Julian Guthrie on Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

Famous Failures

Julian Guthrie is an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, and all around adventurer who loves underdog stories. Her new book, due out April 30, is Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley's Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime. Julian has interviewed some of the world's most dynamic leaders and loves improbable stories and contrarian thinkers.

You can say hello to Julian on Twitter or on her website.

In the interview, Julian and I discuss:

• What attracts Julian to the stories of underdogs, ordinary people doing extraordinary things
• How Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur best known for being the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, was rejected over 150 times in raising funds for the X Prize, yet managed to keep pursuing his goal.
• The surprising strategy Julian used to get an interview with Larry Ellison, the co-founder and former CEO of Oracle
• The critical difference between rejection and failure
• Why infiltrating a system can be the best way to changing it
• How adopting multiple identities can help you cope with failure
• The common denominators of the four pioneering women whom Julian featured in her latest book, Alpha Girls, and how they managed to take on Silicon Valley’s male culture and make the deals of a lifetime.

Resources mentioned:

• How to Get Ahead by Diversifying Your Identity
• How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight
• The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice