We’re All Broken Inside: If Successful, Even More So The Case
I just had my 30th year Reunion for my High School class earlier this year and it was really awesome seeing people I had not seen for decades. For me, the most interesting thing was seeing where people ended up. And most of my old classmates and friends were surprised to hear what I’ve ended up doing, and especially the life that I live now. Now so very very far from what I felt were the very low expectations of me growing up. I was an undisciplined, horribly, misbehaved troublemaker through school. Spending plenty of time in detention or on the hate list of the majority of teachers and principals in all the schools I went to.
I didn’t have an unhappy childhood but I honestly cannot say it was very happy either. My parents did their best with far less resources than I have now. We grew up poor and with very high expectations from my parents. Especially my mother who pushed us very hard and did those things you did to your kids as an immigrant parent, putting you down and comparing you negatively to your siblings & to other kids in the local Taiwanese community. Something I still deeply resent to this day.
I detailed much of this: https://hardfork.substack.com/p/trauma-with-a-small-t-therapy-and. If I am honest, looking back I grew up feeling somewhat unloved, inadequate and disrespected all the time. It was how I felt, even if it was not true. Asian immigrant parents tend to not be very emotive or believers in positive reinforcement. It was why I left Vancouver as soon as I could. To literally go forth and conquer a new world. A completely brand new start, far away from the expectations from family, friends and all you knew before.
All this made me into an intensely competitive individual which has served me well in my career and life path. I hate losing. And like all unbalanced type A individuals, I focus on winning as often as I can (2nd place is the first loser as they say). I challenge myself and fear complacency. Almost to the point of detriment. Fast forward 24 years later and one year into therapy, my therapist told me: “I notice you use the words ‘beat’, “destroy’, ‘win’ & ‘crush’ alot. You think very black and white and tend to be intolerant of those who do not meet your probably unrealistic standards.” I could only agree that it was probably true.
When I see friends of mine & classmates I grew up with, their lives seem very ordinary. Happy but ordinary. You never know what people went through but in general, if they had a pretty nice happy childhood, I never really saw them do anything big. They weren’t hungry or driven because they were satisfied. For the record, there is nothing wrong about that. God bless them.
But this is the reverse of many of the most successful people I know. They either came from hard or poor backgrounds, unhappy childhoods with divorced parents, facing racism as immigrants or some traumatic medical emergency when young. This gave them some inner drive to control their destiny. Or more likely like me to prove themself with material and societal success. Look at poster child Elon Musk, he was bullied violently in school. Most of the successful tech founders were nerds in school, which I can’t imagine was a fun experience growing up in jock driven culture of the 70s, 80s & 90s. Repeating what the brilliant investor Josh Wolfe said: “Chips on shoulders lead to chips in pockets.”
I learned many years ago that scientists ran experiments on baby mice, inflicting shock treatments on some of them, and leaving other ones alone. If you inflict pain on baby mice they tend to grow much bigger and stronger than mice that were not hurt. It’s almost like pain actually changes the body and leads it to more growth. Nature can be cruel.
It’s an interesting observation and makes sense at least to me. We are all broken inside, but if you are really broken, you either quit life or you end up developing a massive competitive drive to fill that empty hole in your soul. You can either bury the trauma or you use it to get better. Your psyche is like a muscle, when you work out, you tear the muscle so you rebuild it stronger. As Naval Ravikant said “You are strong only where you were broken.”
The question is how or when you turn this off as excess can be dangerous as there may be no end to ambition. But all things being equal, it is better to have than not.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Dec 4th, 2022
“Rest and be Thankful”--William Wordsworth
This will be a shorter than normal recap this week and possible next week. I’ve been very sick with a bad cold for the last 2 weeks :( This is on top of lots of work travel and crazy business deadlines. Back to regular programming length after December 12th.
This is an extremely cool thing to do. Worth a read.
https://www.ricemedia.co/singaporeans-abroad-120-year-old-teahouse-japan
2. "After deep examination, I’ve concluded that becoming what one is is the proper definition of becoming an adult.
Transforming from an infant to a child is the process of conforming to a set of norms given to you by the adults in the world. It’s the gradual process of becoming less of an individual and more of a part of the crowd. Becoming an adult is a reversal of that. Transforming from a child to an adult is the process of shedding societal expectations that encourage or require conformity. “Growing up” is to become the unique individual you were before the world told you who to be."
https://andyjohns.substack.com/p/the-restless-ones
3. "In a sense a16z is following its own recipe for turning startups into large companies—prioritizing growth while hoping to dodge the potentially fatal dangers that come with it. Based on the more than $35 billion the firm has raised in the past seven years, a16z is almost certainly reaping about $500 million a year on management fees alone—a sum that stands to grow even more as the firm sprawls into new markets.
“They are running a lot of experiments,” says a former Andreessen Horowitz investment partner. “It seems to me relatively obvious that some will fail. The flip side is that some of them will work out.”
There are plenty of reasons why venture—and Andreessen Horowitz specifically—might not be able to keep scaling: Larger funds and bigger bets may hinder the outperforming returns that have attracted limited partners; Andreessen Horowitz may find it’s not as well suited for the public markets as it has been for the private ones; and star partners may leave in favor of building their own brand rather than being another cog in the wheel."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/andreessen-horowitz-profile
4. "So while China’s pivot is the smart thing to do, I don’t expect it to immediately restore the equilibrium that prevailed before the country started making big policy mistakes a year and a half ago. Xi’s attachment to particular public-facing narratives, as well as his disdain for economic sectors he doesn’t consider crucial, seem likely to outweigh the effects of the short-term, halting policy reversals.
Now of course, none of this means that “China is done”, or that the country’s manufacturing prowess will evaporate, or that it will become a weak actor on the international stage, or any of the other melodramatic things that people say on social media when they see news like this.
These problems are stumbling blocks, and China will almost certainly recover after a while. But they illustrate the downsides of dictatorial decision-making in a way that should prompt observers to recalibrate their own narratives about the ascendance of autocratic systems."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/chinas-pivot-is-a-bit-of-a-mess
5. "Putin’s army are unable to solve his Ukraine problem, and their efforts to do so have only made the situation worse. Nothing can now be done to reset Russo-Ukrainian relations for the long-term in a way that would serve his interests and be at all stable.
The gap between his desired ends and available means has grown ever wider over the past nine months. The war was lost long ago. The challenge remains one of getting Putin and his circle to accept this view. If this is to happen there is no alternative to keeping up the military pressure."
https://samf.substack.com/p/is-russia-losing
6. "One reason the shut off of access to cash causes this atrophy in a crowded space is because most of them, built to chase growth, structured their strategy around unsustainable customer acquisition costs. Couple of examples? Uber vs. Lyft. Bird vs. Lime. Casper vs. Purple. Most of these companies saw drops in valuation from billions to millions. Many of them are built on an unhealthy reliance on paid marketing.
The same is true in the B2B world. When you have tons of companies getting funded that are offering similar nominal product improvements, and then pouring fuel onto a GTM fire, you're going to have a lot of outbound sales that go unanswered. So you're spending more to acquire those same customers, since all your competitors are out there with very similar messaging.
When capital is plentiful? They're all competing for the same subset of customers, driving prices down and acquisition costs up. When the cash spigot gets shut off? It exposes a multitude of sins, and they have to start to think about how else to own a category, other than just spending like a drunken sailor.
One path forward? Consolidation."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/age-of-acquisition
7. This is a good sum up of why 2023 will be tough. Worth a read.
https://fabricegrinda.com/winter-is-coming
8. This is a very good thing.
"Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing money in nuclear energy for the first time in history. That’s changing its trajectory and pace of innovation.
“There’s not been a resurgence of nuclear power, ever, since its heyday in the late 1970s,” Ray Rothrock, a longtime venture capitalist who has personal investments in 10 nuclear startups, told CNBC.
Now, that’s changing. “I have never seen this kind of investment before. Ever.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/why-silicon-valley-is-so-hot-on-nuclear-energy.html
9. "A less obvious point — but a very important one — is to remember that this period is extremely challenging for everyone no matter how outwardly successful, confident, and happy they appear. Every company I know — and probably every company on the planet — is making tough decisions right now that affect the lives of employees.
Every CEO and every manager has probably just been through a round of layoffs and is staring down the barrel of more. Every sales pipeline is getting re-evaluated, and every sales target is looking a bit too optimistic right now. No one is having any fun. No one is “killing it.”
What this means is that your situation is probably better than you think it is — on a relative basis. You have your problems and your competitors have theirs. Maybe you wish you had more cash in the bank and are considering laying off 25% of your 20-person team to extend runway. Your scary competitor with $50M in the bank might be burning $3M a month and is trying desperately to figure out how to lay off 30% of their 100-person team. He might also be dealing with pretty challenging board dynamics, or other issues you might not be aware of.
