The Intelligence Officer's Secret to Making Better Decisions - Anthony Vinci

0:00Anthony Vinci: Most of us think about what will happen in the world or in our life in this binary way, right? This will happen or it won't happen, right? Like that's just like the natural way to do it. But really, the world is made up. It's a spectrum of possibility. And looking at things from a probabilistic, literal like percentage probability way changes your whole approach to decision making. The best decision makers in the world aren't smarter than you. They just have a better system. Anthony Vinci spent years building that system. First as a CIA field officer, then as an entrepreneur, and then as an investor in Bridgewater.

0:42Anthony Vinci: My whole life had been about decision making. How do I help a president make a decision or a general make a decision? Or when I was in finance, how do we make a better decision about what to invest in? Or even me as a person. It's great. We've really been talking about it. How do you make big life decisions? Anthony Vinci's book is The Fourth Intelligence Revolution. His company is Vico Technologies. Anthony says the cost of bad decisions are huge and they stay with you for life. This conversation will change the way you think about risk, calculated decision making, and what it actually takes to make your big swathes.

1:15Anthony Vinci: You know, one thing I learned in the period of my life when I was an investor, that it was that great investors have people around them that can tell them this is a bad idea and call out their weaknesses. And that can be hard. If you have ever talked yourself out of making the right life-changing decision because the risk felt too big, this episode is for you.

1:40Playing it safe is easy. Playing it safe is comfortable. But here's the problem. Playing it safe and playing by rules that were never meant for you will never take you to the next level. If you've got what it takes to hit the ball out of the park, the only thing holding you back is whether you're brave enough to take a big swing. I'm Kwame Christian, and this is Big Swings Only. Every week, we're telling you the stories of people who fought their fear, chased the life they actually wanted, and became who they had to become to get it. This show is built for people who are meant for more, because if you really want to get to the next level, you've got to do something big.

2:16So the question isn't whether or not you've got what it takes. The question is whether or not you're going to swing. You were built for more. And this show was built for you. Subscribe now.

2:30This episode is brought to you by Granola and Quint. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai slash Kwame. That's granola.ai slash Kwame to get your time back. three months free at granola.ai slash kwami find your next fall favorites at quince download the quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada and the uk too and when quince asks you where you heard about them let them know it was me that's the best way to support the show a good place for us to start is when you were becoming an intelligence officer, really hammering home the boundaries and barriers that made that maybe seem very difficult off into the future or unrealistic at that time and what you had to do to get through that.

3:27Anthony Vinci: Look, I studied philosophy as an undergrad, so I knew how to do nothing. I knew how to sort of think and read and write and argue. And so of course I ended up in the tech industry because like why not? I actually ended up in tech because another philosophy grad I knew worked at this tech company and he got me in. So I knew nothing. And then 9-11 happened. And you know, like a lot of guys in my generation sort of looked at that and said, it's my turn. It's my turn to serve. And I wanted to do that. My dad was a Marine in Vietnam. My brother was a Marine. And I said, it's my turn. I'm going to go out and do this.

4:13Anthony Vinci: And I thought about joining the military, but I kind of knew that's not the highest and best use of me. And I had this notion. I'm like, I want to be an intelligence officer. and then I had no idea how to do this. I had the degrees. I ended up studying international relations after my undergrad degree. I'd traveled and lived abroad and things like this, so I felt like I was the right guy, but I had no idea. Literally, I was like, it's so weird to think about, but it's just like you're asking yourself, how do I get this job? I know it exists because I've seen it on TV, Right. I've seen it in movies, but like where does one apply?

4:59Anthony Vinci: And you have this impression that you have to sort of meet someone secretly in like a bar or a cafe in like Riyadh or, you know, Bangkok or something and you're going to get recruited. Well, look, it turns out, you know, what you do is you have to apply on a website is what I found out. It's like any other job in the world weirdly um it's a government job so there are rules for any government job and you got to go apply and uh ultimately um i i i you know i did talk to a lot of people i knew like a good you know proto intelligence officer like i i talked to everybody i knew and i was like what which which agency what do i do you know that's the other thing you think like you just think about the ca there's there's actually several agencies they do different things There are different jobs you can have.

5:53Anthony Vinci: And I talked to a lot of people and figured out this is what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be a case officer. I figured this out. I wanted to work in the field, collect intelligence, handle sources, do that kind of work. So I figured out where to do that. I applied. And then, you know, look, it's a hard application. You're you're they are looking for really specific people. And you interview a lot. Um, you're doing things like role-playing, um, to see if you're the right person. You're, you're, you're, you're taking tests, um, different types of, um, personality tests and assessments and those kinds of things.

6:34Anthony Vinci: Um, it's, and it, and it takes a while. It takes a long time. Um, you have to get a security clearance that takes, you know, for me, it took a long time because I had been to places like Syria. I'm sure these people were like, wait, this guy's like in his 20, like, how has he been to like Syria and they have to figure out what, you know, if you're a trustworthy person. So you're going through all that process. It takes a long time. You can't really talk about it that much or you feel like you can't. So you're just waiting like alone to see if you can get this job. But finally you get in and you feel so good and you're like, I'm off to the races and I'm going to go serve my country.

7:10Incredible. Well, again, thank you for your service. This is incredible, especially the catalyst to that service was something so pivotal for the United States. So we appreciate that. And I think what's fascinating about this too is that you had the military pedigree with your father being a Marine, your brother being a Marine, and you decided to go into counterintelligence, especially considering what America just went through. That role in particular was going to be pivotal. So you mentioned that you didn't believe that serving like your father and brother wouldn't be your highest utilization.

7:45What was it in particular that drew you to that? What were the things that you envisioned yourself doing out in the field before you got into the field?

7:55Anthony Vinci: I was always somebody who was up to travel anywhere and do anything like that. And I studied abroad. I went to Oxford for a little while and traveled all over. I did field work in Africa. And I was going to places like Sudan, like Liberia, places where, you know, like your average kind of American isn't just showing up. Right. And like even to get into Sudan at that time was hard because there's a civil war. So I had to kind of convince people in Kenya to let me go. and there's something called the SPLA, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. And I was like, no, I'm doing research. Let me in. And, you know, and then you're taking like a shady, you know, kind of like, you know, it's not even an airline.

