About this episode
This episode is a two-for-one, and that’s because the podcast recently hit its 10-year anniversary and passed one billion downloads. To celebrate, I’ve curated some of the best of the best—some of my favorites—from more than 700 episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited. The episode features segments from episode #691 " Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Scott Patterson — How Traders Make Billions in The New Age of Crisis, Defending Against Silent Risks, Personal Independence, Skepticism Where It (Really) Counts, The Bishop and The Economist, and Much More " and #639 " Todd McFarlane, Legendary Comic Book Artist — How to Make Iconic Art, Reinvent Spider-Man, Live Life on Your Own Terms, and Meet Every Deadline ." Please enjoy! Sponsors: Momentous high-quality supplements: https://livemomentous.com/tim (code TIM for 20% off) Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save $350 on the Pod 4 Ultra) LMNT electrolyte supplement: https://drinklmnt.com/Tim (free LMNT sample pack with any drink mix purchase) Timestamps: [00:00] Start [04:51] Notes about this supercombo format. [05:54] Enter Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Scott Patterson. [06:32] The joy of writing a preemptive resignation letter. [07:13] Developing resilience against criticism. [10:04] Nassim: contrarian, or simply independent? [12:27] Jiving with skeptical turkeys. [17:21] Persisting through the polycrisis. [19:18] Introducing the precautionary principle. [21:37] Nassim's preferred legacy. [23:50] Precautionary principle 101. [25:14] Fat tails, thin tails, the COVID vaccine, and GMOs. [32:51] Enter Todd McFarlane. [33:21] Baseball. [38:46] Rejection letters. [42:38] Compelling storytelling and meeting deadlines. [45:46] Deadlines pre-Internet vs. deadlines today. [48:36] How industry status quo led to the founding of Image Comic Books. [1:00:30] The Comics Code and the last straw. [1:06:52] The Marvel Dream Team exodus. [1:25:13] How is Todd's camel bladder a competitive advantage? [1:31:02] Career bouncing and double-shifting as a penciler and inker. [1:49:08] The happy accident of Venom. [1:55:46] De-Rockwelling the company icon and inventing "spaghetti webbing." [2:03:31] Bucking the status quo to become the status quo. [2:07:13] Parting thoughts and a promise for round two. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show , please visit tim.blog/podcast . For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show , please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter ( 5-Bullet Friday ) at tim.blog/friday . For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts . Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books . Follow Tim: Twitter : twitter.com/tferriss Instagram : instagram.com/timferriss YouTube : youtube.com/timferriss Facebook : facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld , Hugh Jackman , Dr. Jane Goodall , LeBron James , Kevin Hart , Doris Kearns Goodwin , Jamie Foxx , Matthew McConaughey , Esther Perel , Elizabeth Gilbert , Terry Crews , Sia , Yuval Noah Harari , Malcolm Gladwell , Madeleine Albright , Cheryl Strayed , Jim Collins , Mary Karr, Maria Popova , Sam Harris , Michael Phelps , Bob Iger , Edward Norton , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Neil Strauss , Ken Burns , Maria Sharapova , Marc Andreessen , Neil Gaiman , Neil de Grasse Tyson , Jocko Willink , Daniel Ek , Kelly Slater , Dr. Peter Attia , Seth Godin , Howard Marks , Dr. Brené Brown , Eric Schmidt , Michael Lewis , Joe Gebbia , Michael Pollan , Dr. Jordan Peterson , Vince Vaughn , Brian Koppelman , Ramit Sethi , Dax Shepard , Tony Robbins , Jim Dethmer , Dan Harris , Ray Dalio , Naval Ravikant , Vitalik Buterin , Elizabeth Lesser , Amanda Palmer , Katie Haun , Sir Richard Branson , Chuck Palahniuk , Arianna Huffington , Reid Hoffman , Bill Burr , Whitney Cummings , Rick Rubin , Dr. Vivek Murthy , Darren Aronofsky , Margaret Atwood , Mark Zuckerberg , Peter Thiel , Dr. Gabor Maté , Anne Lamott , Sarah Silverman , Dr. Andrew Huberman , and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .