The People I have Learned from the Most

When I think about influential internet people in my life, I can assemble a list: a sort of "guide" through the internet, showing the route that I took. A route that links to people who heavily influenced my decision making, my thinking, and the routines that I now have and inspire me to do better every day.

That doesn't mean that I endorse everything that they put out, some of them changed over time. And also nowadays I have absorbed many of their lessons and stopped reading some of them even entirely. But just having a mental awareness of where a lot of my underlying worldviews are coming from is important to me. I want to have a linkable list, like this so that when other people ask me, how did I become this way, I have something to link to.

Life Advice

• Farnam Street Blog. Many articles about rationality and learning how the world works, by focusing on the best of what other people have already figured out. This is what got me started reading lots and lots of books.
• Tim Ferriss Blog. His writing and his books, like the 4-hour work week have shaped a lot of my thinking. I also got introduced to Naval Ravikant via Tim's podcast and later because of that to David Deutsch and The Beginning of Infinity.
• Nat Eliason. He heavily inspired my booknotes section and made me want to write more and better articles.
• Derek Sivers. His books and blog posts are genius, his approach to living life is unique, and he thinks through problems from first principles and replies to all his emails.
• James Clear. Most of my knowledge about habits and habit building comes from this guy.

Podcasts

• Lex Fridmans Podcast. My favorite podcast of all time. (I keep detailed notes on episodes I find most valuable.) In the beginning, he interviewed AI researchers, but later started to have all sorts of interesting people as guests.
• Dwarkesh Patel. He's the most recent addition to this list, but he is doing more in-depth podcasts than even Lex Fridman and I love this. Diving into the nitty gritty details while having so much knowledge on what he is talking about with his guests, makes for incredible conversations.

Essays and Ideas

• WaitButWhy. My favorite blog, ever – so many interesting ideas, condensed in a way that makes them easy to share. Favorite posts include Why procrastinators procrastinate, How to Pick a Career That Actually Fits You, Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future and lastly The AI Revolution.
• Nicky Case. She is making cool, awesome webdemos and writing about it, I want to build more demos like hers.
• Paul Grahams Essays. PG is legendary among startup founders because his essays are some of the clearest thinking out there. Everything I've read has made me think.
• Julian Shapiros Blog. Some of the best guides. On Writing. Muscle Growth. Or starting a startup.
• MindingOurWay. One of my favorite ideas comes from this blog: Half Assing It With Everything You've Got.
• Slate Star Codex. Maybe the most well-thought blog on the internet. I think everybody should grok SlateStarCodex's idea of Moloch at least.
• Autotranslucence. I love her idea of Becoming a Magician.

Health/Longevity

• Edubily. This is in German only, but it's heavily focused on nutrition and unlocking your genetic maximum, by optimizing sport and the stuff you put into your body.
• Andrew Hubermans Podcast. A podcast diving deep into scientific protocols and explanations for how to live a better life: explaining sleep, nutrition, exercise, motivation, and so on, especially the first few episodes are gold.

Traveling

• Nomadic Matt. This is what got me started traveling for cheap on my own. His 50 dollars a day for traveling idea is still strong in my mind. I can travel for even cheaper, 30 dollars is easily achievable.
• Expert Vagabond. The hustling mindset and creating streams of side income are what stuck with me from this blog.
• Stuck in Customs. Some of the best travel photography and inspiration.
• The Oceanpreneuer. Everything Around Sailing and How to Find Sailboats and traveling the world by the seas. This was a huge source of knowledge for my transatlantic crossing.

Finances

• Finanztipp. Again in German, but a lot of what I know about money and investing came from here. Especially their stuff on ETFs.
• Mr. Money Mustache. Almost everything I know related to FIRE (financial independence retire early) can be traced back to this place. It's about having a good life by focusing on what is important and then cleverly working towards that, mostly by simplifying life and saving money, while increasing income.

Photography

See also my own photography from travels around the world.

• Daniel Kordan. I adore his photos of the Namibia desert and the Salar the Uyuni.
• Steve McCurry. His photography of India blows my mind, every time.
• Max Rive. Just some of the best landscape photography out there.

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I realize that this is a needlestack of sorts, but somehow it feels different to me.

It's not exactly a reading list like a needlestack is... it's more a set of pointers into directions, something to follow through and pick good stuff from on your own, less filtered and less comprehensive than a needlestack. It showcases creators, rather than specific pieces of content. And I hope that it can be useful to you.