Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads June 15th, 2025
"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."--Carl Jung
"When you next hear a panelist describe the “death of venture capital,” or the “exit window being shut,” think to yourself about time dislocations in venture capital, and how indexing into this set of cohorts affords the best discounts for future wins. For those investing today with a heavy illiquidity discount, all the better for tomorrow. For those considering building a company, today is the best possible time to create the future you want to exist in 5-7 years, and venture capitalists will agree.
The definitions of venture capital have not changed, but the parade of wannabes has expanded, and the death of returns greatly exaggerated. Exits still exist for those investors boldly backing zero-to-one, risk taking companies, and if the market is tight today, that only means the illiquidity discount gives you an advantage for tomorrow."
https://ideas.everywhere.vc/p/scott-hartley-time-dislocations-in-venture-capital
2. I always learn something from listening to the legendary Silicon Valley investor and founder. VK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=noY7hulblrM
3. The case for mega funds. Market and outcomes are so very much bigger. I guess we will see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkdU58cfUI0
4. "Most entrepreneurs have a viable product to sell to the defense market but are unaware of the problems their products could solve. A common mistake entrepreneurs make when entering the defense market is focusing on the product without identifying the problem it solves or the value it creates: “You should buy our product because it is the best. It is the best because it outperforms products currently being used by the government and is better than the competition.”
But decision makers and buyers in the DoD don’t buy technology just because it’s innovative–-they buy solutions that help them achieve mission priorities. So, the first “quest” is to find out which priorities and/or problems align to your product.
Reading strategic guidance like the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, Science and Technology Guidance (Army, Navy, and Air Force) will give you broad insight into what the department cares about – for instance, “prioritizing the challenges posed by China in the Indo-Pacific region and Russia in Europe.” Broad insights are foundational for two reasons. First, it tells you what the DoD cares about and helps you begin to identify the specific organizations and people that are potential customers.
Although guidance is too vague to inform a product pitch it is a starting point for discovering who might be responsible for achieving these priorities and are potential customers you should begin having conversations with."
https://stanfordh4d.substack.com/p/selling-to-defense-levels-of-the
5. "For many quarters the dominant theme at crypto events has been “when application?” When will the first killer applications on Web3 be built? If venture capital behavior is a credible predictor of the future, they are already here.
They may not all be trumpeting the fact that a Web3 database is powering them under the hood. But that’s the point. The underlying technology is an enabler to a superior end user experience. No asterisk needed."
https://tomtunguz.com/web3-post-investment-election/
6. "Larry Summers’ quip that Europe was a museum and Japan was a nursing home was conventional wisdom just a few months back. But between accelerating European defense and infrastructure spending and Japanese corporate governance reform, these two markets are finally generating strong returns on investment and attracting capital as a result.
Diversifying equity allocations outside of the United States seems like a prudent move in this macroeconomic environment, and, given valuations, international outperformance is a trend that could continue for years to come.
But in a highly volatile environment where macroeconomic uncertainty and the risk of stagflation might challenge a reliance on equity beta alone, we also believe there are opportunities outside of equity markets."
https://mailchi.mp/verdadcap/got-diversification-1352646?e=7d2d38e1b3
7. Some simple but easy steps. Build a personal brand, get paid for things that you would do anyways, get 1000 loyal customers. (1000 raving fans).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gGFFqFFeEo
8. "As a founder, you’re paid to make decisions under uncertainty. Mastering the explore/exploit tradeoff isn’t just a clever mental model — it’s a survival skill. Know what you're optimizing for, follow the recipe below to explore intelligently, and then commit with confidence.
Here’s a concise guide on navigating this balance:
Decide on the metrics you’re optimizing for.
Allocate some amount of time to explore your options. If a decision is more important, less reversible, or involves wildly different options, commit to spending more time exploring.
Prioritize options and explore — in parallel if possible — until time runs out or you’re happy with the best option.
Double down on the best option."
https://www.codingvc.com/p/explore-exploit
9. "The big lesson here, I think, is that our intuition from previous decades is still correct: Tech people simply aren’t that good at politics. Their expertise lies in managing cold hard symbols rather than the passions of the masses, and they’re used to relating to genius engineers instead of working-class voters. They live in a world where functionality, rather than popularity, wins the day. And that world isn’t Washington, D.C.