9:00Anthony Vinci: It's like a guy with a plane to like get into the middle of the desert in South Sudan. I knew that I could do that stuff. And not only knew, like I thrived on it. That's what I wanted to do, you know, with my life. And I loved it. I love the risk and the adventure and I love meeting people. And so to me, you know, that's what I envisioned in intelligence. And and for that world of intelligence, that's kind of is how it is. It's actually more structured than what I was doing. You know, it's just not as cowboyish as you imagine. And but you know that that was the world. And and when they saw me, I had ended up with a graduate degree and they were like, oh, you should be an analyst.

9:44Anthony Vinci: And I was like, no, I'm like, I'm not looking. I respect analysts a lot, but I'm a guy, I want to be out in the field and that's who I envision myself being and that's what I made happen. Amazing. That's incredible. And there are two words that really stood out to me. You said risk and adventure. And Anthony, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you for a story from the field. of course, respecting confidentiality. I know there's certain things you cannot say, but are there any stories that come to mind that really are emblematic of the risk and adventure you were seeking? Look, you learn this thing when you're in intelligence, which is taking calculated risks, right?

10:26Anthony Vinci: They like actually think about and teach you how to think about risk, right? You can't just be a cowboy and do crazy things. First of all, it's dangerous, right, for you, but it's dangerous for the mission. You're not going to be able to carry out missions if you're doing dumb things. And so you start to look at risk as something that you can calculate. You can look and you can weigh pros and cons of what you're doing, how much you can control the situation. And so without getting into a hyper-specific situation, I can give you an idea of what you're doing. I talk a bit in my book about this, which is, you know, look, when I was in Iraq, you can go, you're trying to save lives.

11:10Anthony Vinci: Like that's how you think about your life and your job. And you're like, look, there are terrorists, there are insurgents, they're trying to blow up American citizens, trying to blow up Iraqi citizens for that matter. And I'm trying to collect information to ensure that they don't do that. And you can't just sit behind the wall in a base and do that. You have to get out there, even though it's dangerous, right? And you have to take that calculated risk of, okay, look, I know there's a danger. I'm not a soldier. I'm not with a platoon full of guys who all have machine guns and grenade launchers and, you know, helicopter support.

11:49Anthony Vinci: I'm like a guy and I got a truck and maybe I have an interpreter and maybe I have one security guy with me, right? So we're a small team, but you got to think to yourself, I got to take that risk. How do I mitigate that risk? So maybe I don't broadcast to the world that I'm an American intelligence officer and I try to keep a low profile. Maybe I sort of dress in a way that doesn't highlight who I am. I can look a little bit Middle Eastern-ish if I throw on some aviator sunglasses and you know some certain clothing how do i kind of mitigate that risk to make sure that i'm not looking too out of place that we're not doing anything alerting those are that's the way you kind of run an operation in a place like that um and you're you're there's a lot of planning you're thinking up front like look how do i plan this through where am i going to be where am i going to drive what do i do if this goes wrong what do i do if there's a problem what do i do if i'm attacked you're thinking about all of those things as you're driving around the place like Baghdad in the middle of a war zone.

12:54Anthony Vinci: Right. And, um, and how do you handle that? And you're thinking about that when you're, when you're handling a source, you're meeting a source, look, they live in this, in this area. They have information that's important. We need to meet with them, um, to save lives. Um, I'm thinking about that guy's security too. Um, I don't want this guy to get hurt. He's got a family too, by the way, and he's important for all of our security because he has the information. He has, you know, access to information. Maybe he knows where the next terrorist attack is. So I'm thinking about that guy's security while I'm driving around and I'm working with him and meeting him.

13:28Anthony Vinci: And that's what that life is like, man. And you're out there and you're young and you're dumb, right? And like, so you feel invincible. But you're also probably, look, they're selecting for people for, again, for whom calculated risk is okay, you know, and you want to be a little afraid. You know, I rock climb now. I took up, you know, it's like you stop doing one risk, you start doing another. I took up rock climbing later in life. Um, you know, rock climbing, you look at it, you're like, that's scary. Um, I'm a little afraid of heights. Um, I feel nervous. Um, but I trust the equipment and I trust what I'm doing.

14:06Anthony Vinci: It's the same thing there. You want to feel a little afraid because that reminds you to be careful. That's what fear is all about. And that's what I'm doing when I'm out in the field like that. Be a little bit afraid, but calculate that risk and just live with it. There's so much that we can pull from this. First of all, from the outside looking in, from the civilian mindset, everything that you do is magical and mysterious. And what's fascinating to me about hearing your story is that there is no guarantee and there is structure in how the organization is run. But as far as what it takes to complete the mission, there are a lot of wild cards that could go in either direction.

14:46So you have to be nimble, but the guiding light is your purpose. You're there for a reason. You're there to save lives. And at the end of the day, as long as you have that beacon in front of you, that can help you to make decisions in difficult circumstances. And you talked about calculated risks. And of course, on the show, Big Swings Only, a lot of times that is what is required. It, we, we often hold back, hold ourselves back from taking these big swings because we focus so much on the risk. And I'd like to see, let's go a little bit deeper on how you utilized this base of how to, of risk calculation throughout your career, before we actually get into the details of the rest of your career, because I'm wondering if there are some through lines that we can take in our everyday lives as we are trying to take our big swings in our world.

15:37Anthony Vinci: I think about risk in two ways has been kind of helpful for me. One is we balance risk, right? And you'll see this thing that's interesting, like special operations guys who, you know, might be the biggest risk takers, right? They're literally being shot at all the time, tend to not take risk in other areas. they tend to have a wife and children and live in the same place for as much as they can, right? We can kind of compartment risk. For me, I was out there, I'm in Iraq, I'm like traveling around, you know, all over the world. I was like really conservative on like financial risk. I wasn't investing in the stock market.

16:24Anthony Vinci: I'm like, man, that's too risky. Like I'm going to, you know, buy municipal bonds, you know. So you compartment risk and you think about, for me at least, I think about where do I want to take risk, right, in my life as a whole. And then within that compartment of life, I'm then calculating how to think about risk. And I think about it like I try not to abstract it. Like, oh, this is just risky. It's like, I don't know, how is it risky? What can I do about that risk? Okay, I can go like I was saying, I could be in Iraq. And like, yeah, it sounds like crazy to get in a truck with a gun and drive around a war zone and meet somebody.

