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Stoicism in Silicon Valley (Episode 14)
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Stoicism is apparently huge in Silicon Valley. Investors recommend Marcus Aurelius. Founders promote Stoic ideas like voluntary suffering.
What’s up with that?
In this episode, Caleb Ontiveros and Michael talk about how big Stoicism really is in Silicon Valley, how Stoicism helps build startups, and discuss criticism of Silicon Valley Stoicism.
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Stoa Conversations is Caleb Ontiveros and Michael Tremblay’s podcast on Stoic theory and practice.
Caleb and Michael work together on the Stoa app. Stoa is designed to help you build resilience and focus on what matters. It combines the practical philosophy of Stoicism with modern techniques and meditation.
Download the Stoa app (it’s a free download): stoameditation.com/pod
Listen to more episodes and learn more here: https://stoameditation.com/blog/stoa-conversations/
Caleb Ontiveros has a background in academic philosophy (MA) and startups. His favorite Stoic is Marcus Aurelius. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/calebmontiveros
Michael Tremblay also has a background in academic philosophy (PhD) where he focused on Epictetus. He is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. His favorite Stoic is Epictetus. Follow him here: https://twitter.com/_MikeTremblay
Thank you to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Its Relevance
00:00:00
Speaker
It's very bad to have mistaken beliefs about these sorts of things. And I think that's just not so on the negative side, but also on the positive side. Of course, Seneca has the line that you should never give into adversity, but also never trust prosperity. And that communicates, I think, the same thing, that so much is subject to chance and that one shouldn't get carried away with either negative or overly positive value judgments.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to Stowe Conversations. In this podcast, Michael Trombley and I discuss the theory and practice of stoicism. Each week we'll share two conversations, one between the two of us, and another we'll be an in-depth conversation with and experts.
00:00:44
Speaker
If you search Silicon Valley and stoicism you get articles like the revival of stoicism from Vice, why is Silicon Valley so obsessed with the virtue of suffering from the New York Times, and Silicon Valley stoicism. What's up with that?
00:01:00
Speaker
Well, I've been in Silicon Valley for the last five years. I'm in San Francisco right now. So it seems fitting to have an episode on that topic.
Stoicism in Silicon Valley: Benefits and Criticisms
00:01:09
Speaker
And that is what this conversation is. Michael and I talk about how big stoicism actually is in Silicon Valley, how it helps build startups, and also the criticism many people have of Silicon Valley stoicism. Here is our conversation.
00:01:27
Speaker
Welcome to STOA. My name is Caleb Antiveros. And I'm Michael Trombeau.
00:01:33
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about Silicon Valley and stoicism. There are, I think, a number of different elements to this question, you know, why is stoicism so big in Silicon Valley? What in stoicism is useful to people here? And then finally, there's some element of criticism that people always give to the way stoicism is implemented in Silicon Valley.
00:02:01
Speaker
which is where I'm at, so I'm in the Bay Area right now. So I suppose I'll largely be structuring this conversation. We can go over those three topics and Michael will add in his two cents objections and questions as we go along.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes one cent, sometimes three cent. I'll do my best, but this is definitely your wheelhouse kilo. I'm interested to hear your perspective because I know there's kind of this, you know, I'm on the, I'm in Canada, I'm far away from Silicon Valley. So I know there's this stereotype of this reputation of this mixing of the kind of text scene and stoicism, but you're right in that, both in the text scene and in the stoicism scene. So you're a great voice to hear from on this and interested in your takes on this phenomenon.
Popularity of Stoic Literature among Entrepreneurs
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll start with the demographics then, which is, you know, why is Stoicism so big in Silicon Valley? And there are a few different elements to that. One is, of course, the question, how big is it actually in Silicon Valley? See a bunch of different articles, whether it's on the New York Times or some other venue, which say that it is, but is it true? And then the second aspect to that is, of course, like why? What explains how big it is?
