You're Not Lazy: How To Learn Anything Faster - Cliff Weitzman Founder of Speechify

1. 0:00 – 2:12

   Intro

   1. CWCliff Weitzman0:00

      Well, then the number one word is lazy, right? So your teacher thinks you're slow, your parents think you're lazy. And this is something that is uniquely true for most kids like me who grew up with dyslexia or ADHD or any type of neurodiversity. Your parents just think that you don't care

   2. AAAli Abdaal0:12

      What you're about to hear is an interview between me and Cliff Weitzman, who is a friend of mine. Cliff is one of the most inspiring people that I've ever met.

   3. CWCliff Weitzman0:19

      I believed that I could do anything. When you're a kid, you keep telling yourself that you can do these things, and at a certain point, most people believe that actually they can't. That just never happened to me.

   4. AAAli Abdaal0:28

      He is the founder and CEO of Speechify, which is an app that helps basically convert the internet into audiobooks. Cliff has dyslexia, and in his past he was unable to read and is still basically unable to read, and so ended up building Speechify as a way of helping himself get through school and college and university. We talk a little bit about his background there and how that affected his experiences growing up.

   5. CWCliff Weitzman0:49

      My younger brother, Tyler, taught himself how to build iPhone apps. So we worked on it together. Tyler did most of the work, and I did some. But while I was in college, I kept teaching myself more and more so that I could fix this program. Then I built a tool that would parse PDFs for me, so I could take a three-hundred-page PDF from my history class and turn it into a two-hour audiobook, and then I'd go work out and just finish the PDF.

   6. AAAli Abdaal1:06

      Cliff is also incredibly intentional about the relationships in his life and about giving love and compassion, putting good vibes out there into the world. And so in the second half of the conversation, we talk a lot about his approach to relationships, how he just randomly cold emails and messages people and says, "Hey, do you wanna be my friend?" And then somehow hangs out with them.

   7. CWCliff Weitzman1:23

      I met Amara and Thomas and Matt from Yes Theory or Logan or Jimmy, and I just would study how they created content, and then I got good at creating content.

   8. AAAli Abdaal1:31

      And we talk a lot about this balance between kind of striving for success and also investing in relationships.

   9. CWCliff Weitzman1:35

      Just put good energy into the world, and if you do that, good things happen.

   10. AAAli Abdaal1:40

       At the moment, according to YouTube analytics, eighty-one percent of you who are watching this on YouTube have not yet hit the subscribe button. And so if you're, for example, in the now eighty-one percent of people who are watching this on YouTube but who are not subscribed to the channel, I would love it if you could do so, and it would be awesome to get that number down to fifty percent, and it would be cool to get, like, fifty-fifty sub, non-sub ratio just, just for fun. Cliff, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This is... It's cool doing this, like, actually in person, 'cause I remember the first time we, we were, we got introduced through Valentin and did, like, a, a live streaming type thing, and you were on mine and my brother's podcast

2. 2:12 – 11:09

   Your childhood and growing up with dyslexia

   1. AAAli Abdaal2:12

      talking about Juntos and, and stuff. Um, so, so much, uh, so much to talk about. Let's start, um, by rewinding back to childhood-

   2. CWCliff Weitzman2:22

      Okay

   3. AAAli Abdaal2:22

      ... and the reading situation. So what was going on in your childhood with, with the whole struggling to read stuff? And I guess we'll track your life story over time and get to the present day. And I'm sure-

   4. CWCliff Weitzman2:33

      That sounds good to me

   5. AAAli Abdaal2:33

      ... at some point we'll break it and do a part two [chuckles] because there's so much to dive into.

   6. CWCliff Weitzman2:37

      Sounds fun. Yes, I think the first time we did our first interview, it was the very beginning of COVID, and I was sitting on a bench press that I just installed in my apartment.

   7. AAAli Abdaal2:46

      You were, yes.

   8. CWCliff Weitzman2:47

      Uh, because we had, I think five of us living in a one-bedroom apartment in LA at the time. But to answer your question, so I grew up in Israel. I moved to the US when I was 13, and first, second, third, fourth grade, I had a really tough time learning how to read. Um, I have four younger siblings who are very sharp. Uh, my sister speaks seven languages. My brother started coding when he was eight and then skipped four and a half years of math in high school. Uh, you know, built forty-seven apps by the time he was 17, did his master's in AI at Stanford, and I couldn't figure out how to spell my last name. And I wanted to read really, really badly, but I would fall asleep inside of books all the time. And so eventually my dad was like, "Okay, there's no way he's, like, this lazy." Um, and he started reading to me. And my dad has a very deep voice, so every night I'd fall asleep listening to my dad reading Harry Potter. And he would record himself on cassette tapes, and I just loved this so much I would listen to them over and over again. And when I moved to the US when I was 13, I didn't speak English, and I found the Harry Potter audiobook set. And so I listened to that thing twenty-two times in a row, and that's how I learned English. And I fell in love with audiobooks. So I listen to about a hundred audiobooks a week-- Sorry, a year. I listen to about a hundred audiobooks a year, and I've done that for the last 16 years or so. And it doesn't matter if it's sci-fi or fantasy or philosophy or theology or politics or economics. I'm just obsessed with listening. And in the beginning, I would listen at, like, zero point seven five x speed because I literally didn't speak English. And then, you know, I practiced, then I got to one x speed, and then one point two five, and then one point five and two x, um, and continued from there.

   9. AAAli Abdaal4:24

      So you... Okay. So, so you moved to the US from Israel age thirteen. Um, what, what was happening around the time of the move? Like, why did you, why did your family move?

   10. CWCliff Weitzman4:33

       Oof. Um, so we had moved for a very brief period outside of Israel ear- earlier, and we had wanted to move to the US, but, like, it didn't work out for visa reasons. And my parents were like, "Hey, this seems like a fun adventure." And my dad has this philosophy, you know, if you write a book in Hebrew, seven million people can read it. If you do it in English, seven billion can. And they saw it as one of the biggest ways that they could open up the world to us and give us opportunities. And so my parents did a really, really good job raising us. Um, they're really the, the best example of parenting I've actually come across. Um, and so they included us in all the big decisions. So I remember they sat us down, and they're like, "Hey, would you guys be interested in going on an adventure?" I'm like, "Yeah, let's go on an adventure." And so we all decided that we wanted to move to the United States. And so when I got here, it was really tough because the culture in the US is slightly different than the culture in Israel. Like, I spoke with a heavy Israeli accent, like nobody understood what I was saying. Um, and I was a really small kid too. Like, I was five two freshman year, five three sophomore year. Like, literally I have a driver's license where I'm sixteen and I weigh, like, a hundred and ten pounds. Um, and when I moved here, I, I'm super dyslexic, so I, I spent all this time learning how to read in Hebrew, and then I had to, to relearn how to read, but in English. Um, but because I'd signed up for this move, I was really motivated. Um, and it didn't matter if it was, like, eighth grade where I was, like, failing my history class and there was no, like, audiobooks for the textbook. So I would, like, go online and Google and I'd f- like Try to hack together some sort of audiobook that I could listen to. Um, and actually ended up with-- I would go to my teachers and I would ask, "Hey," like, "I'll just be real with you. There's, there's no way I'm gonna be able to read this chapter or do the outline that you assigned. Is it okay if I come to class like 15 minutes early and verbally summarize the chapter to you?" And surprisingly, many teachers said yes. Um, and so going into high school, my mom literally had to read my summer reading books to me 'cause I couldn't do them myself. Even going into college, um, we had this book called Sons of Providence, and I spent all summer trying to read it. I didn't wanna be the one kid who shows up not having done the summer reading before his, like, fancy Ivy League school. And I read about half, and so my mom had to read the rest of it, and she worked, and she didn't have time to read all of it. Uh, she read maybe another 25%, and so I was, I was stuck. And so the only thing that-- I did the only thing I could do, which is, like, I built this text-to-speech software that would read the book into my iPhone overnight, and then I listened to that on the plane, and it worked. And then, you know, I used a version of that throughout college. Um, but yeah, like I, I was very, very, very motivated to learn how to read and to, like, figure out English and succeed in school when I was young.

   11. AAAli Abdaal7:04

       So h- having, having dyslexia, like, w-what is that like? Like, when you, when you see words on a page, like, how, how would you-

   12. CWCliff Weitzman7:10

       Yeah

   13. AAAli Abdaal7:10

       ... try and describe it to someone who d- yeah.

