Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 25th, 2025
“Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply”--Stephen Hawking
End of the age of debt and death of the global trading system we all know and love. Massive uncertainty and Global macro changes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c31cSvX_UG0
2. "Slightly more behind the scenes, another fundamental force is reshaping how technology scales in this new economic paradigm, putting pressure on the traditional venture capital model: debt.
From transport fleets (Zenobē) to digital infrastructure (CoreWeave) to energy storage (Base) to manufacturing (Hadrian) to clean fuels (Twelve) to aerospace (ISAR) – debt is playing an increasingly key role in the capital stacks of the most promising emerging companies. For companies deploying valuable hard assets – batteries, modular robotics, CNC machines – asset-based lending is emerging as the wedge to unlock scalable project and equipment-level finance, allowing these companies to grow at venture speed while consuming far less equity capital.
These hard asset businesses are increasingly built and valued on bundles of cash flows rather than revenue multiples, requiring an entirely different approach to capital formation across the company lifecycle. And while several early movers have begun to break through, the holistic financing models best suited to systematically support and scale this model remain fragmented and underdeveloped.
The even greater challenge comes in bridging these two worlds under one roof – the venture market dreamers and the credit market pragmatists – to create not just unique positioning but an integrated capacity to transform how emerging industrial technology scales.
The answer to Larry Fink's question of "who will own" the $68 trillion infrastructure boom will increasingly include Production Capitalists and the companies they finance and shape.
By removing transaction costs, unlocking information asymmetries, and reducing friction from the capital formation process, these firms will accelerate the deployment of critical technologies at precisely the moment when speed of implementation matters most, and where existing financiers will prove unable to cope in the face of increasing complexity.
The firms that successfully embrace this capital orchestration role will not only generate superior returns by manufacturing their own alpha, but they will also become critical enablers of the infrastructure revolution essential for driving the next era of economic growth and competitiveness in Western economies."
https://venturedesktop.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-production-capital
3. "Ghosts are popping up everywhere. The long-suffering workers of China who make those beautiful luxury handbags have been like ghostly apparitions, silently toiling away on perhaps not much more than slave wages. Now, thanks to Trump’s tariffs, we hear these ghosts rattling those heavy handbag chains on Tik Tok, crying out from their graveyard shifts for customers to know their true role value creation. We see the ghostly reminders of the World Wars as Germany and Japan re-arm, and the youth of Europe on Instagram telling us how excited they are about conscription and national military service.
We see mysterious spectres buzzing in our skies and over our most important military facilities and know, deep down, that everything is not fine. AI-driven stealth ghost ships without human pilots now silently ply the world’s waters, skies and airways.
Even the nation state’s spooky dark side, which usually lurks in the shadows, is increasingly visible, a living phantom that continues to practice its dark arts in the open, even though the President is revoking their security clearances as fast as he can (even revoking those of entire law firms). But, the corpses are piling up anyway."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/american-ghost-stories
4. Instructive conversation from a GP at Benchmark. Very interesting convo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHuAsfyHHD0&t=1666s
5. "How bad is this debt crisis? It’s too early to tell. But as former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers explained, what has people most scared is the real-time erosion of the American-led economic order. Our reputation as a bastion of strength and stability, with our dollar and Treasuries representing safety, is in jeopardy. Increasingly, we resemble an emerging economy, where a crisis in confidence sends stocks, bonds, and currencies down and spikes interest rates.
“If the United States isn’t credible, that makes the whole financial system less stable,” Summers said, adding, “we are more vulnerable to bad surprises from here than to good surprises.” One potential bad outcome? A stagflation cocktail of high interest rates, low growth, and high unemployment. This week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that Trump’s trade policy and the resulting uncertainty may put us in a “challenging scenario” in which the Fed’s dual-mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices are “in tension.” That’s Fed-speak for: This could be a clusterfuck.