17:09Anthony Vinci: But if you take each component and you're like, okay, look, I know where I'm going. I know what my backup plan is. I know what I'm going to do. I know what if things go wrong, what I'm going to do. I've trained for these kinds of things. You kind of are chunking the risk, and can then deal with each chunk on its own. And this, I think, is like a freeing way to think about risk. If you think about the whole thing, and if all of your life is full of risk and it's just like this abstract monster, you're never going to take a risk. But if you break it down into pieces, you look at those chunks, and you deal with each of those chunks on its own, you can deal with it.

17:53Anthony Vinci: that might be on a tactical level, like me running a source in a war zone. But it might be also a decision, like a big life decision, like deciding to jump into a new venture, like deciding to start a company. It's like that can sound overwhelming. But if you break it down, you're like, okay, here are the risks. Here's what I'm going to do. Here's the period of time I'm going to do it in. I'm only going to take risk here. So I'm not going to be doing other crazy things at the same time. you can manage that risk. And that's how I think about it. Brilliant. This is very helpful. And when I think about some of the other people that I've interviewed in my own life too, I think about it through the lens of negotiating the floor where I'm saying, okay, great.

18:35I know I'm shooting for the stars. That's where I'm going. And I also recognize often when you're shooting for the stars, you miss how far down am I willing to go? And so what can I do to make sure that I can mitigate the risk in a responsible way that doesn't pull away from the purpose or mission that we're driving towards. So I think that's great because the cowboy mentality is fun when you're watching cowboy movies and it's not you. Exactly. And so we want to make sure we're taking responsible risks.

19:04Anthony Vinci: Yeah, exactly. And by the way, it sort of evolves over time in life. The risks I was willing to take when I was young, very different than today. I have a son now. I don't think I would be going to a war zone. I have a lot of respect actually now looking back for guys that I knew in Iraq and other places who were doing this that had kids. I didn't at the time. So I wasn't thinking that way. Now I look at it and I'm like, oh my God, the 28, 29 year old me was insane. I can't believe it. And even later on, I had a startup when I was in my 30s and I was like, you're saying, I was swinging for the stars.

19:49Anthony Vinci: I'm like, billion dollars a bust. I don't care about anything else. And now I have a different startup. I think about it very differently of what would be an acceptable exit. How would I manage this? How much am I willing to swing? It's just, it's evolved over time for me. Yes. Oh, this is good. And Anthony, I can't help myself. I know we are, we have graduated from negotiate anything, but the negotiator in me has to know. When you think about some of these conversations that you were having, when you negotiated your way into a war zone in Sudan, when you're having to have these conversations with people who might not know you at all, how do you go about doing that?

20:32How do you even approach a person in a situation like that? If you could paint that picture for us, that'd be really, really helpful.

20:39Anthony Vinci: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny. you are selected in the intelligence world because you have a certain innate personality trait to be good at that. That's what they're sort of selecting for. So looking back, I feel like I already had it. And then in intelligence, what they did is sort of train that and make you better at it and realize that you could turn this into a process. So I was always sort of doing this. and what I learned later in life after this training is what I was doing, which is looking at a person. First of all, you're looking at a person as another person. It's so easy to like look at people and just be like, this is a nameless, faceless person, especially in a foreign country.

21:28Anthony Vinci: You know, you're like, oh, this guy is like, you know, totally different. You know, so easy to just not even imagine. Well, this guy's got a family at home. He's like a real person. And I just sort of innately was able to do that. I've just always seen people as people. And once you're there, once you're sort of seeing a person as a person, you're like, okay, now, like, okay, this person, he's like me and he's got motivations and he wants certain things and he wants to be recognized and so forth. And that's really you're in. And once you're sort of there, once you're like now talking to another human being, like Like as another human being, you can really connect.

22:10Anthony Vinci: And that's when you can kind of get into it's like, hey, man, look, I look, I don't know. I'm here. Look, I'm I'm 24 years old and I'm I'm in Sudan and I'm here to learn about your country and learn about what you're doing. And I'm writing papers on I'm doing whatever. I'm hey, I'm in Iraq. I'm an intelligence officer. Yeah, look, we grew up really differently. I get it. And like, but like, I don't know, like I have a dad, my dad went to war. Like you had a dad, your dad went to war in Iraq. You know, there was an Iran-Iraq war. Like we have some similarities. Let's connect on that. Let me understand what your motivations are.

22:50Anthony Vinci: Hey, look, you just want your country to be safer. I want my country to be safer. We're better if we do this together. So now we're now we're connecting. And once you start to do that, then you can kind of get into, you know, what do you want on it? Now, look, I'll admit when you're an intelligence officer, you're manipulating people like just blatantly. You're manipulating people because you want them to do something for you and your country. That's why you're doing it. But I'm still looking at you as another human being to try to get you there. And I'm trying to, you know, also get you what you want out of it.

23:24Anthony Vinci: That's like what I think I just sort of innately would do. And then I learned to do this in a structured way as an intelligence officer. Brilliant. Thank you for taking the time to share that. What's fascinating to me, Anthony, is as you tell that story and you talk about the skills that you would use, those are fundamental textbook negotiation and persuasion skills. you're being present with the person you're trying to establish connection you're building rapport by saying hey yes let's stipulate to the fact that there are very clear and obvious differences between us we don't need to harp on that but let's also take some time to discover the similarities let's align these interests and what's funny is that i know again the civilian mentality we we get our perspective on what an intelligence officer does through um movies and the news.

24:16And so we almost think about these folks that you would run into as characters that are sitting down, smoking in a dark bar, who only exist to give you a hard time, right? But when you just see, hey, they are just people like everybody else, then you connect. It's fascinating. And now here's something that I think would almost surprise people because getting into this role was a big swing. It was a big change. Let's talk about the exit because that's literally and figuratively adopting a new identity in many ways. So what was that transition like? Yeah. The first thing that I ever got from Quince was this pair of really nice formal pants, but they were stretchy and made for travel.

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27:42Anthony Vinci: You do these kinds of jobs and it's more than a job. It feels like a vocation. It feels like, I don't know, I imagine it's what it must feel like when you sign up to become a priest or something where you just feel like this is sort of who I am now. All of your friends do this because when you're an intelligence officer, you work in these classified environments, you're traveling all the time, living abroad all the time. And if it starts to feel like your whole world and you kind of become like divorced from the rest of the world in this weird way. It's like hard to even imagine that there's an economy.

