Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Aug 17th, 2025
"Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink in the wild air."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"From that point on, I knew that no matter what happened — good, bad or otherwise — the sun would rise, tomorrow would happen, and life would go on. There was no use in being bitter about the past. Instead, I was encouraged to use each and every life experience to get better. To improve."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/will-you-be-the-better-man-or-the-bitter-man
2. Revolution in Military Affairs. Good overview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcDy_oy0RGo
3. Very fun weekly discussion on crypto and digital businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDgYwo1EDhI
4. The best show in town on B2B Software investing. Lots of great topical & opinionated discussion from top investors in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AguI4JLQSA
5. Coatue's Laffont Brothers on BG2 discussing all things tech macro trends. Helpful to understand where big tech and the venture world is going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JA7n0wTChw
6. "Explanations as to why markets struggle with geopolitics are varied but I think it is partly the fact that geopolitics is a multidisciplinary subject, often involving foreign affairs, but understanding domestic factors influencing decision making in a range of countries, defence and security, even environmental issues, geography, economics, trade, markets, and now cyber and AI looking forward.
There are many moving parts and few people have all the tools to accurately call events. I think also in markets, and analysis, there is often a desire to see the glass half full, hope for the best, and not want to think about the uncomfortable and difficult to fathom results of out of the box or black swan events. A bias to mean reversion when actually politics globally appear to be going the other way, with more extremism, and likely more extreme, even systemic risks looming. All that coming as multilateral institutions created mostly to solve globally systemic problems, are weakening - the IMF, the G20, G7 (this week the divisions laid bare in Canada), and the UN.
Often I also think there is a bias to think that we all share the same information set, have the same objectives and apply the same kind of logic."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/geopolitics-when-opportunity-knocks
7. "The increasing number of foreign faces is the product of a powerful resonance between pop culture and tourism. The government knows this, too. It helps explain why the LDP, after many attempts to restrict anime and manga over the years, is now embracing content as a pillar of of the economy for the 2030s.
You don’t have to be a genius of strategic planning to see to that tourism is locked in orbit with pop culture, making the pair a money-making dynamo for the country. The equation is simple: so long as Japanese content continues to grow in popularity, so will interest in Japan as a destination. It’s easy to understand why the government is invested in stoking the trends, even as citizens grow increasingly ambivalent about the increase in inbounds. Given the nation’s demographics, lawmakers do not have many other options.
Regardless of how one personally feels about it, the tourism boom is also an interesting experiment. It gives concrete form to the ethereal concept of soft power. It lets us explore questions: How far can cultural charisma really take a nation? Can a country sustain its image as a leader in youth culture even as its population grows old?
And more to the point, can Japan keep packing in visitors in without sacrificing its cultural sites and angering its citizens? The answer to all of these questions is, nobody knows. And so an ageing Japan, long written off as irrelevant, finds itself at the cutting edge once again. All we can do is watch and see what happens. If there’s any consolation, there’s plenty of people around to watch with."
https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/hell-is-other-people
8. "I completely agree with Nic. Bitcoin is going to win, but US dollars in stablecoin form are going to aggressively win as well. This means the weakest fiat currencies are going to fall at the feet of bitcoin and dollars.
It is crazy to watch this play out. Technologists built better payment rails for all currencies, so now the legacy players are having to bend the knee to adopt dollar stablecoins. Don’t expect this trend to slow down any time soon."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/stablecoins-are-eating-the-world-97e
9. "A portfolio career is what happens when your work life stops being defined by a single job title, or even industry, and instead becomes a collection of overlapping roles, skills, and income streams."
https://shindy.substack.com/p/portfolio-career
10. "Nor is China likely to rush clumsily into war the way Putin did. In the 20th century, China did get involved in some reckless, stupid wars — in Korea in 1950 and Vietnam in 1979, neither of which it won. But since then, China has shown extreme caution. Its leaders definitely seem determined to build up overwhelming power before taking Taiwan or other territories in Asia. If the U.S. has to fight China, it will be at a time and place of their choosing, not ours — and they will likely have most of their people unified behind the effort.
