Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 16th, 2025
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work." – Steve Jobs
Syria is the precursor to March areas. Back to the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASv1W0G81-E
2. A great episode this week. What's up in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Gzl2ZDXWw
3. "Our accelerating cavalcade of bloodshed rests on three pillars:
First, the massive tech media platforms, which feed us a daily diet of misinformation and tribal distrust. Sex sells. But Big Tech — 40% of the S&P 500 — has found something even better: rage. Eisenhower rightly warned us about the military industrial complex. In the decades after he left office, weapons manufacturers, think tanks, and politicians — the violence entrepreneurs of their era — conspired to make foreign wars and proxy conflicts into billion-dollar businesses. Today, Meta dwarves Lockheed Martin. “Make Memes Not War” is the trillion-dollar strategy.
My argument is not that politics is unrelated to the violence. (Or that there isn’t actual organized political violence, mostly from the far right, as has been well documented.) On the contrary, the ever more violent and inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation and the relentless demonization of every available scapegoat have left their marks all over the lives of the perpetrators. But demagoguery, dog whistles, and tribalism aren’t new. The dangerous novelty of our time is the fusing of capitalism and technology to make rage, and violence, profitable.
We’d go a long way toward dismantling the rage machine if we exposed its makers to liability, as we do with every other corporation. Reforming Section 230, which insulates online platforms from the externalities of the conspiracy theories and Chinese misinformation schemes they peddle, would be a massive first step. Age-gating social media would be a good follow-up.
And online media is an accelerant to our problem. As I often say, (including in my next book), the fire it fuels is disconnected rage."
https://www.profgalloway.com/violence-entrepreneurs/
4. Understanding what is happening on the frontlines of Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buv7SCAWSAk
5. I don't agree with all of his geopolitical takes but it's good to listen to alternative views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIWZv4_OvhM
6. "Here’s the twist: not every department in a company will adopt the same organizational structure. AI’s impact varies dramatically by function, creating a world where the shape of a company becomes more nuanced than ever."
https://tomtunguz.com/pyramids-to-cylinders/
7. "The above does suggest that Türkiye has options - Europe, the Middle East, even China, in term of future defence cooperation. But maybe what it will decide is a pragmatic multi-vector strategy in terms of defence cooperation, with Europe, the Gulf/Middle East, whatever works best to deliver Türkiye’s fast track to full defence industrial autonomy.
From a Turkish perspective at least the challenge now presented by Israel, and the wider ones in Ukraine, with Russia, doubts over the U.S. security backstop, must affirm the prudence of the decision two decades back to invest heavily in an autonomous Turkish military industrial capability. That and tensions with Israel might well act to buoy Erdogan’s current lagging opinion poll rating hurt by inflation and the travails in the courts with the opposition CHP.
Tensions with Israel will surely continue to spur on the Kurdish peace process within Türkiye - which does appear to have been a motivation for the remarkable about turn by Erdogan nationalist ally, Bahceli in moving to support this process earlier this year. I guess all this just affirms the reality of the many moving parts, or plates in the current tectonic geopolitical mix, which presents both threats and opportunities for Türkiye. It complicated, but that’s the neighbourhood in which Türkiye operates."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/turkiye-facing-geopolitical-threats
8. "Similar to the wealth divide, 80% of all your wealth is likely going to come from concentration. The other 20% from diversification. If you learn to build and sell businesses, you don’t even care too much about investing. You only invest with excess money (ironically allowing you to take even more risk + becoming a better investor!)
With the high level out of the way: 1) cut risk significantly at ~80% of *your number*and 2) you can invest in high risk forever with all assets *in excess* of your never sell set for life bucket.
Based on Earnings: Sticking with the same $5M example. If you earn $1M a year or $200K a year the set up is drastically different. A good way to think about the portfolio volatility? Match it to about 1-2 years of *savings* per year.
