Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 24th, 2026
“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.”--Robert Hall
Building off grid energy sources & energy capacity as well in America. This is the critical path for reindustrialization and AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llELdnwlki4
2."If your community is “free” or easy to join, it will be filled with low-value noise. Real leverage is found in Small, High-Net-Worth Phalanxes. If they aren’t paying a “Tax of Entry” (either in capital or high-level proof of work), they are just spectators."
https://luxlifestylelab.substack.com/p/the-community-cult
3."Reflecting on his story, I’m sure he’s not alone. I’m certain there are many others who have made that many angel investments and seen them all fail. We know that the vast majority of startups fail. We know that 99% of startups never achieve $1 million in revenue. With those kinds of statistics, it makes sense that there’s a meaningful probability that 15 angel investments could produce zero winners."
https://davidcummings.org/2026/02/28/15-angel-investments-and-all-failures/
4.USA vs China in manufacturing and how to reindustrialize America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRcvUUMaBcA
5. Every founder should watch this. How to manage and hire people in a high growth startup. Incredibly instructive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFT4xj57D7U
6."It bears repeating: the Iran question was never about Iran. Remove the Islamic Republic from the equation and China loses its pawns for a Taiwan contingency. Leave it in place and the Middle East remains what Beijing designed it to be: a second front that Washington can never afford to leave and can never afford to stay in. Trump's strikes are the first move by an American president who appears to understand that the road to the Pacific runs through Tehran."
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/the-iran-question-is-all-about-china
7."All the economic predictions we make today about AI are based on the economics of training frontier models. They ignore the fact that these frontier models will be a minority of AI use cases as the industry matures.
Wall Street is looking at mainframes and trying to extrapolate what that means for computing’s future. They’re missing the fact that PCs are right around the corner — and PCs changed everything.
When you look out 5 years, The economics of AI won’t mirror the economics of today. If there’s a bubble, it’s a small one, and it will have a soft pop. The real story is what comes next."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/what-the-ai-bubble-talk-misses-the
8."All of the prohibitions against decapitations or other catastrophic, disruptive attacks against opposition networks have evaporated. Everyone is now free to do it, and in most cases, there won’t be a response. Not only that, it’s not hard to do, so nearly everyone can (which is the reason this prohibition was put in place).
Furthermore, the arrival of inexpensive, autonomous drones manufactured at scale will make system disruption from a distance very, very easy. Drone assassinations will become commonplace as this becomes an accepted method of resolving disputes, and if the country is capable enough, the nearly simultaneous decapitation of an entire ruling elite or the catastrophic disruption of its critical infrastructure is not out of the question. Brave New War has arrived."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/kinetic-decapitations
9."The goal is not actually to achieve anything strategically important or even tangible - it’s to create the appearance that something was achieved. If an actual, tangible change or an outcome - like a regime change - happens as well, that’s a welcome bonus - but it’s not the primary goal nor the requirement.
And that in my eyes, explains what the strike on Iran is meant to achieve. A quick, devastating strike might not alter the strategic balance, but it will allow Trump to exit the whole situation of drawing red lines and flexing muscles without looking like he backed down. In other words, saving face - especially as more people have started to read his foreign policy instincts through the lens of the “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) narrative - is likely the ultimate goal here."
https://stationzero.substack.com/p/the-real-reason-why-trump-struck
10."Which brings me to the final, and perhaps most important, reason to be optimistic on Japan: the new geoeconomic realities are now forcing an awakening of the inclinations and ambitions of the Japanese people.
As America and China become more ensnared in their rivalry, the risks are rising that Japan will become less relevant to the ambitions of the two superpowers. The only way to safeguard against this is for Japan to become more sovereign, more stronger, and more self-sufficient. This new `Gai-Atsu` foreign pressure is a very powerful wake-up call to `awaken the inclinations of mankind`.
So I am very optimistic on Japan precisely because the government has no more choice and now has to do what former Prime Minister Koizumi Yunichiro advocated almost two decades ago."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/catalysts-for-japan-optimism
11. "Since January 9, I've been mapping chokepoints across global supply chains. Companies controlling bottleneck positions where demand is surging and alternatives don't exist. The thesis has been simple: find the supply chain node everyone depends on, see if there’s any alternatives, check if anyone is paying attention, and if not, figure out why.