28:20Anthony Vinci: I was in Iraq in 2008. The global economy was collapsing. I barely knew about it. Like I was just there. I was in my own world. My again, I wasn't taking risk. I didn't even have money in the stock market. It didn't affect me whatsoever. So you're really in that. And then, you know, you sort of start to ask yourself, like anybody else, like, do I want to keep doing this? Is this my life? And I kind of knew that I signed up because I wanted to serve, like old school way, like how the guys signed up for World War II. You know, they were just like, we're going to war. There's this guy, Hitler. We don't like him.

29:01Anthony Vinci: I'm going to sign up. I'm not necessarily joining the army forever. I just want to go and serve. And that's how I thought about it. And once I did that, I sort of said, I feel good about this. And then some life stuff happened for me at that time. My mother got sick. She eventually passed away. I got married. And your life starts changing. And those types of jobs are hard for that. So these things were kind of converging of what do I want to do with the rest of my time in my life and what's going on in my life. And I sort of made this decision that it was time to leave. It's time to kind of move on.

29:41Anthony Vinci: And that's hard because now it's like you know how to do this thing, be an intelligence officer, which has little relationship to the rest of the world. You know, there's not like it's not like you're a sales guy at one company and you just, you know, you leave and you become a sales guy at another company. You're like, there's no job on the market that says case officer, please apply. There's a couple of things where people do that sort of thing. And so I really thought to myself, what do I want to do? And what is it about me that I think is special? How can I, frankly, earn some money? I have a family now.

30:25Anthony Vinci: How can I earn some money? What will interest me? Because remember, and you'll see this in a lot of intelligence, So we're risk-taking people. Just kind of working in a cubicle is not going to cut it. And I realized at some level I was an entrepreneur and that I could take these skills, I could take this mindset, I could take this approach to life and apply it in something and start things and be an entrepreneur. So that's what I decided I wanted to do. and then you just got to jump, you know? And like, I didn't have, like looking back, I'm surprised. I didn't have as much of a plan as maybe I should have.

31:10Anthony Vinci: But I knew I had to jump. And so I left, you know? And I knew generally that I wanted to start a company. And I knew some folks who I could talk to about that. and and um i i i left government i i moved back to the u.s um and and was just like all right i'm gonna start a company and like literally just i was like literally like reading like how does how do you how does one set up an llc and like how does sales work and like learned how to do this on the spot. There's so much about this story. I love Anthony. This is great. I, and I appreciate your vulnerability to talking about how your life developed and condolences for the passing of your mother.

32:01Of course, I, as you started this entrepreneurial journey, it's thinking about where you are currently. I think it makes it even more impressive to hear this element of the story. And I think this is one thing that I'm seeing with consistency with a lot of high performers from the outside looking in. The narrative seems nice and clear and clean. There's a nice bow on it. It seemed like you were riding this wave of inevitability to your destiny. But now we're seeing the process and it wasn't as clear because this is another it's another risk in a completely different industry where you have no background.

32:41So walk us through that entrepreneurial journey because it sounds like at least at this point, you knew that you had this drive to start something. At that point, when you had that drive to start something, did you know what it would be or you just knew you wanted to create something?

33:01Anthony Vinci: Yeah, you know, to your point, like a lot, you know, I try to mentor younger people and a lot of people like look at my career and they're like, how did you do this? like it looks like this like amazing rocket ship line i'm like no this is like a wandering path think you know the odyssey um you know it's just i was on the ship and trying to steer as best i could right you're making decisions as best you can i think about entrepreneurship um in terms of how can I take what I know and have impact? And I kind of knew about some things. I knew how to collect information. I knew that information was important for people to make decisions.

33:48Anthony Vinci: I knew kind of how to collect it in a way, how to learn how to trust information. I sort of abstracted to like that level and I knew I wanted to have impact and I knew I just always have been a person who whatever I look at I sort of see like why it's bad like I look at businesses I look at everything and I'm like oh that's that's an awful way to do this here's a better way I'm just constant I'm a I think a lot of entrepreneurs are like this you know you just sort of like, that's like a bad way to do this. I think there could be a better way. Here's how I would do it. And if you're a tech entrepreneur in particular, you're like, I know that technology can do this better.

34:34Anthony Vinci: I know there is a way to use it. And so when I left government, I was like looking at this industry of people who collect information and provide it to businesses. I was like, okay, look, I used to try to get information and give it to presidents and give it to generals. And I'm like, who uses information in the commercial world? It's companies, basically. And I'm like, I know there's a better way to do it. And so I started thinking that through and like inched into it. At first, you know, came up with this sort of very manual way to collect information all over the world. And then this is, you know, this is a while back, right?

35:13Anthony Vinci: This is pre-Uber. This is early in the app world. but I like eventually started putting pieces together I was like well I used to have to go and meet somebody to ask them a piece of information and I'm like wait this person has a cell phone why don't I just call them and ask them and then I'm like wait I could just make an app and then they could enter the information on it right you just start thinking it through and you're like they could enter it on it and then by the way I could know that they were actually there collecting this information because I can see the GPS on the phone. And like, so that was like the journey was like, I knew how to do this thing and kind of the old way to do it, like the very expensive human way.

36:00Anthony Vinci: And I was like, how could I just use more and more technology to do that and think it through? And that was like my process. And then at every step in the process, by the way, as any entrepreneur will tell you, it's like, oh, it's challenging. You're like, oh, well now I have to make the app and I need a developer. And oh, like, okay, they're on the app. Now, how do I pay them? I can't like send them a check. So I have to figure out how to pay people. And then I had to figure out how to tell, imagine this, I had to tell investors, like, I'm like, yeah, we have thousands of people all over the world who can collect information.

36:32Anthony Vinci: They're like full-time employees. I thought you were a startup. And you're like, no, no, no. Like we just pay them to collect one piece of information. Remember this before Uber, like people didn't know about gig work yet. And like, I had to literally explain to people, I'm like, no, no, no, no, they're like 1099 consultants. I just pay them on the spot. They're not a W2 employee. Like every step is becomes like, you're like, figure out a solution. And then there's a massive problem. And then you have to figure out the solution to that problem. And then so on and so on. But eventually you get it to work.

