One of the things that we talk about at Sequoia is you can't just be better.
You have to be different, too.
So whether you want to be conventional or contrarian, you have to be right.
If you're right and conventional, it's probably a less interesting solution.
But if you're right and contrarian, you probably won't be able to make a lot more money because nobody's going after that opportunity.
I often find that it's interesting there are people who just want to be contrarian.
But if you're conferring him wrong, that's not a great situation.
I try to put things in these two by two matrices of right and wrong and conventional and contrarian.
Welcome to The Knowledge Project.
I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best, what other people have already figured out.
Today's episode will transform how you think about building and scaling transformative companies.
My guest is Alfred Lin, one of Silicon Valley's most successful operators turned investors.
After meeting Tony Heisch at Stanford over a pizza arbitrage scheme, Alfred went on to help build and sell Link Exchange to Microsoft, then scaled Zappos from startup to its $1 .2 billion acquisition by Amazon as the COO and CFO.
Now he's one of tech's most influential people.
Like a lot of outliers, Lin struggled in school, preferring to hack solutions together than follow instructions.
Sound familiar? That changed with one of his teachers who made him realize the importance of enduring impact over short -term gains.
Whether you're building a company, scaling operations, or making complex, strategic decisions, Alfer breaks down the frameworks and mental models that have guided him through multi -billion dollar outcomes.
We explore everything from his unique approach to company culture and hiring that helped make Zappos legendary, to how he evaluates opportunities at Sequoia, to the crucible moments that shaped his decision -making philosophy.
This conversation goes deep into specific practices around scaling, competing with giants, and navigating technological disruptions while revealing the deeper principles that have guided him through multiple successful chapters in tech.
His insights on building and during impact over short -term gains are more relevant than ever as we enter the AI era.
And of course, we talk about AI.
It's time to listen and learn.
podcast app that uses large language models to curate the best moments from episodes.
Imagine having a smart assistant who reads through every transcript, finds just the best parts, and serves them up based on whatever topic you're interested in.
I use Overlap every day to research, guess, explore, and learn.
Give it a try and start discovering the best moments from the best podcasts.
Go to joinoverlap .com.
That's joinoverlap .com.
You've had a remarkable journey from entrepreneur to investor, and I want to know more about this story, but I want to start with some of your early life experiences that changed you and impacted you in the future.
I guess I was born in Taiwan to two parents who were both commercial bankers.
And at an early age, from what they tell me, I was always a little, I saw the world a little differently and did things a little different.
The story that they like to tell about me being different was when I was about two years old.
There was a new dresser that was delivered to our apartment in Taiwan.
And I figured out a way to get to the top by pulling out the first drawer, crawling into it, then pulling out the second drawer, crawling into that, and then getting all the way to the top.
And when I got up there, I thought I could fly, so I jumped off.
And so they left telling that story because they rushed me to the hospital, and they were very concerned whether there was any permanent damage and things like that.
And my mom kept bringing me back to the hospital again and again, and the doctor said, don't worry, I think he's fine, I think he's fine.
And eventually he said, well, is there going to be any problem with his development?
And he's like, well, he's either going to be a genius or he's going to be an idiot.
He's one or the other.
I mean, so that's how my parents would describe me.
High variance and high beta.
And throughout school and throughout life, I was very much like that.
I like to hack things and not do the work until one day.
And this was in elementary school.
I just tried to not do the work and hack my way through things and got suspended a few times, one of which was just coming up with a creative idea of taking chairs from the second floor to the first floor I went down a slide instead of following the teacher's directions I got suspended for that and so I
didn't ever really like school on that much because it was so rigid until until I used to hack my way through things and one of the teachers that I had Mrs.
Einstein had this way of teaching where she would put up a problem she would then have us try to solve that problem or do the assignment and try to understand why she put the reading up there.
And I would always bet with her, if I knew the answer or if I knew the conclusion of the lesson, then I wouldn't have to do the homework.
She let me get away with that once or twice, and then she said to me once, you know, you're very smart.
I've seen a lot of people waste their talent.
So do you want to start first or do you want to finish first?
And I think I retorted back saying, well, I'd like to start first and finish first with the least amount of work possible.