Something is clearly happening here. The market is waking up to these bottleneck positions. More investors are starting to look past the large-cap integrators and ask the question I’ve been asking all along: who actually makes the stuff that makes the stuff?"
https://www.polymathinvestor.com/p/i-looked-for-aerospaces-hidden-chokepoints
12."At its core, sprezzatura is not meant to deceive others. Rather, it creates the impression that one’s expertise is natural and easy. The gentleman exercising sprezzatura is not to be a showman, but a statesman. He is not a peacock spreading his feathers to show off his talents and charm. Instead, he is a swan who appears to glide effortlessly across the water, but is actually paddling beneath the surface.
In Castiglione’s own words, here is his definition of sprezzatura:
“To practice in all things a certain nonchalance, which conceals all art and presents everything said and done as something brought about without effort and almost without giving thought to it... this is true art.”
To live with sprezzatura is to live with grace under pressure and humility in success.
A gentleman should never be too rigid or frantic. He must never appear desperate to be noticed. Instead, he should be known for his cool presence, his ease, and the quiet mastery that speaks even when he says nothing at all."
https://thewaysofagentleman.substack.com/p/sprezzatura-the-gentlemans-art-of-bbb
13. "Nothing about Operation Epic Fury occurred within a thousand miles of Tokyo. Yet no capital in the world stands to gain more from the wreckage of Khamenei’s regime than the one sitting across the East China Sea from Shanghai.
Japan is China's principal strategic rival in the Western Pacific: the two compete for military dominance in the East and South China Seas, for economic influence across Southeast Asia, for secure energy supply chains, and for the allegiance of every mid-sized Pacific power now deciding whether its future runs through Washington or Beijing.
The gains Operation Epic Fury delivered to Tokyo are structural and extend across every dimension of that rivalry."
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/japan-is-the-big-winner
14.Can't wait to read this book. An incredible guide for your career. Finding your path.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1CV25WA5bk
15.Legend in the investing space. Cofounder of Insight Partners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uzi0OvFixw&t=16s
16.NIA this week: solid takes and discussion on the Citrini Doomer report and implications of AI Agent world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBGcvKAiuiU
17.Mind blowing insights on where AI is going and its crazy good capabilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIzdKxEVL08
18."Erdogan's genius always lay in his capacity to maintain contradictory positions simultaneously. He condemned Israel while preserving deconfliction channels, armed Ukraine while purchasing Russian energy, championed the Islamic world while expanding NATO engagements, and criticized American interventionism while hosting American bases. Operation Epic Fury does not end this hedging. It raises the stakes. The post-Iranian Middle East offers Turkey more room to maneuver, but also more pressure to choose. Choices that could be deferred when Iran absorbed the attention of every regional actor will now demand resolution.
For Washington, the strategic imperative is to treat Turkey as what it is: not an easy partner, not a submissive ally, but an indispensable one.
Erdogan’s relationships with Trump, with al-Sharaa, with Putin, and with the leaders of the Turkic world give him a connective capacity that no other leader in the region possesses. The United States should use the post-Epic Fury environment to press for a Turkey-Israel settlement on Syria, positioning Ankara as a stabilizer rather than a spoiler in the Levant. It should engage the Organization of Turkic States as a serious element of Central Asian strategy. And it should coordinate with Turkey on African engagement where interests converge, especially in countering terrorism and stabilizing the Horn.
The alternative is neglecting Turkey’s potential while Erdogan hedges between competing poles, squandering the most significant realignment of Middle Eastern power since the end of the Cold War.
Erdogan will, as always, calculate. The question is whether Washington will calculate with equal precision."
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/the-erdogan-calculation
19. "AI makes code cheap. It does not make chemicals, metals, or materials.
And AI has immense material needs of its own. Data centers are enormous physical undertakings, requiring space, power, cooling, construction, and the chips that every nation on Earth is competing for. They are a perfect example that the constraints on the future of abundance have become physical."
My deep dive into this problem led to a simple realization.
America does not have an innovation problem. What we have is a production problem. An enormous one.
But not unsolvable.
The United States leads the world in R&D spending, accounting for roughly 30% of global investment, but we have lost the production of the very technologies we once invented, and continue to invent.
This gap is what I deemed the Missing Middle. It is the space between raw materials and precursors, and finished products and production. It spans capital, the workforce, and technology adoption.
Rebuilding in this space is the precondition for everything else the industrialization movement is trying to achieve.
Closing it will become the defining industrial challenge of our era."
https://www.broscienceclub.com/p/the-missing-middle-of-industrialization
20."Sitting here today, we do not know how long Trump will remain interested in spending billions, if not trillions, of dollars reshaping Iran’s politics to his liking, nor how much geopolitical and financial markets pain he can politically tolerate before he cuts and runs.