37:02Anthony Vinci: That's what I thrive in. You know, that's like where that was what was intellectually interesting to me. That's where the risk came in for me. That's where like the problem solving came in for me. So it's a lot like that world of being an intelligence officer, but now it's doing it as an entrepreneur. It's perpetual problem solving. And what you were able to do is find people who have a problem. You solve the problem. You get paid to solve the problem. That's a business. And I love the fact that you talked about the difficulty too, because you are incredibly accomplished. You were a counterintelligence agent.

37:37And the challenges in business are different and unique, and they never end. I think that's one of the most interesting things. Because with school, we say, all right, I graduate, then school is done. With business, you graduate into hopefully better problems, but still problems. It's like the Hydra. You cut off one head, then two more pop up. And that it's required, the resilience that's required is something that is very hard to appreciate unless you've actually been in it. And so can you talk about that element of the journey and the type of resilience that was necessary back when you were out in the field versus the type of resilience that's necessary now for you as an entrepreneur?

38:30Anthony Vinci: or resilience is a great word to use right because it's not about um luck it's not about um constitution or power it's about being able to kind of take the hit and then come back from it right and when you're out in the field things are not always going to go right that's like the first thing you learn right is that you have to be able to kind of bounce back whatever it is that happens you have to figure out how to respond how to be resilient to these kinds of issues that might be in training um that might be in real life and it's the same thing in a business right like nobody has the true rocket ship i don't know maybe maybe i don't know zuckerberg seemed to get pretty lucky um but he did pretty well he did all right um but you know like you you know i look at these guys um like elon musk is a great example like he looks like the rocket ship right and then you dig in and like hey man this guy is like almost had his company taken away from him like multiple times and you just have to bounce back and um when you're an entrepreneur that's really how it is.

39:49Anthony Vinci: And there's just always a problem. There's always failures that happen and you just have to figure out how to come back from that. And, you know, I think that that is both like an innate personality trait and skill, but also something you train at over time that every time it happens, you just get better and better at like bouncing back. And eventually, I don't know, maybe it's like being calloused. Eventually you get to this point. I feel like I'm at this point now where I'm just so used to it. I used to have this boss, you know, who is very, very successful, billionaire successful. And he would just, you'd be like, you know, he, I would hear people talk to him and be like, Steve, you've been so successful.

40:31Anthony Vinci: Like, how have you done this? And he's like, let me tell you about all the times where I, where I messed up, where I did so bad. I just look at my life like that. Now I'm like, let me, let me tell you about every time that has gone wrong. The trick, if it is a trick, is that I didn't care that it went wrong. I just kind of stuck to it and I kept going and eventually figured out a solution and then was able to keep going. And that's really what it is about. It's just like ignoring the pain. Yes. You know what's funny, thinking about that part? Because I tell my friends all the time, I remember when I was getting into entrepreneurship, I noticed this, the callous nature of very high performers, folks who are high up in politics, business, law, whatever it is.

41:16I say, man, I never want to be like that. And then I say, oh, so they had to be like this. They probably weren't like this at the very beginning. And then the type of resilience was just kind of beat into them. And I think when it comes to entrepreneurship, the difference between a business that succeeds and a business that fails is that both of them have near-death experiences, but one just doesn't die. That's it. Success in business is survival and just consistent incremental growth. Okay, hey, almost died again. Let's figure out what we need to do differently to not find ourselves in that situation and then parlay that potentially into something better.

42:00And it's interesting too, when you think about the great philosophers, the people who have accomplished a lot, who write about their journey, you don't hear people say, care about everything and be emotionally affected by everything.

42:15Anthony Vinci: Exactly. It's almost as if you want to take stubbornness and optimism and put it together. right so most entrepreneurs i know myself included are weirdly optimistic just like always think that it's gonna work out like hey i know i know i'm gonna figure this out right and then just sort of stubbornly keep doing it and you put those two things together you end up resilient yes that's that is a great way to describe it great way to describe it and i i think sometimes it comes with a blessing as a blessing and a curse. Because like you said, you have to learn how to compartmentalize the risk. I'm recognized with that element of myself.

43:01I have to compartmentalize the stubbornness and optimism because sometimes I have to say, Kwame, you got to quit. It doesn't happen in business. I'll tell a story. It's so stupid. But one time I was in Italy and I was, I had this key card to get into my Airbnb on my key chain. And I remember they gave me, It had the metal loop. And I said, this loop's kind of loose, but never in my life has a key fallen off the key chain for me, not for Kwame Christian, except that time. And so I remember I was in Monopoli, Italy. And so it's a small coastal city. And I said, listen, said to myself, I dropped this key somewhere in these winding streets of Italy.

43:52And I know I can find this. So Anthony, here I am. I've had a couple Aperol spritzes. I was hanging out with my friends. And I say, you know what? I lost this key. Don't worry. Y 'all go home. I'll find this. I walked these streets for three hours. And every turn I took, you know what I said to myself? I said, I know I'm getting close. I know I'm getting close. And so it's really important. It's so fascinating to see how the same kinds of mentalities and skills can be very, very, very, very beneficial in one area, but you have to learn how to turn that off. And then for me also in a more serious sense, when it comes to the way that I lead, just the way that I navigate my life, I'm compassionate, empathetic.

44:40That's what I want to be. And I recognize that in the business world, you need to have a little bit of an edge. And it was an edge that I didn't have and I didn't want to have for a while. And then I recognized I need to develop this part of me as I grow as an entrepreneur. But then also I recognized that that was very beneficial in some cases at work, but then I wouldn't turn it off at home. And there were times where Whitney said, where's the warm Kwame that used to solve problems collaboratively, where I just say, okay, hey, this is the problem. This is the solution. We got to do this and this.

45:16Great for the business world, not at home. So I think it's important to recognize that these attributes that we develop, we have to be able to compartmentalize not just the risk, but also the skill set to make sure that we're using the right parts of ourselves at the right time.

45:29Anthony Vinci: It's a great way to put it. There's a flip side to all of these good traits in business. You do have to learn to be hard in some sense. Even if you run a small business, sometimes you have to fire people. And, you know, it can be hard to do that. Actually, it's harder than most people think who haven't done it, especially if you're sort of attached to somebody and you like them, maybe you know them and their family. Right. And it can be hard to then turn it off. The other the other flip side, by the way, on resilience and stubbornness and optimism of all this is I think the hardest thing for a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, is knowing when it is appropriate to stop.

