Tom's Top 3: March 11, 2025
You're Playing Checkers, I'm Playing Drunk Chess
Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
I just got home from a 5+ hour escapade to buy a new couch off of Facebook Marketplace, complete with a U-Haul rental, LA traffic, and a celebratory In-N-Out trip.
Needless to say, I’m tired.
Let’s try to make this one quick.
[Podcast] Founders - #381 I Had Dinner With Michael Ovitz
Michael Ovitz is possibly the most famous, influential Hollywood agent of all time. The founder of the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Ovitz’s career went beyond repping talent—he brokered billion dollar M&A deals, created famous Coke commercials, was (briefly) Eisner’s right hand man at Disney, and is now a technology investor.
To pair with this dinner reflection episode, there is also a new Founders episode on Ovitz’s autobiography Who Is Michael Ovitz?, which I actually think is better than this one. I highly suggest anyone interested in Hollywood or entrepreneurship to go check out that episode to get the full picture of the Ovitz life and career. I read the autobiography last year, and I think Senra does a great job of highlighting some of the more impactful lessons from the book.
This episode (which doesn’t actually get started after the ads at the 2:17 mark) lays out ten ideas that Senra took away from his 1-1 dinner with Ovitz. I’ll list them out here, but give these podcasts a listen to get the full context and stories.
Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it
There is no ceiling on where you can push your profession
Pick partners that have the same ambition as you
Read biographies, know everything about the history of your industry
Have a profound belief that the world is malleable
There is always opportunity hiding in plain sight
By endurance we conquer
Work 10% less, optimize for the long term
Surround yourself with people who tell you the truth
Retirement is lame
[Blog] Shaan Puri - 5 Tweet Tuesday - February 18, 2025
First off, I’d like to set the record straight that I did not copy Shaan’s format for a Tuesday newsletter. I only discovered this blog a few months ago (although I will say they do seem quite similar).
This February post was the perfect blend of interesting, insightful, and funny nonsense.
I particularly loved the David Oglivy quote:
Search all the parks in all your cities and you’ll find no statues of committees.
And I also got a kick out of the story about Zuck asking a Facebook engineer if he should buy Instagram.
[YouTube] Spectacle Chess - Drunk Magnus Carlsen takes over lost position
This is just mastery to the point it’s automatic.
Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian chess prodigy and current #1 player in the world, is absolutely schnozzed out of his mind and still just casually dominates this chess game.
I honestly have no idea what he did. He moved so quickly, and before you knew it, he had won. Unreal.
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. If you made it to this point, please drop a 1️⃣, 2️⃣, or 3️⃣ in the comments to let me know what you found most interesting/useful. And as always, please like and consider sharing with a friend who you think would enjoy! I’ll be back next week. ✌️