The James Altucher Show

Notes from James:
I wish I had been Kolin Jones when I was 18 years old.
When Colin was 19, during COVID, he set up his own private jet brokerage out of a college dorm room. No investors. No jets. No connections. Just a GoDaddy website, an email address, and an obsessive willingness to send 2,500 cold emails a day.
Amalfi Jets is on track to do $120 million in revenue this year. And he still doesn't own a single plane.
I love how he thought about competition. He literally calculated: my competitor sends 400 emails a day, I'll send 2,500 — that means I'm doing six of his days in one of mine. Do that for a month and I'm four months ahead. That was the whole strategy at the start. Beautiful.
And then TikTok changed everything. One video about a client who chartered two jets — one for his wife, one for his mistress — got a million views. 150,000 people hit their website. 15,000 flight requests in a single day. The entire trajectory of the company shifted because of a free video.
He also talked about losing money on purpose on his first sale — selling a $24,500 flight for $20,000 to lock in loyalty. Pure Amazon thinking. I love that.
And there's a story about a client stranded on the Galapagos Islands whose plane broke down. The client's assistant asked about bribing customs officials. Listen for how Kolin handled it.
This is a great template if you're an entrepreneur, a creative, or anyone trying to build something from nothing. Please listen.

Episode description:
Kolin Jones was 19 years old, in his college dorm during COVID, when he noticed something: commercial flights were grounded, but private jets were surging. He got his pilot's license at Van Nuys Airport — the busiest private jet airport in the world — and launched Amalfi Jets with nothing more than a website, a cold email strategy, and a plan to out-hustle every competitor through sheer volume.
James and Kolin break down exactly how the private jet charter brokerage model works, why you can legally set one up today with zero certification or licensing, why Amalfi turns down roughly $1M/week in deals over safety concerns, and what separates a legitimate broker from the hundreds of unregulated players flooding the market. They also get into the social media strategy that transformed the company — why Kolin was initially against TikTok, what changed his mind, and how one viral video created 15,000 flight requests in a day.
Plus: what it actually costs to own a private jet, the real economics of flying private vs. first class, why the richest clients show up in jeans and an Uber, what happens when a client punches the pilot mid-flight, and the watch Kolin bought himself the first month Amalfi crossed $2M in revenue.
What you'll learn
How a private jet charter brokerage works — and why it requires zero licensing or certification to start
The cold email strategy Kolin used to out-hustle every competitor from his college dorm
Why Kolin intentionally lost money on his first few sales — and why it paid off
The real cost of owning a private jet (it's about $800K/year just to park it)
Why Amalfi turns down ~$1M/week in business due to safety and legal concerns
How one TikTok about a client's mistress generated 150,000 website visitors and 15,000 flight requests in a single day
Why Kolin tracks which shirt color makes his videos go more viral (black = +36%)
When flying private is actually cheaper than first class — and the math behind it
The Galapagos breakdown story: a stranded client, a broken jet, and a customs bribe request
What ultra-high-net-worth clients actually look like vs. the Instagram version
Kolin's plans for Amalfi: acquisitions, possible PE partnership, and why he won't go public

Timestamps:
00:00 Why flying private ruins you for commercial forever
06:00 What Amalfi Jets actually is — and how the charter brokerage model works
09:00 The real cost of owning a private jet
13:00 The wild west of jet brokerage — zero regulation, zero licensing required
16:00 The Galapagos story: broken jet, stranded client, and a near-bribe
20:00 Colin's origin story: COVID, flight school, and cold emailing 2,500 people a day
26:30 The first sale: losing $4,000 on purpose and the Amazon strategy that built loyalty
30:00 How one TikTok about a mistress changed everything36:00Inside Amalfi's content machine — and the clients who punch pilots
41:00 When private is actually cheaper than first class — the real math
46:00 The tech behind Amalfi: AI fleet optimization, 72K-member app, and social listening
50:00 Burying competitors with relevance — and what's next for Amalfi5
7:00 The first splurge: an Omega Seamaster and what it represents

Additional Resources:
Amalfi Jets
Kolin's Instagram
Kolin on TikTok
Amalfi Jets on TikTok