46:11Anthony Vinci: And there is a point that sometimes, you know, you're just like, this business isn't going to work. Like maybe, you know, part of you, look, you're an entrepreneur. Again, you have to be an optimist. And you're like, I know it's crazy. You know, I know that I want to land a rocket ship back on the launch pad. I want to make, you know, you know, I want to make this or that thing that everybody thinks is crazy and you have to keep going. Right. but it also at a certain point you have to sort of maybe listen and realize hey maybe this is the time to stop and it can be really hard to calculate that really hard to know and you have to have trustworthy people in your life who can kind of say no no this like is the time and like you really do need to think about it and you need to have the ability to go deep inside and really think that through and be true to yourself and face facts.

47:07Anthony Vinci: And that's actually weirdly harder for most entrepreneurs to do. Yes. I mean, our pride is wrapped up in this because we don't want to be a failure, but there's a difference between experiencing loss and being a loser, right? Those are two very, very different things. And especially a lot of times when you're on this entrepreneurial journey, it becomes part of your identity. And so you say, wait, if I give up, am I losing a part of myself? It's yes and no to a certain extent. And you're right. Sometimes the best people to have around you are the people who have the capacity to help you to push forward and stay strong and resilient when you should be, but also can give you permission almost to pull the plug.

47:51And I remember with my first company, I had the brilliant idea. I said, you know what? I'm doing a law degree. I'm doing a master of public policy. I've got all these leadership positions and I'm going to do all of this still within three years. This is the perfect time to start a business. I started this business and it was, as you can assume, it did not go very well. And I remember I have a cousin, very competitive, very driven, D1 athlete and is in finance now. And he said, Kwame, it's not quitting if it's the right decision.

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51:16Anthony Vinci: That is. That's actually, I'm going to take that with me. That is the right way to look at it. Yeah. Yeah, it helped me to recognize that I can still maintain my status, dignity, and self-respect, even though I'm making this hard decision. So I'm curious, Anthony, for you in your life, you've talked about a lot of the folks who inspired you, your brother and your father. But there are other people that have helped you along the way. Who are those people in your life that have helped you, especially when it got tough? well look i'll um you know when i i did this business after government and then i was sort of i i i guess missed the mission i ended up back in government and then back out of government and ended up in finance and then i'm in i'm in this private equity firm um as an investor i was managing director at this firm and um i had gotten divorced and you know met somebody new and I'm you know three months into this relationship and I'm like I'm going to leave and I'm going to start a new company I know I'm making a lot of money I'm a private equity big shop private equity guy but i'm gonna go earn nothing um and just really roll the dice by the way i'm approaching 50 um and uh oh and i have a son that i have to take care of um and you know all the stuff all the life stuff the mortgage and the alimony and the private school like life right is like piled up as it does um and i had met this woman um uh who's who's by the way is my now wife and um three months into the relationship like barely know each other i mean we we kind of knew i think at the time and she's like basically like fuck yeah do it like she was all in like can you imagine like you're dating somebody you bear like how well can you know somebody three months in like barely and who's looking and is like hey you sold me this bill of goods like you're you know a guy with like a great job and i don't know the suits and all the stuff and then like no no i'm gonna i'm gonna leave that and like i'm not gonna have any you know we're not gonna you know i'm not gonna be able to take you out to 11 madison park for dinner every night anymore.

54:03Anthony Vinci: And she was just all in. And that was life-changing. That's a big reason why we're married, that somebody could look at me and know what would make me happy, that I wasn't happy doing that other job. It's not that I was sad. Look, I learned great things. I worked for a great person. I worked with great people, but I knew that I had sort of reached this point where I wasn't learning, where I just didn't see the growth happening, where I wasn't having the impact in life that I wanted to have. It's that same entrepreneurial spirit. It's the same thing I felt when I was leaving government. And I was like, I know I need to do this.

54:50Anthony Vinci: I know this is the time in my life I need to take this shot. I know all the pieces have sort of lined up in the world. And she could see that. And she could see that I needed that support at that moment. And she was exactly the kind of person. Actually, her grandfather was an entrepreneur. So she sort of, and her mother, in fact, was an entrepreneur. She kind of knew this mentality. And she was, in her own sense, an entrepreneur. She knew the mentality. She knew that the support was necessary and was just all in from like day one has been all in since that day. And that is the number one thing any entrepreneur can ask for in life.

55:38Anthony Vinci: And once you have that, you are good to go. And I have it. The right relationship can make you and the wrong relationship can break you. I mean, when it comes down to it, we, these, these stories of success, I feel so many times we focus on the individual to the detriment of the fact that you cannot succeed without a tribe. And the partner you choose is going to be fundamental to our success. And I mean, think about the way that you described this. We have somebody who is supporting you, who's with you, who understands. That's such a big part of it too, especially with entrepreneurship. One of the challenges is that you become quite unrelatable to many people.

56:21The challenges you have are so different. The perspectives you have are so different. And so if you can have somebody who actually can understand you as you go on this journey, it is underappreciated just how rare that is. And somebody who can check you when you're off base too. It's very, very important. And when you think about the greater tribe that you've created, who do you think are some of the folks that when the person who's listening, when they need to think about the types of people that they need around them, what are the types of people that they need to keep around them? And what are the types of folks that you actually need to avoid?

57:03Anthony Vinci: You know, one thing I learned in the period of my life when I was an investor, that it was that great investors have people around them that can tell them this is a bad idea and call out their weaknesses. And that can be hard, right? I mean, I was at Bridgewater Associates. I worked for Ray Dalio. I think he's one of the people in the world who kind of figured this out. His whole sort of mentality around this organization and his life is that you need to be able to do that. I've worked at a private equity fund and the CEO had the same view. And I really took that, have taken that with me. I think I had that sort of innately.

57:48Anthony Vinci: I kind of knew that at some level before this, but it really crystallized. And so those are the people that I like to have around. And you need to be able to frankly reduce your ego as much as possible. You need to be confident, obviously. To be an entrepreneur, you got to be confident. But you got to just believe in yourself. But you need to be able to have people and know people who are willing to call the BS and what you're saying and be like, this is a bad idea. So the more of those people that I can collect, the better. And people I can trust who I can be like, what do you really think of this?