This doesn’t mean the democracies would have no advantage against China. The structural problems of autocracies — poor information flow, over-centralization of power, paranoid infighting — all seem present, as Xi Jinping completes his transformation of Deng Xiaoping’s bureaucratic, technocratic system into something closer to a traditional dictatorship.
Xi has already made a ton of mistakes, many of them related to micromanagement — Zero Covid, Belt and Road, the crackdown on IT in 2021, the real estate bust, “wolf warrior” diplomacy, and so on. It’s likely he would micromanage a war as well. Meanwhile, Xi has been purging his top military officers, many of whom he himself appointed, at a stupendous rate, for reasons unknown.
So if China does fight America, it will have some of the same sorts of disadvantages that Russia has with Putin. But it’s far from clear whether these would be enough to overcome China’s massive manufacturing advantage. Democracy is a lot tougher than people give it credit for, but it’s not magic."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/western-democracies-are-actually
11. "Crypto specifically requires liquidity. Money gets printed, people throw a chunk in since it is their “lotto ticket”. Right now money supply is stagnant but will increase as the Fed loosens and something will need to fund the war + Big Beautiful Bill ($5,000,000,000,000). Stick with buying BTC/ETH since they are the only two assets with institutional flows.
For those looking at their Careers, pivot fast to anything revenue generating/front office. At this point even door to door sales is closer to safety than going into something like entry level Law. To improve ROI/margins for a business, the easiest item to cut is non-revenue generating seats. Just the reality of 2025 and beyond.
Shouldn’t be a new concept to most but this is a fire burning in the house type scenario. AI proof your future because it’s coming and will be much quicker than most anticipate (few short years)"
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/fed-getting-around-the-genius-act
12. "But—and this is crucial—we shouldn't expect the distribution shift to have happened yet. If history is our guide, we're right on schedule. The AI technology shift started gaining mainstream adoption in late 2022 with ChatGPT. If it follows the mobile timeline, we wouldn't expect to see the distribution shift until about 2026 or 2027.
Except I think it's going to happen faster this time. The platforms have learned from history. They know the playbook. And the early signals suggest they're already moving.
The question isn't whether a new distribution channel will emerge. It's who will control it, how open it will be, and whether you'll be ready when it arrives."
https://blog.brianbalfour.com/p/the-next-great-distribution-shift
13. Educational and inspiring interview/discussion. "We all need moonshots"-Tony Robbins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvHcuyYc718
14. Topical discussion on what's up in Silicon Valley. AI job destruction, AI talent wars & how this changes building and investing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8UNyDv3Co
15. Lots of global macro insights here. Gave me a good perspective on the potential impact of AI on the US economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS4Q0iAWmKM
16. "My recommendation for entrepreneurs when talking to potential investors is to ask how they like to work with the entrepreneurs they invest in. Entrepreneurs would do well to have a go-to person they look forward to talking with, who has relevant experience and, crucially, is super responsive."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/06/21/investor-responsiveness-as-1-value/
17. Overall, this was a great episode. Very little politics and just investing and tech industry POV that we all used to watch this show for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86t6YNf_B7Q&t=3447s
18. "End CENTCOM’s grip on the American foreign policy and give INDOPACOM the money, resources, and priority it actually needs to deter the PLA and keep Americans safe. Regardless of what happens next with Iran, every military history of a US-China conflict will open with how much time and energy we wasted on a middling regime in the Middle East and how much blood and treasure it cost us in the Pacific."
https://www.breakingbeijing.com/p/give-indopacom-its-money
19. "As AI continues to flood our world with increasingly sophisticated but ultimately soulless outreach, the companies willing to double down on creating genuine human connections have a chance to stand out even more.
The technology isn't the problem. It's how we're using it. Instead of automating the human out of human connection, we should be using these tools to do better research, personalize more thoughtfully, and be more useful to the people we’re trying to sell to.
Your prospects don't want to feel like they're talking to a workflow. They want to feel understood, helped, and respected.
So here's my challenge: Pick one prospect interaction this week and approach it like your only goal is creating a great first impression. Turn down the conversion pressure. Just focus on being genuinely useful to this human being. Get curious. Ask some questions to honestly figure out if you can help, tell them clearly how, and share a little about the other options for solving their problem that might be worth looking at.