00:03:14
Speaker
So on the first part, you know, how big is stoicism in Silicon Valley? I would certainly say that in the States, more people know about stoicism than probably nearly anywhere else. That's probably correct. I think, you know, just personally on the anecdotal side, if I go to some large events with 10 people or so, it's very likely that
00:03:38
Speaker
even half of those people have heard about Stoicism. If I go to a larger event with 25 people, 50, it's a decent odds that I'll find someone who is into Stoicism has actually read, whether it's one of the popular books or the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, decently likely I'll find someone who is actually quite into Stoicism and finds it valuable either as a
00:04:02
Speaker
practical philosophy or perhaps even as a life philosophy and would identify themselves as a stoic. And you see some of this come out in less anecdotal measures. So if you look at what are the books that founders give testimonials to or that VCs recommend, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is very high up on that list. The book by Bill Irvine, The Guide to a Good Life,
00:04:30
Speaker
is well reviewed and also people will read it and a number of VCs get positive testimonials that book recommended and so on.
00:04:42
Speaker
That is unique to Silicon Valley. One other additional bit of evidence here is that many of the prestigious people, thought leaders, if you will, know what stoicism is and in some case actively promote it.
Influence of Key Figures in Silicon Valley's Stoic Movement
00:04:58
Speaker
So of course there's a fellow named Tim Ferriss who promotes stoicism. He put out a translation of Seneca's letters.
00:05:07
Speaker
and works closely with Ryan Holiday. And Ryan Holiday is probably the foremost person in the world promoting stoicism, the most well-known stoic as they were. A lot of people know who Ryan Holiday is here. But even if we go to other people who are perhaps more well-known for their business activities, investors like Naval Ravikant or Marc Andreessen are familiar with stoicism and think some of the practices are excellent and actively promote them.
00:05:35
Speaker
So that's I think the positive case for the idea that stoicism is in fact big in Silicon Valley. But of course, lots of things are big in Silicon Valley. So there's a whole different mix of different cultures. You have hippie culture, hacker culture, sort of liberal progressivism is very big. But of course, there's also a streak of libertarianism.
00:06:02
Speaker
And then even although probably not as big as stoicism, different forms of techno-optimism, Ayn Randian type philosophy. So it's a whole large mixing pot and stoicism is up there. It's probably in the, if I would say, the second tier most well-known life philosophies. And typically people will have heard of it and they'll have started implementing some of the
00:06:27
Speaker
practices or they will have heard of it and they would be familiar with some of the ideas.
Cultural Manifestations of Stoicism in Tech
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that all makes sense to me. I think what I'm interested in then is kind of what form it takes because
00:06:43
Speaker
You know, you can do this litmus test of popularity. It's like how many people have heard of it or how famous are the people who champion it? But there's a lot of different kinds of stoicism. So I'm curious, you know, when you talk about hacker culture, hippie culture, tech culture, what culture has it infiltrated? And what does it look like in that culture itself? Is it looking like philosophy as a way of life? Was it looking like something else? I guess those are my two questions.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I would say that there are not communities, active communities of Stoics in the Bay Area. At least, I think there, I should say there, it's not something like Buddhism, where you see different Western Buddhist organizations and their physical places where people meet and practice Buddhism, and there are places like that in the Bay Area. Stoicism is not quite like that, and it is more of an individual practice.
00:07:38
Speaker
And I think it is more seen on a practical level. So you have phrases like the obstacle is the way and people hear this and they'll immediately think, oh yes, one of the teachings of Stoicism is that, you know, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. And they have this sort of practical heuristic
00:08:04
Speaker
And that's generally the level of knowledge that I think people would interact with when it comes to stoicism. So sometimes people accuse the view as stoicism as a set of life hacks. There's something to that criticism, but the application of stoicism I would say is deeper than that, but not as deep as taking it on as a life philosophy.
00:08:28
Speaker
And what in your sense, I guess, is the attraction, what is the kind of combination of factors that has led to this? Is it this case, like someone like Tim Ferriss, who's a major source of influence, puts it out there and then it kind of gets picked up? Or is there something unique going on in this kind of ecosystem that's lending itself to taking this up, taking up stoicism?
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's a real ideology context fit, if you will. So at the, you know, you can sort of think of people ingesting stoicism in three different levels. You just overhear a technique, a stoic technique, negative visualization, and then you add that technique to your list of tricks. That's sort of the life hack approach to the philosophy.
00:09:16
Speaker
And then there's one level deeper which is stoicism becomes something that's practically and psychologically relevant to your life.
Levels of Engaging with Stoicism
00:09:26
Speaker
It's not just a bag of tricks but shapes your perspective in the same way like mindfulness might shape your perspective as, you know, you have this ideal of mindfulness and that matters practically and psychologically.