With 4% of the world’s population and 25% of global GDP, we have a debt to our allies, who’ve engaged in relationships that provide roughly 6x the prosperity relative to the rest of the world. However, that hasn’t been enough, and we’ve accrued unsustainable debt. From George Washington through George W. Bush, we borrowed $10t. During the first Trump administration, we borrowed $8t (Biden was $4t). We find ourselves ignorant of our debts and in a prison of our own making — a giant with feet of clay, ignorant to our vulnerabilities. In sum, we (America) are acting like assholes."
https://www.profgalloway.com/united-states-of-debt/
6. "Instead of expensive centralized systems, Europe should prioritize decentralization. Small, networked autonomous systems that can be quickly deployed and adapted to new threats should be the focus.
Cost asymmetry is one of the biggest issues in modern warfare. Drones are cheap to build but expensive to stop. Many air defence systems still use high-cost missiles to destroy low-cost targets. A Shahed-136 loitering munition—used by Russia and Iran—costs around $150K–$200K. A single Patriot missile to intercept it can cost $3–4 million. Meanwhile, Ukraine deploys thousands of FPV drones, often costing just a few hundred dollars, to disable multi-million-dollar systems.
This is where Europe has an opening. While the U.S. can afford high-cost tools, European countries must be more resourceful. We can skip over legacy systems and focus on cheaper, more relevant tech. Europe could spend $800 billion on traditional weapons or a fraction of that on modern systems and still achieve similar results.
Countries like Poland, Finland, and the Baltics are preparing for asymmetric warfare by investing in drones and mobile strike capabilities instead of relying only on heavy armor. Smart spending on drone interceptors, precision-guided munitions, and AI targeting can level the playing field without overspending."
https://www.resiliencemedia.co/p/europes-defense-needs-a-reboot-to
7. Best show in town on Silicon Valley news and trends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esDwl-PRVgI
8. "Meanwhile, it is hard to see how anyone preoccupied with enhancing American global power — particularly, relative to China — could be pleased with Trump’s first three months. By violating the terms of America’s existing trade agreements — including some he personally negotiated — Trump undermined our nation’s diplomatic credibility. And by imposing across-the-board tariffs on core US allies, he led European and Asian powers to consider the possibility that China is the more stable and reliable global superpower.
In recent days, the Trump administration sought to rally America’s allies into a united front against Chinese trade abuses. But it is struggling to mount such an alliance, according to the Wall Street Journal, because “many European and Asian partners aren’t sure to what extent they are still allied with Washington.” Rather than becoming more adversarial to Beijing, some in the EU are calling for the bloc to end its cooperation with American efforts to starve China of cutting-edge technology.
Finally, the Trump administration is jeopardizing America’s access to the most fundamental economic resource: skilled labor.
Among the list of pro-growth policies that Andreessen and Horowitz endorsed in their “Little Tech Agenda” last year was an “Expansion of high-skilled immigration to encourage foreign graduates of American universities and others to build new companies and industries here.”
But Trump has done the very opposite, exiling foreign students and recent graduates from the United States, thereby discouraging others from immigrating to the country."
https://www.vox.com/technology/409256/trump-tariffs-student-visas-andreessen-horowitz
9. What a masterclass in venture investing. Neil Mehta of Greenoaks Capital. Legendary returns and approach. Learned a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502sB_IbjpQ&t=3661s
10. "The 10X Operator will be someone who treats AI tools as extensions of their own capabilities. They’ll habitually use AI copilots and agents to enhance productivity, creativity, and decision-making, and their first instinct for any challenge will be to leverage AI.
Being “full stack” will no longer imply you know how to code, but that you know how to command an army of AI workflows.
As AI agents take over more executional work, the role of the human shifts.
You’re no longer the individual contributor, but instead the orchestrator, managing hundreds (or even thousands) of AI agents to bring ideas to life.
Taste → Knowing what great looks like.
Judgment → Evaluating AI outputs with nuance.
Decision-making → Choosing the right tools, workflows, and strategies to execute effectively.
But AI doesn’t understand cultural context, intuitive design, or the small emotional cues that build trust. That’s where humans come in.