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Episode Description
In this From the Archive conversation, James talks with Yuval Noah Harari about the idea underneath Sapiens and Homo Deus: humans did not come to dominate the planet because they were the strongest animals, but because they learned to cooperate at scale through shared stories—religion, money, nations, and eventually data. The discussion moves from early human history to agriculture, war, terrorism, AI, and bioengineering, but the throughline stays the same: civilization runs on belief systems, and those belief systems shape what humans build next.
What makes the episode useful is that Harari is not just offering sweeping history. He keeps tying big ideas back to practical questions: why modern war has changed, why terrorism works by hijacking imagination, how technology may widen inequality, and why meditation might be one of the few ways to separate reality from the stories people live inside.

What You’ll Learn
Why Harari argues that the real human superpower is the ability to believe in shared fictions—and how that enabled large-scale cooperation.
Why the agricultural revolution may have strengthened humanity collectively while making everyday life harder for individuals.
Why modern war has declined in some forms as economies shift from material assets to knowledge-based wealth. Source transcript:
How terrorism operates by capturing attention and imagination more than by raw military strength.
Why Harari thinks the next major divide may be biological inequality, where the rich can upgrade themselves in ways the poor cannot.

Timestamped Chapters
[02:00] Why Homo sapiens conquered the planet
[02:18] The human superpower: fiction
[02:39] Introducing Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens, and Homo Deus
[04:25] Other human species and why sapiens were not obviously superior
[06:00] What changed 70,000 years ago
[07:20] From tribes to mass cooperation
[08:39] Trade, trust, and imagined kinship
[10:24] Money as the most successful shared story
[11:35] How sapiens may have overtaken other human species
[13:29] What changed in the human brain
[15:29] The history of humanity as the history of stories
[16:08] Why successful stories stay simple
[17:29] Expansion, Australia, and the destruction of large animals
[19:46] Violence and unification in human history
[21:42] Why the agricultural revolution made life worse for many individuals
[23:30] Hunter-gatherer intelligence versus modern specialization
[24:53] Why modern war is changing
[27:18] Terrorism as psychological warfare
[29:07] Human enhancement, dataism, and the future of intelligence
[33:18] Humanism versus data as the next source of authority
[35:36] The danger of biological inequality
[37:04] Longevity, wealth, and who gets to live longer
[41:15] Engineering happiness and the danger of inner imbalance
[43:48] Automation, uselessness, and the future job market
[46:24] How Harari’s ideas changed his own life
[47:17] Vipassana meditation and separating reality from story
[49:15] A practical test: can it suffer?

Additional Resources
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow — https://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/
Yuval Noah Harari official site — https://www.ynharari.com/

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A Note from James:
What is going on in Iran? And once this war is over, what happens to investing? Is the world coming down? I’m bringing on the Invest Diva, Kiana Danial, to talk about both. She wrote Triple Compounding For Dummies, and we’ll get into that, too.
She’s Iranian, and she has a perspective on what’s happening that I think matters. My gut, based on the force of history, is that when this war is over, the Islamic regime won’t survive. Iran has no air force left, no navy left, missile strikes are way down, and many of its top leaders are gone. That’s my opinion, but it’s based on what I’m seeing.
What’s interesting to me is the parallel to the Soviet Union in 1991. When that collapsed, there was a peace dividend. For about 10 years, the stock market had enormous growth. Yes, the internet mattered too, but when countries stop trading bullets, they start trading dollars. The whole world opened up.
Iran has been one of the biggest threats in the region for decades. So if the regime falls, I think the peace dividend could be enormous, maybe even bigger than what followed the Soviet collapse, simply because we have no real relations with Iran right now. That’s why I wanted to bring on Kiana Danial, author of Triple Compounding For Dummies, to talk about Iran and what it could all mean next.