00:09:39
Speaker
And then finally, there's the last level, which is the philosophy reaches the level of a life philosophy and it provides an account of what it is to live a good life. And it would be sort of like someone moving beyond mindfulness to a version of Buddhism. And I think a lot of people are
00:09:57
Speaker
They find it useful, of course, at the very first level as a set of heuristics life hacks. But then at that second level, Tim Ferriss has this line that stoicism is an operating system for high stress environments.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I think that gets at what a lot of people find valuable in stoicism in this world. So people are focused on being excellent as individuals and doing hard things. You know, building a company is not easy.
00:10:30
Speaker
famous one-liner that Elon Musk said about starting a company, you know, it's just like chewing glass all over and over again. It's often lonely, you fail a lot, and you will be worshipped for some amount of time if you're successful and then eventually you'll be scapegoated and, you know, there's a, it's a whole roller coaster ride in the best case. So, and stoicism isn't just this, but I think
00:10:54
Speaker
You know, everyone realizes that stoicism is especially useful for managing personal tragedy, whether it's the loss of a family member, loss of a job. It's an excellent philosophy for bouncing back. And I think for similar reasons, it's a good philosophy for managing even like voluntarily chosen hardships, which a lot of people are in the project of doing here.
Applications of Stoicism in High Stress Environments
00:11:20
Speaker
So then there's a whole list of
00:11:23
Speaker
I think both techniques and general psychological attributes that stoicism might promote on the second level reading that makes it a good fit, makes the ideology context a fit. I think I just had a bit of an aha moment because we just did an episode on sports, right? And so Tim Ferriss is saying, you know, stoicism is this operating system for high stress environments, which I agree with, and
00:11:50
Speaker
I think there's also this kind of natural fit in sport, and sport is another area where if I start talking about stoicism, maybe people haven't read Marcus Aurelius, although a lot of them have, but if I explain a concept, they'll be like, oh, I already thought that way, or you kind of put into words something I was already thinking, people are kind of naturally discovering the operating systems that allow them to navigate high stress environments when they find themselves in high stress environments. But then my mind was thinking, well, there's lots of high stress environments.
00:12:18
Speaker
I mean, I suppose there's this other appeal in military, you hear that too, but why this specific appeal in Silicon Valley, if it's just a business environment, right? Why isn't stoicism huge on Wall Street? And my thought, and I guess, I guess push back against this, my thought just now was that, well, you're also adding this moral dimension. So sport is a high stress environment where you're trying to become a great person. Military is a high stress environment where you're trying to
00:12:45
Speaker
preserve justice, right? You're trying to, you know, whether or not you're doing that, but you believe it in the fight you're fighting, right? And defending the country you're defending. And then perhaps it's the case in Silicon Valley that these people aren't just trying to come up with a profit, but there's this kind of techno optimism, this kind of idea of we can change the world. We can save the world. We can do great things. And so that high stress, but also that conception of morality gets built in there. What do you think about that? I just thought that. So happy for your take.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something to that. There's an essay by a fellow named Paul Graham, which is about what's the one sentence a city communicates to you. And I think it came out about a decade ago. And he said, you know, cities like Boston, it's got Harvard, MIT there. Its message is be smart. Somewhere like Los Angeles.
00:13:38
Speaker
the home of Hollywood. It's single sentences, be beautiful. That's the message the city conveys. That's the values that if you had to condense into a single sentence, it would be all about. New York is be rich. And then for Silicon Valley, it's something like
00:13:54
Speaker
be powerful, not in the political sense, but have an impact. And I think what a lot of people are starting a company, they're trying to do something, which of course is a paradigmatic vision of someone in Silicon Valley. They're trying to not just be rich, but do something that shapes the way that people interact with the world and solve problems, build a brand new technology, what have you.
00:14:22
Speaker
And that does have this sort of normative dimension to it, which makes the project be more about being rich, includes ideas of some constraints on what it is for a project company to be successful.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I think comes with some ideas of excellence and also I would say uncertainty that stoicism can help manage. If you are doing, you know, nearly everyone who does a startup has some option, a safer route in the sense that there's somewhere, there's some position they could take where they would get a pretty solid income.
00:15:02
Speaker
that they're foregoing for the chance at a much larger impact even if like maybe the expected value calculus is, you know, there's some amount of uncertainty there whether you'll ultimately be successful and I think stoicism is a useful philosophy for that because it can
00:15:22
Speaker
remind someone who's in that situation to focus on what they can control, do as fast as they can, and manage stresses as they arrive and if I'm flying forward.