Do the work ahead of time this requires, and take a minute before you start talking to set a simple intention:
“I’m here to help this person.”
See what happens."
https://hellooperator.substack.com/p/building-trust-in-the-age-of-ai-slop
20. "These are the base effects witnessed in countries that move from cash-only to the next level of development. Once a country's day-to-day commerce runs more smoothly thanks to the availability of cheap, reliable, and convenient payment options, other industries start to catch up.
It's a flywheel effect that should unfold for years to come. After all, Iraq's predominately young population has a lot of catching up to do, and almost all economic activity will require payments, financing, or other forms of financial services.
Needless to say, Iraq won't become a developed nation overnight and will continue to face challenges. While oil exports to the US are exempt from reciprocal tariffs, the lower oil price weighs on the country's income. However, Iraq plans to significantly increase its production.
I have a strong feeling that we'll be hearing a lot more about investing in Iraq throughout the rest of the 2020s.
I had planned travel there this year and report from the ground, but it wasn't concerns about safety that stopped me. Iraq remains on the US ESTA blacklist. I could visit Iraq but would have to forfeit my ESTA visa, which is too much hassle.
However, work is underway to resolve this issue. Tourism is already picking up, mostly with domestic visitors, but international interest is growing. As the Financial Times noted in a March 2023 travel feature: "On the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion, tour operators are returning to the country and – despite official warnings – their trips are selling out."
If the visa issue became easier, Iraq could see many more visitors, boosting its profile as an exciting place to visit or even invest in.
To help folks like myself, the Iraqi tourism authorities have recently engaged with the US government about the visa problem."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/investing-in-iraq-yet-more-gains-to-come/
21. "Why is inference time compute so interesting? Because as we build AI agents, and these agents have an array of different inputs, each input may require a different inference time compute algorithm to get the best output.
Inference time compute also allows you to trade time for cost to generate the same performance. As this post shows, a small language model with more inference time compute power behind it can match or beat a much much larger LLM in terms of performance."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-next-phase-of-ai-innovation-inference
22. Important interview: can America still build things? It's a conversation both critical and hopeful at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD-RJNQvpVY
23. The path to financial repression, lots of global macro but this is a good conversation on what you can do yourself to get through it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXWr7Pw-eBQ
24. Lessons from America's Defense Innovation Unit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa6CyXNg-Ag
25. The controversial but interesting Peter Zeihan. Some good geopolitical perspectives to help position for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ktF9iU_cvQ
26. The company helping to drive the nuclear renaissance in America. Energy is life. Energy is civilization. It's all about electrons. This is worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP2zcESIpOo
27. "If you are young, starting out and wondering what to do, I would urge you to get involved with the Bitcoin movement. There are so many different ways to do so, depending on where your talents, skills or interests lie. You can be artist, scientist or journalist, engineer, entrepreneur, traveller or surfer-dude. It really doesn’t matter. You’ll find a path that suits you. It all feels so dynamic and full of opportunity. It’s brim full of doers. Everyone is so supportive. There is plenty of capital to invest. You can make quick progress.
Another thing to note: there are a lot of extremely clever people in this movement. Average IQ levels in Bitcoin are, I’ve little doubt, much higher than you typically find elsewhere."
https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/portable-wealth-in-a-wobbly-world
28. "The solution is clear: divest unnecessary real estate and redeploy capital into opportunities that deliver higher returns for shareholders. Whether reinvesting in core businesses with higher operating yield than property leasing, repurchasing shares, reducing debt, or distributing cash to shareholders, any alternative is more productive than leaving capital tied up in low-yielding properties.
Companies can easily sell these real estate assets, as demand from global investment funds eager to acquire properties held by Japanese firms continues to grow. Bloomberg reported that Bain Capital has acquired more than $5 billion in Japanese real estate and is currently negotiating multiple additional transactions, explicitly targeting undervalued, non-core corporate properties.