Just as the rising tide lifted all boats previously, the storm we are weathering right now is battering everyone. The frustration and exhaustion you are feeling right now are common to everyone — and it is not necessarily a sign of something specific to you and your business."
https://medium.com/angularventures/no-one-is-having-fun-right-now-fa531da50789
10. I love a good pirate story. Especially if it’s obscure.
https://mobile.twitter.com/LandsknechtPike/status/1597711454139867136
Becoming a Monster: The Path and Philosophy for Great Success and Growth
Many people seem to hate the very controversial professor and philosopher Jordan Peterson. I don’t agree with everything he says, especially recently and his bizarre uninformed views on geopolitics. But I like his view on taking “Personal Responsibility” in life. Many of his messages are especially valuable for listless young men. Stress on “young” men. The thing that was most insightful for me was when he said: “You should be a monster, an absolute monster. Then you should learn how to control it.” Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7lVTjHt5M4
In my career and pursuit of business & monetary success, I feel I’ve definitely far along the path of becoming a so-called monster (in its mostly positive connotation, hopefully). I have NOT done a good job on the second part, controlling the monster which has pretty much caused most of the family and personal issues I’ve alluded to in the past and am in the process of dealing with now. Probably worth a full separate write up.
But for most people, they haven't even started doing anything. This is really hard to do when you are surrounded by comfort and by soft people. And also brainwashed by an insane media-driven consumerist culture that dulls your senses. Fed by an unhealthy sugar & preservatives-filled diet.
This is why most people have unhealthy, mediocre lives that lack meaning. And they are usually very unhappy. Anyone who wants to grow or has accomplished or done big things faces big issues & challenges internally and externally. Think of all the great men before us: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, the Founding Fathers of America, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. Yet they were able to overcome by facing things, adapting and growing. That’s why they are great men.
Struggle makes you strong. As Justin Waller said: “You can tell the size of man by the size of his problems.” You cannot solve big problems and have a big impact if you don’t become strong. To overcome big problems you need to become a monster of some sort.
“You can become a pathetic monster or a monster with some power. Those are your options. There is no non-monster alternative.
Weak or Strong. I don’t mean strong like dominating tyrant strength. I mean strength like “functioning at a funeral” strength. And that’s a kind of monstrosity. And when you are down in chaos that is what you need to discover.
You have to be able to cope with danger…..You get to be stronger. Well, hey, that turns out to be a better bargain anyways.”
Being & Becoming. That’s the path that all of us have to take if you want to get anything worth doing. This will be required as I foresee really challenging times in the world coming where the pandemic was just the beginning. It’s going to be hairy: as the times are punctuated by a horrendous Russian invasion in Ukraine, an economic recession, political chaos across the liberal west and deglobalization as the world fractures into different blocs again. Hardship is coming.
In an observation that extends to people in general (not just white men IMHO) from the very brilliant writer of the Resavager blog:
“A Comanche chief once observed that there's no force in nature as malevolent as the white man on the war path - he leaves none alive in his wake. You can argue that this sublime and sanguinary spiritedness is no more - but you cannot claim with honesty that the white man of history is not a killer angel.” -Thomas777
Resavager goes on to say correctly:
"The Comanches noted the martial prowess of the white devil and make no mistake, you want your enemy to see you as the white devil. You want to live in their minds, a constant reminder that our people are not to be fucked with. Perhaps, in some way you must also believe in what the Comanche chief said. Embrace it. Nature is not kind and the road ahead is long and unforgiving."
If you want to GMI (Gonna Make it) in the upcoming disorder, you have to become a controlled, civilized monster. Be Dangerous and Disciplined. The world needs as many of you to survive mentally and physically to rebuild a much better society and economy in the future upcoming Renaissance.
Going Home is Hard, Staying Home is Harder
One of my favorite movies is “Hurt Locker”, starring Jeremy Renner as a EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal), Bomb Handler in Iraq on tour. Addicted to the excitement, mission and purpose in war. The last 10-15 minutes of the movie when he finally returns home is eye-opening and disturbing at the same time. After a tour on the frontlines with his life at risk, he finds himself in the mundane everyday life of an American. Cleaning out the roof drains, cutting up food for dinner. Grocery shopping where there is literally a full aisle of a multitude of cereal. He finds himself lost in the abundance. His eyes are dead.
The most telling is when he is playing with his baby boy and is talking with him.
“You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your mom. Your daddy. Your nature pajamas. You love everything don’t you?
But You know what buddy? As you get older, some of the things that you love might not seem so special anymore, you know. As you get older, there are fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it’s only one or two things. For me I think it’s one.
Next scene he is back on a helicopter landing in Iraq on another tour. He looks confident and happy. He is back where he feels he belongs.
I understand this feeling. Having spent so much of my career on the road doing business travel, I get it. You stay in hotels, you have almost everything taken care of and getting the business done. No distractions. It’s fun & exciting, you meet new people and see new things. You are busy but you also have a lot of “Me time.” You focus on yourself and it’s easy to become pretty self centered as you go through the days overseas. It’s also much easier: the metrics are clearer on the career side. How much money you bring in.
Much harder to work on the home life and family side. Can’t put a number to it. It’s intangible.
Yet you feel guilty for being away from family, missing their lives, missing being part of their everyday life. Not knowing the fun, happy things as well as their sorrows & sadness. Zoom & FB Messenger calls are just not the same and cannot make up for this. I think of the fact that I’ve missed so much of my kid’s life and this has probably scarred her in some ways as I have not managed the regular transitions in and out of her life.
I’ve never been a military vet and this is why I admire them so much. They sacrifice for us their lives and home life so we can enjoy the freedoms and abundance that we have here in North America. And why we need to celebrate them and support them after their service.
But my main point is be careful of what you wish for. Be careful of what you decide that you love. I dreamed of this life of travel, adventure, money and business growing up and I got exactly what I subconsciously and consciously wished for. I remember walking out of the Fujitsu technologies office in Taipei in an interview back in 1998. While I did not get the job I told myself this was what I was going to do for my career. Travel the world and do business at a global standard level. And boy did I ever. Millions of air miles later, elite status on multiple airlines, I’ve been lucky to have seen a good portion of the world. Yet, I’ve definitely paid the price for this in my somewhat broken home life that I’m still in the process of fixing.
You will have regrets in life, you will lament things. My reminder for those starting off, you can have it all. Just make sure you are conscious of your choices so you don’t end up regretting the wrong things like missing precious family life, messing up your health & friendships.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 27th, 2022
"Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody."― Justin Cronin
"The more self-sufficient this brotherhood of men are, the more powerful they are. The less likely they will be manipulated by worms and snakes. The current elite seek to make men dependent on the system and not their fellows. To benefit off our helplessness. This of course works very well for those on the top until this unnatural way collapses on itself. Your main goal in this society is to be self-sufficient like your ancestors were. Only after you’ve decoupled can you regain your wild spirit.
The purest form of being a man is the warrior. The warrior — as Nietzsche says — is responsible for himself. He’s willing to under go hardship and deprivation so long as it preserves his distance from other men. The manly or virile instincts, to use Nietzsche’s words, revel in war and victory. Notice also Nietzsche never says the words I told you to stop using. In the form of the warrior, man is able to take the long and unforgiving road toward glory and fame. The last people to do this were the Americans when we settled in the New World.
The sons of those Americans went on to help America become a superpower after two World Wars. We’re still riding on the coattails of the accomplishments of those men who tamed the frontier. This won’t last forever. History never ends. Hard times are coming and it’s your duty as a man to be ready for them. To make sure your sons are ready for them."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-warlike-and-manly-spirit
2. Don't really agree with vote rigging comments but I agree with conclusions.
"The Struggle for Power is not going away, rather growing with each passing day. The economic and political crisis’ that stand before us will cause more chaos, violence, and turmoil.
The reality of Geopolitics now is a knife fight. The brutality will continue and escalate. Who wants it more will win in the end.
The hard choices are just beginning."
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/knife-fight
3. "I would say on the new deal front, on the pre-seed and seed side, we’re seeing timelines that were one to two weeks now [extending into] more like two to four weeks, which is really healthy because it allows for more proper diligence.
We are able to do deals in a matter of days if we have strong conviction, but we do like that the market is a bit more sane.
Another dynamic that we’re seeing is that entrepreneurs are starting to really wake up to this new world, and that wasn’t the case even six months ago.
Back then, we saw growth deals really kind of halt, but that didn’t really impact the way that first-time founders in particular thought about their valuations. Now we’re seeing them come around as well. So [collectively] we’re actually seeing a lot of really interesting deals."
4. Cool new VC fund for Europe. Unruly Capital.
https://sifted.eu/articles/stefano-bernardi-unruly-capital
5. Solid conversation here with the guys especially on Google business. All in Podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX7tj3giizI&t=2341s
6. An excellent talk on what’s happening with the disaster zone of Crypto, SBF, FTX and what not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1ofMu4760
7. "Vidio is succeeding where foreign competitors like Netflix and Disney+ have stumbled in Indonesia — by developing an acute sense for what Indonesians want to watch. Despite earlier being considered an underdog, it is now the fastest-growing streaming service in a country of 270 million, and the biggest in terms of active users with about 60 million viewers per month, the company told Rest of World.
