Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Sept 6th, 2026
"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do." — Derek Jeter
Pretty interesting event here. Some investment pitch ideas. I favor the energy one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO5sC7qS04E
2."Thinking more about this approach, it really resonated with me. A national brand-name firm brings the prestige and macro resources, while a strong regional firm drives local execution and relationships."
https://davidcummings.org/2026/06/20/combine-a-national-vc-with-a-regional-vc/
3."That is the version of copycat advantage I believe in, and it is worth stating precisely, because the lazy version is genuinely wrong. Copying a model into a new market does not win on its own. A founder who ports a foreign playbook without absorbing the conditions of the new market just builds an inferior clone, the worse port that nobody remembers.
The advantage shows up only when three things hold at once: the underlying model genuinely transfers, the new market is meaningfully less contested than the one the original is fighting in, and the local conditions differ enough to force real adaptation rather than cheap imitation. When those line up, the replicator is not running behind the original. It is running a de-risked playbook in emptier territory and compounding local advantages the original can never reach back across the ocean to claim, and the terrace itself becomes the moat.
I find this clarifying as an investor, and a little dangerous, because it cuts against the romance of the wholly original idea.
The most globally durable products are often recombinations: a proven thing, carried somewhere new, reshaped by friction it would never have chosen for itself. The friction is not a tax the strategy pays on the way to working; it is the source of whatever ends up being worth copying in the first place."
https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/they-cook-the-wine-on-purpose
4.Jordi Visser is one of the best observers and explainers of global macro. He has a good sense of AI, technology and crypto in the economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qezOp08hwPQ&t=1389s
5."None of this means Europe can match the American frontier dollar for dollar. On today’s capital it cannot, and pretending otherwise only wastes the little it has. But the goal is not parity, it is leverage.
A country does not need the best model in the world to be sovereign; it needs a credible one of its own, on its own soil, good enough that being cut off is survivable rather than catastrophic. That is the difference between negotiating your access from dependence and negotiating it with an alternative in hand. The point is not to win the race. It is to make sure no one else can end it for you."
https://nathanbenaich.substack.com/p/europe-ai-sovereignty
6."Summer can either make you or break you. The world is full of men who are content to drift and disappear into mediocrity. Don’t be one of those men.!
Make this summer the one where everything shifted. Make this the one where you strengthened your habits and emerged stronger in every area of life. Be the man you were born to be!"
https://thewaysofagentleman.substack.com/p/the-art-of-a-well-lived-summer-808
7.Lots of honest takes from one of the generational founders. Ryan at his most direct. This was really entertaining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8u_7PPEzZE
8."If you’re an investor, those differences matter.
That’s why your very first mental model is a big one: treat AI as a collection of technologies, with very different properties, costs, and risks.
If you are going to invest in AI, you cannot afford to treat “AI” as a single monolithic thing that either works or does not."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/chapter-3-of-my-investing-in-ai-book
9."Cortisol is your body’s stress hormone. And before you switch off thinking “I’m not that stressed” — you probably are. You just don’t know it because you’ve been running on elevated cortisol for so long that it feels normal. It’s your baseline now. And that’s the dangerous part.
Your body was designed to spike cortisol in short bursts. A threat appears, cortisol floods your system, you deal with the threat, cortisol drops. That’s the system working properly. The problem is that modern life has turned that short burst into a permanent state. Work stress, financial pressure, relationship tension, overtraining, under-sleeping, six coffees a day, three hours of doomscrolling before bed — your body can’t tell the difference between a lion chasing you and your inbox piling up. It all triggers the same response. And that response never switches off."
https://lifemaxxers.substack.com/p/the-low-cortisol-lifestyle
10."Three things have shifted in recent years.
Starlink solved bandwidth. I own one, and being able to connect from anywhere is priceless.
Autonomous driving will redefine what distance means. “One hour from a city” will mean something completely different in a few years. Dozens of places nobody looks at today will suddenly open up. You’ll sip a coffee, work, or read while your car drives.
And there’s an economic shift, too. You can build from there on your own terms. Without leaning on UBI or anything like it, we’re no longer in the ancient Roman age when these places were just for summer relaxation.
But here’s a bolder claim, admittedly unsubstantiated for now: some of the first one-person billion-dollar companies will be built from places exactly like these. AI gives the leverage, the network lives online, and you fly when it matters.
High-performance teams no longer need an expensive zip code. They need focus. And if taste is becoming part of the moat, working from a beautiful place is an edge of its own."
https://palombo.substack.com/p/where-to-actually-buy-a-farm-in-italy
11."America as a whole is adopting AI rapidly. But if our educated progressive classes — our lawyers, academics, artists, and so on — turn up their noses, it could damage both their own cultural/political tribe and the country as a whole. In fact, by dismissing AI’s potential — by thinking that the most important technological revolution of the modern age can be waved away as a “bubble” or “fancy autocomplete” or IP theft or slop or whatever — they make it harder to think about the actual serious risks AI might pose.3
The coming of AI will definitely disrupt many of the relations of status and power in America. As Brad DeLong notes, educated professional types have had a long period of security, in which new innovations disrupted blue-collar work but not high-level white-collar work. That’s probably over now. But if educated progressive types don’t roll with the changes, and figure out how to use the new technology to their advantage, they could find themselves left behind by the tide of history"
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/pizza-wheels-are-bad-japanese-toilets
12.Always orthogonal thinking here. Helps me understand what is going on in the world & economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvmfQBPCmsM
13.The rules of new media. This is insightful for all founders who want to know how to thrive here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XROaLetSxg0
14.I hope to revisit China one day. Fascinating observations by Naval from his visit to China and implications for the West. Particularly America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcO2sGLtt0U
15.Don't sleep on these guys. Anti-Fund raising a $100M growth fund. One of the more differentiated funds out there. Big fan of these folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfafpyhB-8E
16."Crypto is now a top-10 holder of US government debt. Stablecoin issuers hold $165b in US Treasury bills. That is 2.5% of the total $6.1t T-bill market.
To put that in perspective, stablecoin issuers now hold more T-bills than China, Norway, or Switzerland. They rank behind only Japan among foreign holders."
https://tomtunguz.com/crypto-is-the-quietest-part-of-the-vc-market/
17.One of the most interesting capital allocator conversations in a while. $120 Billie at Liberty Mutual. Good stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxHWFmFHnoc&t=190s
18."With just four items: 1) house, 2) bed, 3) gym and 4) your main hobby, at least 75% of your life is now covered with luxury/high quality. The other items in your life will look like rounding errors.
As long as you don’t sacrifice obvious items (health, kids education fund, food quality etc.)… it’s a no brainer.
Then you wake up and realize, the quality of life change after a paid off home and $4-5M liquid is basically nothing."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/increase-your-lifestyle-without-being
19.A very balanced take on Trump 2.0's battle with Iran and China. Short term loss but could be long term win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmP3IIbxCKc
20.One of the best descriptions of how we have gotten to our present economic situation. And implications for the world economy and our investments and careers. This is very useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ivU-LTVkU
21."For the first time since I left in 2009, the outlook looked meaningfully different and more positive. Still uncertain, still messy — but no longer hopeless. I decided to study the opportunity more seriously. I looked at historical analogs: countries that opened up after decades of isolation or dysfunction, and what happened afterward to GDP growth, capital formation, stock-market returns, foreign investment, and private-equity outcomes. Vietnam. Russia. Poland. Peru. Panama.
My conclusion was simple: Venezuela was likely facing a once-in-a-generation opportunity — not only to rebuild, but to generate superior investment returns along the way for those best positioned. The only question was how to play it."
https://sleepwell.substack.com/p/from-the-ritz-to-the-rubble
22.Investing in thematic volatility. Pomp knows what he is talking about (I'm biased cuz he is buddy and I also share his themes, albeit I'm more bullish on commodity & hard assets).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs1hLLtJAv0
23."A federal guarantee stands in for the local banker who used to know them both. The newest tool is MARC, a manufacturing loan line from September 2025, built for the trap that kills these shops: a record order that pays NET 120 while the material bill lands next week. I believe the most boring agency in Washington is doing more for reindustrialization right now than DARPA or the Pentagon. And this is the layer everything above depends on, running on the least money of all."
https://constiv.substack.com/p/the-half-of-the-boom-nobodys-funding
24.Hubris is a terrible thing to see in startup land.
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/the-cost-of-hubris
25.Some global macro insights, Luke Gromen always gives some sharp non-consensus takes. Counterbalances all the mainstream views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB5rg3BjfQo
26.Naval's advice in preparing for the West's decline. Practical analysis and guidance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxmWIn6vU50
27.Probably one of the more honest conversations with Chamath. Lots of interesting thoughts on AI and his culpability with the SPAC mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLY04q3L4hA
28."So, the deal can still get done. It just won’t be one of the “hot” ones. Which means even at $3 million in revenue, your post is somewhere between $50 and $100 million. And if you can get a Series A term sheet at all, that itself is a huge win.
