People occasionally ask where the views in these articles actually come from, whether it’s a call on the crypto cycle, a read on the next Budget, or a principle I try to live by. The honest answer is that almost none of it originates with me in the moment. It is the output of a deliberate, layered information diet I have built up over years, and like anything I try to be deliberate about, it is worth writing down properly rather than leaving it as something only I know.
I think about it in three layers. A daily layer that keeps me current. A weekly layer that keeps me positioned. And an annual layer, books I read and then reread, that actually forms the underlying views everything else gets filtered through.
What Deliberately Doesn’t Make the List
Before getting into what I do consume, it’s worth being just as clear about what I don’t. My media diet is limited to podcasts, audiobooks, my AFR subscription and YouTube, and even on YouTube I skip Shorts entirely. If a channel only publishes 60-second clips, it doesn’t make the list. I don’t have any social media accounts. I honestly don’t believe there is anything substantial on those platforms worth my time, and the only app on my phone that resembles a social feed is WhatsApp, which I use purely for communication, not consumption. Narrowing the inputs is as deliberate a decision as choosing them.
Daily: The Australian Financial Review
The AFR is the first thing I read most mornings, and it is the one input on this list I would call non-negotiable. It is Australia’s primary business and financial masthead, covering local markets, company results, property, politics and macro policy with a depth and local relevance that no US-centric outlet or podcast can substitute for. It is a paid subscription, and one of the few I consider unquestionably worth the cost. Global shows are excellent for the big picture, but they are never going to tell me what actually changed in Australian tax law overnight, and that is the gap the AFR fills every single day.
Weekly: The Numbers
I/O Fund is a paid service, and it earns its keep. It is my bible for share and crypto investing, built around weekly technical analysis of markets and individual stocks, followed by specific buy and sell alerts as conditions change. Where the podcasts below shape how I think in general terms, I/O Fund is where that thinking gets translated into an actual position, with a level of technical rigour I do not have the time to replicate myself. It is the closest thing I have to a standing second opinion on the portfolio.
Weekly: YouTube
Jordi Visser Labs is the one YouTube channel I watch every week. Jordi is a traditional Wall Street guy, a former hedge fund CIO, who has shifted his focus over to Bitcoin and AI, and I really value his positioning on both asset classes. He is generally more bullish than I am, but he will still call out when he thinks a correction could be building. Those calls come a lot later than the signals I get from I/O Fund, and that lag is actually the value: by the time Jordi is flagging caution, it is usually close to time to exit.
One of his lines on Bitcoin has stuck with me more than almost anything else I have heard on the asset: that it is its own asset class with no real competition. No other crypto will ever be able to compete with it directly, and there is no other asset in existence that fully escapes debasement through inflation the way Bitcoin does. It is a view I already held, but hearing a former Wall Street CIO arrive at the same conclusion from a completely different background, having spent a career on the traditional side of the industry, carries real weight.
Weekly: The Podcasts I Don’t Miss
Books shape my thinking in one sitting. Podcasts shape it week to week, in smaller doses, argued out loud by people who disagree with each other as often as they agree.
On entrepreneurship and ideas
- My First Million, hosted by Sam Parr and Shaan Puri, two operators trading unconventional startup and investing ideas. I have followed them for years, and what keeps me coming back is not any single idea, it is the habit the show builds of constantly questioning the status quo and keeping an entrepreneurial mindset switched on, even when the day job is running smoothly.
- Acquired, Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal’s long-form deep dives into the origin stories behind the world’s biggest companies. It is the best explanation I have found of what the key factors actually are behind the success of a Nike or an NVIDIA, and every episode is effectively a case study in the same question Shoe Dog asks: what specific decisions, made under real constraints, compound into a category-defining business.
- Moneywise, a show from Hampton featuring founders who have already had a successful exit and are now navigating the next chapters of their life. It is one of the few places I hear the part of the entrepreneurial story most books skip, and it has shaped how I think about pacing my own next chapters.
On markets and macro
- Prof G Markets, a daily markets show hosted by Ed Elson with Scott Galloway as co-host. I do not really warm to Ed, he is more of a glass-half-empty, conservative type, and I disagree with the majority of what he says on any given day. I still listen most days, because being challenged by a well-reasoned bear case is more useful to a portfolio than another voice agreeing with me.
- Raoul Pal: The Journey Man, Raoul Pal’s own show on macro cycles and where he sees the global economy heading. He runs Real Vision and I used to be a paying member. I value his views on the future, and that influence shows up directly in some of my own writing here, including this piece where we shaped my views around inflation and debasement in the economy.