If you earn say $500K and can save around $350K a year, this means you want you max drawdown to be around $350-700K."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/get-rich-via-concentration-retain
9. It's always an illuminating conversation. World minus one. A realistic view on how America is declining due to our own stupid policies, internal cultural wars & lack of any coherent strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IbKMOvH4_0
10. A historian’s view to understand the world in 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwEYTYgbdd0
11. Another excellent episode of NIA this week. Getting solid takes on internet, tech and creative business news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByaeOdacht0&t=2s
12. This is a solid interview to understand what is going on in the world. The case for India.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_hLL_4rzow
13. "Today’s wealthy activists are the meritocratic descendants of this ruling class—and now, they face their own reckoning. Once upon a time, their education and résumés guaranteed them status. Now, as the economy stratifies, many feel themselves slipping. And once again, socialism—or its progressive equivalents—offers a way to explain the loss and to seek revenge on those who have outpaced them.
How this pent-up rage erupts is still unclear, but it’s certainly not going to be pretty. The children of privilege may not starve. But their disappointment—sharpened by ambition, magnified by envy, and amplified through elite networks—has the power to unsettle politics in ways that hardship alone rarely does.
The result, as we’re discovering, is a cruel paradox. While the American dream of upward mobility built this nation’s mythology, the reality of downward mobility may be what destabilizes it."
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/rage-of-the-falling-elite
14. "Failures are happening because organizations haven't grappled with the fundamental challenge of human-AI interaction. The path forward requires acknowledging an uncomfortable truth: sometimes the best human-AI collaboration is no collaboration at all."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/is-correlated-uncertainty-leading
15. "The fact that the United States is the only supplier of turbofan technology to Europe is far from ideal. Turbofan engines are essential for producing heavy cruise missiles that can carry large payloads over long distances while maintaining a stealthy flight profile. While turbojet engines can, in principle, power longer-range land-attack cruise missiles, their performance is inferior.
It is therefore unsurprising that the Taurus KEPD 350 program relies on Williams International to supply the P8300-15 turbofan engine, and that Kongsberg selected Williams International’s F415 for the Joint Strike Missile rather than using Safran’s TR40, as in the Naval Strike Missile. Both systems depend on ground-skimming trajectories for survivability and mission success, and both emphasize extended range to execute complex, non-linear flight paths to their targets.
From a strategic autonomy perspective, continued reliance on U.S. technology in 2025 is obviously not great, especially in such a critical sector, but Europe lacks alternatives. While developing a European mini turbofan engine would theoretically be possible, it’s not a short-term solution."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/small-thrust-big-questions-the-precarious
16. Geopolitics through the lens of energy and trade wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=699dsom_fuM
17. "The price of that fear, however, is simply very high. This is not the 19th century; America has low birthrates among its elite (and in general), so it can’t replenish its elite through reproduction. Instead, if we want to keep having the world’s best engineers and researchers and such, we need to import some of them. Cut off that flow, and Americans will discover why a country with only 4% of the world’s population can’t remain the center of global research and development without a lot of skilled immigration.
On top of that, Trump’s poor treatment of Indian H-1b workers and Korean construction workers will end up weakening America’s alliances — and economic relationships — with those two Asian countries. Weakened alliances in Asia will make it nearly impossible for the U.S. to effectively resist the encroachment of Chinese power.
So right-wing fears of an Asian-led America are going to end up making the actual America poorer and less globally relevant. Personally, I don’t think that tradeoff is worth it. Demographic change among the elite can be unsettling, but not as unsettling as a collapse of America’s global power and domestic economic dynamism. We’ve dealt with a changing elite before, and it worked out fine; we can do it again."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/indians-and-koreans-not-welcome
18. "History rarely repeats in exact form, but it often rhymes. Britain and America offer a case in point. Britain was once the world's leading power, shaping the 19th century with its factories, navy, and empire. America took on that mantle in the 20th century, with unmatched industrial scale, a dollar-backed financial system, and global reach sustained by alliances. Both nations seemed, in their respective peaks, to stand at the centre of the world economy.