58:20Anthony Vinci: Like, don't, don't, don't tell me, like, tell me what you really think. Um, is this a good idea or not? Because you can't tell yourself, you're so close to these things. So I try to, you know, I've tried to have those people. I've tried to collect people around me who I can just talk to about whatever and who can understand the humanness of like what I'm doing and have been in it themselves like that so helps you when you're in the thick of like starting a business at the same time like you know look I try to minimize the kind of negativity you know around like some people for whatever reason and look sometimes it's Nate, sometimes it's their history, but kind of look at the world and have given up on it.

59:07Anthony Vinci: Or, or, or just kind of are always so pessimistic, like, no, you can't change this, can't do that. I, I find those kinds of people to be counterproductive for what I want to do. I'm trying to have impact. I'm trying to make things happen. I'm trying to solve hard problems and having being around that drains you in a way and I don't want that drain to happen I want to help them sometimes I feel for them like sometimes you know especially if it's because of somebody somebody's history and so forth you can feel for them and I can feel that empathy and I still want to help them maybe but I don't want them to be draining from me it's not to say I need everybody like tail at the wind, like, you know, slapping my back every time.

59:52Anthony Vinci: But like, like, I would, I would rather have positive people. And, and again, but positive people who are able to call me out when necessary, and, and help me, you know, move forward. Amazing. It is very, very difficult for you, for a person to outperform their circle of influence. And we have to be mindful of the people that we have around you. Because, again, the, even just thinking about it energetically. We don't think about the cost of negativity as often as we should. We all wake up with a certain power bar, a certain amount of energy. And then sometimes you reflect back and you say, I have spent the majority of my energy managing the emotionality of a toxic person, what am I doing?

1:00:42That's not my purpose, but it has become central to my existence. And that's not great, right? So that's something important to recognize. And kind of coming full circle here, Anthony, because when we think about what you said at the beginning, when you were in the field, you're focused on the mission and you have a very clear purpose. And that purpose was saving lives. I know the listeners are going to be really curious to know what you're doing now, Because when you see the trajectory and you see the journey that you've been on, you've acquired so much knowledge, so much experience, and so much expertise.

1:01:17What is really motivating you now when you think about your purpose?

1:01:25Anthony Vinci: I keep my life really tight. This is one of the great things about aging and getting married and having a child. like a lot of entrepreneurs when you're young you're just like no i just want to be all focused on my thing actually if anything being married having a child focuses you more than anything in the world i think it makes you perform better and so in my life there's basically my wife my son and then my work that's it that's every you know yeah do it you know i work out i do some other things but like when i think about what is important what am i focused on it's those it's those two people and this one thing.

1:02:08Anthony Vinci: And for me, you know, my, my, my work has been about kind of two things, um, recently. Um, one was I wrote this book, um, and, uh, I wrote it before I launched this company and, uh, um, and, and the book was about, I was this intelligence officer for a long time and I noticed this thing that was happening, which was that people didn't really know what was going on in intelligence. And they didn't know how it was affecting their life. And I kind of saw how it was affecting everybody's lives. And I was like, I want to get out and tell the story because I see what's happening in society, in the world.

1:02:46Anthony Vinci: And I'm like, people have to understand what's... You can't just look at intelligence and think James Bond and Jason Boren. That's not really what's going on. And actually, this stuff's affecting all of our lives. I looked at what happened in the elections in 2016 with Russia. I look at what's happening. Every time you turn on the news, there's some hack of your insurance information, your health information, banking information. I'm like, TikTok is happening. And I'm like, this is affecting my family. It's affecting my son. It's affecting my friends. So I wanted to tell that story. And so I wrote this book called The Fourth Intelligence Revolution about what was going on in intelligence and what was going to happen and how it was going to affect all of us and what we can do about it.

1:03:31Anthony Vinci: So that was really just like personally important to me. You know, look, is it great to sell books? Yes. But like that's, I don't think of myself as like a professional author. That's not how I'm trying to support myself and do it. I just wanted this book to be out there so people could learn from what I had seen and learn how intelligence affected them. So that's one thing. And that was like a personal personal passion project for me. And, you know, if listeners want to check it out, it's the fourth intelligence revolution, the future of espionage and the battle to save America. And I think it will show you what's what's happening.

1:04:08Anthony Vinci: You'll learn, by the way, like what all this stuff really means when I say I had a security clearance or when I say I was a case officer, when I say that AI is going to be used for information operations against you. Like, what does that really mean? the other thing was this company um i had a big year last year i got married i published a book and i launched a company all in one year it was like intense um really intense and uh um i and again had a wonderful wife who supported me throughout throughout all of it um and um or was my fiance and then my wife supporting me throughout all um but um then i launched this company called Vico, Vico.io is the website, but like I went back to the same thing that I had thought about when I was intelligence officer.

1:05:03Anthony Vinci: This time, not about how do I collect information, but I was like, how do I make better decisions? I'd been in this, like my whole life had been about, I realized this, like my whole life had been about decision making. How do I help a president make a decision or a general make a decision or when I was in finance? How do we make a better decision about what to invest in? Or even me as a person, you know, it's great. We've really been talking about it. How do you make big life decisions? How do you take those risks, right? And I wanted to make a better tool to do that. And so what we did, we started with, well, what's the first thing that you do when you're making a decision is you're like, well, what might happen?

1:05:46Anthony Vinci: What might happen if I make this decision or not make this decision? How do I forecast the future? So he made this capability to forecast events in the world. And, you know, literally like, what's the probability of the Strait of Hermes reopening? Or what's the probability of this war in Iran ending? What's the probability of the Democrats taking back the House? What's the probability of inflation being 4 %? This is a kind of information that if you're in a business, you need to make a decision. Or if you're a person, right? 4 % inflation matters if you're like deciding on what job to take or what interest rate you're going to get when you want to buy a house, right?

1:06:29Anthony Vinci: And so we made that and then really started to think, how can we make, like, think about forecasts as a tool and a building block to decision making? And then what do you need to make decisions? So we started really diving deep into that. And that's really what this capability does is you can forecast a future, but you can run scenarios. This is how we all make decisions. It's not just, you know, what's the probability of 4 % inflation, but what if the war on the Iran ends tomorrow? Or what if it goes on for nine more months? Then what's the probability, right? And that's how you really make decisions.

