In Pursuit of Truth
A conversation with Josh Steinman on things that bring us closer to reality.
Hello all. Another Wednesday to attack full force and another day to remember to you’ll only ever accomplish what you think you can.
This morning the latest episode dropped with Josh Steinman. In an effort to explore different audio distribution, I’m trying out a feature embedding the podcast right into this email so feel free to give that a try if that’s what suits your fancy.
A few insights on personal values, cyber security, and building companies I took away from a conversation with Josh Steinman, cofounder of Galvanick.
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Philosophy
@JoshuaSteinman is a former navy officer, worked on Chief of Naval Operations Rapid Innovation Cell, Secretary of the Navy Task Force Innovation, as well as the National Security Council.
Josh’s core philosophy is to close the feedback loop on life. We’re surrounded by constant noise; social, advertising, and our 9-5’s. Each insulate our decisions and push us further from Truth.
The solution? Find out what’s true by getting to a position of responsibility.
When you are responsible for your decisions, you can see your input all the way to output without insulation. The past shows, however, most don’t like doing this.
This reminded me of quote from Naval Ravikant:
“..accountability is a double edged thing. It allows you to take credit when things go well and to bear the brunt of the failure when things go badly.”
This comes from the Naval Podcast - How to Get Rich episode (full version, about 3.5 hours). This is one the most inspiring pieces of work I’ve come across in my 29 years and is the first thing I recommend to folks. It’s much more instructive than the title might suggest.
Take responsibility to gain accountability.
Harnessing Signal from Noise
Having more noise in our lives isn’t always bad. We just need to harness it for good.
Using today’s technologies of instant communication through email, podcasts, and social can provide more data points to help make better decisions. When coming up with the idea for @GalvanickCo, Josh talked about writing up ideas and brainstorming publicly through Substack and Twitter to find and talk to customers.
Distribution is now a commodity. If you’re nobody coming onto the scene, start with building an audience.
Cybersecurity
We also talked a lot on cyber security and how Galvanick is looking to address cyber attacks in the industrial space. This is a largely glanced over focus area, but shouldn’t be looking at some of the repercussions.
Remember the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in May 2021?
Or the Ukrainian power grid attack in 2015?
These attacks are becoming more and more common, requiring more advanced technology and companies looking to adopt them.
DoD & Tech
The rate of adoption is something Josh struggled with at the Department of Defense and was working to correct.
He said:
“The DoD is an evolutionary organization, meaning change happens at the rate of decay”.
Our military is serving on the front lines, but using outdated technology to combat modern day problems.
An interesting company in this space modernizing the battlefield is Anduril. One of my favorite podcasts, Business Breakdowns, did a fantastic showcase of the business and is instructive on the merging of defense and technology.
Build Build Build
When it comes to starting and building a company, Josh had great advice.
Start thinking about how to build an efficient system for your work rather than a specific outcome.
Scott Adams discusses systems vs goals based thinking in his book “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.” I wrote up takeaways on that in a thread on Twitter a while back.
Systems thinking is about operating efficiently at the most basic level, starting with the tools you use. Josh wrote up some of the tools he uses here.
Josh has kindly replicated much of his knowledge on popular subjects into Notion docs. I’ve spent a lot of time in both of these documents and have learned a lot from them. You can find those here. Steinman Mentoring Program and Resources for Starting a Company.
If you found found anything of this helpful for interesting, you can support me for free by leaving a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also send this to a friend that might think it’s interesting.
Talk next week.
B