It’s too early to tell, of course, but my sense is that the Tech Right gambit isn’t looking like a great idea. The attitude of political quietism that tech businesses adopted in the past — and which many still adopt — was probably a better strategy overall."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-tech-right-is-not-succeeding
10. Important conversation on Designing for the DoD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7ZAn9SHqLQ
11. America: the biggest self own in history. Chaos & regulatory uncertainty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaiILtkgFqA
12. This man might know what he is talking about. Ken Griffin, one of the most important men on Wall Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuF14oKon8A
13. Mapping the future driven by AI. This is a must listen to conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkhrEnuZi20
14. "In turbulent and troubling times, people instinctively grasp for some sort of future to believe in — some positive vision to hold on to. The U.S. and Europe right now don’t have much of a futuristic vision to offer; America continues to inflict wound after wound on itself due to its intractable cultural and partisan divides, while Europe is mired in economic stagnation and is struggling to defend itself against a much smaller, poorer Russia. Sinofuturism might not have been Western intellectuals’ first choice for an alternative, but if it’s a choice between Sinofuturism and bleak nihilism/pessimism, some will choose the former.
But what will this Chinese future actually look like, two decades or four decades from now? Here, I think there’s less than meets the eye.
This, ultimately, is what Sinofuturism is lacking — the promise of ennoblement. People now make fun of the American suburbs of the 1950s, or use them as an object of misplaced nostalgia. But if you were to look at that lifestyle — the house, the car, the TV, the telephone — you could see the seed of a way of life so appealing and so free that it would eventually become the global standard. Right now, China is a beautiful place to visit, but the Sinofuturists who gush about its neon cities and its magnificent technology demonstrate a notable reluctance to move there."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/thoughts-on-sinofuturism
15. Modernizing Warfare and Beyond from the A16Z Summit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdxGI__WRjE
16. "The Kill Chain." Still worth reading the book. Relevant in 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWgtPdmlZ4o
17. Lessons from the OG of SaaS in the emerging world of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQzpwZDhjQ
18. One of the most important founders in the startup world right now. Palmer Luckey of Anduril. Wide ranging conversation on the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21I_3VEs0iI
19. Grand Geopolitics. Important framework to understand where the global economy is going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrVQT6YSiTM
20. "As the world transitions once again into a multipolar landscape, the English-speaking peoples must draw upon their shared history and civilization to craft a geostrategic plan rooted in the historic Imperial Rings. This strategic approach is essential to securing a long and prosperous future for the English civilization.
By leveraging their common heritage—anchored in a shared language, culture, and historical ties—these nations can align their geopolitical, economic, and military efforts with the concentric framework of their imperial past. Though now with the United States as the core and lead of the English-Speaking Peoples. Such unity and coordination will empower us all to navigate the challenges of a fragmented global order, maintain our collective influence, and ensure enduring prosperity in a world of the restored global powers of Russia and China."
https://emburlingame.substack.com/p/imperial-ring-theory
21. "The Financialists, from their Venetian origins to their Wall Street apex, have thrived by embedding the Financialist Kill Chain into empires, always moving to a new host when resistance or collapse loomed. Now, with China and Russia barring their path and no new empire in sight, they’ve turned to the Spider's Web and non-state actors to sustain their power.
Their preparation for a global Step #7 signals a structured and intended, destructive finale. Awareness of this trajectory—rooted in centuries of financial predation—is the first step to resisting their endgame and reclaiming sovereignty from a malevolent elite with nowhere left to run."
https://emburlingame.substack.com/p/the-endgame-of-the-financialist-kill
22. An Alt-Geopolitics forecast. Who knows.
https://emburlingame.substack.com/p/prediction
23. I was tired today so needed something so bizarre to wake me up. Some Alt-Geopolitics for inflame my brain. Some food for thought as always.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whaMYQeMHh0
24. Minerals for weapons. Blueprint for the future and goes beyond Ukraine. Not a value judgement, just a clear eyed view in a future where hard assets really matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qwHHubGEKY
25. As always a coldly sober view of geopolitics right now. Fragmentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQd6JBbqWiA
26. Solid NIA episode this week, was pretty educational. Learned a new term too "glazed."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xytiMpZ0Gho&t=7s
27. "Illicit financial networks are like a hidden web, woven into the fabric of everyday life increasingly over the past five hundred years. Not by criminal organizations but the banks, financial institutions and governments which have devised immensely complex and sophisticated Markovian ways to launder vast sums of illicit money.