   14. CWCliff Weitzman7:12

       Yeah. So most people visualize dyslexia as, like, the words flipping around or jumping or flipping. That's not what it's actually like. Um, the best description I've ever been able to come up with is reading a sentence takes me as much energy and brainpower as most people take to do a long division equation in their head. So that means that it takes a long time to read a sentence, and it's very energy fatiguing. So if I wanted to read a page, that's like doing 20 multiplications all in a row. But, like, 2,400 divided by, like, 13. You know, 5,800 divided by 72. And, you know, you'd be tired after doing that. Now imagine doing it for a chapter. Like, you'd be asleep. So literally, this was my problem. I would-- I, I dedicated every school break that I had when I was young, like literally third grade and upwards, to trying to learn how to read. And I would get woken up by librarians in the public library basically on a daily basis. Um, but I was really motivated because I really admired my dad. My dad is a lawyer, and I wanted him to be proud of me. And in my head, and I was very ambitious from a very young age. Um, I think about it as like I have this fire in my chest that if it was to open, it would, like, bounce off the walls. Um, and I was like, "Look, I, I won't be a billionaire. I won't be president. I won't be a pop star. I won't be any of these things I wanna be if I don't know how to read. So I have to figure out how to read." And so I just-- I worked on it. Um, and then-- So number one, it's time. Like, everything just takes a lot longer when reading is involved. Number two, it, it's, it's, it's draining. And number three, you know, spelling is difficult. You know, I mix up my lefts and rights. It's hard for me to remember names. Uh, the scientific backing behind dyslexia, it's-- there's no conclusive one answer, but here's the best one that I've understood reading a bunch of PhD papers about it. There's these things in the brain called minicolumns, and they're responsible for sharing information. If you are a normal person, you have normal length minicolumns that are normally distributed. If you're autistic, interestingly, interestingly, you have shorter minicolumns that are closer together. If you are dyslexic, you have longer minicolumns that are further apart. And so people who are savants, they're very good at specific small tasks, short-term memory. People with dyslexia have bad short-term memory, and most importantly, they have bad what's called phonemic awareness. And so reading is challenging, and actually, dyslexia is not a reading disability. It's a decoding disability. So if you look at the word like house, h-ouse, house, you need to break down the phonemes and understand them. It's like a puzzle. I'm bad at this. So in college, when I'd walk around with friends, like my girlfriend in college knew every single street name. I didn't know a single street name. Because when she looked at the signs, her eyes immediately told her what that was. But I would need to dedicate energy to reading that word. But-

   15. AAAli Abdaal9:55

       It's like doing a long division thing, and you'd then... Yeah, how are you gonna remember that?

   16. CWCliff Weitzman9:59

       Exactly. But if I see a picture of a guitar or a house, like I inst-- it's like an emoji. A dog emoji, I know what it is. Um, yeah, so that's how dyslexia impacts me.

   17. AAAli Abdaal10:09

       When did you figure out that you had dyslexia-

   18. CWCliff Weitzman10:10

       Yeah

   19. AAAli Abdaal10:10

       ... versus I'm just dumb or can't read or-

   20. CWCliff Weitzman10:13

       Yeah

   21. AAAli Abdaal10:13

       ... you know, the other things you might have told yourself?

   22. CWCliff Weitzman10:15

       Well, then the number one word is lazy, right? So your teacher thinks you're slow. Your parents think you're lazy. And this is something that is uniquely true for most kids like me who grew up with dyslexia or ADHD or any type of neurodiversity. Your parents just think that you don't care. But I really cared. And so in preschool, uh, I, I'm, I'm very musical, right? Actually, the best example of, you know, what is it like to be dyslexia, search up the song "Read To You" by Cliff Weitzman, and you'll find it on Spotify. Um, so, so I was, I was good at all the plays, and I was good at art, and I was good at acting. And, you know, a lot of kids learn how to read a little bit before first grade. My parents couldn't get me to learn. I was like, "Oh, it's fine. He'll learn it in first grade." But then that didn't happen. And then it didn't happen in second grade either. And my dad started to get really mad at me because he was like, "Cliff," like, "why are you not paying attention?" Like, "Why are you so lazy? Why don't you care?" And I was like, "I do care." Um,

3. 11:09 – 14:17

   Your ambitiousness

   1. CWCliff Weitzman11:10

      and yeah, over time, I just kept working at it.

   2. AAAli Abdaal11:14

      You mentioned that you were quite ambitious growing up, and you said president and billionaire and pop star. What, what's g- what's going on there?

   3. CWCliff Weitzman11:21

      Um, you know, I don't know where this even happened, but, like, from the moment I remember having conscious thought, maybe four and a half years old, I believed that I could do anything. Like, I thought I was a superhero. I believed I could do a backflip. I believed I could do a front flip. I believed that I could be in the Olympics. I believed that I could be... You know, I, I listened to someone on the radio. I was like, "Oh, I can do that." And so I signed up for, like, a singing, dancing troupe. And by the time I was 12, I was performing on TV in Israel. Um, and, you know, I believed that I could be, like, Prime Minister of Israel. So I was like, "Cool. I'm going to be a billionaire, prime minister, and a pop star all at the same time." Um, and, you know, when you're a kid, you keep telling yourself that you can do these things. And at a certain point, most people believe that actually they can't. That just never happened to me. Like, everything-- I still dream constantly. Like, m- I live 80% of my life daydreaming about the future.

   4. AAAli Abdaal12:18

      Okay. So you moved to the US, you taught yourself English through basically Harry Potter audiobooks. The Stephen Fry ones?

   5. CWCliff Weitzman12:24

      The Jim Dale ones. So in the United States, this incredible Shakespearean actor named Jim Dale does all the Harry Potter narration.

   6. AAAli Abdaal12:31

      Oh.

   7. CWCliff Weitzman12:31

      It's actually as a result of, like, some rights, uh, issues. Uh, audiobook company actually own the masters. They don't own au- the audio rights. Uh, and so Stephen Fry is an American, uh, dude who narrates the audiobooks for Harry Potter in Britain.

   8. AAAli Abdaal12:45

      Oh, interesting.

   9. CWCliff Weitzman12:47

      Yeah.

   10. AAAli Abdaal12:48

       Um, and then you got to university and you-- or college, and you went to Brown.

   11. CWCliff Weitzman12:52

       Yes.

   12. AAAli Abdaal12:53

       What did you study?

   13. CWCliff Weitzman12:54

       I studied renewable energy engineering, so it's a mix of physics, engineering, computer science.

   14. AAAli Abdaal12:57

       Yeah.

   15. CWCliff Weitzman12:58

       Brown is a very interesting spot because you can make your own major. Um, so I invented my major. Um, at the time, I thought that renewable energy would be the field that would grow the most over the next fifty years. And, um, basically, I built, like, solar cells and nuclear reactors and, like, studied hydro energy. But down the street from Brown is a place called RISD, the Rhode Island, um, [lip smack] Design Institute, and it's the number one design school in the world. Actually, both founders of Airbnb went to RISD. So I took a lot of industrial design and graphic design courses at RISD. Um, and I took classes in, like, philosophy and, um, you know, biotechnology and, you know, medicine, et cetera, 'cause I just love learning. And so I basically, like... Brown also doesn't require you to take any requirements, with the exception of two classes that have to do something with r- with writing during the 32 courses that you take. And so I just refused to take prerequisites. I would email professors, and I would get them to let me take the class. I, I remember [chuckles] I had one semester where two of my classes, I was missing six or seven prerequisites to be in it. It was like master's level courses, and I was just, "Yeah, I'll figure it out." And then I just did them, and I-- and so I learned a lot. It was, like, my-- two weeks in, my cheeks started to hurt from smiling so much. It was like the best experience of my life.

   16. AAAli Abdaal14:13

       [laughs] Okay. Um, and, and, and

4. 14:17 – 18:12

   Building a text-to-speech program

   1. AAAli Abdaal14:17

      you said that before you got there, you, you built a text-to-speech thing to be able to read the pre- the, the pre-reading.

   2. CWCliff Weitzman14:24

      That's right.

   3. AAAli Abdaal14:25

      How, how did you just build a text-to-speech thing? Like, were you dabbling with coding and stuff when you were younger? Like, what was the story there?

   4. CWCliff Weitzman14:30

      Yeah. So my younger brother, Tyler, is 18 months younger than me. Him and my sister were in the gifted program every single year, um, when we were growing up. I didn't get in. Then they both got into Exeter, uh, which is the number one high school in the US. Tyler lived in the same dorm that Mark Zuckerberg was when he was in high school. Tyler started building Dragonball Z websites with HTML and CSS when he was in third grade. In fifth grade, he taught himself Assembly so he could hack my, like, RuneScape and MapleStory games. Um, and we moved to the United States, and we met people using his hacks. Um, when the App Store came out, Tyler was finishing seventh grade. He had just moved to the United States. He had just skipped his first math class and skipped a class in Spanish, even though he didn't speak Spanish before. And he fished this old Toshiba out of the trash that had, like, a bunch of viruses, and he cleaned them all up, and he turned it into a Hackintosh, and he taught himself how to build iPhone apps. And so I remember, you know, we were sharing a room, he'd just be on the computer all day. By the time he was 17, Tyler built 47 iPhone apps. Um, one was ranked in the top 10 social networking category of the App Store called Black SMS. It allows you to password protect and encrypt your text messages. Um, so Tyler was coding all my childhood, and I would always try, and I would always fail because I would misspell the variables. And if you code and, you know, one variable says, you know, house correctly and one says it incorrectly and I can't tell the difference, it would break. So it was very demoralizing. Um, right before college, I started going to hackathons, and I would try to code, but I sucked. [chuckles] Uh, but what I would do is I would hop on a table, and I'd have some idea, and I'd convince people to join my team. And then, um, I would organize people. And so I won the first four out of... I, I wo- I won four out of the first eight hackathons I did. One was at MIT. Um, one was by this place called Startup Week in Providence. And after that, I was like, "Okay, I have to learn how to code." And then I just took a bunch of courses on Udemy on how to build iPhone apps and how to build websites, and I would see how other people did it. Um, the first version of text-to-speech for Speechify, Tyler did most of the work. Um, I did some of it. Uh, Tyler's blind in his left eye. He's astigmatic in his right eye. He does all of his work on a giant projector. He now leads the AI team at Speechify. Um, and so w-we worked on it together. Tyler did most of the work, and I did some. But while I was in college, I kept teaching myself more and more so that I could fix this program because it was always, it was always, it would always break. It started as a Mac app on my computer, and it would let me highlight words. I'd hit a keyboard shortcut, and it would read. And most Americans read at 200 words per minute. Um, people who use Speechify by default will listen at 240. Most of us can actually listen faster than we can read, especially today, because most people now, they're on YouTube, double speed. Yeah. TikTok, everything is fast. Instagram, double speed WhatsApp messages, podcasts, audiobooks. Um, and then over the first month, people get to listen at 350 words per minute. I listen to everything at 700 words per minute. Um, and so I was listening a lot faster than any other default text-to-speech readers allowed me to. Um, but this thing kept breaking, so I kept fixing it, and then I took a couple of classes in computer science, and I kept tinkering with it. And then I built a tool that would parse PDFs for me, so I could take, you know, a 300-page PDF for my history class and turn it into a two-hour audiobook, and then I'd go work out and just finish the PDF. Um, and I'd have, like, philosophy classes with super dense material from, like, Aristotle or Nietzsche or whatever, and I'd just put it on my computer. I'd click play. I'd listen a little bit slower, and I played, like, classical music or, like, EDM music in the background with no, um, no lyrics at, like, 30% volume. And so my ADHD brain was, like, very soothed because, like, 70% is on the reading and 30% is on the listening, and if you try to talk to me, I'd be like, "Ah, don't talk to me." I'm, like, zoned. I'd sit like that for, like, three hours, and I'd intake everything. Um, and that's what I did.