The prudent action is to wait and see. The time to back up the truck and buy Bitcoin and high-quality shitcoins like $HYPE is immediately after the Fed cuts rates and or prints money to support the government’s goals in Iran."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/ios-warfare
21. "The supplement industry will keep selling you the fantasy.
New compounds, new stacks, new influencers with new brand deals and the same underlying playbook. The products change. The lie stays the same.
Elite operator’s don’t buy into the bullshit.
Build your nutrition from premium food first.
Identify the gaps you’re not getting from food, and only ever take a stack you can consistently take (in my experience, this will fall into the 3-5 supplement zone).
Magnesium. Omega-3. Vitamin D3. Whey where the protein target demands it. B-complex where diet, training load, or lifestyle creates a genuine shortfall.
That’s the list for general health."
https://www.lethalgentleman.com/p/the-dark-truth-about-the-supplement
22."During Operation Epic Fury — the coordinated U.S.-Israeli strikes targeting IRGC C2 facilities, air defense nodes, and missile launch sites across Iran — a new weapon system saw its combat debut. Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS).
The irony is almost too rich to write without smiling.
LUCAS is a reverse-engineered copy of Iran’s own Shahed-136 kamikaze drone — the same platform Russia has fired by the thousands into Ukrainian cities, the same design Iran has distributed to Houthi proxies in Yemen, the same weapon that has humiliated Western air defense systems by sheer volume and cheapness. The DoW captured a damaged Shahed airframe, handed it to an Arizona startup SpektreWorks, and said: build us a better version of this, fast.
They did. And now it’s been used in combat — against Iran."
https://defenseacquisition.substack.com/p/lucas-rapid-warfighting-acquisition
23.How to build in the Age of AI. It's an incredible time to be a founder. Learning from one of the top founders around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8y0ftEmbkY
24."Pax Americana actually restrained American power, and the people who wanted a multipolar world may come to regret that wish.
But what they all failed to realize is that Pax Americana bound and restrained the United States. In order to uphold the rules-based order it created, America accepted many limitations on its hegemony. It restrained its use of military force in many cases, eschewed territorial conquest, and treated smaller and poorer countries as its equals in many international bodies.
That’s all gone now. Without rules and norms to bind him, Trump is free to threaten conquest of Greenland, take out Russia’s allies, and generally throw America’s still-considerable weight around much more freely and aggressively than during his first term."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-shape-of-the-multipolar-world
25."Issue with climbing the corporate ladder is you sell your soul - the cost is spiritual.
You lose the essence of who you are. Your light. Your zest for life.
You can’t even just eat a burger, have a beer, or take off the business casual.
Whatever you do the next 40 years is who you become.
You spend the bulk of your waking adult life at your job.
40 hours a week for the next 40 years.
Is there anything else in your life that you dedicate that much time to?
You think there’s all this risk leaving your cushy job…but you’re looking at it the wrong way
Look at the bigger picture. Look at the person you are becoming to get this cushy salary.
A rule taker.
“Sounds good, will do” type."
https://colejaczko.substack.com/p/why-staying-on-the-safe-path-is-actually
26."The Ciceronian response is a structural one, not a moral one. It is not that any of these individual events are historically unique. It is that the perception of guaranteed safety is a binary good. In the same way that a Roman citizen could walk from Britain to Syria, not because every legionnaire in every province was personally committed to his safety, but because the universal expectation of retribution made the question irrelevant, the American guarantee worked because no one thought to test it. The moment Verres demonstrated that a governor could crucify a citizen and survive, the question was no longer moot. It was open.
What has been opened in the last 18 months is exactly this question. Can violence reach you if you are a net American taxpayer? Until recently, the answer was understood to be no. The answer is now visibly and publicly yes. And unlike the rest of the class architecture that absorbs this cost because they have nowhere to go, the wealthy have options. They can move their capital. They can move their families. They can move their tax residency. And some of them already are.
When the guarantee itself becomes a scarce good, scarce goods command a premium. The states and systems that can credibly provide what America is ceasing to provide -- genuinely reliable security for its citizens and their capital -- will command extraordinary willingness to pay.
When protection fails for immobile citizens, a state decays slowly. When it fails for mobile capital, the repricing is sudden. The question for the next decade is which sovereigns can offer what Rome once offered -- the cloak, the words, the guarantee that your person and property are inviolable, backed by a credible threat that makes violence against you and your property unthinkable."
https://minutes.substack.com/p/civis-romanus-sum
27. I actually didn't know very much about Logan Paul (knew more about his boxer influencer brother Jake). This was interesting to me: life as an influencer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuea3ejCPI0
28.There is a great framework on portfolio construction and investing. The Alpha is when most people disagree with you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAgqDdPgA3g
29."However, there has been a lucrative wrinkle that I didn’t quite foresee. To understand it, you need to understand my three laws of AI:
-AI dramatically decreases creation costs, thus increasing distribution costs.