Yet Britain's experience shows that leadership is not a permanent state.
Britain's story is not one of sudden collapse but of gradual slippage. Industrial dominance was lost first, to rivals who invested more boldly in the technologies of the future. Imperial reach then ebbed away, as the costs of war and the rise of nationalist movements made the old model unsustainable. Finally, Britain's supremacy in finance, which for a time offered a residual source of strength, came under strain as the material foundations beneath it weakened.
America today is not Britain in the 1950s. It is larger, richer, and more integrated into the world economy than Britain ever was. But echoes are there, and the same question runs through both stories: what happens when the industrial base of power erodes, yet the financial and strategic commitments built on that base remain as heavy as ever?"
https://www.driftsignal.com/p/britain-then-america-now
19. "Even if both countries prefer peace, they often act aggressively—just in case.
That’s the “Tragedy of Great Power Politics”, to quote Merscheimer: survival demands aggression, not because states are evil, but because the system rewards power and punishes naïveté.
And on the global stage, power is relative: it matters not how strong you are in absolute terms but how strong you are compared to potential threats. When one state builds up its military to feel safer, others feel less safe - and build up too. Everyone becomes more armed, more tense, and more likely to clash - even though nobody wanted a fight in the first place."
https://jaymartin.substack.com/p/why-power-never-sleeps-lessons-from
20. This week on what's up in B2B, lots of great takes here by investors on the top of their game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujuUUduQXgQ
21. Tony Robbins is the man. I always get something from listening to his talks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giUU6aMosoA
22. A must read to understand why the world is the way it is now. Especially in the West.
"China is growing fast because many still lack basics like a car, while Europe and the U.S. have reached saturation, with little incentive for further growth. And many are discovering that lifestyle improvements, such as bicycling paths and pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly cities, may not produce economic growth.
The problem is that it is saturated economies, like the U.S. and Europe, that carry the most debt. There’s a French saying: On ne prête qu’aux riches (“One only lends to the rich”). But when you’re rich and borrow heavily, you need growth to service that debt, which is harder at the top of the S-curve.
Further, policies like tariffs, as seen under the current administration, can stifle growth by forcing resources into lower-margin activities — like asking a brain surgeon to do some gardening two days a week to avoid being “ripped off” by professional gardeners. This shift from higher added value to lower added value depresses GDP, a point orthodox economists agree on — and this, at the time when we need growth the most."
https://nntaleb.medium.com/the-world-in-which-we-live-7255aad3e18c
23. "Among the most notable groups within the 2nd Legion are Brazilian volunteers. Brazil is home to a Ukrainian diaspora of roughly 600,000 people, many living in the Parana state. For some, cultural roots provide the motivation to join; for others, anti-communist convictions or personal outrage at the Russian invasion drive them. With many being veterans of Brazil’s military or police forces, bringing specialized skills in small-unit tactics, reconnaissance, and urban combat.
Around Pokrovsk, the 2nd International Legion’s Brazilian contingent has demonstrated how their jungle-honed skills transfer seamlessly into Ukraine’s contested forests and villages. One video shows them advancing quietly through dense woodland on a reconnaissance mission, using their natural ability to move unseen, camouflage effectively, and set ambushes. Such expertise allows them to surprise Russian troops, capture prisoners, or eliminate threats before they can endanger larger Ukrainian formations. Their precision reduces risks for accompanying units and speeds up the clearing of hostile positions, as proved by numerous released videos."
24. "The US effectively operates the world's financial operating system. This dominance grants Washington extraordinary leverage: it can unilaterally impose sanctions that exclude nations from the global banking system. Countries and corporations must maintain dollar reserves and access to US banks to participate in international trade, giving America the ability to reward allies with market access and credit while punishing adversaries through financial exclusion. This "weaponization of finance" has become increasingly central to US foreign policy. In an increasingly on-chain world, US policy will continue to shift to ensure that US Dollar Stablecoins (and not something Yuan or Euro backed) remain dominant.