And then she said to me, that's a great answer for a sixth grader, but what happens in life when there's no finish line?
What are you going to do then?
And that sort of put me back.
And I didn't quite understand it until maybe now that this is the whole concept of having an infinite game and thinking through not some thing, some finish line, some goal, but just think about what you want your enduring impact to be and what you want to do and what you want to accomplish.
And when the world doesn't give you a finish line, we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
What do you want to decide to accomplish in that 24 hours?
We have an unknown number of years on this planet.
What do you want to get accomplished?
That sort of shaped the way I sort of started thinking about the world.
did it hit you then at the time or was it something you reflected on later I think it hit me then but I didn't think I I don't think I understood it then and so then that led to a number of explorations on what I did want to accomplish why was it important to think about this concept of infinite games
how do you win an infinite game when there are no set rules you're making the roles for yourself in an Infinite game.
And the rules change.
You get to change some of the rules.
The world changes some of the rules.
How do you navigate that?
And then you quickly realize it's not about winning.
In a finite game, chess, there's a winner and there's a loser.
In an Infinite game, there are a lot of different people in the world.
They play the game differently.
And in some ways, is they're all trying to get on with the world and trying to do the best they can.
But some people are more successful than others.
And the reason they're more successful, I think, is because they really know what their values are and they really know what impact they want to have on the world.
What are your values?
Over the years, I've thought through, and this has changed over time, but I think the values for me are when you want to accomplish something, it's about the inputs.
It's about the process by which you go about getting the outputs.
I think it's very, very important to have that.
And I value that clarity of input eventually leads to output and focus on the inputs.
I value consistent compounding and just getting up every single day and just making small improvements every single day and compounding that.
I value honesty and truth and just being very direct with people.
I don't try to sugarcoat anything.
I value people for who they are.
my father um i learned this from my father where he's he told me once because i was like oh okay i'm just so much smarter than everybody else because i'm a little cocky little kid and he said well actually you can learn anything from you can learn many things from every single person on this planet
i think i was probably six or seven at the time and he was he'd show me all the different people that he learned from and that the collection of these lessons from many many different people is what you become and that was a pretty important lesson so I value people for who they are and trying to learn
as much as I can from each individual person I value family and friends pretty important to me he talked a little bit about work -life and work -life balance.
As you said, for many of us, it's work -life integration.
And if you don't have some grounding with people who see you for who you are, call out when you're not being a good person or you're not doing the things that you said you were going to do.
What is there in life besides that?
We're so done with New Year, New You.
This year, it's more you on Bumble.
More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes.
More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them.
More of you dating with intention because you know what you want.
And you know what? We love that for you.
Someone else will, too.
Be more you this year and find them on Bumble.
You know what's smart?
Enjoying a fresh gourmet meal at home that you didn't have to cook.
Meat Factor, your loophole in the laws of mealtime.
Chef crafted meals, delivered with a tap, ready in just two minutes.
You know what's even smarter?
Treating yourself without cheating your goals.
Factor is dietician approved, chef prepared, and you plated.
Pretty smart, huh? Refresh your routine and eat smart with Factor.
Learn more at factormeals .com.
How do you want somebody to call you out in those situations or how do you call out other people?
the way I do it is try to be fact -based and just give examples specifically of what has been working and what has not been working and that tends to work pretty well and there are times when Rebecca my wife will say hey this is not working for us so what do you want to do about it you can try to keep
going the same way down the certain path or we can try to change it.
If we don't like something, we're just changing.
And it's just much easier to have those kinds of conversations.
My son a few days ago was being quite negative about his school and he's 13, he's going to be 14 this year.
He's starting to be like me when I was younger and think that he's smarter than the whole rest of the world.
and said hey Atticus do you want to be do you want to have a negative attitude because you'll spin into this negative spiral and by the way if you have a negative attitude the world just looks worse when you have a positive attitude the world just looks better and we played this let's use yes and for a bunch
of things and let's create options and then you're going through the no but situation and it doesn't work so let's try to just change your attitude about some of these things and i i thought that was quite an interesting conversation where just by simply changing the framework he became much more positive
when you talk about inputs versus outputs what inputs do you think about in life well i think the inputs i think about are um you know that it depends on what I'm trying to get accomplished.
But if the image