   5. AAAli Abdaal18:09

      How's your comprehension when you're listening that fast? Like,

5. 18:12 – 24:00

   Why listening is a superpower

   1. AAAli Abdaal18:12

      people always are like, "Oh, well, like, obviously, if you listen to audiobooks, 100 audiobooks a year." Like, I, I sometimes mention the stat and people are like, "Yeah, but like, obviously you don't, like, actually take any of it in." Like, what's, what's, what's your comprehension like?

   2. CWCliff Weitzman18:23

      Uh, 100%. So if I listen to things, I will have most of it memor- If I listen to something three times, I'll have it memorized. Um, so here's the thing, right? I typically listen and read at the same time. The problem is my reading sucks.

   3. AAAli Abdaal18:37

      Mm.

   4. CWCliff Weitzman18:38

      Uh, but Speechify highlights words as it goes. And so people with dyslexia, it's a decoding problem more than a reading problem. And so through Speechify, I learned how to sight read. So if I see the word house 500 times a month, um, in random text, and then I hear it at the same time, next time I see house, I treat it like an emoji. Like, I just know that those shapes mean house. It's just most people with dyslexia never get over that gap to be able to sight read. And so for me, I hear, I listen at the same time, and so my retention goes up, my comprehension goes up, my understanding goes up. I can do it faster, and there's no fatigue. Um, now, when you get good at that, you can start walking around, juggling, driving, working out, cooking, whatever, and still listen. Um, you know, when you go to first grade, no one expects you to read well. They expect it to take, you know, 10 years, 12 years before you're actually a really good reader. You gotta practice listening, too. And so no one who I've ever met was good at listening in the first podcast or the first audiobook they listened to. Typically, it takes about 10 audiobooks before you become a fluent listener. And once you become a fluent listener, you can listen faster, you can retain more, you can do other things at the same time, and you understand better. And so it's literally just a function of practice. And if you practice, you get really good at it, and then it becomes an absolute superpower because you can intake the internet three times faster than everybody else, and you can do it while you're walking around or doing whatever you want.

   5. AAAli Abdaal20:01

      Yeah, one of the nice things about this is that it's, it's, it's, in a way, very passive practice.

   6. CWCliff Weitzman20:05

      Correct.

   7. AAAli Abdaal20:06

      Like, all you have to do is... Like, and I, I try and tell people this when, when, when people hear me listening. Like, if I have someone in the car and I was listening to an audiobook on the way to pick them up, and I, you know, it autoplays, and suddenly it's like, brr, and they're like, "Oh my God, is this how, is this how fast you listen?" And I'm like, "That, that's only 2X." Like, I slowed it down because it was the, the climax of Oathbringer and I wanted to enjoy it more. [laughs]

   8. CWCliff Weitzman20:25

      Wow.

   9. AAAli Abdaal20:25

      Like, um, and I think people find it so hard to believe that you could actually listen to something at three times or 3.5X speed and actually comprehend it. But it really just is, is a case of start listening at one times speed, and then 1.1 is not, it's not that bad. And then you get used to that, and 1.2, it's not that bad. And I, I only discovered this, I think, I think it was two years into listening to audiobooks. I was going, I was getting through the Wheel of Time series.

   10. CWCliff Weitzman20:47

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AAAli Abdaal20:48

       And I was like, "Okay, this is getting really slow." And then I tried 1.5, and I was like, "Oh my God, suddenly these slow books sound way, way more interesting." And I just had never discovered the speed function on Audible before this, and then I was a complete convert. Um-

   12. CWCliff Weitzman21:00

       Yeah, if I listen at, if I listen at less than 1.5X speed, I wanna jump out that, out the window.

   13. AAAli Abdaal21:04

       [laughs]

   14. CWCliff Weitzman21:05

       Like, I litera- I cannot deal with it. Even in conversations with normal humans, like, you know, whe- when I was single, if I'm with me a girl and she would speak quickly, it's instantly more attractive because you can get through so much more material together. Um, and it's literally just practice. So I think Malcolm Gladwell in one of his books, I think it's Blink, he talks about, uh, conscious versus, you know, passive, uh, practice.

   15. AAAli Abdaal21:28

       Yeah.

   16. CWCliff Weitzman21:29

       And conscious practice, you know, most people don't type at 140 words per minute, even though they're typing all day. But if you deliberately, deliberately practice, deliberately practice typing faster, you'll get really, really fast. So with Speechify, because it's passive, um, the computer does the work for you. What we do is there's a automatic speed ramping algorithm, and if you turn it on, every 1,000 words, it increases the speed by five words per minute.

   17. AAAli Abdaal21:48

       Mm.

   18. CWCliff Weitzman21:49

       Whatever is relevant. And so people end up listening really, really fast. It's just practice.

   19. AAAli Abdaal21:53

       Um, one of the things we talked about in our previous thing, so well, I'm, I'm sure we're gonna re- redo some material, is the criticism that people have of like, "Hey, look, man, why does life have to go so fast? Why can't you, like, enjoy... Oh, you know, you're one of those toxic productivity hustle culture bros that encourages people to listen and watch things faster than they should. That's, that's not how the artist intended it." Like, all of those things, uh, I, I imagine you get those criticisms a lot. Like, what, what's your response to this?

   20. CWCliff Weitzman22:19

       I mean, you're like me.

   21. AAAli Abdaal22:20

       [laughs]

   22. CWCliff Weitzman22:21

       50% of my Audible library and Speechify library are fantasy books.

   23. AAAli Abdaal22:25

       Yeah.

   24. CWCliff Weitzman22:25

       I'm not listening to those things to be productive, man. I'm listening to them because I love them. But I listen to them at 3X speed. Um, imagine every YouTube video had to be watched at 50% speed. No one would finish the podcast. And so my brain has just adjusted to intake the same amount of information, but faster. That's it. And so there's a lot of... Like, okay, my favorite piece of art ever is Hamilton, the musical. I'm obsessed. Um, like, I've got every word of Hamilton memorized. I listen to Hamilton songs like at 1.4 when I get the chance. Um, but part of the reason I like Hamilton is because it's fast.

   25. AAAli Abdaal23:07

       Yeah.

   26. CWCliff Weitzman23:07

       And I intake all of it, right?

   27. AAAli Abdaal23:09

       Yeah.

   28. CWCliff Weitzman23:09

       But things that are slow are, "Give me more." So what is true is my brain has just adjusted to needing more information. And by the way, that's true for everybody, right? It used to be that 60% of kids in high school would read books for fun. This is like 60 years ago. Uh, now it's less than 6%. But when you grow up with Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and all this stuff, like, your brain needs more information. And even movies, it used to be that the number one movie in the world was Gone With the Wind. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." That speed, people would-- That movie would flop today. The speed is too slow. And so society has adjusted, and if you adjust with it, you reap the rewards.

   29. AAAli Abdaal23:47

       Hmm. And I guess the, the, the people who listen to audiobooks at three times speed are a bit more ahead of the curve on [laughs] sort of speed of processing.

   30. CWCliff Weitzman23:56

       It's like you learn how to-
6. 24:00 – 40:20

   Reading 100 books a year with speed listening

   1. AAAli Abdaal24:00

      all their time on watching high-paced content on TikTok-

   2. CWCliff Weitzman24:02

      Exactly

   3. AAAli Abdaal24:02

      ... and thinking nothing of it.

   4. CWCliff Weitzman24:03

      Yeah. So by the way, if you are able to listen and follow TikTok videos that go really fast, if you're able to listen to a podcast at 2X speed or listen to an audiobook at 2X speed, you have a superpower. Use it.

