The Knowledge Project
by Shane Parrish
Latest episode
How Elon Musk Solves Problems | Jon McNeill
How Elon Musk Solves Problems | Jon McNeill
About this podcast
Uncovering the timeless principles that drive success.
The Knowledge Project is your key to understanding how the world’s most successful people think, decide, and solve problems.
Hosted by Shane Parrish.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 294 episodes
- How Elon Musk Solves Problems | Jon McNeill · 1 h 46 minJon McNeill is the former President of Tesla and the co-founder and CEO of DVx Ventures. Elon Musk believes speed creates a competitive advantage, whether it’s speed of…
- K.C. Irving: Competing with Giants · 2 h 5 minThis is the story of K.C. Irving, the man who refused to be stopped. When a railway raised his shipping costs, he bought a ship. When oil suppliers tried to squeeze him, he…
- The Science of Doing Your Best Work · 1 h 6 minSteven 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…
- How to Get People to Say Yes | Ryan Serhant · 56 minRyan 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…
- Charlie Munger's Interview with Todd Combs · 48 minI'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…
- Bill Ackman: The Biggest Fight of His Life · 1 h 17 minBill 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…
- Tobi Lütke: The Skills AI Makes More Valuable · 1 h 5 minShopify 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…
- The 12 Years that Changed Steve Jobs · 1 h 3 minWe 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…
- Make Better Decisions by Fixing Yourself First | Roblox Co-founder and CEO David Baszucki · 47 minDavid 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…
- The Mindset Behind Building a Great Little Business | Brad Jacobs · 1 h 40 minThis 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…
- John D. Rockefeller: The Principles Behind The Greatest Fortune in History · 2 h 55 minJohn 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…
- The Price of Excellence Most People Won’t Pay | Kaz Nejatian · 55 minNo 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…
- The Mindset That Unlocks Your Full Potential | Dr. Gio Valiante · 1 h 9 minSteve 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…
- How to Repair and Nourish Your Gut | Dr. Giulia Enders · 56 minDr. 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…
- Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley · 1 h 2 minBill 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…
- You Don’t Need To Innovate To Be Successful | FarmVille Creator · 1 h 10 minMark 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…
- The Hyundai Founder Who Put a Country on His Back · 2 h 20 minChung 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…
- Speed, Stress, and Better Decisions | Winston Weinberg · 1 h 3 minWinston 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…
- Greg Brockman: How to Stay Valuable as AI Gets Smarter · 1 h 12 minIn 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…
- The Magic of Thinking Big | XPO CEO Mario Harik · 1 h 39 minMario 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…
- Alpha School: AI and The Future of Education | Joe Liemandt · 2 h 13 minJoe 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…
- Harrison McCain: The Potato Farmer who Went Big · 39 minHarrison 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…
- Beating the Market: Connor Teskey, CEO Brookfield Asset Management · 1 h 25 minConnor 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…
- An Unlikely Empire | J.W. Marriott · 39 minThe 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…
- The Near Death Experience of RobinHood | Vlad Tenev, Co-Founder · 1 h 50 minIn 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…
- The Obsession That Built Nike | Phil Knight · 38 minPhil 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…
- The $2 Trillion Mind | Nicolai Tangen · 1 h 2 min · Episode 268Nicolai 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…
- Michael Ovitz: The Psychology of Power · 1 h 36 min · Episode 267Michael 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…
- Ray Kroc : How McDonald’s Took Over America · 50 min · Episode 266Ray 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…
- Morgan Housel: Wealth is What You Have Minus What You Want · 1 h 57 min · Episode 265Morgan 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…
- The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking | Peter D. Kaufman [Outliers] · 26 min · Episode 264Peter 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…
- How to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones | James Clear · 2 h 17 min · Episode 263James 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…
- The Outlier Playbook: The Patterns Behind Enduring Success · 41 min · Episode 261What 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…
- Pierre Poilievre on the Role of Government, Freedom, and Affordability · 57 min · Episode 262This 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…
- Be Your Best in 2026: The Most Important Lessons from The Knowledge Project (2025) · 1 h 10 minThe 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…
- Bernie Marcus: The Story of Home Depot · 1 h 0 minBernie 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…
- How to Think Like a World-Class Marketer | Rory Sutherland · 2 h 1 min · Episode 258Ogilvy 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…
- Mary Kay Ash: The Greatest Salesperson In History [Outliers] · 1 h 3 minHow 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…
- The Psychology of Mental Toughness: How Top Performers Override Biological Limits · 1 h 17 min · Episode 256Top 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…
- Charlie Munger: The Psychology of Human Misjudgment [Outliers] · 1 h 13 min · Episode 255Charlie 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…
- Panera Founder Ron Shaich · 1 h 43 min · Episode 254Restauranteur 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…
- Steve Wozniak: The Engineer Who Built Apple [Outliers] · 56 min · Episode 253Steve 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…
- Forensic Account: The Bubble No One is Talking About | Anthony Scilipoti · 1 h 34 min · Episode 252Anthony 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…
- Jim Clayton: Turning Competitors’ Mistakes Into $1.7B [Outliers] · 1 h 4 min · Episode 251The 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…
- Building Great Businesses | Tracy Britt Cool · 1 h 44 min · Episode 253Warren 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…
- Hetty Green: The Witch of Wall Street [Outliers] · 47 minHetty 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…
- Barry Diller: Building IAC · 1 h 0 minMy 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…
- Ed Stack: Lessons from Dick’s Sporting Goods [Outliers] · 1 h 20 minEd 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…
- How To Build A Cult | Lulu Cheng Meservey · 1 h 49 minLulu 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…
- Fred Smith: The Story of FedEx [Outliers] · 52 minFred 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…