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense to me. This idea that people in the startup culture kind of, it's not just the high stress environment, but it's a high, it's a high risk environment. And in some ways it's a voluntary high risk environment was what I was taking from that. They're opting into that. And so you have to have some kind of sense of the value of taking risks, both the resiliency to take those risks and the idea that, you know, risks are worth taking the values found through hardship and difficulty or wagering things or the chance of doing something better.
00:16:00
Speaker
I mean, I think all that ethos is quite inspiring. In practice, do you find stoicism? I want to get to that part two, which is this idea of how stoicism in practice is helpful for people founding companies. I'm curious if you find it pays off, if you find people that preach this philosophy or preach stoicism are more successful in business or what you find the relationship between business and stoicism to be.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say there are a number of traits stoicism can help one cultivate or techniques it has that can improve one's success. And even if they're not called or improve one's chance of success, and even if they're not called stoicism or stoic traits here, a number of them have sort of seeped into the culture. So just to list a few of those in stoicism, you have this idea of premeditatio malorum.
00:16:56
Speaker
negative visualization, they're picturing the some of the worst outcomes. And I think there's now a set of standard business practices around doing what sometimes called a pre-mortem analysis that has entered both Silicon Valley practice and then some other
00:17:14
Speaker
practices as well, where you involve, ask questions like, if this project failed, what would the world look like? What would best explain that? And I think just like it does in personal practice that can help someone plan better, plan for avoiding that failure, but also be more psychologically prepared for when something goes awry.
00:17:35
Speaker
So that's one example. Another example is in Stoicism, you have this idea that it's important to see the world objectively as it is and not add these unnecessary value judgments, whether they are positive or negative.
00:17:52
Speaker
So there's the line in from Epictetus where he's talking to a student and a student says, you know, that is tempted to say, you know, someone went to jail and he was harmed and Epictetus says, no, all you need to say is that this person went to jail. That's it. That's all that happened. That additional bit and they were harmed is added by you. That comes from you.
00:18:17
Speaker
And that brings out this idea that one should be seeing reality as it is, which is, of course, advantageous in business. You don't want to be delusional about your accounting, your hypothesis about how well your product fits in your market, and so on. At some level, it's very bad to have mistaken beliefs about these sorts of things.
00:18:41
Speaker
And I think that's just not so on the negative side, but also on the positive side. Of course, Seneca has the line that you should never give into adversity, but also never trust prosperity. And that communicates, I think, the same thing, that so much is subject to chance and that one shouldn't get carried away with either negative or overly positive value judgments.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I remember talking to Julie Galef. And so she's, for those that don't know, she's an author, also a public thinker, who talks about her book is called The Scout Mindset. It's this contrast between the warrior mindset and the scout mindset, the warrior mindset being this idea that
00:19:25
Speaker
you adopt perspectives that you feel will help be advantageous to you in the short term. So, you know, think of the, of a boxer who thinks I'm the best in the world. No one can beat me before they get in a ring.
00:19:38
Speaker
Whether or not it's true or not is not the point. The boxer adopts that perspective because it's helpful. The scout mindset is the one where you try to see the world as it is, as you were just saying, the kind of stoic perspective. The stoic is definitely the scout mindset. And the argument of her book is that we don't do enough scout mindset, that it's actually really advantageous.
00:19:56
Speaker
Ironically, Caleb, one of the points she brings up is this. A lot of times people that think of the scout mindset as being harmful or you think of this or when people need to adopt the warrior mindset is in the sense of like obscenely confident founders, right? Like this idea that.
00:20:13
Speaker
If that person was honest about their chance of winning or the chance of succeeding, they would have never started the company. They would have taken the more secure option. So people often think in these kinds of contexts, there's a value to not seeing the world as it is. And, you know, I think of someone like.
00:20:29
Speaker
Elon Musk, who like, for better or worse, you know, I don't think I think in some ways, his mind does not always see things the way they are. And I think that's there. There's major benefits to that. And there's major harms to that. How do you reconcile that kind of picture was what you were just saying about the fit between the tech world and stoicism? Yeah, so I think Julia Galef has this argument that
00:20:55
Speaker
What often matters is a sense of self-confidence and that can be teased apart from one's judgments. So I certainly agree that many successful founders, people in Silicon Valley, are confident in their ability and they have a high degree of what one might call self-belief.
