Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Feb 22nd, 2026
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm." - John Muir
"Luck can be engineered.
Leverage the internet (it’s the entire reason you’re reading this article).
Get out of your house & move molecules, paint shots and have conversations.
Constantly refine your skills, become a valuable member of society & give without expectation of return.
Enjoy high leisure activities, go on that ski trip, join that martial arts gym…
It’s impossible to not get closer to where you want to be by doing these 4 things."
https://www.lethalgentleman.com/p/how-to-create-luck
2. There is so much wisdom in this conversation. What all the best founders do in times of crisis and how to build culture from one of the best VCs on the planet at one of the best firms on the planet.
I learned a lot and will listen to this again for sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91WKEsbHUNc
3. "Contrary to the common wisdom, what you see is that during the frontier stage in the US market, it was actually the easiest time to generate excess returns over the benchmark.
It became a little harder during the emerging market stage. Once you got into the developed stage, it became very hard to generate excess returns over the benchmark because the market has become so much more efficient.
Of course, if you look at the anecdotal evidence, it points to the same conclusion.
The frontier market stage in the US lasted up until about 1950, and it was what I would call the Benjamin Graham era. This is when Benjamin Graham devised his know-nothing, purely mechanical approach to investing, where he would just buy businesses that were trading at less than two-thirds of net working capital. That worked great for generating very good excess returns over the benchmark.
During the emerging market period from about 1950 to about 1990, those net working capital ideas – those easy Benjamin Graham bargains – would all disappear.
In emerging and frontier markets, it is critical to be able to switch between the markets because at any given time, there may only be one market that offers attractive investment opportunities. If your mandate ties you to a single market, then you're not going to be able to take advantage of that."
4. "My advice to entrepreneurs is simple: start writing. It does not have to be perfect. It does not have to be groundbreaking. It just has to be done. The more you write, the sharper your thinking becomes, and the stronger your speaking becomes. Writing and speaking reinforce each other, and entrepreneurs should invest in both."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/12/27/the-power-of-writing-before-you-speak/
5. Wide ranging conversation on global macro covering lots of ground: AI, the new PMI cycle leading to possible microcaps, industrials and commodities growth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E47xXJZHHgg&t=2127s
6. A really great conversation on global macro and late-cycle investment with my friend Nicolas. All with the underlying tech trend driving almost everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOvgtjhxAFg
7. This is a must watch conversation on global macro. Bifurcation of the world and the end of the USD vs rise of BRICS. Fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOW-oSruO80&t=899s
8. Lightspeed VC and how they are investing in the Age of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0lZ3JdZw7s
9. I hate Microsoft products but they are an impressively powerful company. This is an interview with the man responsible for keeping Microsoft on top during the cloud platform shift and into the Age of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2OPYYthw4c
10. Anduril is one of the most important companies in America. A true mission oriented company solving hard problems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GohWL9BlX3Q
11. "Our government looks functional. It has all the pageantry, pronouncements, and pomposity we’re used to, but it has none of the substance. Globalization hollowed out the nation-state after the Cold War, when the governing establishment shifted from orienting our decision-making around nationalism to one oriented by globalism.
-Instead of a nation, we became a democratic system — process without meaning.
-Instead of citizenship (its benefits and the obligations it demands in return), we became participants in the global economy, left to compete in it on our own.
-Instead of socioeconomic prosperity, we have choices (products and identities) and free online services.
Worse, as hollow states mature, they;
-Lose legitimacy because they don’t deliver meaningful services or security.
-Experience rampant looting (of society, the government, and the economy).
-This looting is dismissed as ‘just a cost of doing business,’ not a sign of failure.
-Devolve into a mechanism for forcibly extracting wealth from what remains of the country (or borrowing against it), and then transferring it to networks of connected globalized insiders (socialism for the greedy)."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/the-sack-of-america
12. "As a result, vintage buying has almost turned into an extreme sport—with consumers pulling out all the stops to acquire special items. Many are now accessing the vintage apparel market in Japan, where collectors have amassed classic American items no longer available in the US.
This is much more than nostalgia.
New stuff is so poorly made that I’m now increasingly buying old items for my own use, and not only as gifts. The quality coming from the large online retailers is abysmal, and my safest bet is often secondhand.
I’ve been burned too many times. In the last couple years, I’ve bought at least a dozen items online that were absolutely worthless. In some instances, the products were just scams—cheap garbage that didn’t come close to matching the online descriptions."
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/why-secondhand-is-now-better-than
13. Always good takes. Somewhat grim take on the West but he is not wrong here sadly. We aren't mark-to-market right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3B8xqsf66w&t=3s
14. "When I sent the first ‘cashtag’ ticker message to Fred Wilson from my Blackberry back in 2007 - ‘I love $RIMM’ - I had no inkling of the degenerate economy. My inkling was that the walls of institutions and markets were coming down. I was all in on the ‘real-time’ trend that I saw Twitter tipping us towards.
Twitter does not own real time anymore! Trump, The White House and the people in this orbit define true real time from Truth Social. We live now in a ‘post real time world’ of decentralized inside information and escalating greed (everyman for himself).
If I were to sum up the year 2025 and the degenerate economy- leaving out war and politics - it would be space, grift, everyman for himself, tariffs/inflation and prediction markets."
15. My recommendation is simple: send a weekly or monthly update email. Include anecdotes, metrics, projects, and the things you need help with. Make it a habit, and make sure your audience receives it at the same time every week or month.
https://davidcummings.org/2026/01/03/1-advice-for-an-entrepreneur-in-the-new-year/
16. "The level of attention and hyper focus is what allows you to do more in 1 week than most men get done in a single month.
The rules of time do not apply to you.
The formula is not complicated, in fact there competition is embarrassingly low.
If you develop an attention to detail, you will absolutely smoke your competition.
It’s time to start overdoing things. Being unnecessarily professional.
Impress people with the way you carry yourself.
Dress sharp, be meticulous with your craft.
Unreasonable hospitality. Unreasonable standards. Unreasonable precision."
https://www.lethalgentleman.com/p/why-you-shouldnt-go-the-extra-mile
17. "You are paying a “Proximity Tax” every single day, and you likely aren’t even tracking the expense. When you spend time with people who have low standards, reactive mindsets, or a thirst for cheap status, their energy functions like a subtle cognitive drain. You start to adopt their vocabulary, their anxieties, and their limitations. You cannot build a sovereign, high-leverage life while anchored to a peer group that finds comfort in the status quo."
https://substack.com/home/post/p-183452139
18. "People talk about luck in two ways: either success is all skill, or it’s all pure chance. I typically hear arguments on those two sides: the meritocratic ideal (success is the result of talent and effort) or the fatalistic view (outcomes are just chance).
I find that both perspectives miss something important. They miss the real story: what you do matters, and so does the environment you’re operating in.
I like to think there’s a little bit more to luck than pure randomness. More often, luck shows up because your habits and choices put you in its path. Many years ago, I came across this concept of “luck surface area”1 by Jason Roberts. The larger that surface, the more likely a lucky break has somewhere to land and stick."
https://www.polymathinvestor.com/p/the-luck-field-manual-rules-for-engineering
19. The godfather of global liquidity. Good global macro conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIDCDKUCtg4
20. What a fascinating conversation on building the future. Supersonic planes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwaoUyaUM6s&t=4862s
21. A16Z's takes on Consumer AI. Super interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4-7x6QiYr0
22. So much gold if you are thinking about your career. Gokul is one of the top product leaders in Silicon Valley and an incredible angel investor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPpOtwUesnk
23. "A rise in nominal GDP boosts financial asset prices, and rich folks will dutifully pay their bribes - cough cough, campaign donations to Team Red to giveth thanks. But in America, it’s one human, one vote, and the plebes can easily derail the party if a rise in inflation accompanies a rise in nominal GDP. Trump and US Treasury Secretary Buffalo Bill Bessent said they would run the economy hot, and I believe them, but how will they keep inflation in check? The inflation that torpedoes re-election odds is of the food and energy variety. The key metric for Americans is the price of gasoline, as there is scant usable, affordable public transportation available for most folks. You cannot exist as a proletariat worker in America without a set of wheels, unfortunately. And therefore, Trump and his lieutenants colonized Venezuela for its oil.
When talking about Venezuelan oil, many are quick to point out that the country has the world’s largest proven reserves. But who cares how much oil you have in the ground. The question is, can one extract the oil from the ground profitably? I don’t know the answer to this question, but Trump obviously believes that if he turns on the tap, oil will gush forth from Venezuela into the Gulf of Mexico refineries, and cheap gasoline will placate the plebes by tamping down energy inflation. I can’t opine whether Trump is correct, but the WTI and Brent crude oil markets will be the truth serum. As nominal GDP and dollar credit supply rise, do oil prices rise or fall? Team Blue Democrats will win if GDP and oil prices rise together, and Team Red Republicans will win if GDP rises but oil prices flatline or fall.
Taking Trump and his lieutenants at their word, we know credit will expand. The Team Red Republican legislators will deficit spend, Buffalo Bill Bessent’s Treasury Department will issue debt to fund it, and beta cuck towel bitch boy Jerome Powell and his successor’s Fed will print money to buy the bonds. This circle jerk started in earnest in 2008, and as Lyn Alden says, “Nothing stops this train”. As the amount of dollars expands, the price of Bitcoin and certain cryptos will sky rocket."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/suavemente
24. The Network State meets the Longevity State.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJcxQQ0GzyI
25. Alt-Geopolitics. Crazy stuff but good to bend your brain sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNSZBi3__h0
26. "People hate feeling personal power of other humans
No, they HATE it. They hate it, hate it, hate it, and hate it absolutely
Nothing triggers their wrath, nothing triggers their envy, and nothing makes them more depressed then being subject to the personal, arbitrary whim of someone else
That makes power something you have to hide, something you have to disguise, something you have to absolutely deny existing
Rulers of the past, kings of the past, and - last but not least - dictators of the past knew that, and worked hard to avoid any appearance of arbitrariness in their actions. No, it’s not my personal whim. It is not even my personal decision. I am merely an instrument, a tool executing the will of someone else, absolutely constrained in my actions - by this external authority.
Denying that you have any personal power at all is lindy
Loudly proclaiming that you do, is not"
https://kamilkazani.substack.com/p/might-makes-right
27. "The US went in, took out Maduro and the whole fiasco was done in under a few hours. This was despite having backing with China/Russia. The conclusion should be pretty simple: USA military/defense/technology is far and away the best.
If someone says it was an “inside job” that’s still not a good answer. It means that no one was able to figure out the CIA. If it was brute force. Then that’s also not a good answer. Both answers lead to the same conclusion = never bet against America long-term.
If you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere. Still rings true today. Even more so. Your long-term investments in the US are safe!
Rare earth minerals in US control now. If you look back at the Russia Ukraine battle, the USA stepping in had nothing to do with Ukraine (cynical view). In the end, all the money we lent them just came back in a payment of rare earth minerals. For those that forgot (source). Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t paraded around the Television as much (since it was the real value)
Click fast forward and while everyone will show you the chart of the oil reserves that Venezuela has, that’s just to distract people from everything else of value.
Ignore all the noise around Oil. It’s first order thinking. If your grandparents know that Venezuela has oil then there is no real alpha there. Nothing novel. Then your parents can probably logically solve that “Caracas will be rebuilt”. Some value there but then go ask “who will build it” suddenly… you’ll get crickets.
GRID will get you a stable return on infrastructure build out both in the USA and in places like Venezuela and your job is to add a function to narrow that 100 company list down.
Hilariously, while everyone talks about oil, this is just the 1,000th reason to be long tech and US tech in particular."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/second-order-ideas-venezuela-and
28. "Attention, as important as it seems at the moment, is becoming less valuable than legibility. Legibility is, in literal terms, the ease with which a reader can decode symbols. In culture, it is a measure of the permeability of communication. It is the ability to discern meaning.
Legibility is the top cultural currency. Algorithms command attention, but they do not command legibility.
Job of brands is to make their products legible."
https://andjelicaaa.substack.com/p/the-legibility-economy
29. "So the good people who actually make the technology we use every day, the real innovators and creators and designers, are reacting to the unprecedented disconnect between the contemporary tech industry and the fundamentals that drew so many people toward it in the first place. Many of the biggest companies have abandoned the basic principle of making technology that actually works. So many new products fail to deliver on even the basic capabilities that the companies are promising that they will provide.
