Patrick O'Shaughnessy says he has no goals, pointing to his 28-year-old essay The Growth Without Goals and his organising principle of championing untapped potential.
He ties his investing and building philosophy to Bret Victor's talk Inventing on Principle, which he says he borrowed as the design principle of his previous software business.
Colossus launched a magazine in 2025 to commission long profiles, and Patrick predicts it will eventually outgrow his podcast.
Why Patrick O'Shaughnessy backs hidden talent instead of chasing goals
Patrick O'Shaughnessy organises his work around finding little-known talent and backing it, rather than around personal goals. He ties that habit to his view that fear keeps people from original paths and that generative motivation beats the urge to escape a past. The Colossus magazine is the newest vehicle for the same impulse.
Takeaways
Patrick champions unknown talent instead of chasing goals. Patrick says he has no goals, citing an essay he wrote at 28, The Growth Without Goals. His organising principle is seeing enormous unrealised potential and taking on an obligation to tell people about it and help it grow.
Fear keeps people off original paths. Patrick says people avoid original paths because of fear, and that the best stories combine originality, hardship and transformation. David reads about 25 pages an hour and favours autobiographies because their subjects have no incentive to lie.
Generative fuel outlasts the drive to escape. David contrasts dirty fuel, the drive to escape a difficult past, with generative fuel. Bruce Springsteen, who struggled with depression and therapy, found the generative kind. Lyndon B. Johnson, in Robert Caro's account, never did.
Colossus magazine is a talent-finding engine. Colossus started a magazine in 2025 to commission long profiles, an idea that grew from Jeremy Stern's Tablet profile of Palmer Luckey. Patrick predicts it will outgrow the podcast. David doubts he truly wants others to dwarf him.
Leaders are people others want to follow. Ravi Gupta defines a great leader as someone other people want to follow. Patrick's maxim is that the reward for great work is more work. Bill Campbell's coaching and how Charlie Munger and Brent Beshore hired CEOs also come up.
A cousin's kindness shaped Patrick's whole life. Patrick says his cousin Tim, who died young, brought him into a social circle at Notre Dame, and that this kindness shaped everything after. His grandmother's question about service to others shaped how he sees success.
Patrick's path to Colossus
As a child he feared death, and later he read the Upanishads, which he calls probably the most important book to him.
Every college he first applied to rejected him, so he transferred to the University of Notre Dame.
His great-grandfather Ignatius Aloysius O'Shaughnessy, an oil wildcatter, is the person he thinks of as the founder of his own family.
He built a software business and borrowed Bret Victor's talk Inventing on Principle as its design principle, then sold the business.
In summer 2020 an investment opportunity in one company led him to set up his own fund.
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On this episode 2
Show 1
In 2025 Colossus launched a magazine of long profiles.