In a world that will inevitably be overflowing with content, products, and data, the ability to curate and sift through the noise will be invaluable."
https://www.andrew.today/p/the-10x-operator-era
11. "By 2025, the situation has changed fundamentally. Ukraine now fields hundreds and even thousands of indigenous long-range strike capabilities. These systems are less sophisticated and less lethal that Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG and Taurus — particularly against hardened targets — but they are far cheaper. This changes the calculus. If Taurus is delivered, Ukraine would be able to reserve it for those targets where pinpoint precision and lethality truly matter, while saturating less complex targets with existing domestic systems.
As noted above, the precise impact of Taurus remains difficult to predict. Still, there is a strong case that the cumulative effects of delivering Taurus in 2025 could be greater than if deliveries had taken place in earlier years.
Overall, the conclusion remains unchanged: Taurus should be delivered to Ukraine as quickly as possible. The case for delivery is arguably even stronger now than it was in 2023 — both militarily and politically. Moreover, if the delivery serves as the final trigger to restart cruise missile production in Germany to replenish transferred stocks, it would bring additional long-term benefits for European defense."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/taurus-redux-the-return-of-the-zombie
12. "If one AI can develop an integration into another AI, well, then those two systems can talk together seamlessly irrespective of changes within API specification, network communication challenges, state management issues, historical problems that have plagued integration.
This sets the startups up well for the next generation of protocols, including model context protocol and agent2agent. AI generation of those interfaces further separates startups from incumbents.
With fast integrations, startups can shorten sales cycles and be among the first to build and deploy a complete AI architecture."
https://tomtunguz.com/integrations-as-advantage/
13. "My recommendation to entrepreneurs is to identify a vertical they or a colleague know intimately and consider building a comprehensive application that replaces multiple existing tools for that target customer. By leveraging AI, cloud infrastructure, and open-source technologies, they can deliver a fully integrated solution at a fraction of the cost."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/04/19/the-rise-of-ai-powered-vertical-saas/
14. "When we think about the worst-case scenario for Trump’s economy,1 we shouldn’t just think about the worst possible effects of his current policies; we need to think about how much damage he could plausibly do with additional bad moves. We need to skate to where the proverbial puck is headed.
Don’t get me wrong — Trump’s tariffs are already very bad, and will cause grinding deindustrialization, a macroeconomic slowdown, and possibly higher inflation. They may even cause continued capital flight, which would raise U.S. borrowing costs, hurt the economy even more, and make the national debt less sustainable. We’re already on the path to some bad economic outcomes, and it’s not clear how bad they’ll get, even if we don’t make any big additional mistakes.
But that’s a very big “if”. In my post about capital flight, I outlined two nightmare scenarios for the endgame of Trumpian economics: a sovereign default and spiraling inflation."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/worst-case-scenarios-and-endgames
15. What an insightful and incisive conversation on YC with Garry Tan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4KcYTMC1lM&t=141s
16. Very important to understand the bond market and implications for America and the global economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVk5Xpd9cvg
17. These two have long been part of the "America Bad" school of thought (I dislike them).
But they are not wrong this time about the end of American leadership in the world due to the badly thought out Tariff strategy and general capriciousness. American self own here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvKs_XWZQs&list=PLgfli1PY64h3bpPsycG1E1PquoujN9wII
18. Some tinfoil hat Alt-Geopolitics here. But this definitely breaks the common narrative in the media. Helpful to understand the world we are in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjiZUkayyCY
19. How to build a long arc of an interesting career. How to be relevant for a long time. "Lifelong Doing." So many different paths to the top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkwBD3ueOt4&t=362s
20. How to be "high agency". This is a must watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVl5FLRuGXI
21. There is no financial risk, there is only ego risk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXMTbeCM-9Y&t=1s
22. Lots of great investing wisdom from my friend Sven. Happy 50th!
"It's worth repeating this point over and over again, because it's so easy to speak about this yet so difficult to actually do it.
If placing a buy order doesn't make you break out in cold sweat, it's probably not a real contrarian investment.
Following, analysing, and capturing the zeitgeist, or "spirit of the age", should be one of the most important priorities for investors.
