This week in startups #30 with Annie Duke (Jason Calacanis)
20091204 at 14:40 
This “bonus” episode of This Week in Startups (TWiST) is an almost three-hour conversation between Jason Calacanis and Annie Duke. This is an atypical episode in that Duke is a professional poker player — not your average CEO.
Another bonus episode of TWiST – and Jason’s guest is the world’s best female poker player, Annie Duke! Annie has one over $3,000,000 in tournaments, won the World Series of Poker and is a noted writer, blogger, philanthropist and TV personality (she was recently on Season 2 of “Celebrity Apprentice“). Most impressively, she’s managed to turn her hobby of playing poker into a full on career and brand. Plus, she’s launching her own startup soon, but its probably not what you’d expect.
The conversation topics include traditional and online gambling, gambling media, tournament gambling, internet poker, mathematics, probability, statistics, psychology, critical thinking, skill vs. luck, result analysis, “tilt”, ethics, legislation, economics, politics, RICO act, “Betting” vs. gambling, cheating, brand issues, legal issues and twitter.
Calacanis played in the World Series of Poker recently, and has said he wants to “go pro”; his current job as CEO is “exhausting.”
Duke was discouraged from being the “smart girl” by her mother, so she focused on a liberal arts education. Thankfully, she later found an enjoyable and very profitable way to benefit from her innate “math geek” nature.
conversation, video | tagged business, gambling, gaming, mathematics, poker, profit, psychology 