Bill Gurley spent years on Wall Street, built his career as a partner at Benchmark, worked through Uber’s hypergrowth era, and now serves on the board of the Santa Fe Institute, where he studies complexity and systems thinking. In this episode, Bill shares the mental models he returns to most, including systems thinking, second- and third-order effects, and the importance of understanding both the bedrock of your field and the bleeding edge. He explains what separates great founders, why storytelling and product instincts matter, how he uses AI across different models, and what he sees coming in open source, China, stablecoins, tokenization, payments, and venture capital.  Follow Bill Gurley LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgurley/⁠ X: ⁠https://x.com/bgurley?lang=en⁠ Check out Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love - https://amzn.to/4dP6VZ1 ------ Thank you to the sponsors for this episode: +CoinShares: Delivering Reason to Digital Asset Investing. ⁠⁠https://coinshares.com/⁠⁠ +Granola AI, The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: ⁠https://www.granola.ai/shane⁠ Check out the Granola Notes: https://notes.granola.ai/t/c8d46a3e-a682-41ed-a649-933df79f6cfe-009c2hma +HeyGen is a message-first AI video platform that helps people and AI agents turn ideas into professional video in minutes. Try for free at ⁠https://www.heygen.com/⁠tkp +LMNT: My go-to zero sugar electrolytes — get a free LMNT Sample Pack here: DrinkLMNT.com/TKP *Shane Parrish* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farnamstreet/ X: https://x.com/ShaneParrish LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-parrish-050a2183/ Books: https://fs.blog/books/ Website: https://fs.blog/ Newsletter: http://fs.blog/newsletter *The Knowledge Project* is a show featuring in-depth conversations with the top CEOs, investors, and business leaders to uncover the timeless principles that drive success. Learn more at https://fs.blog/podcast