00:21:16
Speaker
And is that delusional? In some cases it is, and it's tied to beliefs that are just completely wild, and there are some high-profile cases of people being short-term successful, but things turning out not so well for them. At the same time, I think there are people who are extremely self-confident, but update their beliefs.
00:21:41
Speaker
over time. Elon Musk is an interesting example because he seems like he has both a mix of, he's always exceptionally self-confident, but will also admit that a number of his projects have a high probability of failure. Indeed, they're more likely than not to fail. So he has that, you know, those are some indications that objective judgment really matters to what he's doing. At the same time, he's notoriously bad at predicting timelines for his projects.
00:22:11
Speaker
So it's a complicated, it is a complicated issue and there's always of how someone actually sees the world versus what they'll say to get some outcome. Arguably setting a timeline for a company might be more of a
00:22:29
Speaker
If you wanted to paint it in a positive light, more of a matter of a noble lie, if you wanted to paint it in a more negative light, you could cast it as a scam, depending on your disposition. But one can separate out what your internal or external marketing is with one's actual view. It is always an important thing to do, and there are questions about whether
00:22:50
Speaker
how closely those should align and questions of ethics, of course. But I would say that the key takeaway, both from Galef and some of my personal experience, is that there is a separation between self-confidence and objective judgment.
00:23:07
Speaker
Having self-confidence in some level of delusion and some level of competence can be short-term profitable, but the delusion will eventually catch up with people and weed them out of the startup evolution, if you will, the startup environment.
00:23:23
Speaker
practice stoicism with stoa. Stoa combines the ancient philosophy of stoicism with meditation in a practical meditation app. It includes hundreds of hours of exercises, lessons and conversations to help you live a happier life. Find it available for a free download in the Play Store and App Store. And that makes sense. So going over the two you mentioned, you listed the premeditation of evils, then you listed seeing things as they really were.
00:23:50
Speaker
These are, I would say are both kind of like epistemological traits of stoicism. You know, the premeditation of evil is, you know, you attempt to see things as they really are because you attempt to actualize and visualize things that could happen so that you're not surprised by them or not caught emotionally unprepared.
00:24:06
Speaker
And then seeing things as you are is just this attempt to value truth over other values that might get in the way and obscure truth. Are there any benefits that stoicism has for the tech world or Silicon Valley that aren't these kind of, I don't know, epistemological or scientific or truth strategies?
Stoic Techniques for Business Success
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah, of course there's the dichotomy of control. The idea of one should always focus on what is under one's control and that range of things is much narrower than
00:24:35
Speaker
one might initially believe. So that's a focus on decisions and thoughts, focus on processes, outcomes.
00:24:44
Speaker
This can be applied both, as you've talked about before, both at the practical level and also an ethical level of taking absolute responsibility for the decisions you make. And not seeing a very common failure mode for people trying to either advance in their career or start a company is to not taking up responsibility for things that happen. I think people who are exceptionally competent will
00:25:15
Speaker
If they're running a company at some level, try to take responsibility for everything that happens. And the stoic way to do this I think is to be very vigilant about the outcomes.
00:25:31
Speaker
of your decisions and very vigilance about how your decisions, thoughts can impact everything and not say ever leaving as little as possible to fortune as is possible, which of course you'll never be able to prevent any bad happening from occurring and there'll be a bunch
00:25:52
Speaker
new information always coming in. But that disposition of trying to take responsibility as much as possible, I think, in a way is an ethical outcome of applying the dichotomy of control. Because you're not really responsible for what others do, and you can't transfer your responsibility to them in many cases, you know, if you want to start a company, well, your employees are going to behave a particular way. And that's just part of the
00:26:20
Speaker
part of the world you're in and you can complain about that or you can do your best to change it and make a successful company would be one way, one way to put it. I mean, when you mentioned that, I mean, I just, I just think that's something that I was guilty of when I was younger. It's probably still guilty of now. It's not taking responsibility and not taking responsibility for what's in my control, especially when it comes to this kind of professional success and not taking accountability for one's failures, right? Like not.
00:26:49
Speaker
So it's very, I think of the attribution bias, I think that's what it's called. It's psychological principle that you're way more likely to attribute successes to choices, failures to external circumstances in yourself, with yourself, and then with other people, you're way more likely to attribute their failures to their choices.