Similarly, BentallGreenOak (BGO) plans to deploy approximately $11 billion in equity investments into Japanese real estate over the next two and a half years, focusing specifically on corporate-owned properties pressured onto the market by shareholder activism and governance reforms. These well-funded buyers indicate a clear opportunity and viability for divesting non-core real estate assets for corporate Japan.
Crucially, rental real estate represents just one category of non-core assets. The same rationale extends to idle factories, peripheral commercial spaces, and oversized or unnecessarily expensive headquarters."
https://mailchi.mp/verdadcap/the-real-estate-drag-on-corporate-japan
29. "For Takahashi (no first name given), a 31-year-old Gundam enthusiast, living alone gave him the freedom to build his perfect space. In a quiet Saitama neighborhood, he transformed a 65-square-meter apartment into a Gundam lover’s paradise. Carefully arranged shelves, matching color schemes, and row upon row of Gunpla greet visitors at the door. This was the childhood dream he turned into reality. His YouTube channel, Takahashi Laboratory (or Taka-Labo), now reaches over 165,000 subscribers.
The release of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX in spring 2025, along with its Amazon streaming success and theatrical version, has reignited Gundam’s popularity. For Takahashi, the appeal never faded. “There’s always something new,” he says. “Gundam never stops. That makes us fans really lucky.” More than just a hobby, it has been a constant in his life for over twenty years."
https://www.tokyoscope.blog/p/gundam-is-his-whole-life-how-one
30. "In fact, there’s even an outside chance that the war could end up lowering oil prices in the long run. If the Iranian regime is toppled and replaced with a more neutral one, or if Iran agrees to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, it could lead to the end of sanctions on its oil industry. Iran would then increase oil production, both because it would be getting a better price on its oil, and because it could get international investment to develop more fields. This would cause a glut on the world market, leading to falling prices and giving a boost to industrialized economies.
So to sum up, I just don’t think the economic consequences of Trump’s attack on Iran are worth worrying about very much, especially if you live in the United States. I know a lot of people are a bit freaked out right now, but economic devastation is one less thing you should be worried about."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-economic-consequences-of-a-war
31. This guy is smart. Important conversation on AI Drone wars and the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc75ItaNsso
32. "Defense tech is hot right now. And we think the hype is warranted.
We believe that the growing Department of Defense budget ($863B in FY24) can support multiple venture-scale outcomes; that key modernization initiatives have laid the foundation for tech transformation; and that the growing number and influence of innovation units inside the DoD, along with startup-friendly policy precedents, will propel startups to fill the vacuum of modern technology in the DoD.
More recently, the DoD has shown strong initiative to drive efficiency through technology which will require the Department to work hand-in-hand with Silicon Valley. In fact, the DoD has proactively called out areas it is looking to prioritize—which therefore maps closely to our key investment themes—including in modern infrastructure, operationalizing data and AI and autonomous systems."
https://www.battery.com/blog/investing-in-strength-the-case-for-modern-defense-tech/
33. A truly inspiring and educational interview. I totally get why this guy was able to raise $1B usd to build Saronic in less than 3 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJsbSC20Gv0
34. "When investing in companies it is always smarter to be more optimistic and long vs. short. (many learned this in the past 48 hours - either they print money or the world ends due to nuclear, easy to see which one you should choose)
Shorts really only work if the *industry* is dying due to structural forever shift in the way business is done. Internet killing off large section of music industry, Computers eating into typewriters and fax machines, smartphones eating into other hardware from watches to cameras/video etc.
If you want to short, don’t short a genius.
You can short stuff in forever long-term decline, examples in our opinion include:
Mid level retail/restaurants
Traditional banking companies
Chunk of legacy energy (being displaced by solar/other)
Choose one of those instead. Or. Just go long the new product (hence why we own Tesla, Crypto and build E-com businesses… seems to line up!)
Ever wonder *why* your net worth will go up in a non-linear fashion. Well you have your answer here, just in massive massive scale. In order to step function your life you have to build something up for at least 12 months or so. Majority is about 3 years. You see limited results but if you’re doing things right you’re creating momentum (rolling a ball up a hill). Eventually you get to the top and no longer need to keep pressing hard to move it over. This is the same for all public companies, people and even small businesses."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/never-bet-against-geniuses-new-industry