There are a lot of people in crypto who fully embrace the crypto-anarchist vision of a fully decentralized finance system. This is great and a fun part of crypto but my view is that crypto will never be fully mainstream if it is fully decentralized. Stable coins that are regulated and fully backed by dollars tie the system more tightly to the traditional banking system than they allow a system to be removed from it. Even if these stablecoins are used in places like defi and for decentralized use cases, they are still very much anchors to the traditional banking system and that’s actually a good thing."
https://kylelibra.substack.com/p/a-lot-of-what-people-think-about
25. "The central challenge of American statecraft today is this very visible disjunction between the systemic scope of the threat beyond its borders and the psychological unreadiness of the society on whose commitment any effective response depends. Recognizing this gap is only the beginning.
In many ways, even though the strategic imperatives are unmistakable, the mechanisms for addressing them remain contested. Time, however, operates as an independent variable in this equation, and it favors America's adversaries.
Each interval of American strategic paralysis permits Moscow to consolidate its influence networks, Beijing to advance its technological supremacy, and Tehran to expand its destabilizing apparatus across multiple theaters. What American policymakers frame as prudent deliberation, hostile powers exploit as operational opportunity."
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/the-new-cold-war
26. Lots of good ideas and thought exercises here for the aspiring tycoon or who just wants to have a good life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pug5Q_3XHjk
27. "Pre-AI, a common benchmark for best-in-class enterprise startups was $1 million in ARR in its first 12 months. The path to Series A typically took 12-18 months after achieving initial revenue traction, with companies needing to demonstrate sustained growth over multiple quarters before investors would write larger checks.
Today? It’s twice as fast per A16z’s data"
https://www.saastr.com/a16z-the-median-enterprise-ai-startup-now-hits-2-1m-arr-by-month-12/
28. "Tashkent, the capital, felt modern and safe to Joey. The culture shock was less severe than he expected, and once he settled in, he discovered a thriving, vibrant city.
“Hip cafés, shopping centers, good coffee—even the same international pop songs playing in the background,” he laughs. “Seeing all the teenagers glued to TikTok and Instagram made me feel closer to home.”
This is the paradox people often mention about Tashkent. In some ways it feels worlds apart from the West with its slower pace, traditional crafts, and ancient mosques—but it also has glass skyscrapers, ride-sharing, food delivery apps, and all the modern comforts of Europe in 2025. The ancient and the modern coexist in near-perfect harmony."
https://www.escapeartist.com/blog/living-in-uzbekistan/
29. Modular jamming & Drone shield. Great convo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCrT6xBCY9c
30. "Every company has these people. They work within the seams. Between the levels. Outside the performance matrix.
They don't hit your L5 requirements because they're doing L3 and L7 work simultaneously. Fixing the deploy pipeline while mentoring juniors. Answering customer emails while rebuilding core systems. They can't be ranked because they do what nobody thought to measure.
Performance reviews punish them. They lack "scope" because they fix problems before they become projects. No "leadership" because they lead by doing, not declaring. No "impact" because preventing fires doesn't generate OKRs.
By the time they ask for recognition, they're already gone. The ask isn't a request. It's a test you've already failed."
https://writing.nikunjk.com/p/the-quiet-ones
31. Kind of wacky stuff, alt-geopolitics. But helps illuminate some of the crazy MAGA stuff and geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ua2E5b6aA
32. "The essence of Buffalo Bill’s plan is to move credit creation and by extension economic growth out of the hands of the Fed and various non-bank financial institutions like private equity firms into the hands of small and medium-sized bank loan officers (I will call these regional banks). In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed where he lambasted the Fed, he described it in populist terms of elevating Main St. over Wall St. Don’t get too hung up on the fact that entrance into his economic Valhalla requires the use of the undemocratic tools of Fed money printing.
