A Continuous Lean

A few weeks back I recommended the book Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin for a summer reading list. Having been an admirer of Rosecrans’ writing (especially in his newsletter ) I was eager to chat with him about the book on the podcast. He graciously drove across town and we had a great chat in my backyard. We spoke about the many great stories in the...

Sometimes I meet successful people and I want to talk to them about what they consider the keys to their success. Maybe it’s for me to try to figure out just where I went wrong. Is my lack of success tied to my inability to better respond to emails? Ha! Jeff Raider is hugely successful but also just a regular guy. He’s a co-founder of both Warby Parker and Harry’s , two massive brands. The growth...

Midwesterners like to celebrate commonality. It doesn’t matter if there are actual similarities or just those that are imagined. Michael Hainey and I never had to fabricate the connection or likeness. It was always apparent that we had much in common beyond the geography of where we grew up. His childhood in Chicago and midwestern roots are well documented in his brilliant book After Visiting Frie...

As you may know, I’ve been back in the cycling game . It’s been a lot of fun and good exercise, but there have definitely been some sore nights. The last thing you want to do in those tender moments following a ride is wear anything made of technical fabric. This use case is exactly why Ralph Dunning created Foreign Rider . He calls it “post ride comfort” and if you have even been sore from a ride...

As someone fascinated with the origins of prep and American style, a conversation with Lisa Birnbach is always going to be something I find compelling. Like a lot of people who are intrigued by prep, I view it as an interested outsider who wants to understand how it became what it is today. Lisa helped to define the preppy lifestyle and also played a big part into pushing it into the mainstream cu...

Noah Kalina takes beautiful photos of beds , rivers , old factories , Zuckerbergs , motel rooms , this tree , chickens , bagels and many other interesting things . His wonderful eye and talent shine through in whatever big or small project he is doing. I love his photography, but it’s his newsletter that I find the most fun. Every edition delights me with his quirky adventures and wit. If someone...

Tracksmith is interesting to me because of how it has managed to take inspiration from history —to embody the aesthetics of a heritage brand— while simultaneously being completely forward-looking and modern. I’ve seen a lot of brands try to do this and it almost never feels right. Tracksmith took the good parts of archival running and modernized it to create an inclusive, fun, New England-centric...

Today I’m not shopping for stuff on sale, I’m asking myself the big questions. Why do I own all of this stuff? How did I get to this point? Should I be buying stuff on Black Friday? Since I am committing to downsizing 60% of my possessions in the next 12 months I wanted to talk to Sean Hotchkiss about how he did it. I also wanted to ask him how it feels four years on. That’s the basis for the conv...

The conversation that I had with Will Welch above would have been hugely satisfying if it were just him and I had it over a breakfast meeting at Lafayette . The fact that we could share it as a podcast really makes me happy. I greatly enjoy deep conversations with people where we go beyond the surface level small talk. Obviously, small talk is not the point of a podcast, but sometimes I think it’s...

Mickey Drexler is a product guy. He’s always feeling fabrics, talking about key items, and thinking about upcoming trends. He is obsessed with the details. Obviously he has excellent taste and is driven to keep pushing brands to new and better places. That’s why he is universally known as an incredible merchant. We sat down to record this podcast in February, just before the pandemic really took h...