   5. AAAli Abdaal24:16

      So, okay, um, someone might be thinking, "What's the point of listening to all this stuff if you don't act on it? Like, surely it's better to read 10 books a year and really apply their insights than it is to read 100 books a year and not apply their insights." Again, that's an- another thing-

   6. CWCliff Weitzman24:31

      Mm-hmm

   7. AAAli Abdaal24:31

      ... I've, I've heard a lot in... I've seen it-

   8. CWCliff Weitzman24:32

      Yeah

   9. AAAli Abdaal24:32

      ... on YouTube comments and stuff-

   10. CWCliff Weitzman24:33

       Cool

   11. AAAli Abdaal24:33

       ... whenever I talk about this.

   12. CWCliff Weitzman24:33

       I can answer this. Um, okay, so here's how I think about things. All the knowledge in your brain is like a tree. I think of it as a tree of knowledge. When you go to high school and middle school, and you talk to your parents, it builds the bark of your tree. When you go to university and you read more, it builds all the s- all the, the branches, and every book you read is a new leaf of information on that tree. Now, if you don't have a spot to let that leaf land, it'll float away. So, for example, if, you know... One of the things I did at a certain point is I listened to the entire Bible in Hebrew. I did this a couple times. Um, you know, Bereshit bara et shamayim ve-et ha'aretz, right? This doesn't mean anything to you because you don't have context about Hebrew. Um, but even if I told you, like, one of the things that were said in the book of Numbers, like, again, no relevance, so you're not gonna remember this five days from now. Um, sometimes it makes sense to re-listen to a book, right? So I listen to How to Win Friends about once a year, by Dale Carnegie, because I just think it's a great book, and so there's a lot of books that I go back to. I can quote most of the book to you, but I still find something new every single time, uh, because I have that foliage built around that topic. And so recently I've been reading a ton of books about, you know, building brand, performance marketing, um, you know, Austrian economics, whatever it might be, and the more I read in that density, the more I keep. Um, at the same time, I retain most of the material. And so reading, like, business books, for example, has, has become boring because I read, like, the top 300 books about business when I was in high school. Um, so it, it becomes re- repetitive. Um, so you go, you go deeper. You go literally read primary sources, which is what I do a lot now. Um, and, you know, and that becomes fascinating. And so definitely start by reading. Like, reading is the number one way in which I learn. I just do it with my ears. And so start with 10 books a year and understand them well. But if you unlock the superpower of listening, and like you and me, you finish... I, I finish two audiobooks a week. I've done that for about 16 years. Um, okay, you can listen to the same book over and over again, or you can, you know, diversify the, the sources. So-

   13. AAAli Abdaal26:32

       Mm.

   14. CWCliff Weitzman26:32

       That's one thing you could do.

   15. AAAli Abdaal26:34

       Yeah, one of the things that I've found that speed listening really helps with is, uh, just reducing the cost of a book. So I was at this philanthropy retreat thing over the weekend where people were talking about AI and biosecurity and pandemic prevention, and like, how do, how do we avert nuclear war. And I just found myself being like, "I have no idea what anyone is talking about here." And so in conversations with people, I was like, "Well, well, what's, like, the one or two books you'd recommend to kind of get up to speed on what the, what the, what the hell's going on with nuclear," for example. And this chap who I spoke to who works in policy was like, "You know, there's this really good book called The Bomb-

   16. CWCliff Weitzman27:07

       Mm

   17. AAAli Abdaal27:07

       ... which came out recently that charts the history of nuclear war from the 1960s onwards. You should try that out." And I was like, "All right, cool," and immediately just opened up Amazon on my phone, bought it on Audible. I, I saw it was a 12-hour read, and I was like, "Cool, I can get through this in about three and a bit hours."

   18. CWCliff Weitzman27:22

       Four hours, yeah.

   19. AAAli Abdaal27:22

       Yeah, something like that. And I started listening to it on the drive home, and already, like, you know, two hou- two or so hours into it, like, listening at about, about 2.5x speed, because there was a lot of names and stuff, and I'm not overly familiar with how the US government works, so it's like, you know, let's slow it down a bit. I now feel like, oh my God, like, I now have so much context on the nuclear thing, which I just... I, I had zero on, like, other than studying the Cuban Missile Crisis in, like, history in... when I was 15. Beyond that, I knew nothing about any of this, and it's like, oh, it turns out there's all this, like, drama between the Air Force and the Navy and the Army and the Marines, all the stuff around nuclear, like, the stuff with the Kremlin and the hotline. It's some really cool shit. And if that, if that had been recommended to me as a book, and I would've seen how dense it is, it's just like, oh, I'm never gon- I, I wouldn't have read Brandon Sanderson-

   20. CWCliff Weitzman28:02

       Right

   21. AAAli Abdaal28:02

       ... because I've seen how big the frickin' Way of Kings is. But as an audiobook, as an audiobook at, like, a speed multiple, it only costs me about three hours of time where I'm driving or at the gym to be able to actually ingest a lot of information about nuclear. Uh, and maybe I can't recite the names of like, oh, in, in 1963, this was the person who was the head of the Department of State or whatever, but I don't really need to because what I care about is getting the gist and a general-

   22. CWCliff Weitzman28:25

       Exactly

   23. AAAli Abdaal28:26

       ... understanding of the topic.

   24. CWCliff Weitzman28:27

       Yep. The story and the plot. Plus, it's asynchronous time, right? To read a book, you need to not drive-

   25. AAAli Abdaal28:32

       Mm

   26. CWCliff Weitzman28:32

       ... not work out, not cook. You're sitting at a desk. You know, even reading while you're on the train or in an Uber is difficult, but if I'm listening, you know, I finish my Zoom call. Like, here's my, how my day goes, right? I wake up in the morning, AirPods go in, I start listening. I brush my teeth, I'm listening. I'm cooking breakfast, I'm listening. I take them out when I'm eating breakfast with my teammates, and then if I have five minutes between a Zoom call and where I'm in, I'll, I'll listen. And then I finish the Zoom call, I'm gonna head over here. Cool. I start listening. I get in the Uber. I, like, might pick up a phone call or two. The second the phone call ends, I go back to listening. My AirPods just don't leave my ears. And then I only stop listening... I, I texted you, "Hey, I'm downstairs," but I can do things and listen at the same time, and when you show up downstairs, I stop listening. And so all that dead time in the day, typically it's like three to four hours, I'm listening to a book, but I'm listening at 3X speed.

   27. AAAli Abdaal29:17

       All right, we're just gonna take a quick break from the podcast to introduce our sponsor, which is very excitingly Huel. I have been a paying customer of Huel since 2017, so it's been about six years now that I've been using Huel fairly regularly. I started eating Huel in my fifth year of medical school, and I've been using Huel regularly ever since because, you know, I like to be productive. I have... You know, my calendar is filled with a lot of things, and often I don't have the time or don't make the time to have a particularly healthy breakfast or a particularly healthy lunch. My favorite flavor is salted caramel because for 400 calories, you get 40 grams of protein, which is absolutely insane, and you also get a decent, healthy mix of carbohydrates and fiber and fat, along with 26 different vitamins and minerals which are all very good for the body. There's nine different flavors of this to choose from. My favorite is A, the banana version, and also the salted caramel version. So what I do is I take my two scoops, I put them into my NutriBullet blender-type thing, although you can just use a normal shaker if you want. I mix it up normally with water, but a little bit of milk to add a bit more of a milkshake-like consistency to it, and then I just sip that while I'm on my desk doing my work in the morning, and it ensures that I get a very healthy breakfast in that's nutritionally complete, rather than some high-sugar cereal, which is what I would have defaulted to instead. Also, Huel is ridiculously reasonably priced. Like, a meal for 400 calories comes out to £1.68 per meal, which is super, super cheap compared to what the alternative would be if you were ordering takeout, for example. Anyway, if you like the idea of getting these cheap and healthy and nutritionally complete meals in your diet, then head over to Huel.com/deepdive, and if you use that URL, Huel.com/deepdive, they will send you a free T-shirt, which are quite nice, and also a free kind of shaker bottle-type thing with your first order. So thank you so much, Huel, for sponsoring this episode. This episode is very kindly brought to you by Trading 212. Now, people ask me all the time for advice about investing, because I've made a bunch of videos about it on the YouTube channel. And my advice for most people is generally invest in broad stock market index funds, which is exactly what you can do completely for free with Trading 212. It's a great app that lets you trade stocks and funds and ETFs and foreign exchange if you really want to. And one of the great things about the app is that if you're new to the world of investing, you can actually invest with fake money. You don't have to put real money in. They've got a practice mode where you invest fake money, and then it actually tracks what the market is doing in real time. So you can see, had I invested 100 pounds into this thing, what would my return have been X weeks or X months further down the line? Once you've got some comfort with that, then it's super easy to deposit money into your Trading 212 account. You can use Apple Pay like I do initially, or you can use a direct bank transfer. And then once the money is in your Trading 212 account, then you can invest it in basically whatever you want. The other really cool feature about Trading 212 is their Pies feature. So what you can do is you can follow people who've created investing pies. For example, someone might have a pie where, I don't know, 30% of it's Apple and 20% is Tesla and 10% is the S&P 500. And you can follow people on the app and see what pies they've created. And you can see the performance of those pies. And then you can just copy and paste a particular pie into your own account. And so that means like, let's say you've got 100 pounds to invest and you've put 50 of it into the S&P 500, but you want to be a little bit more experimental with the other 50 pounds. You can invest it into a pie where someone else who's generally a pro or someone in their bedroom who just loves the markets has already done all the homework for you. The app also lets you auto invest, which is a great thing because then you can automatically invest a percentage of your paycheck into the thing every month. And so if you haven't yet started with investing and you want to give it a go, then you can download the app on the App Store. And if you use the coupon code ALI, A-L-I at the checkout, that will give you a totally free share worth up to 100 pounds. It's available on iPhone and Android, and you can check it out by typing in Trading 212 into your respective app store. So thank you so much, Trading 212 for sponsoring this episode. That thing that you just said, I imagine there are some people listening to this thinking, "Oh my fucking God, that sounds incredible."