Many leaders at these companies have run full speed towards moral and social cowardice, abandoning their employees and customers to embrace rank hatred and discrimination in ways that they pretended to be fighting against just a few years ago. Meanwhile, unchecked consolidation has left markets wildly uncompetitive, leaving consumers suffering from the effects of categories without any competition or investment — which we know now as “enshittification”. And the full-scale shift into corruption and crony capitalism means that winners in business are decided by whoever is shameless enough to offer the biggest bribes and debase themselves with the most humiliating display of groveling. It’s a depressing shift for people who, earlier in their careers, often actually were part of inventing the future."
https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/05/a-tech-career-in-2026/
30. I'm a fan of Waltz, one of the few politicians I respect. Incredible patriot and SOF military veteran. Very topical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbjZ9_QxLsU
31. "In the early 2020s, plots are dumbed down to be more “scrolling-friendly,” it’s no coincidence the most highly regarded film of 2025 (Frankenstein) and the most highly anticipated film of 2026 (Wuthering Heights) are both 300 page novels from the Romantic Period covering deep topics like unchecked ambition (playing God), isolation and the need for connection, and what it truly means to be human or a monster. All themes that are just as relevant today as they were over two hundred years ago.
In the era of AI-generated everything, the most memorable performances involve a more comprehensive approach to the process. The ten to eleven hour physical transformation, 42 pieces of prosthetics, unlearning how we move as humans and reconstructing a new physicality through butoh, the Japanese art form to develop a uniquely grotesque, yet beautiful movements. We are truly discovering what it means to be alive."
https://brianne.substack.com/p/why-everything-will-be-romantic-in
32. "Will Venezuela become the next failed state or the next Panama? Who’s to say, but with Imperial rhetoric and being resource rich, it is more likely to be a success story than still be some backwater hellhole in a few decades.
What it also shows us is that Russia and China may not be the adversaries the West fears. China and Russia were powerless to stop America’s reach. Whether they had advanced knowledge is another question. Because if they didn’t that is also quite telling.
But no, this isn’t some death-nail to the idea of multipolarity.
Far from it.
The Petrodollar/Eurodollar system is still teetering. Bitcoin and Crypto still lurk in the shadows. And WMDs become more prevalent and available by the day.
In a Multipolar System, Power is the only thing that matters.
And America still has alot of Power."
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/the-maduro-doctrine
33. "Regardless of how broken it may seem, you don’t need to fix the world. You need to know your neighbors. Take the time to talk with them, even when you’re tired. Offer to help when you can and listen without rushing to argue. We can respect differences without allowing them to divide us.
The health of society is not built in grand gestures or viral moments, despite what we may see on social media. Rather, it is built quietly on front porches, driveways, yards, and sidewalks.
If you want to change the world, start with the people who live next door and be a good neighbor."
https://thewaysofagentleman.substack.com/p/were-trying-to-change-the-world-while
34. "In the next year, we’re entering a different era: AI products are growing revenue at astounding rates—no-code app builder Lovable generated $100 million in annual recurring revenue in eight months. The Swedish company uses a credit-based pricing system for consumers, and some usage-based pricing for backend services like hosting. The successful AI companies will be the ones whose pricing model aligns engineering with user value.
In the next decade, we’ll look back to today—when AI forced SaaS to reckon with real marginal costs—as the moment when pricing became hard again, which made the software business honest again. The survivors will succeed because their product andpricing models worked.
Companies that embrace this complexity as a design problem, not just a finance problem, will build products that earn margins, support sustainable growth, and beat competitors in the long run—instead of becoming another example like MoviePass."
https://every.to/p/how-ai-made-pricing-hard-again
35. "The reality is nuanced. Europe is now two distinct systems operating under the same institutional umbrella.
Hard for building companies from within. Bureaucracy, regulation, friction remain. The barriers to entrepreneurship haven’t disappeared. Labor laws are restrictive. Regulatory compliance is expensive. Innovation moves slower than in the US or parts of Asia.
But great for personal life while building value globally or online. Tax frameworks specifically reward external income. EU mobility offers unprecedented geographic flexibility. Quality of life in cities like Milan, Lisbon, or Athens rivals anywhere in the world.
We look forward to Europe becoming competitive for building. The demographic crisis, the tech gap, the innovation deficit need solving. In the meantime, this two-speed setup is the way.
Live in Europe. Build globally. Optimize both."
https://palombo.substack.com/p/the-10-year-european-comeback
36. Implications of a new multipolar world. What markets are missing: Resilience and redundancy will be the focus for countries and investors.