{"podcast":{"title":"Smart Friends","slug":"smart-friends-2136135","podcast_index_feed_id":2136135,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/SOMC8581176390","website_url":"https://www.ejorgenson.com/podcast/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/fae742a2-db05-11ec-a787-5b6fc0a4f209/image/ad94dd4d3d8679e0de87602a070d58f9.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Eric Jorgenson","episode_count":123,"summary":"Casual conversations with founders, technologists, investors, and artists about building a brighter future, together. Welcome to our digital living room. With science, technology and entrepreneurship we can *continue* to create unfathomable leaps in quality of life. We show you how to find, apply, build, and invest in technologies to change your life and the world. When we have smart friends, we do smart things. When we do smart things, we save the world. No matter who, where, or when you are – now you have smart friends, too. Outside this podcast, I’m the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and The Anthology of Balaji. Connect at ejorgenson.com Laugh and learn with people like Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant, Andrew Wilkinson, Austen Allred, David Senra, Josh Storrs Hall, Ashley Rindsberg, Zach Pettet, Bret Kugelmass, Omar ElNaggar, Grace Guo, Brett Kopf, Max Olson, Chris Williamson, Shane Mac, Tim Hwang, David Perell, Jason Hitchcock, Natalia Karayaneva, Sebastian Marshall, Taylor Pearson, Mitchell Baldridge and more. Join conversations with my partners in early-stage tech investing, Bo Fishback and Al Doan. Our Rolling Fun Episodes cover our investments and escapades as…","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/smart-friends-2136135"},"episode":{"title":"#099 Jonathan Swanson: Scaling Thumbtack, 10x Delegation, and Designing an Ideal Life","slug":"099-jonathan-swanson-scaling-thumbtack-10x-delegation-and-designing-an-ideal-life","published_at":"2026-01-06T15:11:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/smart-friends-2136135/099-jonathan-swanson-scaling-thumbtack-10x-delegation-and-designing-an-ideal-life","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/smart-friends-2136135","url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/DTSOS1291416433.mp3","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/DTSOS1291416433.mp3","summary":"Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:30) - Who are your heroes? (00:09:26) - The infancy and evolution of Athena (00:15:12) - Inflection points (00:18:14) - Jonathan’s reasoning for going public with interviews (00:20:08) - How do you pick countries to work in? (00:22:41) - Who is the core Athena customer? (00:28:09) - Jonathan’s 6 EAs (00:32:13) - Surprising things Jonathan’s delegated (00:35:42) - Broadening your scope of what’s possible with assistants (00:42:05) - A day in the life with multiple EAs (00:45:41) - Delegation within EAs (00:50:31) - Family dynamics with EAs (00:54:07) - The 2050 version of Athena Links: Athena - https://www.athena.com/ Rolling Fun — https://www.rolling.fun To support the costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! We discuss: How Jonathan developed calm under extreme startup pressure Athena’s evolution from side hustle to billion-dollar vision Why great delegation is a skill, not magic Surprising personal and family delegation use cases Combining humans and AI for exponential leverage Quotes from Jonathan: “My mind is an inner citadel. I’ve got a good mind, a wife that loves me, and everything else is gravy.” “I started Athena with the sole goal of generating income for my wife and I to live off of.” “The vision of…","meta_description":"Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:30) - Who are your heroes? (00:09:26) - The infancy and evolution of Athena (00:15:12) - Inflection points (00:18:14) -…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3381,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/smart-friends-2136135/episodes/099-jonathan-swanson-scaling-thumbtack-10x-delegation-and-designing-an-ideal-life/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/smart-friends-2136135/099-jonathan-swanson-scaling-thumbtack-10x-delegation-and-designing-an-ideal-life.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}