On the bigger picture
- The Prof G Pod, Scott Galloway’s twice-weekly mix of business analysis, career advice and cultural commentary. Scott feels like a mentor to me despite never having met him, and I largely agree with his views, on money, on raising sons, on the economics facing young men today. This is where that thinking gets tested out loud before it ends up in a book like Notes on Being a Man. Again it comes across in my writing regarding the crisis of young western males.
- Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway’s rundown of US tech, media and political news. A great way to keep abreast of what is happening in the US without wading through the noise myself. Kara and Scott do not agree on much, and that tension is most of the value.
On the frontier
- Moonshots with Peter Diamandis keeps me updated at the forefront of AI. The pace of change makes a dedicated show necessary rather than optional, and this one keeps me oriented on where the frontier is moving next.
On health and self-improvement
- The Drive, Peter Attia’s long-form interviews with the scientists and clinicians behind the ideas in Outlive. If that book is what reframed how I think about longevity, this podcast is where that thinking gets updated in real time, and it is the direct source for a lot of what ended up in my Medicine 3.0 article.
- The Tim Ferriss Show was probably the first podcast I ever properly got into, and it is the one most responsible for turning self-improvement from an occasional thought into an ongoing habit. It is also, fittingly, where I first came across Peter Attia.
Annual: The Books I Keep Returning To
Everything above is signal, useful, current, and mostly forgotten within a week. Books are where the actual convictions get formed, which is why I only count the ones I have read at least twice. If something is worth rereading a decade after I first picked it up, it has earned a permanent seat in how I think.
On business and leadership, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara and Runnin’ Down a Dream by Bill Gurley both shaped how I think about competitive advantage and career, the first around service as a moat, the second around making sure a career still buys you time and energy for the other Five Fs, not just a bigger number in an account.
On money and wealth, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki was the first book to show me that school teaches you to sell your time for a wage, an idea that sits behind why Morgan and I built The Bucket around a growth target rather than a salary. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel picks up where it leaves off: the discipline that actually builds wealth is behavioural, not intellectual. Die With Zero by Bill Perkins and Never Enough by Andrew Wilkinson both reframed wealth as a tool with an expiry date rather than a trophy, core to how I think about the Five Fs. And Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson’s original autobiography of building Virgin from a student magazine into a global brand, is the book I read at 21 that is probably most responsible for the entrepreneurial path I have been on since, a thread that runs straight back to where that path started.
On communication, How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss taught me that communication and negotiation are skills like any other, not traits you are born with, and both show up constantly in business deals and conversations that have nothing to do with money at all.
On mindset, Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway shapes how I think about raising my two boys. Atomic Habits by James Clear is the “how” behind the “what” of Attia and Walker, the mechanics that make the five health pillars actually happen day to day. And Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins reset what I think the ceiling actually is when a business problem, a workout or a hard conversation feels like it has hit its limit.
On health and longevity, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker moved sleep from the bottom of my list to one of the non-negotiables, and Outlive by Peter Attia remains close to a bible for how I think about health now, the book directly behind my Medicine 3.0 article.
A handful of others sit just below that bar, excellent, worth your time, but I have not reread them enough yet to say they have permanently changed how I behave: Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke), How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie), The Algebra of Wealth (Scott Galloway), Shoe Dog (Phil Knight), The Fifteen Commitments of Conscious Leadership (Dethmer, Chapman & Klemp), The 80/20 Principle (Richard Koch), and Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Why it is worth building deliberately
None of this happened by accident, and none of it is static. The same way I review my principles monthly, I treat this list as something to prune and add to, not something to set once and leave alone. What you let into your head daily, weekly and annually compounds in exactly the same way capital does. Choose the inputs as deliberately as you choose the investments, because eventually they become the same decision.
Where to Find These
News, markets and YouTube
Podcasts
- My First Million
- Acquired
- Moneywise
- Prof G Markets
- Raoul Pal: The Journey Man
- The Prof G Pod
- Pivot
- Moonshots with Peter Diamandis
- The Drive
- The Tim Ferriss Show
Books
- Unreasonable Hospitality – Will Guidara
- Runnin’ Down a Dream – Bill Gurley
- Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
- The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel
- Die With Zero – Bill Perkins
- Never Enough – Andrew Wilkinson
- Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson
- How to Talk to Anyone – Leil Lowndes
- Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss
- Notes on Being a Man – Scott Galloway
- Atomic Habits – James Clear
- Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins
- Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker
- Outlive – Peter Attia
- Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
- How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
- The Algebra of Wealth – Scott Galloway
- Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
- The Fifteen Commitments of Conscious Leadership – Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman & Kaley Klemp
- The 80/20 Principle – Richard Koch
- Total Recall – Arnold Schwarzenegger