-Knowing what to build is more important than knowing how to build, rewarding people with taste.
-Most people do not have taste, and as such, will have their brains turned into slopified goo.
In the context of these laws, the ideal founder is someone who has a unique way to distribute their product, the taste to know what to build, and the trust of their target customers. They can then use that combination of factors to bundle products that would previously have been too expensive to make relative to the labor costs and size of the market.
I call these people “hyper-creators.” A hyper-creator business is one where a bundle of digital goods is invented and distributed by an individual, but are created and maintained by an AI agent. They flood their target customer with software, information products, dropshipped physical goods, and recommendations for everything they don’t produce themselves.
I cringe as I write this, and may God have mercy on my soul for saying it, but think of it as Vertical SaaS for a vibe. (Sorry.) A hyper-creator’s job is to curate a nuanced view of the world, and then pull every monetization lever known to man that is associated with said vibe, tying it all together with their own distribution. That is an exceptionally silly company that could never scale to billions of dollars without adding staff, but it is a delightfully profitable company to build for yourself."
https://www.gettheleverage.com/p/the-rise-of-hyper-creators
30."To move faster, the U.S. can’t go it alone. It needs a partner — a place where it can manufacture defense equipment while it ramps up its own industrial base. That partner needs three essential characteristics in order to get started producing right away: industrial depth, political stability, and speed.
Taiwan, under threat of invasion, is increasingly risky as a manufacturing base. Europe is fragmented and geographically distant from the Indo-Pacific, and has Russia to occupy its energies. Canada lacks high-throughput manufacturing scale, while Mexico lacks the precision and complexity that modern defense systems require. India is still early in its technological catch-up phase.
That leaves Japan and Korea — of which Japan is far larger. Fortunately, over the next two years, Japan plans to increase defense and industrial capacity more than at any point since World War II.
Japan possesses world-class manufacturing capability, elite engineering talent, and strong IP protection. And for the first time in decades, it has a political mandate to move fast - especially given Prime Minister Takaichi’s recent landslide victory. Projects like Rapidus and TSMC’s advanced fabs in Kumamoto aren’t isolated investments. They’re signals that US-Japan industrial integration is becoming a strategic necessity.
A deeper industrial partnership between the U.S. and Japan is such a huge opportunity that in retrospect it will seem inevitable. American defense companies that understand how to build with Japan will win."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/japan-can-be-americas-arsenal
31.A take from local experts on the American-Israeli attack on Iran. Just trying to understand what's going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aof0gLnpX6E
32."Here is the critical framing that most analysis misses. Venezuela and Iran are not separate stories. They are two prongs of a single strategic pivot: the United States is not withdrawing from the world. It’s reorganizing the world around bilateral power relationships where commodities and the dollar are the levers. The “rules-based order” still exists; it’s just that the rules are being rewritten in real-time by the country that wrote the original ones.
The freezing of approximately $300 billion in Russian Central Bank reserves in February 2022 was the Rubicon moment. Not because of what it did to Russia (Moscow had already been building buffers since 2014, and pivoted quickly to a shadow fleet of 350 tankers and Chinese yuan settlement). The real damage was epistemic: every non-aligned central banker on the planet watched the world’s “risk-free” reserve asset get confiscated because of a political disagreement, and recalculated.
The postwar order that enabled frictionless global trade, just-in-time supply chains, and the suppression of commodity prices through financialization is over. We are entering a period where physical possession of critical resources matters more than contractual claims on them. Where central banks buy gold not for “diversification” but for sovereign survival.
The world is fracturing along geopolitical lines, and the fractures run right through the commodity supply chains that the global economy depends on. Every fracture is inflationary. Every inflationary impulse forces the central banks deeper into the trap.
And every step deeper into the trap makes hard assets more valuable in relative terms."
https://dollarendgame.substack.com/p/the-fracture
33. Latest Silicon Valley news with some good perspective. Anthropic vs DoW, Block layoffs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-on0j69st8&t=95s
34.A great conversation with an OG venture capitalist. 25 years in the business at a firm that has been around for 115 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOUskWl6XzY
35."VCs can generate returns from almost any combination of hunting and farming. Which makes it essential to think in advance about what your ideal investor looks like.
Do you want a hands-on investor that will coach and mentor you through the next stage?
Do you feel confident in how to get from A to B, but need help with introductions?
There’s no right or wrong answer here, which makes diligencing a potential investor so important."