   28. CWCliff Weitzman32:37

       Oh, in fact-

   29. AAAli Abdaal32:38

       And just as many probably thinking, "Oh my fucking God, that sounds like the worst thing in the world. This guy's a psychopath." Like, [laughs] um, I wonder like-

   30. CWCliff Weitzman32:45

       I mean, most people do the same thing, but with music, right? So let's like take Hamilton, for example. Um, I eat biographies for breakfast. I'm obsessed, right? Like I literally wrote a rap album about the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger after I listened to Hamilton for the first time. Um, Hamilton, the musical, it's about two hours, 40 minutes long. It is the best biography of Hamilton, in my opinion, right? It's dramaticized, but like you can't take away from the beat and the lyrics and everything else. When you listen to music, it's exactly like listening to a book, especially if you pay attention to the lyrics. By the way, one really cool thing is if you start listening to a lot of audiobooks, you will notice and remember all the lyrics from all the songs you listen to. Most people who I am friends with, um, you know, they listen to the beat or the melody and they don't necessarily recall or understand the lyrics. They need to look at the lyrics on their phone to really intake them. For me, like both happen because I've trained that part of my brain.
7. 40:20 – 45:24

   Do you have a note taking process for listening?

   1. AAAli Abdaal40:20

      kind of note-taking process when it comes to learning from audiobooks and podcasts and stuff?

   2. CWCliff Weitzman40:25

      I don't. Um, I remember it all in my head. Um, but the way I think about it is everybody has a mental model of the universe in their brain.

   3. AAAli Abdaal40:35

      Yep.

   4. CWCliff Weitzman40:36

      It's like a Google Map where some areas you zoom in, it's more pixelated, other places, like it's really fleshed out.

   5. AAAli Abdaal40:42

      Yep.

   6. CWCliff Weitzman40:42

      And all the topics are connected to each other. And, uh, you know, when people get down YouTube wormholes and start believing conspiracy theories, um, you know, if the mental model is that gigantic tree, that conspiracy theory is a shrub that lives over here that's not connected to your main tree in any shape, way, or form. Uh, a good example of this is I used to believe that Vikings were mythical creatures. I didn't think they ever existed. I thought they were like dwarves and elves. And then I went and I visited Denmark, and I was in Co-Copenhagen, um, and this girl said this thing about Vikings, and I was taken aback because she talked about them like they existed in history. And then I realized they did. Like King Bluetooth was a real person, um, who had a chipped tooth that turned blue. Um, and he united like Denmark and Switzerland and Sweden and all these other countries, and they lived like right before World War I. And I was like, "Whoa." And that was the first time that Vikings were introduced into my mental model of the universe, so it all started to get connected. And so I consume a lot of books. I consume a lot of podcasts. I talk to a lot of people. I think a lot. And so my brain keeps making these fiber connections between things. For note-taking, I take notes on all my Zoom calls on Apple Notes. I love Apple Notes. Um, I use them religiously and have done so since like 2011. Um, one of the things we've now built in Speechify is when you listen to an audiobook or PDF or whatever, uh, you get both the text highlighted for you in your library, and you can listen. And it works both on iOS and on web, and you can click on a sentence, and it'll allow you to take the note in there. Uh, and one thing I wanna do is ingest all the podcasts, and if you wanna make a comment on something that you said, uh, you can, and then the a-audience can upvote, and it turns into a subreddit, essentially. Like you can build a community for the podcast listeners. And then it makes all podcasts, uh, indexable and searchable by topic.

   7. AAAli Abdaal42:32

      Yeah.

   8. CWCliff Weitzman42:33

      So you can search nootropics, and you can see every time that Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or Cal Newport or you talked about, you know, whatever nootropic of choice. Um, and so that's something to me that's really exciting. So I'm, we're trying to build that into Speechify.

   9. AAAli Abdaal42:45

      Hmm. Yeah. The, the thing around building a model of the world in your head versus outside of your head, um, you know, this, uh, you might be familiar with, familiar with-

   10. CWCliff Weitzman42:56

       Yeah

   11. AAAli Abdaal42:56

       ... Tiago Forte building a second brain, all that kind of stuff.

   12. CWCliff Weitzman42:58

       Yeah.

   13. AAAli Abdaal42:59

       Uh, all of these new note-taking apps that are allegedly trying to outsource the work of the brain to an app because a computer can understand, an AI or whatever can link, create links that you might not have found. ... useful yourself. Um, and so I, I've been sort of dabbling in the space for the last, like, three years now.

   14. CWCliff Weitzman43:14

       Mm.

   15. AAAli Abdaal43:14

       But I've never, I've never once had a situation where my computer has created a link that I wouldn't have created in my head.

   16. CWCliff Weitzman43:21

       Hmm.

   17. AAAli Abdaal43:21

       One thing it is useful for is, for example, let's say I had a call with someone two years ago interviewing them about the book, and I tagged it with a thing.

   18. CWCliff Weitzman43:28

       Hmm.

   19. AAAli Abdaal43:28

       And two years later when I'm, uh, refining that chapter, I search for the thing and it's like, oh, okay.

   20. CWCliff Weitzman43:33

       Yeah.

   21. AAAli Abdaal43:33

       And now I now have a searchable transcript, which is useful. But beyond that, I'm not sure what actual utility I've gotten from the let a device connect your thoughts to things.

   22. CWCliff Weitzman43:42

       The CRM that I have on my computer is amazing for people. So I put a note inside of anyone's contacts in my phone that when I put them in, um, so let's say I meet someone at a party, I'd be like, "All right, Connor, Yellow Hat, Gangnam Style," because we danced Gangnam Style at the time. And then I'll search that every time I need that person, I'll text them the question. So a lot of my knowledge is actually linked to the people that I know, right? You get a bunch of like random texts from me, right? Same thing for most people know me, um, because I think about random things at 4:00 in the morning, uh, or when I, you know, get out of the shower, and I always build them up. Um, at this point, I've actually shifted to using iMessage and email for most of my communications because it just makes it easier to, to follow. Um, and then everything is in Google No- is in Apple Notes, and so I, I know how I write, and so I search for the right keywords to, to unlock that thing. The other thing is I have an app on my phone that organizes my contacts by the date in which I entered them. So if I met someone at a Christmas party-

   23. AAAli Abdaal44:32

       Oh, that's handy

   24. CWCliff Weitzman44:32

       ... in 2018-

   25. AAAli Abdaal44:33

       That's good

   26. CWCliff Weitzman44:33

       ... I will go to that date, and then I look at who came into my contacts booth, and oh yeah, it was Jimmy, and then I, I'll send him a message. Um, so that's the thing that I really rely on, and if I didn't have it, I would cry, and so I, I back that up a lot.

   27. AAAli Abdaal44:44

       Hmm. Do you use the CRM for like just work stuff or also personal stuff?

   28. CWCliff Weitzman44:49

       Oh, um, yeah, personal stuff-

   29. AAAli Abdaal44:50

       Oh

   30. CWCliff Weitzman44:50

       ... even more than work stuff, yeah.
8. 45:24 – 1:02:44

   Life lessons from building Speechify

   1. AAAli Abdaal45:24

      next in the Cliff Weitzman story?

   2. CWCliff Weitzman45:26

      Ooh.

   3. AAAli Abdaal45:26

      And I guess also you're a very like sociable dude. Um, and I remember last time we spoke you mentioned that you did some like rogue things socially when you were in, in, in college.

   4. CWCliff Weitzman45:36

      Yeah.

   5. AAAli Abdaal45:36

      I won- I wonder if you can elaborate on that.

   6. CWCliff Weitzman45:37

      Yeah, of course. Um, cool. So I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never been high. I've never been drunk. Um, there's no way you're getting me to touch a cigarette. Um-

   7. AAAli Abdaal45:47

      Psychedelics?

   8. CWCliff Weitzman45:48

      Not psychedelics either.

   9. AAAli Abdaal45:48

      Ooh, interesting.

   10. CWCliff Weitzman45:49

       Yeah.

   11. AAAli Abdaal45:49

       Oh.

   12. CWCliff Weitzman45:50

       Um, the way I think about psychedelics, I have a lot of friends who love psychedelics.

   13. AAAli Abdaal45:53

       Mm.