00:27:07
Speaker
and less likely to attribute them to external circumstances. And I think that I've been guilty of that in the past. I've seen that in myself. It's been this constant work for me, which again, as you point out, it is in a sense, it has this professional upside, but it is in a sense just the correct application of the economy of control. It's just taking responsibility for the impacts my choices have had on my success, professional success.
00:27:29
Speaker
and the negatives that it's had on my professional success and also taking responsibility for that. And then, as you said, also, there's kind of a moral aspect that comes when you train that muscle in terms of judging other people.
00:27:43
Speaker
in terms of being more forgiving of other people or holding people to kind of higher account in the moments when they need to be held to account. That was my thought on that, just that it really resonated. I think, you know, most listeners to have done that quite a bit. Yeah. I think that's certainly a natural tendency that I noticed so myself, especially when one might be involved in a disagreement with someone when it might have the immediate.
00:28:04
Speaker
reaction is to try when the disagreement or if things aren't going well to to blame the results on the person you are Disagreeing with and of course there are issues one needs to be careful with here, you know, perhaps You should it would be better for the business if
00:28:23
Speaker
this person who you had a very serious disagreement with is like go or something like that. But often things aren't as extreme as that and these sorts of disagreements are distractions and blaming them you're really in a sneaky way transferring responsibility away from yourself. You had a fourth one you wanted to raise?
00:28:42
Speaker
Yeah, this idea is related to the epistemic principle of seeing things as they are, but also has a normative dimension to it, and we see it in the practice of the view from above, which is
00:28:59
Speaker
seeing things from they are from a particular perspective. If you step outside of yourself and look down on yourself from above, you know, you're just one animal among trillions in a small rock floating through space, right? And from that perspective, you see things as ephemeral, as much smaller than they in fact might appear up close.
00:29:24
Speaker
And the normative dimension to this is that it's a technique, a perspective on the world where what doesn't matter can fall away and what does matter becomes more salient. I think so. This idea of course not sweating the small stuff would be the cliche, but useful way to put it is an important one.
00:29:49
Speaker
especially when at some point wherever you are in your career and your life, there'll just be so much going on that it's exceptionally important to not get caught up in what doesn't matter and to be vigilant about applying one's attention, one's time to what does matter. So that's the last idea I wanted to mention, which is
00:30:15
Speaker
seen things as they are of course is important epistemic idea but part one way to do that is to move to this perspective where you pay attention to what matters where it's easier to pay attention to what ultimately matters and of course in the business case it might be
00:30:35
Speaker
some important detail that's exceptionally, you know, that has a lot of impact for your business. But of course, not just in that business case, but in the general case of life, it's important to always never lose sight of the things that matter to you. And that's, I think that's something that many people in Silicon Valley try to do. You have this, certainly you have the cliche of don't sweat the small stuff.
00:31:00
Speaker
And do people do that more than they do in other places? I'm not sure, but as a cultural idea, it starts early around. Yeah, and it's important to note that, you know, because for the Stoics' virtuous knowledge, every Stoic trick at the end of the day or every Stoic idea at the end of the day is going to be an epistemological one. It's going to be about thinking the right way. But as you said, some of them are
00:31:21
Speaker
more tightly linked with views of what it means to live a good life or views of what matters, not just kind of, cause you could kind of say, you could do, as you say, like a pre-mortem just on like financials. You could say, try to see things as they are just on financials, but they live in that kind of leave control that gets used. Things like the view from above that incorporates a bit of a perspective on what is, I think, ethically important, what is morally important, what's important for living a good life. Even if the answer ends up being a bit different than what the Stoics might say.
00:31:51
Speaker
because not everybody wants to be 100% a stoic, but you're still, by using these exercises, I think engaging in an ethical exercise, not just a thinking exercise, I would agree with. Did we want to get into any of the criticism? Did you have any kind of concerns about the way this might manifest in Silicon Valley?
Critiques and Misinterpretations of Stoicism
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, so I would say there are two kinds of criticism. One is that stoicism is misinterpreted in its use of stoicism, and that's bad. The second is the idea that stoicism is actually interpreted correctly in Silicon Valley, and that's also bad. So it's worth briefly touching on both of these.
00:32:33
Speaker
The idea that stoicism is misinterpreted is just the idea that stoicism becomes this list of life hacks, a list of tricks that people can use as input for what's ultimately a material-oriented project of becoming rich or a status-oriented project of trying to build a prestigious and impressive reputation by building a business. I think that would be the way to put it.