Episode Description:
James talks with investor and entrepreneur Kiana Danial about two subjects that usually stay separate: Iran and personal wealth-building.
First, Kiana gives a lived, Iranian-born perspective on what she believes ordinary Iranians want, how propaganda shapes the conversation outside the country, and why she thinks markets may move past the current war headlines faster than most people expect. Then the conversation shifts into her framework for building wealth: “triple compounding,” the idea that real financial progress starts by compounding skills, income, and businesses you control before you rely too heavily on outside assets like stocks.
What makes this episode useful is that it doesn’t stay theoretical. Kiana explains how getting fired pushed her to build new skills, create new income streams, and eventually grow a multimillion-dollar portfolio. She also shares how she’s thinking about AI, volatility, oil, defense names, and post-conflict rebuilding opportunities. It’s part geopolitics, part market psychology, and part practical roadmap for anyone who wants more control over how they build wealth.

What You’ll Learn:
Why Kiana thinks geopolitical shocks often hit headlines harder than they hit markets over time
What “triple compounding” means: compounding your skills, your income, and your investments together
How she went from being fired on Wall Street to building wealth by reinvesting in herself first
Why adapting to AI may be less about protecting your old job and more about learning new tools quickly
How she thinks about buying market pullbacks, and which sectors she believes could benefit if Iran eventually rebuilds

Timestamped Chapters:
[02:00] Cold open: freedom, oil, and investing in yourself
[03:03] A Note from James: Iran, war, and the market question
[05:57] From Iran to Japan to the U.S.
[07:17] The scholarship that changed Kiana’s life
[09:58] Why James wanted Kiana’s perspective now
[10:53] How war headlines fade and markets recalibrate
[12:25] Negotiations, bluffing, and the worst-case outcome
[14:58] What Kiana says ordinary Iranians actually want
[16:32] Strait of Hormuz, oil, and headline-driven panic
[18:20] The case for a post-war “peace dividend”
[20:34] Reza Pahlavi and the idea of a transition plan
[23:28] How the IRGC recruits and how propaganda starts young
[25:29] Unlearning propaganda about Israel and the Holocaust
[26:42] What Triple Compounding For Dummies is really arguing
[30:10] From Wall Street firing to an $18 million portfolio
[33:29] AI, job disruption, and learning fast
[35:22] What Kiana is buying, selling, and watching now
[38:29] Terror funding, ideology, and what happens after the regime
[41:01] How propaganda spreads in the West
[43:43] Family safety and final thoughts

Additional Resources:
Kiana Danial / Invest Diva.
Triple Compounding For Dummies by Kiana Danial.
Reza Pahlavi official statements and background.
Ray Dalio’s The Changing World Order / Principles.
Ramsey Solutions / Dave Ramsey.
Rich Dad / Robert Kiyosaki.
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A Note from James
One of my favorite people in the world is back on the podcast: Jen Shahade. She’s been on the show before. She’s a great chess player, a great poker player, a two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, and the author of the new book Thinking Sideways, about how lessons from chess can help with decision-making.
As a chess player myself, I can say these techniques really do work. And she even talks about me in the book, which I appreciated. So: how are you going to think sideways? Listen to this podcast.

Episode Description
James talks with Jen Shahade about what chess and poker can teach us about money, ambition, risk, focus, and decision-making. The conversation starts with income: why salary alone rarely creates real savings, why “big chunks” of money matter more, and why relying on a single job is getting riskier in an AI-shaped economy.
From there, they get into one of the core ideas behind Jen’s book: most people think too narrowly. They frame decisions as yes or no, take it or leave it, this city or that city, this job or no job. Jen argues that stronger decision-makers force themselves to find a third option, and often that third option is the one that changes everything.
They also talk about career reinvention later in life, how AI can help people learn faster, why chess is such a good training ground for focus, and what it means to stay calm when you’ve already made a mistake and the position has gone bad. The deeper point running through the whole episode is that good decisions rarely come from certainty. They come from staying flexible, thinking in chunks, and continuing to move even when the path isn’t obvious yet.

What You’ll Learn
Why unexpected “big chunk” income is often more useful for building wealth than salary increases alone.
How AI can make later-life career changes and self-education more realistic than they used to be.
Why binary decisions are often traps, and how forcing a third option can clarify what you actually want.
Why focus is becoming a rarer and more valuable skill in a world built around distraction.
How strong decision-makers try to disprove their own ideas before committing to them.
Why mistakes, embarrassment, and bad positions are often signs that you are stretching yourself in the right direction.
How ambition can become dangerous when it gets disconnected from process and values.