   14. CWCliff Weitzman45:53

       Many, many close friends. Um, psychedelics, the way they des- are described to me is, you know, let's say this is the lens for the world, you get to look at the world from another angle. You shift it. It's like clicking a reset button. The thing is I, [chuckles] I love how my brain functions. Like I'm so happy. I do not wanna roll the dice in resetting it. And I've also had a lot of friends who have had, like a life-changing experience with psychedelics that were, that were negative.

   15. AAAli Abdaal46:20

       Really?

   16. CWCliff Weitzman46:21

       Right? Oh, yeah.

   17. AAAli Abdaal46:21

       Oh.

   18. CWCliff Weitzman46:21

       Many, many, many people.

   19. AAAli Abdaal46:22

       Okay.

   20. CWCliff Weitzman46:23

       Um, and I don't wanna risk it. I'd ra- I'd rather stay, stay as I am. Maybe when I'm like, you know, 60 and, and life becomes boring and I wanna change something, but so far I, I'm very happy. Uh, I'm the happiest person I've ever met really. Uh, I, I, I don't, I don't wanna shift it. Um, okay. So I'm 18-year-old Cliff. Um, you know, I'm just about to graduate high school. At this point in my life, I became obsessed with parkour. Um, so when I was six I saw a movie where Jackie Chan did a back flip and I was like, "Obviously I'm gonna learn how to do this." And I, I got into university and so, you know, I could do less work in school and I would just spend like six hours a day doing parkour. And I was like working on like double back flips. And I started doing hacka- hackathons, got to Brown. Oh my God. And Brown was ranked for eight years in a row the happiest school in the world. Um, people were interesting and interested, and for the first time everybody was like someone I could learn something new from. It was a huge shift. And even though, you know, I, I went to like an, you know, a public high school in California. Th- this was a very different environment. And so what I did is I would, [chuckles] uh, I would go to the dining hall, and I very quickly realized the best thing about college is the people who are there, much more important than the classes. And I would have two dinners every single night. I would grab a plate, I would go to a table exactly like this, so you have eight people sitting at the table. I'd look for one that has six or seven people. I'd be like, "Hey, can I join you guys? What's your name? Ali, I'm Cliff, nice to meet you. Can I grab a seat?" "Sure." "How's it going?" And then I'd talk to everybody in that table. I'd finish my food. At this point I was trying to eat 3,000 calories a day. I'd get two more plates and I'd go and I'd sit at another table. And then I'd grab a cup of tea and I'd sit at another p- table. Actually s- sorry, I had like three dinners a night. And I would do this for the first two months of every single semester. First semester, second semester. And I did this every year. So I got to know 60% of my freshman class, uh, within the first two months, and then I got to know the class underneath and the class underneath, and I got to know a lot of the seniors and the juniors. And even when I graduated I would fly back and I would crash on Valentine's couch, and I would do this again. And, um, I would host workshops for ADOC, which is the admitted students day, and, you know, I'd get people to open up. And so I'd meet all those people even if they didn't come to Brown. Um, before I got to Brown I knew that I did not wanna drink, and I was like, "Cool, I gotta make sure that I don't have any social inhibitions even without drinking." And, you know, I think right before that I'd read The 4-Hour Workweek for the first time, and How To Win Friends. And so I combined the comfort challenges that Tim Ferriss suggests with the chapter about smiling, uh, from Dale Carnegie's book. And so every time I'd walk down the street and someone big was walking across, I'd lock eyes with them and I'd flash a smile in their direction. And my goal was to get them to smile back. And the great thing about that is, number one, y- you become very happy from this physiologically, because if you smile, you know, your brain becomes... And then the other person is smiling at you genuinely. And I always play this game to this day, especially in airports. But I would go to like a coffee shop and I'd try to negotiate a 15% discount. I'd lie on the floor on a Starbucks for like 15 seconds, 20 seconds to give myself a timeout. I'd go to the mall and ask out, you know- Every person who walked by just to build the muscle. And I got good at just not being shy. And so I'm the first person dancing on a table at any party. I just don't drink. Um, and that was really, really useful, and anyone can do it. It's just a matter of practicing. And then that served me really well because throughout college, I did 42 hackathons, I think, um, and I made a lot of friends in all those events. And, like, I'd be the first person to ask questions every time, you know, someone interesting came to, to school. I, you know, I'd build a relationship with them. Um, I'd enter like, "There's a rap battle? Cool. I'll do the rap battle. There's a breakdance battle? Cool. I'll do the break, breakdance battle." Someone's playing basketball or a sport I, like, let's say a sport I've never played before, I'm, I'm always in. Um, I just have no inhibitions about going to do stuff, and I love putting myself outside the, my comfort zone always. Um, and that served me really well. And then when I graduated and I started working on Speechify full time, it was quite lonely because I couldn't meet new people. And one of the best things about Brown is you have artists and musicians and philosophers and actors, and people who are into math and physics and computer science and history. It's incredible cross-pollination of all these things, but downtown San Francisco is just all tech bros.

   21. AAAli Abdaal50:34

       Hmm.

   22. CWCliff Weitzman50:35

       So that was a lot less interesting. And I was living with my brother, and all the, the people who I was working with, like I had, I had hired them, and so, uh, there weren't that many people, so I started flying back to Brown every month or two. And then I realized that there were a bunch of cool people on Instagram and YouTube and Twitter, so I just started DM'ing people, and even before that, I was really good at cold messaging people on email, founders especially.

   23. AAAli Abdaal50:57

       Hmm.

   24. CWCliff Weitzman50:58

       And one of the strategies I developed once I got to the point where I'd read all the books that I could read to learn about a topic, is I'd make a Google sheet of the 100 people who knew about the topic the most-

   25. AAAli Abdaal51:07

       Yeah

   26. CWCliff Weitzman51:07

       ... and then I'd message every single one of them on Instagram, Facebook-

   27. AAAli Abdaal51:10

       Yeah

   28. CWCliff Weitzman51:10

       ... LinkedIn, email, and then I'd follow up until I got on a Zoom call. Once I got on a Zoom call, I'd be like, "Whoa, this is amazing. You know so much about performance marketing. You live in Israel? Denmark? Chicago? Cool. Uh, can I come say hello in person? Like I, I, I, it's easier for me to come visit Denmark on like Sunday. Um, can I come by?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure." And then I'd fly there, and then I'd meet them. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if it's an athlete or a musician or, like, an author. Like recently I went and I spent some time with Brandon Sanderson in, in Utah and I, you know... One of my favorite rappers lives in Las Vegas, so I would, I'll fly to his studio and I'll record with him. Um, or there's like this, um, like media mogul who is like an incredible, um, agent for actors, so I'm going to meet him in Aspen in like three days, and then after that I'm gonna go to Las Vegas, and then after that I'm gonna go, um, meet like Orlando Bloom in LA 'cause he's a big user of Speechify. Like, if there is someone who I think is awesome, I will just build a relationship with them. And then the way I got really good at performance marketing is I just made a list of the top 100 best performing consumer subscription companies in the world, and I went and I sat behind the founders of Grammarly, of Audible, of Goop, of Dollar Shave Club, um, of, of, you know, Robin Hood, et cetera, and I saw how they bought ads. And then I met, you know, Amara and Thomas and Matt from Yes Theory, or Logan or Jimmy, and I just would study how they created content, and then I got good at creating content. And then I wanted to know how to hire engineers, so I found the CTOs of all the top startups, uh, you know, John Collison, whatever, and, and I'd talk to them about it, and then I'd understand how they did it, and I'd figure out the process, and then I'd implement the process. And so really my strategy as CEO at Speechify is if you're a founder, your number one role is to learn. You learn how to code, how to design, how to talk to users. Um, your number... Your top three goals as a CEO is make sure there's enough money in the bank, set the vision, and make sure the right people are in the right seats. And so a company, by definition, the word means a collection of people, so your role is to collect incredible people and then have them row in the same direction for a really big vision. And so, you know, I used to be the head of engineering at Speechify. I used to be the head of product at Speechify. I used to be the CMO at Speechify. Not CMO. Like I led marketing and performance marketing and, and, you know, brand, whatever it might be. So I read every single book there is about the topic, like literally 100 books, until I'm a subject matter expert, and then I'll find all of the number one practitioners in the field and I will make friends with them and I will study how they do it, and then, you know, maybe I can teach them something and they can teach me something else, and then I'll do a ton of experiments and I'll rewrite the playbook of how to do this thing, and then I'll find someone who's more talented at that operation than me, and I'll have them lead the department, and I'll go and run the next department after that. Um, and so, you know, that... M- One of my favorite things in life is to just make friends with the most awesome people in the world, right? So I love this podcast, you know, How To Take Over The World, because it tells you the stories of just the most badass people in history. Well, there's a lot of badass people alive today. I would argue more badass than any of the people who have ever lived, because they've had the benefit of listening to all these books, listening to all these podcasts. Bro, every 13-year-old already gets to read everything that Newton never wrote about geometry, and then by the time they graduate high school, they know all the calculus. Man, Newton didn't have anything to... Well, he has the line, you know, "If I have seen further, it's because I've s- uh, I stood on the shoulders of giants." So you had, you know, Copernicus and Galileo, but like everybody today is so much more awesome than people who lived in the past because they get to benefit from everything that everyone else has ever written or said. Plus, you have an iPhone, an external brain, and you can bench press. Like you can make yourself amazing. And so there's all these incredible people. I wanna be friends with all of them, and so that's what I do.