In the second quarter of this year, it snatched the number one spot for over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms across all of Southeast Asia, according to consultancy Media Partners Asia, both in new subscriber growth and popularity of original content."
https://restofworld.org/2022/vidio-the-netflix-killer-of-indonesia
8. This is going to be an amazing movie on Netflix.
9. This is absolutely right. Watch this space. USA versus the CCP.
https://mobile.twitter.com/johncoogan/status/1593748145799712769
10. "The coming winter will feature more fighting, but at a different pace. It will see continued long range strikes from both sides and an ongoing information war. And it will demand both sides attend to the protection of their soldiers (and equipment) from the elements, in order to preserve as much of their combat power as possible to exploit opportunities during winter, and to conduct larger offensive campaigns in 2023."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-winter-war-in-ukraine
11. "As biotech evolves, some of the strengths of the Bay Area are becoming even more important. With several technological revolutions—such as Sequencing, Synthesis, Scale, and Software—young scientists and engineers with direct technical experience with these new technologies have a central role to play in shaping the future of the industry.
One of the unrivaled superpowers of the Bay Area tech scene is its ability to empower ambitious young people who are on a mission to change the world. The same fluid capital networks that made the Bay such a major winner in the digital revolution are also playing an important role in the TechBio revolution."
https://centuryofbio.substack.com/p/betting-on-the-biohub
12. "The U.S. is the undisputed overall leader in the semiconductor industry, but that’s as the central node of a global supply chain in which other countries also possess highly advanced technologies and lead in critical niches. Some companies in these other countries have competencies that are a strong starting point for developing alternatives to U.S. technology.
U.S. technology is irreplaceable over the near and medium term, so the immediate consequences of this policy are essentially guaranteed to be disastrous for China. However, if China succeeds in persuading U.S. allies to assist China by developing and providing alternatives to key pieces of U.S. technology, then the long-term outcomes of this policy could be disastrous for U.S. national security and economic competitiveness."
https://time.com/6234566/how-us-win-the-tech-war-with-china
13. "And then there is Mathias Döpfner, a six-foot-seven former music journalist turned billionaire CEO of the media conglomerate founded by, and named after, Germany’s preeminent postwar press baron, Axel Springer. Springer’s widow took a shine to Döpfner — she felt he saved the company and kept it true to its mission — and gifted him controlling shares.
For the past decade, Döpfner has been transforming Springer into a digital player worldwide.
Nothing about Döpfner is small. He’s got a big ego, big appetites, big plans, big hands, and a big mouth. He speaks with supreme self-confidence, but there’s something boyish about him, energetic and a touch mischievous. “He’s a controversial person, not everyone likes him, but there’s nobody who would say he’s not an agenda setter,” says John Harris, a co-founder of Politico. “I think his arrival here at this moment is a very encouraging thing not just for Politico but for the broader profession. I really think we need these capacious figures in American media again. The profession seems somewhat adrift without them.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/axel-springer-mathias-dopfner-profile.html
14. No wonder the mainstream media is losing credibility fast.
"Over the past two years, Bankman-Fried cultivated the media lavishly, if not carefully. Drawing on what then seemed like an unlimited pool of cash, SBF (as we’ll call the mythologized version of the real person) dispersed investments, advertising dollars, sponsorships, and donations to key news outlets—including ProPublica, Vox, Semafor, and The Intercept—with extraordinary effectiveness.
In the space of four days, media participants that lie far outside the highly capitalized mainstream did more investigative work than the entire corporate media had done in two years."
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sam-bankman-fried-inventing-crypto-king
15. Must read for all founders who want to survive the startup winter.
https://n49p.substack.com/p/current-conversations-with-founders
16. Poland will be the continent's dominant military power along with Turkey.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-military-superpower-poland-army
17. There is so much to unpack here. Chamath is a controversial figure in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. But lots to learn from him regardless. It’s an almost 3 hour conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFQUDCgMjRc
18. "One thought exercise a company planning a RIF can do is imagine a scenario with a 25-50% headcount cut. How does that really impact team output and burn? What teams would you be forced to cut and how much do those teams really truly matter? How does that align with your various financial scenarios? Even if you still only cut 10-15%, it might be an informative exercise.
The key thing to remember is that if your valuation is very far ahead in this new market environment, and your business slows due to recession or spending cuts, it may be hard to raise money in the near term.
Layoffs should either get you to default alive (aka enough money to last reasonably indefinitely) or default fundable (a strong enough situation to be able to raise more money in today’s or tomorrow’s market). Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Make every dollar count."
https://blog.eladgil.com/p/changing-times-or-why-is-every-layoff
19. Solo GPs of Europe. Look forward to seeing more here.
https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-solo-gps
20. "Although there are language and cultural barriers that require a good dose of tenacity and entrepreneurship to overcome — the scale of the opportunity and positive changes in the environment make Japan worth another look for investors and entrepreneurs alike."
21. "But this is why now more than ever, we can’t lose our faith in crypto.
Sure, it can be hard not to feel pessimistic at times like this. And it’s easy to listen to the doomsayers who are now prophesying that this is the end. But to give up now will almost certainly pave the way for the absolute dominance of government-controlled CBDCs, and the weakening of the only independent alternative that’s still owned by us.
This is why I’m still personally betting on crypto.
Remember, crypto didn’t fail us. Exchanges did. And we don’t need exchanges to hold or use these assets."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-end
22. Solid discussion on American strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwA2rWWlCq0
23. All true.
"If you work in retail, the four weeks between US Thanksgiving and Christmas is the busiest time of the year. It’s also the sprint-to-the-finish for anyone in a B2B business trying to hit Q4 numbers.
But in the land of venture capital, it’s a uniquely slow-moving period that can best be thought of as fundraising purgatory. Put bluntly, it’s where many fundraising rounds go to die.
Why? Well for starters, anyone who was actively fundraising prior to Thanksgiving that hadn’t yet received a term sheet just had their momentum interrupted by a giant speed bump."
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/the-2022-fundraising-window-is-closed
24. The rise of the Turks in geopolitics.
"The most significant geopolitical effect of the Turkic rise might be the ascension of Turkey to true Great Power status. I would argue that they are close to such recognition with their complete dominance of the Black Sea and the South Caucasus as well as their growing economic and cultural influence around the region."
https://andreassteno.substack.com/p/the-great-game-2-rise-of-the-turks
25. This is a fascinating conversation on the business of sports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Q1PoEL_E0&t=2465s
26. If anyone can figure this out, it’s Japan.
"Whatever the problem is, Japan’s policymakers, academics, and corporate managers need to start viewing export weakness as a matter of urgent national importance. In the 90s, exporting was optional; now, it is not. Japan’s population is aged and shrinking, which limits domestic market opportunities, even as the country is still dependent on imported food and fuel.
If it’s going to avoid both long-term stagnation and vulnerability to currency drops like the recent one, the country must become more of an export powerhouse. Hopefully the weak yen can provide the impetus and the inspiration for Japan to get serious about this."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-weak-yen-is-an-opportunity
27. This is pretty interesting. New American way of war: Proxy wars.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TLGaSPOzY&feature=youtu.be
28. "That Powell leans into the exciting, scary thing helps explain why, after years of increasingly solid, steady work, Powell’s acting career might be about to enter a new stratosphere. His is a calming charm, very “emotional support animal you'd enjoy having three to four beers with:” in our age of movie franchises, he is exactly the type of guy you want in your tentpole.
It’s not just that he looks like someone who could land a plane in an emergency situation—he feels like someone who could. (He could, by the way: after his experience with Top Gun training, and a gift of flying lessons from Tom Cruise, Powell is a licensed pilot.) It’s a brand of charisma that makes him a truly good hang, both offscreen and, more importantly for his Hollywood ambitions, on it."
https://www.gq.com/story/gq-hype-glen-powell
29. Jim Rogers is always a good listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kJ-nT_GNQ0
30. This seems like not good news for Pipe. Startling is probably the right word.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/22/pipes-founding-team-stepping-down-as-hunt-for-veteran-ceo-begins/
31. "War — and the competitive activities beneath the threshold of violence — is now a battle of industrial systems. In some respects, this is a return to previous eras where mass production for conflict, such as during the US Civil War and the World Wars, provided a decisive advantage. The post-Cold War ‘small, exquisite, periodic and expensive’ approach to weapons procurement in the West must end.
The expansion of defence industrial capacity, whether nationally or as part of a larger compact between democratic nations, is an integral part of conventional deterrence. In defending themselves, countries need potential adversaries to know they can (and will) step up production if authoritarians pick a fight. The possession of an expanding industrial base is a demonstration of capability, and importantly, telegraphs the will of peoples to actively defend against the predations and aggression of countries such as Russia and China."
https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the-west-needs-to-boost-its-industrial-capacity-fast
32. I can't help but be entranced by this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZBFvaS6Ko
33. “Think of what happened in the last two or three years: whatever you did was rewarded by some investor because of the plethora of capital,” Leone said.
“You were rewarded no matter what — you made a s--t decision, a crap decision, you got money; you made a good decision, you got money — which is a lousy way for you to learn your craft. All that is gone.”
“What you’re going to learn now is the best lessons you’re ever going to learn, even in our business,” he added.
Leone said he doesn’t expect tech company valuations to recover until at least 2024."
34. "Although the decline of U.S. power has been significantly overstated in some quarters, America’s economic decline relative to the rest of the world is real. Economic strength and technological strength have become more dispersed around the globe, and over time military strength is likely to follow the same pattern. This is one reason avoiding boots-on-the-ground interventions will become ever more of an imperative.
The presumption that the U.S. needs to deploy ground forces in a fighting capacity if it wants to achieve meaningful results from interventions has been evident again and again since the 1980s. Yet the reality has often been the opposite. The more the U.S. takes over and inserts its own forces into a conflict, the more expensive and, in most cases, counterproductive the intervention becomes.
Such conflicts are also more polarizing for American society—as U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Iraq, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan demonstrate. Meanwhile, avoiding ground wars but relying on financial aid, advanced technology, intelligence, and even diplomatic coordination and outreach is something the U.S. actually can do effectively."
Player Versus Player: Life is Work & Pain
In America, we love labels and aspiration. That is why “The Great Gatsby” is a quintessential American story. A man from nowhere becoming “richer than God”, driven by his talent and ambition. But we don’t see all the hard work and suffering and pain that got him there.
This is where the lessons from the brilliant & controversial Andrew & Tristan Tate come in. I’ve written about the former kickboxing champions & self made multimillionaire brothers before (here:https://hardfork.substack.com/p/living-on-multiple-grids-towards).
They do a great series of video blogs that really teach you to think in a “Rich” way. They show you the mindset required to win in life. And to win big. And by not following the “brokie” mindset. Andrew in one of his most observant comments says: “If you are broke in the modern Western world filled with oodles of money, you are either lazy, arrogant or stupid.”
You have to take personal responsibility for everything. If something sucks in your life, it’s up to you to fix it. And the Tates provide some good rules for this.
Rule 1: Become overwhelmed & time squeezed with work, don’t think, DO. Then optimize after. Shoot first, then adjust. Too many times people who say they only want to work smart are just procrastinating. Or using it as an excuse for laziness and not doing what they need to do. Nike nailed it: “Just Do it.” There is always work to do.
Rule 2: Become familiar with pain and fear as early as possible. “If something is scary to you, that is probably what you need to do.”
Rule 3: Network is Key. You need to have a network of accomplished individuals. People who are not just outstanding but reliable. They also lift you up and help you raise your game. I’ve said it before: “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
Rule 4: You can only have a “Big life” if you have big problems & big stress and are able to deal with them. “You can tell the size of a man by the size of their problems.” Stress tolerance is key, not just trying to settle and get by.
Tristan Tate goes on to say: “Happiness is alot like the castles in fairy tales we used to read as children. They are all guarded by dragons. You don’t get the castle without getting through dragons.”
Theodore Roosevelt says it even better: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
If you do this, as the great Tommy Shelby of Peaky Blinders said: “You will have no limitations.”
You have to believe that you can live a perfect life: the “High Life.” Destroy all the coping mechanisms in your mind. These are things I’m still learning as I slowly escape the mental matrix of society.
Global Maximum Versus Local Maximum: Understand What Level You Are Truly Competing At
I have the great fortune of being able to invest in amazing startup founders from everywhere in the world. And I truly believe the greatest companies can be started from anywhere and everywhere. BUT starting a company in a location is very different from growing and scaling one.
I run into founders all over Europe, Asia, Canada, Middle East or wherever, who are examples of the hometown hero. They literally brag about being ranked or acknowledged as the “top 5 startup in some random city” usually not known for technology. It’s the startup version of the “High school hero” syndrome for startups. You might be top dog in your locality but you are literally NOTHING at global level. You have NO idea what the competitive landscape really is and how high the standard really is. It’s like being the top University pick for whatever sport and then getting drafted into the professional leagues where you realize painfully despite your gifts that are average or most likely below average.
Whatever you think about the San Francisco Bay Area, yes, it’s a bubble. Yes it’s full of arrogant tech bros who are clueless to how the world works. Yes, it’s full of douchebaggery and is probably the worst run city (SF that is) in one of the worst run states of America. BUT it is also full of the brightest, most experienced and accomplished startup founders and investors in the world. STILL. And this environment is the true test. The best startups are still being built and molded here (for now). You are still surrounded by the most ambitious people who self select by coming here and competing here. This is the global standard.
Just like if you want to be the best I-banker & hedge fund guy/gal, you go to New York City. Or you want to be tops in media and Hollywood, Los Angeles is your place. Or Milan/Paris for Fashion. You go where the best are. Clusters and critical mass still matters. It matters because you are exposed to and can benchmark what is truly global excellence. In your own home territory, you literally do not know what you do not know. So keep some humility and try to get exposure to as much of the best that you can.
Delusion is dangerous. Hubris from ignorance is even worse. Hubris is defined as excessive pride or arrogance. Also tempting the gods to plot your downfall because of your excessive conceit. Open your eyes. Be self aware & acknowledge your true competition. Know where you truly stand. This is the first step and the only way you truly know what it takes to win in the end.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 20th, 2022
"It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit."― J.R.R. Tolkien
Bullish on commodities as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmPvHYkHkuE
2. Great news in Ukraine!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbl1v_4vqbA
3. "In other words, despite all his WW2 throwback rhetoric, Putin is not Stalin, and the army currently getting blasted to bits on the banks of the Dnipro is most definitely not the Red Army.
Meanwhile, the country is having trouble producing new weapons (thanks in part to effective Western sanctions), and is pulling increasingly decrepit equipment from old Soviet storage facilities.
Where the USSR was an inefficient but vast manufacturing powerhouse, Putin’s Russia is a corrupt petrostate dependent on imports of foreign technology.
In other words, Russian military and economic weakness is now simply a fact of our world. This makes it simply impossible for Russia to serve as a “pole” in a multipolar world order, no matter how much anyone would like it to.
The world has simply progressed beyond the need for Russian power, and the faster all the remaining fence-sitters wake up to that fact, the better. Putin’s Russia should be treated as a dangerous, nuclear-armed, dysfunctional rogue state. The goal should be to contain it, and contain the damage from the chaos it causes, rather than to appease it by offering it some facsimile of the great-power respect we showed the old USSR."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-world-has-progressed-beyond-the
4. "In sum, the way the Russians have publicly announced their withdrawal with large forces still on the west bank, and the way they seem to be retreating into Kherson, does make it seem that they will try to extract a significant cost for the city. I’m not sure they can, and they could not hold it for long with the supply issues, but its something to watch in the coming days."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/kherson-update
5. "My general sense is that the FTX situation was caused by 3 Arrows Capital, which in turn revealed Sam Bankman-Fried and Alameda to be screwed in exactly the same way. Alameda had a $500 million loan with Voyager Digital, which caused them to lose enough money that Bankman-Fried transferred at least $4 billion of FTX funds into Alameda’s accounts, including FTT tokens and, somehow, shares in Robinhood, which SBF explained as “rotating a few FTX wallets.”
It will take a while to understand exactly how often and in what form Bankman-Fried used FTX funds as collateral, but I would be surprised if this were the only time, and I would imagine there are far more grizzly and egregious things to come out.
Bankman-Fried’s actions call into question every single cryptocurrency billionaire, every specious story about some plucky guy who “hit it big” on Bitcoin, and every muddy tale and rationalization of why someone is allegedly worth so much money now seems utterly disgraceful to believe.
https://ez.substack.com/p/sam-bankrun-fraud
6. "While I am supremely bullish on the prospects of crypto in 2023 (I know the date keeps slipping, but I reserve the right to change my mind in the face of market conditions), I believe we are about to trade to new lows as everyone wonders which crypto household name will go bankrupt next for lending money to FTX / Alameda.
Before I end this essay, let me be clear: centralized exchanges will always face these issues of mistrust on behalf of their customers. FTX was not the first high-profile exchange to fail and it won’t be the last. But throughout all this, blocks on the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all other blockchains were still produced and verified. Decentralized money and finance have and will continue to survive and thrive in the face of the failures of centralized entities."
https://hackernoon.com/speechless
7. "Success can be our undoing when we’re promoted beyond our true capabilities. The Peter principle holds that because people get promoted on the basis of prior performance, they will inevitably rise to the level of their incompetence. Our brains make it easy for our ambition to exceed our ability: The Dunning-Kruger effectdescribes a demonstrated cognitive weakness, that the less we know about something, the more we overestimate our knowledge. That’s why stupid people, and people who make great cars and then buy media companies, are so dangerous.
The inevitable collapse of the powerful is a good thing, and I’m glad we live in a universe that embraces this as a governing principle. Absolute power and wealth concentration are incompatible with the innovation that characterizes humanity’s upward movement. The crashing to Earth can cause collateral damage, but it’s a creative destruction.
What is the lesson, what can be learned? Every day, no matter how successful we become, we need to earn our success. We need to be kind and appreciative; we need to surround ourselves with people who will push back on us and question our beliefs and actions. We need to demonstrate humility. You are never more susceptible to a huge mistake than right after a big win, when you begin to believe the falsehood that your success is all about you. Yes, you’re brilliant and hardworking, but greatness is in the agency of others, and timing (and other features of luck) is everything.
The flip side is less discussed but more important. When you’ve fucked up, when things are going poorly — a relationship ends, you have professional disappointment, or you’re in financial stress — forgive yourself. Mourn, then move on."
https://www.profgalloway.com/hubris
8. "Every founder, as a steward of capital, is responsible for where they decide to invest their investor's dollars as they build their business. I'm really hopeful that John Foley has learned his lesson from Peloton, and will, in fact, "show profitability and have a real focus on unit economics."
But VCs could do a better job about not just funding the known quantities, but identifying people most capable of allocating capital effectively. People who think differently, who have unique perspectives on building companies that people really need. The very best founders are, themselves, phenomenal capital allocators. The most valuable skill for a founder to have, as they scale their business, is the ability to best allocate dollars to the most valuable people, projects, and priorities.
In business building, capital allocation isn't just a VC's game. It IS the game."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/stewards-of-capital
9. So many useful idiots out there on the hard left and hard right. Taiwan is NOT China (thank goodness)
https://taipology.substack.com/p/taiwan-and-china-are-not-one-nation
10. "To paraphrase Buffett, the tide has gone out and a lot of nudity is being exposed. That doesn’t mean it’s a good use of time to sit on the beach and watch the spectacle.
In the game of compounding, the number one goal is stay in the game. So make sure your mind and body get proper recovery. Cultivate your resilience. Remember Soros: “When I don’t have to, I don’t work.” Integrate the lessons but absolve yourself from honest mistakes.
Because no matter how bad it could get, even Singer acknowledged that after getting something wrong the next step is to “shrug and try to make some money.”
Bring out your dead trades, your bad decisions, and set them on fire. Cleanse your palate. On we go."
https://neckar.substack.com/p/on-the-other-side-of-bubble-mountain
11. Crazy times from Crypto: always a good discussion. FTX and a good perspective on US midterm elections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id7cNqwqt1I
12. "Put another way, the cost of rebuilding Ukraine is directly related to the speed with which Kyiv can bring about a strategic decision on the battlefield and force Moscow to negotiate terms that secure the country’s territory. Here lies the paradox of the European “Marshall Plan for Ukraine” project: Each day that military assistance to Ukraine is not provided in sufficient numbers delays the day of Russia’s defeat, thereby raising the cost of bringing Ukrainian infrastructure, its industry, and its military back to a level that attracts private investment.
The Oct. 25 conference was important in that it conveyed the right message about Europe’s commitment to help Kyiv after the war. But the principal focal point must be military assistance, for if the Ukrainians fail to defeat the Russian military and regain their illegally seized national territory, this conference, despite all its ambitions, will be remembered as yet another EU project not grounded in reality."
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/ukraine-reconstruction-starts-now
13. "While Musk has all the right to implement processes and management structure as he sees fit, I find no excuse on how he is doing all of this. He offers no compassion or respect for employees who helped build Twitter, and employees feel that he is outright hostile towards them. Just the fact that in two weeks, he managed to send a single email to employees - and that email was an ultimatum on returning to the office effective immediately - summarizes his attitude towards employees of the company he bought. Elon has broken all unwritten - and may written - rules of how tech companies operate.
Tesla and SpaceX are both companies where hardware is arguably just as important - if not more important - part of their success than software. Elon Musk turned both companies into roaring successes with a similar management style which he’s bringing to Twitter. It will be educational to see how this same management style will work at Twitter, which is a pure software company, which does not have an inspiring mission or challenging problem space that could compare with Tesla or SpaceX."
https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/cruel-changes-at-twitter
14. Good rundown on the FTX debacle. This will set the Crypto industry back a decade.
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/ftx-the-32b-implosion
15. Hard to argue against this. No wonder there is little faith or trust in our elites.
"They are travelling from all over the world to Egypt, will that not use tons of fossil fuels and emit massive amounts of C02? Yes, indeed!
In fact, they used a whopping 400 private jets to travel to the climate conference. You literally cannot make this up.
A source close to Egyptian aviation authorities told AFP that "more than 400 private jets landed in the past few days in Egypt".
Here the elite are all gathering to scheme how to reduce C02 emission by telling you that you must eat bugs and stop driving your car to save the planet, meanwhile they are all travelling on private jets. This is hypocrisy at the highest level."
https://petersweden.substack.com/p/climate-hypocrisy
16. Interesting approach here For SaaS Founders: Dolphin approach.
"Dolphins spend most of their life underwater, but they come up for air occasionally. This strategy works well for SaaS growth too.
SaaS companies can operate underwater (unprofitable) for long periods and still create substantial value. The vast majority of public SaaS businesses are unprofitable. However, there are substantial benefits to periodically coming up for air (operating profitably)."
https://www.maxio.com/blog/use-dolphin-strategy-for-saas-growth
17. More on the Dolphin Strategy for SaaS Growth.
https://davidcummings.org/2022/11/12/think-dolphin-strategy-for-more-measured-saas-growth
18. "Unfortunately, there is no greater return on investment in America today than bribing politicians and regulators. SBF and his network understand that reality. They spent the days before the collapse of FTX delivering massive resources into fixing the regulatory levers of power in D.C. to their liking.
During the crypto token bear market, Sam Bankman-Fried and his collaborators were trying to create a regulatory monopoly for their flagship FTX digital currency exchange, along with their massive venture capital empire, vacuuming up an incredible amount of equity in the digital token space.
Like most Ponzi schemes, things often great, at least from the outside looking in, while the Ponzi is operating. FTX was running Super Bowl ads, putting its name on stadiums, recruiting A list celebrities, actors, and athletes, all to prop up the operation."
https://dossier.substack.com/p/the-true-believer-how-sam-bankman
19. "Day by day, Ukrainian culture emerges, as Russian culture submerges. The sooner and more decisively Russia loses this war, the better it will be for the Russian future."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/of-sanctions-and-silencings
20. "Logistics means having a physical and mental plan for getting around in life; discipline means that you consistently put in the effort to be able to harvest the compound interest of your plans; and being open-minded means simply that you have developed the ability to accept two opposing ideas as both potentially being true."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/travel-light-living-light-being-light
21. "Little about Caballero’s aesthetic screams world-class: The slight 83-year-old works out of a nondescript building in suburban Dallas. His office is outfitted with gray carpeting and drop ceiling tiles. He shares the building with a waste management company.
But the agent’s numbers don’t lie:
In 2020, he set a world record of 6.4k home sales, presiding as the listing agent over ~$2.46B of sales volume.
This year, he’s on pace to sell ~6k homes in Texas — a rate of ~16 sales every day.
In an industry teeming with whales, Caballero has become a near-mythical force — a real estate megalodon. And he’s done it without relying on mega-mansion sales and high-rolling clientele.
All he did was come up with an idea that made homebuilders’ lives slightly easier."
https://thehustle.co/how-americas-top-real-estate-agent-sells-16-homes-every-day
22. "If we allow this overreach when it comes to our finances, it’s only a matter of time before they begin to rationalise this kind of surveillance over other aspects of our lives. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.
Awareness of these matters is key. At the very least, I would encourage you to share newsletters like this, or news stories of current proposals in the Netherlands and the United States with others whenever you read them.
Financial privacy is our right. Don’t let that right be taken."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/you-are-guilty
23. "This is why I am still long crypto. Despite its many flaws, I believe it has miraculous potential to improve our world. Self-sovereign money, smart contracts, and digital property rights are radical, revolutionary ideas that we are in the early innings of understanding and applying.
In a matter of decades, we may look back on the state’s rigid stranglehold on money as a quirky artifact, an obvious overreach.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) has its own quirks, but it has held up well, by comparison, showing that code is often less corruptible than people. We may see it bloom more fully in the coming years.
The second reason I am still long on crypto is the people. That may sound counterintuitive given the description of the casino we are currently in. Who wants to be surrounded by a swarm of gamblers?
While crypto may have plenty of them, it also has some of the most fiercely intelligent, driven, and gritty people I have met.
Though infuriated and disappointed by much of this week, I have also been reminded of these qualities. Founders, investors, and operators I speak to know their jobs have become much harder and are determined to continue, undaunted. These people believe (as I do) the movement is too important to abandon; it will emerge stronger."
https://www.generalist.com/briefing/the-casino-and-the-genie
24. "The lesson here is simple. If you buy computer coins, you do the following: 1) send immediately to cold storage and 2) if you need cash then you send it back to exchange and immediately sell. There is *some* risk here but the goal is to limit the *time* your assets sit on ANY exchange. This includes Binance, Coinbase etc.
More likely than not the contagion spreads. People who think this will be contained just to crypto are short sighted. Lots of rich people were buying homes, boats and cars because they had thousands or millions on FTX. When everything comes crashing down it will impact the broader economy."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/what-a-week-meta-exchange-scams-and
25. "In other words, I look out in the world and I don’t see a polycrisis; I see an emerging polysolution. The looming threats of climate change and authoritarian revanchism, combined with the shocks of Covid and inflation, have stirred both policymakers and businesses to action. And many of those actions will end up addressing multiple crises rather than just one.
I want to venture out on a limb here and say that this is not a coincidence. A lot of the buffer mechanisms I described above are political in nature, and they share the basic description of “human beings coming together in a crisis to address their collective problems”. During good times, human beings tend to seem irresolute and divided as pursue our individual goals and fight over the pie.
External shocks can bring the entire system crashing down, but they can also spur humans to get serious and start working together.
This is not to say that “hard times make strong men”, as the popular meme goes. It’s that we were “strong men” (and women, and nonbinary persons, etc.) all along, and we just didn’t have a reason to buckle down and get serious about solving society’s problems.
You know how in the fantasy stories, the Hero of Legend always mysteriously appears just in time to fight the Great Evil? It’s not luck, it’s selection bias. If the Hero of Legend appeared in normal times and there was no Great Evil around, they would just end up playing in a grunge band or coding a mobile app."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/against-polycrisis
26. "Now, the game is over for Bankman-Fried. Just weeks ago, he was a Democratic megadonor, one of the richest men who ever lived, the very face of what many in Washington and on Wall Street thought was the future of the economy: someone who could unlock the potential of cryptocurrencies and still walk with ease through the traditional world of money and power.
In less than a week, it was all annihilated, with questions of fraud and admissions of misappropriating his own customer’ funds exposing his empire to be a house of cards.
On Friday, FTX and his hedge fund, Alameda Research, filed for bankruptcy, and he resigned as CEO of the exchange. Government officials in the Bahamas, where his companies are based, seized what was left of their assets.
Investigators are reportedly probing his company and him, personally, to understand what happened — investigations that are likely to delve into whether or not the former wunderkind (an MIT physics major whose parents are both Stanford professors) defrauded his way into the most rarefied of positions. Sequoia, like other VCs who plowed money into the company, proactively marked down their stake to zero.
It’s not clear what’s going to happen with FTX or the people whose money is trapped on the platform. The repercussions are likely to be even deeper than the Terra blowup earlier this year, with companies he was about to rescue now likely out of luck. The company had apparently been expanding in sub-Saharan Africa, where bank access and resources that could help people get their money back are spotty.
Bankman-Fried has repeatedly apologized on Twitter. Ryne Miller, a lawyer for FTX who reportedly pushed back against its internal practices, didn’t want to talk when I reached him by phone and referred me to a press release. Bankman-Fried hasn’t really offered a convincing story of how it all collapsed so quickly, though what has emerged has been damning. Still, it’s not clear that Bankman-Fried views this as anything more than a game that was to be won or lost."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/it-was-all-a-game-for-sam-bankman-fried.html
27. "Not much has changed in the 365 years since Palmstruch’s bank collapsed, except for the whole “jailing bankers” thing. As long as there have been custodians of money, maturity mismatches, and varying degrees of liquidity among asset classes, there have been confidence losses that catalyze runs.
Fraud is almost always found in the ashes of collapse (although history shows that outright fraud is usually a mid- to late-stage event). At some point in the boom-bust cycle, enterprises engaging in a little bit of chicanery to skirt through an otherwise manageable crisis find that once the culture accepts having stolen a penny, ethical incrementalism makes stealing nickels, dimes, and quarters all but inevitable.
The immunity from prison that fraudsters have thus far enjoyed in the currently bursting market bubble seems set to expire. In the past week, a fraud so brazen collapsed so spectacularly that even today’s batch of feckless regulators will be forced to act. Although the shockwaves from the rapid implosion of Alameda Research and FTX are still emanating from the Bahamas, a tsunami of consequences will barrel towards financial and political shorelines the world over in the weeks and months ahead. Investors are suddenly reacquainting themselves with the concept of counterparty risk (again!), and schemes that need a steady stream of fresh fiat to prop themselves up will soon drown in the contagion.
And while it was the traditional media that blindly paraded Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to celebrity investor status, a combination of new citizen journalism and old-school short sellers played pivotal roles in exposing the scam. Let’s dig in."
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/poof-of-work
28. Very good news in Kherson: Crimean peninsula next! #SlavaUkraini!
Be a Live Player: How to be Exceptional in Life
I learned an interesting new term called “Live Player” from brilliant thinker Samo Burj. Its defined as “A live player is a person or well-coordinated group of people that is able to do things they have not done before.” These are people who are dynamic, adaptive, very responsive and constantly learning. This is in contrast to Dead Players: “A dead player is a person or group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things.”
You can find more in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik5AxJSjcjI & also here: https://medium.com/@samo.burja/live-versus-dead-players-2b24f6e9eae2
What determines a Live Player?
“What are signs that a player is alive? One strong sign is a player doing things outside of their expected domain — in a new, unexpected domain — which indicates that they can figure out new things for themselves.
Another sign of a live player is exceptional individuals gravitating towards them. Such individuals tend to be good at assessing others, and will tend to seek out others who are also exceptional. If they cluster around a person or group, there is something exceptional about that person or group. Successfully reverse-engineering an attack is another, albeit weak, sign of a live player. Those who can make novel moves will also tend to be able to reverse-engineer moves, but those who can reverse-engineer moves often lack the ability to create novel ones.”
Some live examples of “Live Players” are: Tom Ford, Elon Musk, Madonna, Napoleon, Jeff Bezos & Tim Ferriss.
Individuals who are capable of great change in their lives and careers, adaptive as hell and greatly impactful in the world.
This concept is so personally fascinating to me. I think about many of the people I look up to and many of them fit this characterization of a live player. When I think of the people I detest, they all seem to fit the “Dead Player” characterization. These would include many of the bureaucrats in government, the stodgy yet corrupt politicians all over the world, Big company people and elitists in academia and across the media establishment, whose gross incompetence came to the fore during the 2020-2021 pandemic.
I find that based on my career, I’ve unintentionally pursued the “Live Player” life, albeit with much less impact & success than many of the very gifted individuals previously listed. But still, this style of living through constant learning and adapting is why I enjoy my life so much (most of the time).
So the point is: be a “Live player.” We need you! All innovation and progress relies on this. As Samo Burj states correctly: “Societies with few live players will stagnate; societies with many live players will develop and adapt.
Knowing When to Quit: Sometimes You Have to Move On
One of my favorite movies is “You’ve Got Mail” starring Meg Ryan as a small children’s bookstore shopkeeper & Tom Hanks as her big chain bookstore businessman & nemesis. It’s such a classic movie showing the glory of New York City in all its 4 seasons. It’s also a great story full of great characters.
There is this scene when the character Meg Ryan plays decides she needs to close up her store because she can’t stay in business any longer due to the bruising competition. Her older & wiser friend tells her:
“Closing the store is the brave thing to do. You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life.
Oh I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you are not. You are marching into the great unknown with nothing.”
There is something to this. A brand new start. A blank canvas to paint on. A blank piece of paper to start over.
I’ve had so many conversations with startup founders talking about when to quit and shut down the company. Startups are really really hard & most usually don’t work out. It can be challenging and difficult to know when or whether to do so. To quit. You can’t think straight and usually need an outsider to help you look at the situation coldly. To talk through it.
The reason for this is “sunk costs fallacy”: this is when you continue with the behavior or in an initiative or project as a result of previously invested resources. Source: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
Sunk costs are hard to overcome especially when you have spent so much of your own time, money and life into something. This is the same with marriage and long romantic relationships too.
But there comes to a point when things aren’t getting better. Where there is limited or no progress despite your efforts. Or maybe it’s getting worse. Sometimes things just don’t work out for whatever reason. Timing. Business model doesn’t work. Trends moving against you. Or maybe you are just plain tired and exhausted.
Change is hard. But it’s better to go out on your own terms. It’s okay to quit. If you have done your best and given your all, then you should have no regret. If you are a startup founder, make sure you take care of your employees. Be as generous with severance as possible, be a good reference for them and make whatever intros you can. Transition your customers well too. Die with Honor as they say.
Sometimes there are circumstances where it’s better to move on. Take the lessons you learned, treasure the good memories and step bravely into your new future.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 13th, 2022
"Courage isn't having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don't have strength."― Napoleon Bonaparte
Important video on a possible future war with China. They are the enemy, like it or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q_GktDcqX4
2. If you are a geopolitical geek like me, this is a lively and fascinating discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mihDhlwg96w
3. "As with bankruptcy, the sell-off happened gradually, then suddenly. Last week was a turning point. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Snap all missed big on earnings. The common theme? Ads. Or lack thereof. We knew the Mad Men era had come to an end; we weren’t expecting the end of Ad Men.
But let’s be honest, advertising sucks. Cable ads provide a glimpse into what it’s like to have restless leg syndrome, and digital ads, while more relevant, are carbon — the noxious byproduct of converting attention into shareholder value via algorithms that bring out the worst in the species. I’ll say it again, advertising sucks."
https://www.profgalloway.com/elephants-in-the-room
4. "Technology adoption turns hyperbolic during a recession or any major event promoting budget cuts, layoffs, or dramatic changes in the market. Covid-19 was a good example of what this looks like.
So much of the company prospecting process can be eliminated due to automation.
They also clean their CRM data so if anyone changes jobs or changes an email/phone number it gets automatically updated in the CRM. This makes the outreach process more effective due to not wasting time on bad info.
Simple. It’s cheaper to use sales technology than it is to hire more salespeople. When you use sales technology you multiply your sales efforts and decrease management overhead. If you can manage sales reps via software instead of a sales manager why would you hire a sales manager? And if you can get the 2x more results from the current reps you have there’s no need to hire more reps.
The issue is companies don’t know how to use sales tech!"
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/the-future-of-sales-and-what-it-means
5. "Let’s accept layoffs as part and parcel of business cycles, amongst many other smart-sounding external factors and mismanagement despite best intentions. It is what it is. They happen! Life is unfair.
What grinds my gears is leadership not owning their difficult decision of laying people off. Again, I don’t consider them bad people for laying off! I do not believe they enjoy doing them.
But, let's fault them if and when they fail to own the decision and take the necessary steps to minimize the pain, confusion, and uncertainty that inevitably flow from layoffs. The most effective levers for doing so are appropriate communication and post-layoff support to the extent a company’s financial situation allows them to."
https://sarharibhakti.substack.com/p/a-rant-on-layoffs-from-someone-who
6. "Long story short: if you’re ever expecting to retire, you’ll need to make preparations to take care of this yourself. Nobody else will—especially your government, despite their promises.
So, what’s a person to do? Well, I can’t tell you how you should prepare. That’s not my place, especially considering our unique individual circumstances.
But for me, setting aside at least 10% of my monthly income (though ideally 20%) to be invested into hard appreciating assets like real estate, precious metals, or even commodities is a good start. And if the idea of setting aside up to a fifth of your income for future safekeeping seems like an impossibility, then it may be time to increase your income or earning ability in whatever way you can, as soon as you can.
Just remember: the sands of time wait for none of us."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/fear-the-reaper
7. "So overall the acquisition of equipment has (as it always does) played a major role in determining the war so far. Russian issues in this area and Ukrainian successes have basically helped change what was a war of Russian offensive to Ukrainian counteroffensive. Both sides, however, have major vulnerabilities.
The Russians need to be able to find ways to either produce or acquire equipment to make up for their losses while the Ukrainians need to make sure that their NATO supporters continue on with their aid programs. The real canary in the coal mine here is what happens with the US mid-term elections."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/long-form-thoughts-on-the-weekend
8. "Intuitively, it makes sense that more entrepreneurial activity in a community is a good thing. Only, it’s important to go up a level to think about why a larger, broader, and deeper startup scene helps the region, especially in the context of a long, multi-decade horizon."
https://davidcummings.org/2022/11/05/why-grow-the-startup-community
9. "Please do not lose your income as layoffs will continue through Q1. As a rule of thumb the cuts come in October/November and then February/March for most industries.
This is due to budget setting as mentioned many times here to start the year and Feb/March is another round if they don’t see enough “natural attrition”. Which means people leaving/quitting/retiring etc.
If you want an idea of what the next 12 months will look like, we suggest watching some old Rocky movies. The quiet quitting trend is over."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/ftx-and-cz-marry-the-home-guarantee
10. "To get to simplicity I have to push through distractions, complexity, and lots of hard work but I know it’s worth the effort. I have to reduce everything I’m learning down to its essence to leap forward.
Simplicity is simply mastery, the state of mind and being when you can express yourself in any medium with fluidity, clarity, and excellence, making it seem so easy that anyone can do it without any effort."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/simplicity-is-hard-work
11. This is a worthwhile panel to listen to as a VC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REFAe7qhb74
12. Detroit & Houston are well positioned for the future. In fact, US already well positioned as we re-industrialize.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GgxbBzQfQk
13. Pretty important discussion here on energy and geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwIlWq3Isxc
14. "But when researchers expanded their definition of aggression to include verbal aggression and indirect aggression (rumor spreading, gossiping, ostracism, and friendship termination) they found that girls score higher on indirect aggression and no sex differences in verbal aggression.
The most common reasons people give for their most recent act of aggression are threats to social status and reputational concerns."
https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/the-male-warrior-hypothesis
15. This was a masterclass on Venture investing from one of the best leading the best. So many gems of wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIL2FUm2WIM
16. "You always say yes to more responsibility and a promotion. The reasoning is quite simple. If you get promoted your manager and his manager have to “admit” it was a mistake.
This is unlikely. If you get promoted you usually have about a year or so to show results. The only way you get promoted then fired in a month is if there are major management changes in the org chart. Per usual, there are always “exceptions”. Example: never take a promotion to a non-revenue generating role. Stay in the profit centers.
90% of the time? There is no way your boss or the boss of your boss is going to walk up to Senior Management and say “Hey i made a huge mistake already! It has been 3 weeks!”."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/some-fast-career-advice-and-museums
17. "Since 1945 all nuclear powers have refrained from using nuclear weapons because none of them have been presented with an existential military threat against there existence. If Russia were to break that taboo in a war of conquest, it could have dramatic impact on nuclear non-proliferation.
If states around the world see that nuclear weapons can now be used to compel their capitulation to conquest, what would stop Taiwan and Japan, for instance, from developing their own nuclear deterrent. That would be probably the worst possible development from a Chinese perspective.
Likewise, if China believes this era represents that dawn of a new Chinese age, they cant be wild about the prospect of a nuclear weapons use leading to global instability.
So all in all, China probably represents a huge break on any Russian use of nuclear weapons, and the Chinese statement today is real confirmation of that."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-the-nuclear-issue-and
18. Hmmm......
"Musk has accidentally created a public hearing on his reputational and professional worth, where we now will see if he is a great CEO or a rich guy who kept winning until he didn’t. The public will now watch and judge him in real time as he makes the decisions that most CEOs get to make behind closed doors, in part because he can’t help but announce them personally. He cannot post less, because it will show a lack of attachment to the massive purchase he made, and if he posts more, he will be subject to the hyper-attention that made him famous."
https://ez.substack.com/p/musks-kobayashi-maru
19. "My way of achieving this goal is to scale back on consumption; only buying well made things that last and that I frequently use. This has allowed me to both work less on meaningless projects, having higher quality experiences, and enjoying a nomadic lifestyle. Your dream might be different but the process is the same.
Today we are exposed to an infinite amount of ideas, things, and people via the Internet. And as much as I love this technology, it’s important to understand how it really works and to create your own filters and boundaries for how you use it."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/a-new-direction-back-to-the-future
20. "It’s harder and harder to break those stars today. That’s why labels offer more favorable contracts to keep those artist who are already proven. It’s also why they are eager to find the next superstars from non-English speaking markets that are less saturated. It’s all connected.
This shift is bigger than music. It’s happening in Hollywood. It’s happening in all forms of content and media. But since music is often first to get disrupted, there’s a larger disconnect between expectations and reality.
There are many artists sold on the belief that they can be the next Kendrick Lamar. The challenge today is that even if they have K.dot’s talent and adapt his playbook for today’s era, that merely gives them a chance of success. TikTok algorithms can have artists think that those millions of views on a viral post will translate to millions of concert tickets sold.
The power laws of music are stronger than they are in any other form of entertainment. The platforms, superstars, niche stars, and the companies they work with have all benefited. It’s everyone else that has to catch up."
https://trapital.co/2022/11/07/who-wins-when-there-are-too-many-songs
21. This explains the bizarre German foreign and domestic policy we see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFAnTkKUYj0
22. "As leaders, we would do well to welcome our own humanity and at times even our own frailty. We would do well to invite the humanity of those we seek to lead.
As investors, we would do well to check in with our portfolio CEOs as humans, not simply as operators.
You are not a robot. Neither was Jobs. And that, my friend, is wonderful if inconvenient news."
https://www.mattmunson.me/self-criticism
23. "We think of war as a battleground involving tanks, troops, ships, and planes. But technology has made it possible for a new battleground involving DNA, cells, organs, and scientists in labs.
The human body is the battleground in an era of hybrid biogenetic warfare. We have a situation now where China is accusing the US of engaging in such warfare. The US is fearing that China might engage in such warfare."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/pishi-and-porcupine
24. This seems more relevant than ever.
"If you’re going through a rough situation, my advice is stay strong, stay data-driven, leverage the resources around you, and demand the best of your team. Focus on first diagnosing the problem and then on building and attaining a steady-state funnel model to get things back on track.
It may feel like you’re going through hell, but remember, as Winston Churchill famously said, “if you’re going through hell, keep going.”
https://kellblog.com/2022/11/06/how-to-fix-a-broken-go-to-market-motion-using-a-steady-state-funnel
25. This is pretty damn surprising.
Maybe not, Considering how tumultuous the crypto space has been this year.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/08/binance-signs-letter-of-intent-to-acquire-ftx
26. This is actually a very good idea from a VC fund.
"Her bet? At least 0.1% to 1% of the thousands of employees impacted by tech layoffs this year could become incredible founders."
27. I think everyone is still shocked here.
"The rapid disintegration of Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire will likely unravel further VC investors’ confidence in blockchain startups, which attracted a frenzy of investor interest last year. And Bankman-Fried was one of the most successful fundraisers."
28. "When journalists have suspicions about a business, they like to call it a “house of cards.” It’s a vivid analogy that basically means “We can’t tell you what is wrong with the business, but something is.” It honestly irks me when people throw the expression around without doing the work to explain what’s happening, but it is also important to follow one’s instincts.