1:07:06Anthony Vinci: Or if this happens, then what happens? Think about that when you're making a decision, right? You're like, Like, okay, what if I do this? Then what will happen? Or how do I evaluate my courses of action? Like, you know, if I do this or that or that, maybe you have a few possible courses of action. How do I compare them, you know, numerically even, like in an exact way? So that's what we built. And we think it, you know, is a great way to help. Look, we sell into finance and we help, you know, we're on the Bloomberg terminal. We help, you know, hedge funds and banks make decisions as traders. we help corporations make strategic decisions, and we help the government make decisions, then ultimately we want to help everybody make decisions.

1:07:48Amazing. Amazing. Also, shout out to your wife because we talked about your resilience. I mean, didn't go through that much. That takes a lot of resilience. So kudos to her. And before we bring in Simone for his question, before we wrap, I want to ask you this question because we're talking about the ability to make good decisions. Good decisions are typically going to be based on good intel and good information. But you talked about probability. You talked about forecasting. And one thing I recognize, especially when we are thinking about how we can help people to make better decisions, bigger decisions.

1:08:24Can you tell us what most people struggle to understand about probabilistic thinking and decision making when it comes to making everyday decisions?

1:08:35Anthony Vinci: most of us think about what will happen in the world or in our life in this binary way right this will happen or it won't happen right like that's that's just like the natural way to do it but really the world is made up it's a spectrum of possibility right and looking at things from a probabilistic, literal percentage probability way changes your whole approach to decision making. Because now you can hedge. You can think about a portfolio of decisions that you could be making. This is, by the way, something that hedge fund traders have been doing forever. But I realized with this company, and just in life in general, you can do this as as a CEO for any decision or as a person.

1:09:29Anthony Vinci: And you can start to look at decisions as a spectrum, as probability, and that is freeing because it allows you to understand risk in a much more exact way and make a better decision. So if I say to you, look, there is a 55 % chance of this happening versus I say to you there's a 90 % chance of this happening, that means two very different things to you right but if you think in a binary way and i say to you well it's more likely than not that this is going to happen very different right right very different or look at it this way i say to you i'm like yeah it's most likely not going to happen or i say to you yeah look last week it was a five percent chance two days ago it was a ten percent chance today it's a 20 % chance.

1:10:23Anthony Vinci: Now you're looking at that decision in a really different way. It's still most likely not going to happen, but now you're looking at a trend and you're like, oh wow, I need to think about this. And when you start to think about decisions in these kinds of ways and use that tool of probabilistic, measurable thinking, you just innately will make better decisions, whether as a person or whether as somebody running a company. Brilliant. Oh, this is so good. We could have a whole other podcast on that topic. Because for me, the way I think about life is we live life decision to decision. And the best way to improve your quality of life is to improve your quality of decision making.

1:11:03And what you're doing right now is doing just that. That's so powerful. Simone, I'm being greedy. Jump in here, man. is there any room for intuition in this decision making process like even in war businesses finances is there room for intuition or is or we just have to get rid of that

1:11:29Anthony Vinci: no absolutely look i think intuition even emotion really helps you make a decision like it's like a tool that our brain has to kind of help you deal with this. Like if I tell you that there's a 32 % chance, you still have to decide what is my risk level? What level, like is that okay for me or not? And that's in your head. And that's where you kind of hone it, right? The other thing is that, and I'll tell you this from the perspective of a person who like literally tried to make a crystal ball that would like tell the future. Actually, the most important thing is figuring out what question to ask.

1:12:11Right.

1:12:11Anthony Vinci: And that is coming from you. That's coming from emotion. That's coming from your history. It's coming from what you know about the world. So even if you have a crystal ball, it's kind of useless if you're not good at figuring out what question to ask. And that comes from a person. The first thing that I ever got from Quinn's was this pair of really nice formal pants but they were stretchy and made for travel. So for me as a lawyer and businessman as I travel and I do these keynotes all over the world it's really nice to be able to know that I could wear something that looks good in the airport that's comfortable on the airplane and I could wear comfortably if I have to roll into a meeting or an event right after getting off the plane and it was only$60 and that's what turned me into a repeat customer because Quince focuses on wardrobe staples that are made with premium materials.

1:13:00So for example, 100 % Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and as it's gotten colder, I've been leaning on their down jackets and wool outerwear too. They're solid, warm layers that don't feel like they're cutting corners just because the price is lower. And that's really the whole model. Because everything at Quince runs about 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands simply because they cut out the middlemen and work directly with ethical factories. But the thing is, it's not only clothing either. They carry that same quality into bedding, bath, kitchen essentials, and furniture, all designed with the same care.

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1:14:42It just fits nicely into the tools you already use. You can stay focused on the conversation and still walk away knowing exactly what decided and who's doing what next. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai.com. That's granola.ai.com to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai.com. That's so good. And one of our core principles with negotiation is curiosity. So the fact that it all comes down to the question that we ask even ourselves. So good. Anthony, you've been very generous with your time, my friend.

1:15:23I appreciate you. And let me leave you, let me ask you this last question and we can ride off into the sunset with this. When we think about your mission and what you want to contribute to the world and you think about what you're doing with Vico.io, everybody check out the website. After you leave, what do you want your lasting impact to be?

1:15:42Anthony Vinci: well look i my whole life has been about looking at the world and trying to make it a better place and i realized over time that um information and kind of decision making is is how to do that right we are all just look we're people in the world and we're deciding what to do at every moment. Who should I marry? Who should I work with? What should I do with my life? What should my company do? And the cost of bad decisions are huge. And they really come with you in life. That's what regret is, right? That's why we have the emotion of regret. We look back, we're like, I should have made a different decision.

1:16:32And look, trust me, everybody has

1:16:34Anthony Vinci: regrets. And sometimes it's a big regret for a person or for a company of what could have been different. Right. And and I don't know, I guess like at some level, like my whole life's just sort of been about that. It's been about as an intelligence officer, as an entrepreneur working in the space, as an investor, as just like a human. And so, you know, if I could leave the world where at maybe a business level, I've helped people do this better. And at a personal level, that people around me, my son in particular, is looking at the world and trying to do this better and making better decisions for himself, I'll feel pretty satisfied.

1:17:15Anthony Vinci: So good. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.