Numbers show it. Graduation rates from seed to Series A were once as high as 33% (in year 3), and for newer cohorts they’re trending under 20%."
https://writing.nikunjk.com/p/the-series-a-squeeze
29."Until recently, “going to another startup” simply wasn’t possible for aero-astro engineers. For the early team at SpaceX, failure meant having to go work for a bloated corporate. Or worse, the government. There was no fallback plan.
This weekend, a number of those early SpaceX employees woke up to find themselves on the receiving end of generational wealth. Each and every one earned it in a way that few people in Startupland™ can relate to: a two decade-long grind that, for most part, was completely unglamorous. It’s the furthest thing from an overnight success that one can imagine and I am genuinely happy for each and every one of them.
At a time when AI is making it easier than ever for founders to pivot and early employees to jump ship, I’m reminded about what Silicon Valley used to be about: the weirdos in the corner quietly and unglamorously trying to change the world."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/on-resilience-and-ipos
30.It's a series of regular sprints, startup land is more intense than ever. This is a good thing. Pick your path.
Lots of great takes here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDBff24uaDQ
31."We don’t know when these longevity therapies will become available. Your goal is to be around when they come out. Buy yourself as much time as possible by looking after your body to the best of our scientific knowledge. Good diet, sleep, exercise will get you 80% of the results."
https://bryanjohns0n.substack.com/p/some-of-us-will-live-forever
32.Implications of the K-shaped economy. Getting to the ground truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0JbBzhMpOM
33.Sarah Paine is one of my favorite historians. Helps us take lessons from history for guiding our future. Hope our leaders pay attention (not going to hold my breath here though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tQrW8EMDY
34."While the recent surge in US business formation is not reflected in high-propensity applications, the evidence points toward a structural increase in genuine small business activity over 2025 and 2026, driven by solopreneurs. Preliminary evidence of growth in AI tool usage and solopreneur growth in high-AI-adoption sectors suggests that advances in AI are responsible for a meaningful portion of this growth.
We believe AI is lowering barriers to business formation and growth by expanding the capabilities of solopreneurs, further improving tools and platforms that cater to new businesses, and creating a new set of opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue. Whether the magnitude of this effect is as large as the most optimistic readings of the data suggest remains to be seen, but we believe we might be in the early innings of a fundamental acceleration in business formation—which could have ripple effects throughout the economy."
https://www.stripeeconomics.com/p/the-age-of-the-solopreneur
35.Even more Sarah Paine. Lessons from History. Long ignored.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyIIa8bUZbQ
36.The case for SpaceX and latest AI developments. This is a highly educational conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx9jT2c6e3U
37.This is bad but also reality. NATO is over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c1uWPc-DFc
38."The self-made billionaire greeted me at the door as if I was his long-lost friend. I felt as if I had known him all of my life, just hadn’t met him. I had bought two of his sweaters almost seven years ago, when I had lost a lot of weight (which I have since regained), but his clothes aren’t really part of my wardrobe. And yet I have admired them, as well as his stores and his ethics.
For example, he gives 20 percent of his company’s profits to his charitable foundation in the name of “human dignity” and pays his workers wages that are 20 percent higher than the industry standard, mostly because it allows his company to encourage and continue the Italian craftsman traditions. Cucinelli also pays for an artisan’s school in Solemeo: Young people are free to work either at his company or for another Italian company. The on-campus cafe is way more beautiful than Google Cafe or Facebook’s facilities. And the pasta is really heavenly.
The company, which trades on the Milan Stock Exchange, is doing well: about 356 million euros in revenues in 2014. Brunello is part businessman, part philosopher and part monk. He is not Jeff Bezos or Larry Page. He certainly isn’t chief executive of an oil company. He is the anti-LVMH, and that is what makes him interesting.
We were supposed to meet for 30 minutes but ended up spending a few hours talking about everything from Marcus Aurelius to Barack Obama to Steve Jobs to his father, a farmer."
https://om.co/2015/04/27/brunello-cucinelli-2/
39.Lots of good learnings in early stage defense investing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwcaJ-eDxv0
40."But the cascade beneath the headline: fertilizer, food, emerging-market debt, the European gas-storage deficit, and the credit market’s stress memory is still fully loaded, and Iran keeps operational control of the chokepoint. This is de-escalation of the trigger, not closure of the rupture."
https://velinatchakarova.substack.com/p/the-supervised-pause
41.Havoc.AI and how maritime warfare has changed due to drones and autonomous boats.