   29. AAAli Abdaal54:49

       Why do you wanna be friends with all of them? Like w- what's, what's driving that?

   30. CWCliff Weitzman54:52

       So number one-
9. 1:02:44 – 1:17:45

   Expanding your network & the power of adding value

   1. AAAli Abdaal1:02:44

      So let's say someone's listening to this and they're like, and I'm, I'm, I, I feel like I'm sort of in this, in this boat where, you know, I saw you very kindly shared your like goal spreadsheet with me on, on Google Sheets the other day and I was, I was, I was looking at it and I was just like, oh wow, you're, you're so intentional about like people that you wanna meet and like wanna hang out with. And, and part of me was thinking I'd like to do that as well.

   2. CWCliff Weitzman1:03:08

      Mm.

   3. AAAli Abdaal1:03:08

      Like that seems cool. And you know, for example, when I had Brandon Sanderson on the podcast like that, that, that was sick. Like that was awesome. Um, and I... It, it was a cold, a cold message on Twitter-

   4. CWCliff Weitzman1:03:22

      Yeah

   5. AAAli Abdaal1:03:22

      ... and I almost didn't believe that it turned out, turned out the way it did. But another part of me was sort of scared and I think there was a fear around like oh, s- sending cold messages seems like just like A, it seems like a lot of work-

   6. CWCliff Weitzman1:03:39

      Mm

   7. AAAli Abdaal1:03:39

      ... B, like, uh, it's kind of weird. Like I feel like I already struggle hard enough to keep, uh, to keep in touch with my actual friends let alone trying to then expand this network for people around the world. And even a part of me was like, oh, Cliff must have some kind of like insecurity to be wanting to become fr- friends with, with, with celebrities. And I was like, that's weird. Like why am I... W- why is that like where my brain went with this? Because I think it was, it was me being afraid of like that's really cool and I want to do that but I'm tr- but my ego is trying to find reasons-

   8. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:10

      Mm

   9. AAAli Abdaal1:04:10

      ... for, for to be like oh, you know, ugh, you know, I'm, I'm more secure in myself therefore I don't need to be friends with a, with, with, with a famous person. And I think this is... I, I feel like this is similar to the attitude some people have when if, if you see someone who's like very successful at a thing and you kind of feel like you want it-

   10. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:28

       Mm

   11. AAAli Abdaal1:04:28

       ... like I, I wanna be successful at that thing but you feel like there is something stopping you from getting there, like you feel like you can't put in the time or the effort or like me- or it just wouldn't be possible. It's very easy to be like, oh, I don't, I don't actually want the thing.

   12. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:39

       Mm.

   13. AAAli Abdaal1:04:40

       'Cause oh you know that, that person's materialistic that's why they have a Lamborghini. I don't actually want a Lamborghini or whatever that might look like. Um, yeah.

   14. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:47

       So the funny part is like we're talking about like being friends with famous people but we're talking about Brandon Sanderson.

   15. AAAli Abdaal1:04:51

       [laughs]

   16. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:51

       Like that's the thing that both you and I are most excited about.

   17. AAAli Abdaal1:04:53

       Yeah.

   18. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:54

       Brandon Sanderson, most of the people who are watching this don't know who he is.

   19. AAAli Abdaal1:04:57

       Yeah.

   20. CWCliff Weitzman1:04:57

       And if they do know who he is they have no idea what he looks like.

   21. AAAli Abdaal1:05:00

       Yeah.

   22. CWCliff Weitzman1:05:00

       But man, I, again, the guy who I teared up messaging-

   23. AAAli Abdaal1:05:04

       Mm

   24. CWCliff Weitzman1:05:04

       ... was the founder of Audible.

   25. AAAli Abdaal1:05:05

       Mm.

   26. CWCliff Weitzman1:05:05

       None of you guys knew who Don Katz was before.

   27. AAAli Abdaal1:05:07

       Yeah.

   28. CWCliff Weitzman1:05:07

       I don't care how famous someone is.

   29. AAAli Abdaal1:05:09

       Yeah.

   30. CWCliff Weitzman1:05:09

       I care about what they've done. I care about their story. I care about how they've impacted the world and how I can be inspired by them. And so the people who I message like they're a parkour athlete with like 1,000 followers on Instagram who are just their core friends, but they can do a move that I can- can't do. They can do a webster. They can do a beautiful webster. And so I'm gonna message them and be like, "Hey Adam, you have the best webster anybody I ever seen. I know you live in North Carolina. Would it be cool if I hired you to coach me? And I'll set up my phone on FaceTime and I'll put my AirPods in and I'll just train for two hours and pay you for that." He's like, "Yeah, for sure, but you don't need to pay me. Like I'm happy to coach you." And so like I'll just reach out to people who I think are cool. I don't care if they're famous. It just happens to be that if they're famous I'm more likely to know their story. Um, you know, I'm a bigger fan of, of Chai Chu or Simon who work with me than I am of any, any of these people. Um, and yeah, it's just the fact that like the more you learn about people the more you realize that the world is stacked with incredible human beings who also just have such great character. And again, if someone doesn't have good character, if they're like a jerk, I have zero interest in being their friend no matter what the story is.
10. 1:17:45 – 1:22:11

    How to avoid procrastination

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:17:46

       I'd have to zoom in on this, this like thank you notes thing.

    2. CWCliff Weitzman1:17:48

       Yeah.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:17:48

       So you said that you don't procrastinate, you don't scroll social media at all.

    4. CWCliff Weitzman1:17:51

       No, no, I definitely procrastinate.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:17:51

       Oh, okay. You're right.

    6. CWCliff Weitzman1:17:52

       But instead of procrastinating, typically, if I'm low energy in my work-

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:17:55

       Mm-hmm

    8. CWCliff Weitzman1:17:55

       ... and I, I find it difficult to focus, I just pull out my phone, I go to iMessage, and people who I feel gratitude towards, I send them specific messages for what I feel gratitude about.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:18:04

       Wow. That's such a positive way to waste time on your phone.

    10. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:07

        Exactly. And don't endless scroll Twitter.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:18:09

        Yeah, l- like I imagine-

    12. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:10

        No, sure

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:18:11

        ... like every time I'm, I'm on the toilet multiple times a day, you know, my, my default is Twitter, and I scroll, scroll, scroll.

    14. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:16

        Oh, yeah.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:18:17

        And then I

    16. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:17

        I just go to iMessage and I message people.

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:18:18

        Wow. Oh, man, my life would be so much better if that was my default like thumb action rather than scroll, swipe, swipe, swipe-

    18. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:24

        What we actually can do is I use, uh... So my phone, I activated the child safety lock. So, um, what's it called on your phone, uh, when it blocks you from being on an app after 15 minutes?

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:18:35

        Oh, yeah, that thing.

    20. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:36

        Um, yeah.

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:18:36

        Yeah.

    22. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:36

        So that thing, um, they just released an API for this.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:18:40

        Hmm. Focus mode.

    24. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:42

        Apple... Focus mode. Yeah.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:18:44

        Yeah.

    26. CWCliff Weitzman1:18:44

        Um, I set my phone as if I'm a five-year-old, and parental controls, and I do not know the code to open that parental control thing, and I haven't known the code for about five years. My brother knows it, my girlfriend knows it, like all the rest of my team know it, uh, but I don't. And so I get two minutes of Instagram a day, two minutes on Twitter, two minutes of YouTube, two minutes of TikTok, and then they're all locked [laughs] and I can't open them.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:19:08

        Yeah.

    28. CWCliff Weitzman1:19:08

        Uh, if there's something specific I need to do, I can ask someone to open them for me-

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:19:11

        Hmm

    30. CWCliff Weitzman1:19:11

        ... and they'll be open for, open for a couple of minutes, but then they're immediately locked again. Um, yeah, I don't even have the app, I think, for YouTube on my phone. Um, and that's how I defend myself.
11. 1:22:11 – 1:37:29

    Organising your life and maintaining relationships

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:22:11

       Okay. More specific questions on this. So how... Do you, do you, do you try and maintain inbox zero on email/iMessage/WhatsApp messages-

    2. CWCliff Weitzman1:22:19

       Sure

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:22:19

       ... all that shit? Like, I, I have, I have zil- zillions of WhatsApps that I need to reply to, and I always feel like ugh about it.

    4. CWCliff Weitzman1:22:24

       So I had a CEO coach, Matt Micceri, for the first two years of working on Speechify.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:22:27

       Hmm. Yeah, I've read his thing. I think you linked me his stuff.

    6. CWCliff Weitzman1:22:30

       I'm sure I did.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:22:30

       Possibly, yeah. I've just been through his whole Google Doc. It's incredible.

    8. CWCliff Weitzman1:22:32

       Yeah.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:22:33

       Yeah.

    10. CWCliff Weitzman1:22:33

        Yeah, he's amazing. Um, Matt loves inbox zero. He has a bunch of like rules for being a CEO. Um, I tried to maintain inbox zero, uh, for two weeks, and I got physically ill. Like, I literally got sick, and Matt was like, "Okay, don't do it." Um, and so every person has a different way and style of working, right? I definitely do, 'cause I have ADHD and I have dyslexia. I have a neurodiverse brain. And every person learns a different way. Every person has their own strengths. And so one key that I tell people who are working on camp- companies is like design your workflow to allow you to work on the things that are your zone of genius, and have the team work on everything else.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:23:05

        Yeah.