Once the zeitgeist changes, so do investment fads and valuations.
The combination of an investment theme getting back in fashion and its valuation multiples expanding can have a powerful double-effect on your investments (and the other way around). It's these major turning points in dominant narratives that can make for the biggest investment opportunities."
23. "One of Jordan Peterson's best ideas is that the human brain is not adapted for specific environments but for Order and Chaos. No matter where you are, there is stuff you understand (therefore control)—and stuff you don't. Climate changes, eras flip over, Order and Chaos remain.
This explains why all ancient cultures told stories around chaos: dragons, floods, supernatural beings intent on mischief. And similarly, all ancient cultures venerated heroes who would restore order in a troubled world."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/jordan-petersons-best-idea
24. "For example, a sci-fi magazine that accepts submissions is overwhelmed by AI generated stories. And some community colleges are overwhelmed by bot based submissions for admission.
My question today is - when this happens to every corner of the internet, and every type of content, what does it mean for investing in AI?"
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/investing-against-ai-multi-modal
25. "the truly proactive crawl all the internal info about the company and find ways to make it better. they manage their boss -- their boss never manages them.
they push initiatives forward without waiting for permission and own problems as if they were the CEO.
they think beyond their role and contribute to long-term company success.
they spot patterns in company operations and prevent issues before they arise.
they take responsibility for results, not just effort"
https://auren.substack.com/p/ultimate-employee-the-one-that-is
26. "There is a teaching here that transcends history. When faced with a task of enormous cost or a decision clouded by uncertainty, the best path forward may be to eliminate the possibility of turning back. Only then can one summon the clarity, resolve, and ferocity to see it through.
If we leave the door open—even slightly—to giving up, we risk sabotaging ourselves. This holds true for life’s most consequential choices, whether by nations, companies, or individuals. Even for something as trivial as a New Year’s resolution.
When we take a bold gamble, sometimes the best way to follow through is to create conditions where retreat is no longer an option. In that moment, the will to power thrives, and so does victory."
https://www.businessofpower.com/p/burn-the-ships
27. "The Internet has recently been flooded with content of a de-dollarisation of the world economy. Combined with the subject comes the usual plethora of reporting about the end of the US as a superpower, its coming bankruptcy on the back of spiralling debt, and similar predictions.
It reached a point where I asked myself: "Is being short the US dollar such a widely held view that it's worth heading the other way?"
If you have been around for a bit, you'll understand why despite all the well-deserved criticism and the need to be vigilant about a potential change to long-term trends, it's also worth spending a bit more time looking at the counter-arguments."
https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/usa-the-unstoppable-juggernaut/
28. "Given the fiscal and political mess that Trudeau has left behind and the resulting broad discontent in Canada one would expect that, like in any functioning democracy, the opposition would clean out the election and comfortably cruise to a win. Not so in Canada where fear mongering and obfuscating the truth is a time tested campaign tactic that has historically serviced the Liberals best. This was about to come to an end with an easy Conservative win - as per the polls - until Donald Trump unleashed his torrent of tariffs and accompanying rhetoric of making Canada the 51st state.
It was all the Liberal Party needed to scare the living daylights out of Canadians. And by putting forward the indeed seasoned Carney as the economic genius who would guide Canada to ride out the storm, it turned all polling data and electoral logic upside down. With one week to go to election day the race is now too close to call and the Liberals may eke out yet another win.
The fear apparently is so deep that, and I just have to scroll my social media pages, that the most hardcore left wingers are now arguing the merits of Carney’s bond trading strategies and economic smarts. This is a guy who made his bones at Goldman Sachs. It is unreal to see how to public mood has shifted from confidence to one of fear and that also tells us that a lot of Canadians are overreacting and looking away from what is really going on."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/canadas-choice
29. "The reality is that Taiwanese have been living with the threat for 75 years. The only difference now is that 1) the CCP has dramatically ramped up military spending, and 2) the United States has deserted its past ally, Ukraine. That has led some to question whether it would desert Taiwan in a time of crisis, too.