Timestamped Chapters
[02:00] Big money in surprising chunks
Why salary usually gets spent, and why real savings often come from sudden wins.
[02:16] AI, job security, and choosing yourself
Why relying on a salary feels shakier now, and how AI changes the equation.
[03:10] A Note from James
James introduces Jen and the core idea behind Thinking Sideways.
[03:49] The book, poker, and having at least three things going on
Jen talks about the book launch, poker income, and diversified income streams.
[05:35] Why salary increases don’t create savings
The psychology of earning more, spending more, and feeling punished by success.
[08:15] AI as threat and opportunity
The jobs AI may replace, and the new skills it can help people build.
[09:42] Reinventing yourself later in life
A story about becoming a lawyer at 47, one step at a time.
[12:23] Chess and short-term chunks
Why good decision-making means solving the next problem, not obsessing over the final outcome.
[13:31] AI, age, and chess intuition
How computers changed chess learning, and why experience still matters.
[17:17] Regret, mistakes, and always having another chance
How losing positions still teaches resilience and opportunity.
[20:15] Always have three choices
Why the best decision often appears only after you stop thinking in binaries.
[22:20] Buying a house vs. not buying at all
How being stuck between two options can blind you to the real third option.
[24:31] The Stanford $5 challenge
A creativity experiment about reframing the problem instead of solving the obvious one.
[28:00] Focus as a competitive advantage
Why being fully locked in matters more than just knowing more.
[29:22] Deep work in a distracted world
Why focus is becoming a rare skill and how to protect it.
[33:16] Learning new skills with AI
Coding, language learning, and using AI to create personalized practice.
[35:25] Why AI can feel exhausting
How AI can keep people in a deep-work state longer than they expect.
[36:00] Why large language models are bad at chess
Confabulation, pattern recognition, and what that reveals about AI and learning.
[44:03] Ambition, values, and cheating
Why Jen included cheating in a book about decision-making.
[47:00] Chess cheating, Hans Niemann, and online trust
The difference between online cheating, live cheating, and the damage done to opponents.
[57:00] Falsifying your own ideas
Why stronger players spend more time disproving their moves.
[01:00:00] Balancing doubt with action
How to stress-test an idea without freezing yourself.
[01:02:00] Why ambition matters, even if the first move is crude
Magnus, scholar’s mate, and why it’s okay to start by trying to win.
[01:04:00] Work harder when things are going well
Why success is often the moment to press, not relax.
[01:04:58] Final thoughts on the book
James closes on why Thinking Sideways works and what makes it different.

Additional Resources
Thinking Sideways | Book by Jennifer Shahade
Home - Jennifer Shahade
Games and The Grid | Jennifer Shahade | Substack
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World - Cal Newport
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A Note from James:
This is why I love doing podcasts—talking to people like Dr. Sheena Howard, author of Why Wakanda Matters. Wakanda is the country where Black Panther is from, and Sheena has written extensively about comics, including work on Black Panther itself.
We talk about comics, race, and storytelling. I asked a question I was almost afraid to ask—whether the Black Panther movie was racist against other Black people—and she gave a surprising answer. We also talk about a time she was abducted in Jamaica, along with a lot of other topics.
I loved this conversation. Please listen.

Episode Description:
James sits down with Dr. Sheena Howard—scholar, comic book writer, and Eisner Award winner—for a conversation that moves between pop culture, publishing, and personal survival.
They use Black Panther as a lens to examine how stories shape identity, how representation evolves, and why cultural narratives are often filtered through systems that weren’t built to support them. Sheena breaks down the tension between nationalism and isolationism in Wakanda, and why audiences interpret the same story in radically different ways.
The conversation also goes deeper—into how gatekeeping works in publishing today, how creators can bypass it, and why building your own audience may be the most reliable path forward.
And then there’s the story she didn’t tell for years: being abducted at 19. What happened, why she stayed silent, and what it reveals about psychology, fear, and resilience.
This episode is about storytelling—but also about control: who has it, who doesn’t, and how to take it back.