    12. CWCliff Weitzman1:23:06

        And you know, we've talked about this a bunch more. Um, and so, uh, no, definitely not on email. Um, I have the philosophy where if I missed your email, if it's important, you'll email me again. Typically, that's true. Uh, for iMessage, it's more personal, so I do make sure that I respond to all the iMessages, and so that, you know, does stay... And that's not very hard because you can just heart something. You can leave a audio message. Like, iMessage is easy. WhatsApp is relatively easy. I leave groups on WhatsApp as quickly as I can.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:23:35

        Mm.

    14. CWCliff Weitzman1:23:35

        Uh, the only group I'm in in WhatsApp is for my team and for my family, uh, because I could care less what a random person who is like a second connection says. I don't want that to filter.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:23:44

        Yeah.

    16. CWCliff Weitzman1:23:44

        I don't read the news.

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:23:45

        Yeah.

    18. CWCliff Weitzman1:23:45

        All my knowledge comes from like reading history and philosophy. Um, yeah, that's my workflow around, uh, those kind of things. And then, you know, the other inbox on Instagram is also really valuable because you'll get a lot of inbound, and, uh, there's no obligation to respond. But if something really good pops up, I'll respond.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:24:01

        Hmm. Do you use WhatsApp archiving to maintain inbox zero, or do you just like-

    20. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:05

        No, absolutely not

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:24:06

        ... you just reply to things?

    22. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:07

        Yeah, no, no. I, I, I don't archive on email. I don't archive on WhatsApp. I don't archive on iMessage. Um, I just let it flow. And then if it's important, it comes back. I do on email, uh, star things, and then every month or so I'll go on the stars and I'll go look through and I'll go, "What's important that I missed?" And 90% of those things, a month later, they're not relevant and not important anymore.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:24:26

        Yeah.

    24. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:27

        But really, like, unless you're working for like 911 or the police, nothing's actually urgent. If it's important, they'll message you again.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:24:37

        Mm.

    26. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:37

        That's it.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:24:38

        Hmm. And then when you're sending these cold DMs and stuff, it'll be like, "Oh, hey, you know, I loved your thing, um-

    28. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:45

        Yeah

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:24:45

        ... Cliff," or whatever. Um, "Are you free on Thursday for Zoom 4:00 p.m. kind of vibes?"

    30. CWCliff Weitzman1:24:50

        Yeah.
12. 1:37:29 – 1:43:54

    Tips for putting more love into the world

    1. CWCliff Weitzman1:37:30

       smiling at strangers is really important. Um, just don't be afraid of other people. So, so okay. No one will get mad at you for asking to hang out. Mm. No one will get mad at you for asking to hang out. And if they're busy, they just happen to be busy, so you're allowed to follow up. Like people are like stressing out so much about double texting people. Who cares if you double text people? Mm-hmm. You are an awesome, amazing human being. The fact that someone else is busy has nothing to do with your life. Like if you tried to message me during this basketball weekend, I was playing basketball. Like I didn't have time to see the message. It's not that I don't love you. I just didn't look at my phone. Mm-hmm. Um, and so there's no problem in double texting- Yeah ... or 5X emailing, especially if you haven't met the person before. They don't owe you anything. And so typically, I am willing to message someone like eight times before they respond, and I have never had someone ever message me saying, "Oh, stop messaging me," et cetera. Like just be polite, be respectful. Um- And don't get like hurt when you don't get a response when the person has no obligation to respond to you. Um, and so that's really important. Removing that fear is key.

    2. AAAli Abdaal1:38:29

       Mm.

    3. CWCliff Weitzman1:38:29

       When I was in college, I made a list of all the people who I thought were really cool at Brown who I was not friends with yet, and then I messaged all of them. And I was like, "Hey, you wanna go to the gym 3:00 PM on Monday?" Most people said yes. Why? Because everybody wants to go to the gym. Um, everybody would love someone to keep them accountable, and now you have an hour together where you're doing something together next to each other. You're gonna talk. And so whether it's coffee, lunch, or dinner, everybody eats, or going to the gym, like all those things you're allowed to ha- to ask someone to do-

    4. AAAli Abdaal1:38:56

       Yeah

    5. CWCliff Weitzman1:38:56

       ... and like it's so easy for them to say yes, and they're repeatable, too. Like my best friends in college were just the people who were my gym buddies, um, because that's what we did.

    6. AAAli Abdaal1:39:04

       Yeah.

    7. CWCliff Weitzman1:39:04

       And actually, you know, when I moved here, the first thing you and I did was we, we went and we did a workout.

    8. AAAli Abdaal1:39:07

       Yeah.

    9. CWCliff Weitzman1:39:07

       And then I happened to be going to a show in, you know, the West End, so you joined us for the show.

    10. AAAli Abdaal1:39:11

        Mm.

    11. CWCliff Weitzman1:39:12

        And then we realized that both of us really like making music-

    12. AAAli Abdaal1:39:14

        [laughs]

    13. CWCliff Weitzman1:39:14

        ... so we started making music together. Like it doesn't matter what it is. Um, so just find an excuse. And then I will say that the other thing that I do is I always look to spend time with people who are going to make me better, right? So, you know, if this person has, you know, written a book that I admire or they're a really good musician or they're a good athlete or they're just like a kind human being. My best friend in Palo Alto is this guy, um, Nick Hunter. He used to be the captain of the Michigan gymnastics team, and he, he paints, and he makes music. Um, you've never heard about Nick Hunter, but he's just like the best human being I know. And like he's just a really good friend. And I grew so much by spending time with Nick Hunter. And like his roommate was like a really good jujitsu coach, and so, you know, Benji taught me a bunch of stuff. And, you know, it's just find people who are like genuine, who are like drunk on life, just passionate, and I just look to surround myself with those people. And then if I run into people who are not, they're like, "How's your day going?" "Okay." "Why, why only okay?" "Oh, nobody ever asks." You know, this happened... So there's, um, there's a Instagram page, Facebook page called Humans of New York. And so if you read a bunch of the posts, you can reverse engineer what the questions are. So I have this list of questions that I ask people, right? You know, uh, "What's your... Can I ask you a personal question?" "Sure." "What's your biggest struggle in life right now? What's your top three goals in life? What gives you energy in your work?" Um, all these things, and you get to like the meat of the person.

    14. AAAli Abdaal1:40:33

        Mm.

    15. CWCliff Weitzman1:40:33

        And so in all those dinners at Brown, three dinners a night for two months every semester, I just got really good at skipping over the small talk and immediately going to the big talk. And the easiest way to do that is you form relationships with people. Either you bond over ambition or you bond over vulnerability. And so if you're able to share that you were... You know, I was bullied in like third, fourth, fifth grade really badly. Someone slapped me in the face in the middle of class. Um, you know, I was bad at reading when I was young. Um, I was really small. Like all, all this stuff. Um, I had an accent, whatever it might be. Um, Hasan Minhaj talked to me about this. We talked about how in comedy, uh, you know, you wanna make a statement about something. Um, and if you can go low as opposed to going high, go low status, that's really powerful. It's actually very, very attractive. If you're able to share something vulnerable, people gravitate towards you. Um, and so if you can figure out what are the things that you're vulnerable about but that you're willing to talk about, that's really great. Um, right? You and I, I think at a certain point we talked about how you're looking for a wife.

    16. AAAli Abdaal1:41:37

        Mm.

    17. CWCliff Weitzman1:41:37

        And I was like, "Well, that's interesting. Tell me more about that."

    18. AAAli Abdaal1:41:39

        Yeah.

    19. CWCliff Weitzman1:41:39

        And I was like-

    20. AAAli Abdaal1:41:39

        I bonded over the whole like systemizing relationships and stuff.

    21. CWCliff Weitzman1:41:42

        Yeah. I, I was, I was single.

    22. AAAli Abdaal1:41:44

        Yeah.

    23. CWCliff Weitzman1:41:44

        And I was like, "Oh, tell me more." And then, you know, we, we nerded out over, you know-

    24. AAAli Abdaal1:41:47

        Yeah

    25. CWCliff Weitzman1:41:47

        ... being bad with meeting girls. Um, and you know, I have so many friends who like struggle with the same thing. Um, I don't have kids, but one day I would love to have kids. I wanna have seven kids. Um, man, I love meeting friends who have kids and like talking to them about what it's like to be a parent. Like I just... Again, I read all the parenting books ahead of time. Um, right? So bond over vulnerability, bond over ambition. And there's, there's a million things like this.

    26. AAAli Abdaal1:42:13

        Amazing. Cliff, I think this is a good place to end part one of the conversation.

    27. CWCliff Weitzman1:42:17

        All right.

    28. AAAli Abdaal1:42:17

        Um, we are still sort of in our timeline. It's still around 2015, so you're still at university.

    29. CWCliff Weitzman1:42:22

        Ooh.

    30. AAAli Abdaal1:42:22

        You haven't graduated, and you haven't started Speechify full time. So, uh, part two, definitely you'll... We'll, we'd love to have you in the new house. Uh, we'll-

Episode duration: 1:43:54