I came away from the trip thinking that I’ve probably overestimated the risk of a full-blown annexation of the island. Practically nobody in Taiwan is in favor of communist control. Taiwanese will certainly fight to avoid letting the island “becoming another Xinjiang”, in one person’s own words. I also believe that the Japanese are serious about intervening in any conflict, as it has a history with Taiwan being a former Japanese colony for 50 years. A slow takeover from the inside seems much more likely than an all-out war."
https://www.asiancenturystocks.com/p/travel-notes-taipei
30. "In Europe and beyond, many golden visa buyers have used their citizenship to escape tax burdens or move into countries with a lower cost of living. The countries have benefitted from injections of cold hard cash into moribund economies.
Locals, however, have also noticed the unfortunate side effects: rising prices and property values.
In Athens, fears of displacement and gentrification echo those seen in other global cities that embraced luxury developments and foreign investment programs.
While a flourishing golden visa program and developments like the Ellinikon promise jobs, tourism, and revitalization, Athenians are left wondering whether their country is reviving for average residents — or just for rich investors.
Golden visa programs, also known as immigrant investor programs, first gained traction in the 1980s when tax havens like St. Kitts and Nevis introduced them to attract wealthy individuals. Around the same time, Canada began offering visas to those who invested $150k in an investment fund.
Even the United States launched the EB-5 visa in 1990, granting green cards for people who invested in a business that employed at least 10 workers. These days, that investment must reach at least $800k.
But it wasn’t until the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that golden visas became a widespread tool for economic recovery, particularly in European countries like Cyprus, Italy, Ireland, and Spain that used them to rebuild."
https://thehustle.co/originals/the-economics-of-golden-visas
31. Quite interesting. From vet to founder. How to transition to entrepreneurship in defense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqf20n6q2vI
32. This was an incredible interview: Was both insightful, inspiring and eye-opening. Both on personal growth & how corrupt the American food system is at present. Much watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAQhh7zyUuo
33. "Guess what. With the internet you can now join the “CEO” trajectory. All you have to do is build equity in your own ventures. While you’ll *Smile and Nod* at work to keep the prison guards happy, in reality you will stop playing the corporate game: LinkedIn gone. Happy Hour meet ups, gone. Never the #1 employee.
What are they actually doing? They are taking all their savings and they are: 1) building a basic online business targeting women, 2) they are taking calculated risks with real estate projects, 3) they are investing in asymmetric assets - crypto, tech stocks, bio tech and 4) they are eventually leaving to tax havens when they are truly “untouchable” rich.
Another good tell-tale sign is that they *don’t* complain about the compensation difference of CEOs. Instead they know that they are slowly becoming the CEO of their own smaller enterprise. Most just see a chart like the above and quit/complain about the system (good luck because AI doesn’t complain).
Typically, the guy who escapes will be in contact for a short period. Next thing you know they are in full disappear mode: tax haven (Dubai, Singapore, PR - Act 60, Panama etc.), spinning up another biz line and generally changing their entire rolodex.
Usually takes about 3 years (odd that everything comes in threes) and then *poof* never heard from again. The spread between the old working life and the life as an entrepreneur is just too big. Life paths fork when someone quits and they begin running 100mph in the opposite direction. After 3 years of that, no one can relate.
The General Premise: Here, the goal is self reliance to the best of your ability. Everyone starts somewhere. The goal is to build a life that no one can take from you and control your time (time rich = no boss).
Despite the near-term pain caused by politicians today? The future is still the same.
We’re of the belief that quite literally anyone can get into the low-mid 7-figures. This is significantly more than any career will get you (outside the rare exceptions to the rule). AI is taking over and companies are going through flattening/wage compression.
People who say “anyone can get to $10M+” are just full of it. To get to those numbers? Requires luck, insane talent or both. Even Elon Musk was miraculously saved from bankruptcy several times.
Therefore we can outline what you’ll need to do based on quality of life expectations. The vast majority are not going to be flying private or driving lambos. Instead we’d look at it in terms of quality of life benchmarks"
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/escaping-the-cube-the-smartest-people