · Episode 266

    Ray Kroc turned McDonald’s from a single roadside restaurant into a system built to scale. At 52, after decades selling paper cups and milkshake machines, he opened the first McDonald’s in 1955 and helped grow it to…

  28. Morgan Housel: Wealth is What You Have Minus What You Want

    · 1 h 58 min · Episode 265

    Morgan Housel breaks down the exact framework he uses to build wealth, minimize financial stress, and buy freedom. While most financial advice focuses on how to get rich, Morgan explains why the skills needed to stay…

  29. The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking | Peter D. Kaufman [Outliers]

    · 26 min · Episode 264

    Peter D. Kaufman is the Chairman and CEO of GlenAir, the editor of Poor Charlie’s Almanack, and was a decades-long friend of Charlie Munger. In a talk that was never meant to be made public, one of the world's…

  30. How to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones | James Clear

    · 2 h 17 min · Episode 263

    James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, a global bestseller that has shaped how millions of people think about habits, consistency, and long-term change. In this conversation, James explains how habits shape…

  31. The Outlier Playbook: The Patterns Behind Enduring Success

    · 41 min · Episode 261

    What do some of the greatest outliers in business history have in common? For the past year, I’ve been sharing the stories of history's greatest outliers like James Dyson, Estée Lauder, Sol Price, Henry Singleton, Les…

  32. Pierre Poilievre on the Role of Government, Freedom, and Affordability

    · 57 min · Episode 262

    This week, we're releasing a special episode of TKP with Pierre Poilievre. While we don't often tackle politics on the show, we are trying to improve political discourse by offering a platform for both sides to speak…

  33. Be Your Best in 2026: The Most Important Lessons from The Knowledge Project (2025)

    · 1 h 11 min

    The Knowledge Project closes 2025 with a look back at the most meaningful conversations of the year. Featuring insights from some of our most impactful episodes, this collection brings together practical insights on…

  34. Bernie Marcus: The Story of Home Depot

    · 1 h 01 min

    Bernie Marcus co-founded Home Depot and served as its first CEO. This is the wild and crazy story of how he and his co-founders got fired and went on to build one of the best-performing businesses in history. -----…

  35. How to Think Like a World-Class Marketer | Rory Sutherland

    · 2 h 01 min · Episode 258

    Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland reveals the formula for persuasion, why people make decisions and how you can use psychology to your advantage. Rory is the world’s leading advertising strategist. He spent almost…

  36. Mary Kay Ash: The Greatest Salesperson In History [Outliers]

    · 1 h 04 min

    How do you get ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results? Mary Kay Ash built a two-billion-dollar company by solving that specific problem. After watching men she trained get promoted above her for double the…

  37. The Psychology of Mental Toughness: How Top Performers Override Biological Limits

    · 1 h 18 min · Episode 256

    Top Performance Coach Jim Murphy reveals how to eliminate fear, master pressure, and unlock elite performance. Jim spent 5 years writing Inner Excellence, the mental toughness manual that shot from obscurity to #1 New…

  38. Charlie Munger: The Psychology of Human Misjudgment [Outliers]

    · 1 h 14 min · Episode 255

    Charlie Munger spent his life studying one question: why do smart people make bad decisions? In his legendary talk The Psychology of Human Misjudgement, Munger outlined 25 psychological tendencies that quietly distort…

  39. Panera Founder Ron Shaich

    · 1 h 44 min · Episode 254

    Restauranteur Ron Shaich reveals how he built the fast casual industry, scale a business, and spot the trends before they happen. Ron Shaich is an entrepreneur and investor. He was the founder and former CEO of Panera…

  40. Steve Wozniak: The Engineer Who Built Apple [Outliers]

    · 56 min · Episode 253

    Steve Wozniak is the engineer who built Apple. Then he did something Silicon Valley still doesn't understand: he gave millions of his own money away to early employees, walked away from power, and refused to play the…

  41. Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti

    · 1 h 35 min · Episode 252

    Anthony Scilipoti is one of the sharpest minds in investing. He's the President and CEO of Veritas Group of Companies. He called the collapses of both Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Nortel before they happened, and now…

  42. Jim Clayton: Turning Competitors’ Mistakes Into $1.7B [Outliers]

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 251

    The incredible story of Jim Clayton and the counterintuitive strategies he used to build Clayton Homes into a juggernaut. When the bank forced him into bankruptcy at 27, they literally seized everything, including his…

  43. Building Great Businesses | Tracy Britt Cool

    · 1 h 45 min · Episode 253

    Warren Buffett called Tracy Britt Cool his “fireman” due to her reputation at Berkshire Hathaway for turning around struggling businesses. Today, Britt Cool is the co-founder of Kanbrick, where she applies her…

  44. Hetty Green: The Witch of Wall Street [Outliers]

    · 47 min

    Hetty Green was the richest woman you've never heard of. In the late 1800s, she built a fortune worth billions today in a world designed to stop her. Women couldn't vote, couldn't own property in most states, and were…

  45. Barry Diller: Building IAC

    · 1 h 00 min

    My guest this week is Barry Diller, one of America's most successful businessmen. At 83, he chose to publish a deeply personal book and open up about his successes and failures. With surprising candor he details the…

  46. Ed Stack: Lessons from Dick’s Sporting Goods [Outliers]

    · 1 h 20 min

    Ed Stack built Dick’s Sporting Goods from a struggling family store into an empire of more than 800 stores and billions in sales. Along the way he nearly lost everything. Multiple times. This episode is the story of…

  47. How To Build A Cult | Lulu Cheng Meservey

    · 1 h 49 min

    Lulu Cheng Meservey is one of the sharpest minds in communications and strategy. She has helped some of the best leaders through their hardest moments. We talk about why trust and conviction are contagious, how to win…

  48. Fred Smith: The Story of FedEx [Outliers]

    · 52 min

    Fred Smith founded FedEx on an idea everyone told him would fail and built it into an $88 billion empire that changed how the world moves. In this episode, we dive into how he built FedEx and the lessons he learned…

  49. Why Everyone Is Wrong About AI (Including You) | Benedict Evans

    · 1 h 13 min

    Benedict Evans has been calling tech shifts for decades. Now he says forget the hype: AI isn't the new electricity. It's the biggest change since the iPhone, and that's plenty big enough. We talk about why everyone…

  50. How John Bragg Built 3 Empires From a Small Town [Outliers]

    · 1 h 08 min · Episode 243

    One man controls half the world's wild blueberries, built North America's largest private telecom, and did it all without ever leaving his hometown of 1,100 people. In this episode, we decode the counterintuitive…

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