By understanding concepts like Markov Processes, Blankets, Chains, and Kernels, we can start to see how these networks operate and why they’re so hard to detect. It’s a complex problem, but with better tools, cooperation, and knowledge, we can begin to unravel the mystery and fight back against the corruption finance has become."
https://emburlingame.substack.com/p/unraveling-hidden-financial-networks
28. My favorite new Global Macro guy, Michael Every. He describes a possible new world as globalization changes. "Grand Macro Strategy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na8cGLxK3FM
29. "These are the two factors that make services terrible: captive users, and no constraints. If your users can’t leave, and if you face no consequences for making them miserable (not solely their departure to a competitor, but also fines, criminal charges, worker revolts, and guerrilla warfare with interoperators), then you have the means, motive and opportunity to turn your service into a giant pile of shit.
That’s why we got Jack Welch and his acolytes when we did. There were always evil fuckers just like them hanging around, but they didn’t get to run GM until Ronald Reagan took away the constraints that would have punished them for turning GE into a giant pile of shit. Every economy is forever a-crawl with parasites and monsters like these, but they don’t get to burrowinto the system and colonize it until policymakers create rips they can pass through.
In other words, the profit motive itself is not sufficient to cause enshittification — not even when a for-profit firm has to answer to VCs who would shut down the company or fire its leadership in the face of unsatisfactory returns."
30. "The personalization of the model within an application & workflow will be the ultimate moat. OpenAI’s recent leadership hire makes plain how large the opportunity is."
https://tomtunguz.com/era-of-ai-lockin/
31. "Suddenly, the cost curve has shifted dramatically down. Over time as stablecoins are the norm, I imagine some of these intermediary steps will disappear entirely. To make the market even more prepared for stablecoins, many small transactions usually have flat fees, plus a percentage fee, so if you try to sell things for low prices online, you end up losing large parts of your margin.
Consumers benefit too—increased margin makes room to drive down prices. And for users in economies with currency subject to wild valuation fluctuations, being able to access digital dollars is enormously valuable.
Because Stripe is taking on all of the compliance complexity, there is an opportunity for founders to build newly profitable companies and startups have a chance to go international faster than ever before. Tens of billions of dollars are on the table, just waiting for entrepreneurs to grab them."
https://www.gettheleverage.com/p/what-happens-when-money-becomes-technology
32. "Many assume AI’s economic upside will be captured by a handful of tech giants.
But if you’ve worked inside a place like Google, you know how innovation gets buried—under legacy code, bloated org charts, and teams too far from the frontier.
As Tom said: “AI will be the Chief Procurement Officer.”
Software won’t be sold over drinks. It’ll be selected, evaluated, and integrated by agents.
Most incumbents won’t adapt fast enough.
That’s the opportunity for founders and investors who see what’s coming.
If you’ve got product instincts, this is the most exciting moment in startup history to build."
https://www.newinternet.tech/p/when-software-buys-software
33. Inside baseball of Venture capital. Lots of great insights on the art & science of winning in VC in 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDEaCwWRal8&t=588s
34. So doing these hikes when I go to Japan.
https://www.afar.com/magazine/5-breathtaking-places-to-hike-in-japan
35. "Matt and Alex’s experience buying, operating, and growing Burger King restaurants established the playbook for everything to come. To date, GSP has raised $1.9 billion across four funds and bought 27 companies. The firm has sold nine businesses at a weighted average Net IRR of nearly 40% and is now recognized as a premier investor in the franchise and consumer services world.
They have built GSP into a sizable firm, in not only assets and businesses, but also people. They have 25 investment professionals alongside a bench of 12 operating partners, but the investment committee is small. It’s Matt and Alex. Any decision must be unanimous, whether they’re doing a deal, hiring, or traveling. They don’t do anything unless they’re both in agreement.
“Our partnership is really special. We value it as much as anything in the world, and it’s become part of our firm’s culture. We fight all the time but we always end up on the same page, and we always have fun. Even in the hard days, at least we’re going through it together,” Alex said. Jordan Garay, their first hire, explained the impact of their relationship on the firm’s culture.
“It’s very GSP for everyone to have an opposite view. We discuss, debate, then commit. Everyone commits. That comes from Matt and Alex. You’re never going to one person and asking their opinion. The fact there’s two of them creates a natural discussion, which leads to better outcomes."
“They combine two skills rarely found together in private equity. They are great fun to be around. They draw people in by being affable, engaging, and curious; we can call that great salesmanship in the field. And they have superb finance IQ—I mean, top quality. Usually, you find one or the other. Rarely do you find them together.”