00:33:00
Speaker
You know, of course, if you want to be great in this sort of popular sense, be a famous person who is thought well of, then you will face obstacles and having such attitude will often be an effective way to deal with.
00:33:18
Speaker
these attitudes, but the relevant thing that matters here is not the techniques or even the second level of stoicism, which I try to talk about a little bit deeper than techniques, but this idea that stoicism is a practical operating system. But it was still the question of, is your life aimed at the right thing? Is this key project of trying to be great, really a good one?
00:33:42
Speaker
You know, there's certainly something to that criticism is, but is Silicon Valley worse than other places? It's not, you know, not so obvious to me, like on the margin, stoicism seems pretty good, but you know, we have stoicism here, a little, maybe a little bit less in New York. Is there a worse a problem in Silicon Valley than here? I'm not so sure on the margin, even the life hack version of stoicism, maybe, maybe a good thing to have as people use these techniques, find they're useful. And then a lot of people will go deeper into,
00:34:10
Speaker
into the philosophy. So I think that's, you know, you always want to say that there's, of course, something correct to that criticism, but I don't think it should be overplayed too much as too much of a concern. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's just, to me, one of the things is like, it would be preferable if people didn't do that. It would be preferable if people didn't engage in anything of value,
00:34:34
Speaker
a shallow manner and we're able to dig deeper into it but not everybody has the time and especially as you were saying if people are just treating it in a shallow way more often just because more people know about it that's not really a harm because more people know about it also means that more people will be engaging with it in a deeper way and then as I said you know is it even a harm I think there can be kind of this like elitism or exclusionary nature and some people that are into
00:34:57
Speaker
So this is, um, or in a philosophy or into anything, you know, if you're into cars, if you're into working out, if you're into video games and there's always a hipster, you know, component to that. And, you know, just not everybody's going to be as into everything as you are. And it's like, it's okay.
00:35:13
Speaker
And I think it's okay if someone has spent a little bit of time engaging with stoicism and has taken a little bit away from that. I think that's good. I think what we want to avoid is it being taught incorrectly such that somebody spent a lot of time investing in stoicism and then walks away with very little. I think that's the harm, but I don't think that, I don't think there's really evidence that that's happening more often in Silicon Valley than other places, as you said.
00:35:42
Speaker
Hi everyone, this is Michael Trumbly. Thanks for listening to Stole Conversations. We're a new podcast. We're getting started. We're building episode by episode. So I wanted to just give a quick shout out and say that any like, review, or referral that you can provide really goes a long way to helping the show. Thanks again for listening.
00:36:04
Speaker
Right. So I think one way to make this criticism crisp is there was an article came out probably about three years or so on
00:36:14
Speaker
stoicism in Silicon Valley and it talks about Ryan Holiday as the point person and made the claim that Ryan Holiday was essentially performing brand management for the elite. And this is a criticism that there's a form of stoicism that gets weaponized as an elite ideology that is individualistic.
00:36:41
Speaker
in a certain way that causes all these venture capitalists, I mentioned earlier, to speak well of it. It helps them improve, helps them be better at their business, maybe even in some senses helps them be better people, but overlooks the questions, more fundamental questions about what is the role of a successful
00:37:16
Speaker
I'm curious what you think about that sort of thing before I pontificate on it. I mean, I think this is a common kind of intermediate
00:37:25
Speaker
I think this is like an intermediate mistaken stoicism that you see all the time, which is, one of the big takeaways from this episode for me has been this like three level approach, right? Which is you begin life hacks, then it becomes part of like a, then a stoicism becomes like a way of integrating with your values, your way of thinking, and then it becomes a stage three, like a lived life philosophy. And I think when you're coming down the tunnel,
00:37:51
Speaker
and you're on stage one and you're on stage two, it can seem very self-serving. And in many ways, it is very self-serving. But I don't think, and we can make an episode about this if people are interested, I don't think stoicism is individualistic in a way that it would recommend anybody to be harmful or selfish. I think a virtuous person in the stoic picture is a good person in almost any... In terms of stoicism being brand management for the elite,
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, I could absolutely see that happening in turning success, you know, incomprehensible success too, right? Like I remember seeing this visual depiction of how much Jeff Bezos, how much money Jeff Bezos has, or is that worth, right? And like the mind can't even conceive a hundred billion or what he's at. Like it's not even, and viewing the journey of these people as, you know,
00:38:38
Speaker
Who knows to Jeff Bezos? I'm sure he's a brilliant guy who's worked really hard and there's like there is a degree of meritocracy in place but to perceive this person's obligation as just this kind of like self-actualization journey towards being better and better at this thing rather than at some point the scale tips you know whether that's at 50 million or 5 billion or 50 billion
00:39:02
Speaker
At some point, the scale tips and that self-actualization journey has to become one of helping others or one of recognizing the importance you have in the community now, being as inside, as strong of a position as you are. That's my thought off the top, and I can see how stoicism can, when misapplied or misunderstood, be a great vehicle for sidestepping
Positive Applications of Stoicism Beyond Personal Gain
00:39:23
Speaker
those kinds of conversations about social responsibility or sidestepping the conversations about the role the incredibly rich and successful have to play in the community.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I would say, and I was talking about this with Massimo Pilucci not so long ago, that Stoicism has important things to say about politics and how to act well in politics. And we've talked about this a little as well on our episode of Epicureanism, where you contrast the different approaches that ancient Stoics and Epicureans had, for example.