The banks will now lend to the real industry that can produce the weapons needed for another glorious century of Bombs of Baghdad / Tehran / Gaza / Caracas (yes, an attempt at Venezuelan regime change is going to happen by 2028) etc. fill in your brown or Muslim population center and now the American military can bring forth DemocracyTM … assuming the denizens are still breathing :(.
That fixes the industrial side of the equation. In order to placate the American plebes, who require the ever-expanding welfare state to purchase their allegiance, the government must finance itself more affordably. By fixing the yield on long-term bonds, Bessent can issue infinite amounts of dogshit treasuries that the Fed dutifully buys with printed dollars. The interest expense collapses, as does the federal deficit.
Finally, the value of the dollar relative to other filthy fiat currencies and gold collapses. This allows American industry to export competitively priced goods to Europe first and then the global south in competition with China, Japan, and Germany.
Trump and Buffalo Bill Bessent believe it is their mission to restore the global primacy of America. That requires rebuilding a solid manufacturing base to produce real goods, not “services”. President of China, Xi Jinping, came to a similar conclusion when faced with the 2018 US-China Trade War started by Trump. Xi crushed the animal spirits of the financiers and big tech CEOs to change the economic direction of China. Who would have thought Alibaba CEO Jack Ma would be called to Zhongnanhai to drink tea and serve a stint in tycoon jail.
Instead of building shitty apartments and bike-sharing apps, the best and brightest in Xi’s China would conquer the green economy, rare earths, military drones, ballistic missiles, AI etc. And after almost a decade, China can endogenously produce all the real goods a nation state needs to preserve its sovereignty in the 21st century without the help of America."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/four-seven
33. One of the best global macro analysts around. She is such a great clear thinker & incredibly knowledgeable on financial history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aSOf31fZ68
34. One of the wisest humans on the planet. Naval on wealth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPkweR086A
35. "BRADLEY TUSK IS a political consultant for tech companies. Uber and FanDuel have enjoyed his services as they rewrote the rules of their industries, and he’s used to political rough and tumble. As he sees it, Trump’s tactics are the government moving fast and breaking things.
When we talk, Tusk rattles off what he views as the components of US tech exceptionalism—independent markets and institutions, freedom of speech, intellectual property protections, strong educational institutions, decent immigration policy. Then his voice gets hard. “Trump is doing the opposite of every single one of those things,” he says. “There is definitely potential that he will destroy everything that makes the US economy unique and successful.
Maybe that’s the thing I got most wrong about Silicon Valley. Those Davids I wrote about seemed fearless and full of verve as they challenged what was possible and rode the power of the chip and the net. I mistook this for character. They may believe, as Moritz told me, that submitting to Trump’s protection racket protects their shareholders. But tech giants are certainly capable of standing up for the long-term viability of their industry. And for democracy. So far they are doing the opposite. “I think they have made a bad deal,” says Tim Wu. “Everyone who thought they could work some deal with Trump ends up getting burned, if not imprisoned.”
There will probably be no reckoning. Tech leaders, like all rich people, always have alternatives to life in a declining country. Reid Hoffman has his, as he put it, “contingency plans.” Another source for this story let drop that he’s getting Portuguese citizenship. Lovely country. But it’s hard to imagine myself as a young reporter, roaming the streets of Lisbon and finding the excitement and promise I discovered in California. It’s even harder to imagine a young reporter finding that spirit in the industry as it stands today. The way I now feel in Silicon Valley is how Sam Altman described himself politically: homeless.”
https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-politics-shift/
36. "With capital drying up at home, Chinese AI firms are increasingly turning to the Middle East, where sovereign wealth funds and state-driven digital transformation programs provide opportunities for growth. These initial AI deals prove that sensitivity to the Gulf’s religious and cultural norms can help Chinese firms secure backing in the region."
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/chinas-great-leap-south
37. Implications of the Israeli missile attack on Hamas in Qatar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiL_TDQF0VY
38. Insight dense conversation on startups, culture and productivity.