What You’ll Learn:
Why “Black superheroes don’t sell” is a myth—and how the industry perpetuates it anyway
The real gatekeeping mechanism in publishing today (and why audience ownership matters more than ever)
How subtle bias shows up now—not in obvious barriers, but in shifting goalposts
What makes a story resonate across audiences (and why Black Panther worked at scale)
The psychology of abusive situations—and how awareness and boundaries are built over time

Timestamped Chapters:
[03:04] A Note from James
[03:53] Favorite Superheroes: From Captain America to Black Panther
[04:27] Why Black Panther Connected Culturally
[04:43] The $1.2B Question: Why So Late for Black Superheroes?
[05:17] Luke Cage, Netflix, and the “Myth” That Black Stories Don’t Sell
[05:39] Tyler Perry and the “Outlier” Problem
[06:23] Pressure on Black-Led Films to Be Perfect
[07:00] What Wakanda Represents (Uncolonized Possibility)
[07:53] Killmonger: Anger, Oppression, and Relatability
[08:23] MLK vs. Malcolm X Parallel in Black Panther
[09:00] Identity Formation: African vs. African American Perspectives
[09:47] Are Black Superheroes Designed to “Feel Safe”?
[10:28] Gentrification, Stereotypes, and Media Influence
[11:50] Media Isn’t “Just Entertainment”
[12:00] Early Representation and Cultural Messaging
[12:28] Who Created Black Panther—and Why That Matters
[13:07] Rewriting History: What Would She Change?
[13:49] Designing a Modern Black Superhero
[14:47] Why a Modern Hero Might Be “Invisible”
[15:44] Publishing Barriers and Gatekeeping Conversations
[16:36] Social Media vs. Traditional Publishing Access
[17:26] Building 163K Followers—and Still Not Enough
[21:47] The Instagram Post: “I Was Abducted at 19”
[22:11] How It Started: Cheap Tour, No Money, Bad Decision
[23:05] The Trap: Locked House and Escalation
[25:00] Refusal and Survival Strategy
[26:02] Car Crash and Escape Attempt
[27:00] Walking Away and Getting Home
[28:30] Why She Stayed Silent for Years
[29:20] Abusive Relationships and Self-Blame
[30:26] Leaving Abuse: The Role of Her Son
[31:06] Love Bombing and Early Warning Signs
[33:02] Recognizing Red Flags in Relationships
[35:45] Teaching Kids Boundaries and Self-Worth
[37:21] “Is Wakanda Racist?”—The Big Question
[38:00] Nationalism vs. Racism Explained
[39:00] Isolationism vs. Imperialism
[41:00] Why Some Black Superheroes Don’t Break Out
[43:00] The Loss (and Survival) of Great Storytelling
[46:14] How She Got Hired by Marvel (Cold Email + PI)
[48:29] Why Pitching Ideas to Marvel Often Fails
[50:00] Cold Outreach: Being Seen Before Heard
[52:00] Do You Need Social Media to Sell Books? (Yes.)
[55:01] Building an Audience vs. Waiting to Be Discovered
[56:00] Email Lists: The Real Asset for Writers
[59:00] Should You Niche Down or Stay Broad?
[01:09:36] Do Podcasts Actually Sell Books?
[01:12:00] Why Publishers Don’t Care About You (At First)
[01:14:18] Choose One: Money, Readers, or Prestige
[01:15:10] Quantity vs. Quality Writing Models
[01:23:56] Success Beyond the New York Times List
[01:24:25] Owning Your IP vs. Writing for Marvel
[01:26:18] “Survive the Gap” Concept and Film Project
[01:27:00] Turning Ideas Into Franchises
[01:28:44] Why Ownership Beats Gatekeeping
[01:30:34] What’s Next: Hip Hop and Comics

Additional Resources
Home | Dr. Sheena C. Howard | Creative Entrepreneur
Why Wakanda Matters by Dr. Sheena Howard
Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation by Dr. Sheena Howard
Nina's Whisper by Dr. Sheena Howard
Marvel’s Black Panther (film)
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