00:39:59
Speaker
But there are still quite a lot of disagreements over within the Stoic camp. What, say, the right role of the elites is at the cultural and political level in society. And even in ancient Rome, of course, you have the late Republic, you have people like Cato, the younger, essentially fighting to the death to the Republic from bailing. And then you have Stoic advisors to the
00:40:27
Speaker
New Emperor Octavian. So there's a case to be said that Stoicism does not have a fully developed political philosophy and that's an exceptionally good benefit because it makes it a large tent. Many people can be Stoics without managing, without going immediately to political disagreements.
00:40:47
Speaker
But I think there is this case that, you know, is someone doing brand management for a moral elite? Well, that claim, you know, depends on what the right role of an elite is in society. And I don't think the Stoics have really answered what that is explicitly. Like maybe you think otherwise, but
00:41:09
Speaker
I think with my own personal interaction with many Stoics and what I've read from modern Stoics, there's certainly leanings about how an elite should act and there's certainly some very clear lines drawn. But really, I think this kind of judgment hasn't been explicitly determined within the Stoic community and may never be. So I suppose that's an uncertain way to end. But I think all that's to say is
00:41:39
Speaker
I think this criticism is more of a question in a way that I think should grapple with. They thought about politics different than we did. We don't have an answer there. I don't think we have an answer in Plato either. I don't think there's an answer in Aristotle, although I'm not super well-versed in Aristotle's political philosophy.
00:42:02
Speaker
We just, the ancients just wrote about political questions differently than the way we do today. So yeah. And there, but there's nothing wrong with it being a question. I don't think we should pretend like we know the answer. And I think we should have dialogue about it. Um, but I guess it's a question worth asking and I wouldn't want stoicism. I wouldn't want stoicism to come off. Like you can't ask the question. I do think it's on the table. Although I agree with you that I don't think there's necessarily an obvious answer to at least not reading the ancient Stoics. Yeah. An open-ended conclusion.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, so I think one way to end sort of connect with where we're at is, all right, so you have this model of, I think that criticism, that stoicism is for people who are just trying to get ahead, trying to be essentially successful elites. We've said some things about why that might be misguided or why there are questions there, and also why stoicism would provide useful for someone who wanted to be in that position.
00:43:00
Speaker
But there is a concrete person who deserves mention here is Susan Righetti. She used to work at Uber. She has a number of reading guides on philosophy and physics and is well known for being one of the whistleblowers for cultural issues, ethical issues at Uber. And I think she's important to mention because, of course, she was in Silicon Valley.
00:43:28
Speaker
and thinks very well of the Stoics, but does not fit this stereotype. So I think if that's a useful place to end as someone who has a number of admirable things, has an exceptionally good reading list on philosophy that you should check out. And I think mentioning her should, I think, make one's picture of Stoicism's role in the Valley a little bit clearer.
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah, great example. Thanks, Caleb. Super fun. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Store Conversations. If you found this conversation useful, please give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform you use, and share it with a friend. We are just starting this podcast, so every bit of help goes a long way.
00:44:18
Speaker
And I'd like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. Do check out his work at ancientlyre.com and please get in touch with us at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback or questions. Until next time.