And for a while now, a lot of people have had a funny feeling about crypto and specifically about FTX, one of the world’s most popular places to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
Specifically, the thing that didn’t smell right was FTX’s relationship with crypto trading fund Alameda Research, which Bankman-Fried also controlled.
It seemed icky that one of the world’s largest brokers of crypto currency was so close to one of the world’s largest buyers of crypto currencies. Some wondered about that broker’s impartiality given their relationship. But that’s just how crypto works, people said. And who doesn’t want to bet on a young wunderkind? That was a part Bankman-Fried played so well.
No one really asked the tough questions about the relationship, apparently not even the world’s most renowned investors, including Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and Paradigm, which collectively poured hundreds of millions into FTX, valuing the three-year-old company at more than $32 billion."
29. "First, the economic and military dominance of the Western world is not nearly as overwhelming as it was one hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago.
That dominance is being eroded by the growth of other parts of the world organized according to different principles, and obviously so by China. So if the performance of the liberal capitalist model is inferior to another model, then perhaps democratic liberal capitalism is not the best way to organize the mankind everywhere?
Second, in responding to the challenges of globalization and the hollowing out of the domestic middle classes, a significant part of the Western public opinion shifts to populism, nationalism etc. all the forces that a successful liberal capitalist model should make sure remain marginal. But they are no longer so.
Third, Danny raises the issue: should not our thinking about what is the best way to organize economic and political life be influenced not only by who is doing it most successfully but also by where the majority of the world population lives? It is not simply an arithmetical point. It comes from requiring that the modes of successful life that many people experience do have a greater empirical validity than the ways of successful life experienced by smaller groups of people."
https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/reframing-the-world
30. "From a US security perspective its just a no brainer to arm the Ukrainians to take out Russia, and Iranian, military capability. The best bang for buck, quite literally, for the US, and putting zero US lives in danger."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/midterms-dont-change-the-calculus
31. "Now, following a series of missteps — that’s the best-case scenario — FTX didn’t just lose its rich valuation. According to the WSJ, FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told investors today that he needed emergency funding to cover a shortfall of up to $8 billion due to withdrawal requests received in recent days. Reportedly, he has been seeking a mixture of debt and equity.
It’s not surprising that Sequoia decided instead to write off its roughly $210 million investment. Presumably, others of FTX’s investors — including BlackRock, Tiger Global, Insight Partners, and Paradigm — are shooting out their own communications to limited partners about making the same decision.
(The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, which invested directly in FTX, has a much broader base of shareholders who may be wondering about their retirement savings, even while their pensions are guaranteed.)"
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/09/sequoia-capital-marks-its-ftx-investment-down-to-zero-dollars
32. "Russia’s strategy is about suffering: for people, to diminish morale and the population’s support for Ukraine’s war effort; and for the economy, to crush it so that Ukraine can’t meet the needs of its people and is even more reliant on the West — a West that is also dealing with cost of living, inflation, and energy crises as winter approaches.
The strategy is cruel, but, as experts pointed out, so far it has failed to do anything more than harden attitudes against Russia. And it has not, at all, boosted Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield. “Despite that massive wave of terrorist attacks that [Putin] just recently did, he’s still losing ground,” Spencer said.
Russia retreating from the city of Kherson may also help make Ukraine’s case that its strategy of retaking Ukrainian territory and expelling Russia is the right course. As Menon said, “it’s a big morale boost,” even as Russian and Ukrainian troops face fiercer and more critical battles in the east.
It will likely also bolster Ukraine’s case to the West that it can possibly win those battles if it can just get more Western military support, including advanced weapons and air defense systems to protect against Russian barrages targeting infrastructure. “They also have a very strong card to play, which is: you’re supplying us — but we’re delivering, we’re showing we’re capable of winning,” Menon said."
https://www.vox.com/world/2022/11/9/23449707/kherson-russia-retreat-ukraine-war
33. Great Discussion about FTX from the NIA guys.
The Path to Progress, Fulfillment & Fun: Taking Risks
No risk, no reward.
This is the rule in business, in investing and in relationships. All the wonderful things that make life special.
Growing up as the eldest son in a Taiwanese immigrant family, I’m as conservative as they come. The regular path was what was drummed into me. Get good grades in school (that did not quite happen), get a good safe job at an established company or organization. Safe but boring.
But when I turned 22 I left Canada in search of adventure, summer school in England, backpacking in Europe. Then it was off to Asia for a 2 year stint, before ending up in San Francisco.
I look back at all the best things that happened to me. Backpacking in Europe and meeting some fascinating people, living in Taiwan and meeting my wife which led to my wonderful daughter Amber. A fulfilling career in a fast growing startup, an international career at Yahoo! And now a venture capital investor & sometime newsletter writer. None of which would have happened without taking some risk, a bit of luck and lots of hard work. And I should add, all off the beaten paths of my peer group and family expectations at that time.
Life is about taking chances. Not stupid jump off the Golden Gate Bridge drunk without a parachute risk. But calculated risks.
In venture capital and Angel investing it’s called Asymmetric risks. Ones with unfathomable payoffs but with the potential loss of only what you put in.
And this is not the choice of joining Goldman Sachs over McKinsey. That’s not really a risk frankly. Real risk is joining a no name underfunded technology or biotech startup that may die in a few months but has the chance to dramatically improve how we live. That’s true risk.
You never know where the random meeting, call or investment will take you. It could lead to life changing wealth, lifelong friendships, a life partner or a nugget of insight that will change how you view the world.
There is this scene in Nolan’s classic sci-fi movie “Inception”, where the Japanese industrialist says to the protagonist: “So do you want to take a leap of faith….or become an old man filled with regret… waiting to die alone.”
An interesting and fulfilling life requires taking risks. Progress in life and the world requires taking risks. It requires a leap of faith. Many of them, all the time on a regular basis. Be brave and take action. You may be surprised by where life takes you….in a good way.
Easy Come, Easy Go: Understanding the Universal Law of Money & Success
There has been so much wealth created in the last few years in tech and crypto. I’d go even further that in tech we’ve had a crazy run over the last 13-14 years. But now we are seeing the other side of this boom. The painful bust. Lots of bad habits to unlearn.
In some ways it’s like winning a lottery ticket. Many of these folks end up losing the money and end up poorer than they started with. I admit the same thing happened to me, i’ve been pretty stupid with the amount of money I’ve made and wasted.
In some ways, the same thing happens to super wealthy people. If you do very well, wealth sometimes hides you from the reality of the market. You have resources to fulfill and dull all your senses.
This is like the money law of “High School Hero” Syndrome. The people who did well in high school like being the captain of the football team & class valedictorian etc etc, usually don’t do well in University or even in life in general, because they peaked & stopped learning. We all know people like this.
It’s like a curse to have a lot of success too early in life. You end up drawing the wrong conclusions. Lesson from Carol Dweick, that you develop the wrong mindset. If you are told you are successful because you are smart, you stop taking risks as you don’t want to make mistakes that will threaten that image in your brain.
This causes you to stop growing. You stop learning. This is death as an investor, and death as an individual in our ultra competitive and rapidly changing world.
The people who are able to keep their money are ones who earned it through hardship and having gone through lots of ups and downs in life. There are folks we see as “overnight successes”, but if you dig a bit deeper you can see how long it really took. Usually 10-20 years at least. Any bigtime Hollywood star you know, did a crazy number of casting calls and suffered through a lot of rejection before hitting it big. The founder of Instacart, that was his 8 or 9th startup. Many of the Unicorns in my portfolio struggled for 7-8 years before they got there.
The big success stories we will hear about in 5 to 10 years are toiling in obscurity right now.
Good stuff takes time. There is no way around it. So be ambitious, be aggressive but also be patient. Be resilient and stay in the game. Long term thinking is the only way to win and keep it.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 6th, 2022
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."― Nelson Mandela
I love these historical recaps.
https://twitter.com/LandsknechtPike/status/1585917457101099008
2. "With fewer loose spending venture capitalists running around, startups will face fewer competitors. That means they can spend less money fighting with each other and raise fewer dilutive funding rounds.
“The better investments will be made in the next five years or 10 years,” Khosla said.
During our conversation, Khosla was already predicting that stumbling tech giants would be a boon for startups — before Facebook and Amazon’s stocks fell this week.
“There’s another phenomenon that happens in a time like this: Google’s not hiring. Facebook’s not hiring. People are clamping down,” Khosla says. “Guess what happens to their most advanced projects? They go. And guess who are the best people in any large company? The best people are working on the most advanced projects. They are the ones who want to do visionary things. They’re the fodder entrepreneur for venture capitalists. So I think many more of the best people — not because they’re not getting paid huge raises in compensation — but because they’re working on less interesting projects — will leave to follow their vision.”
He concluded, “We will have fewer startups, but many more higher quality startups.”
https://www.newcomer.co/p/vinod-khosla-isnt-quiet-quitting
3. Great conversation. They excel when it comes to discussion on the tech industry and tech giants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-bIpJdaCnM
4. "Performance is pretending for the masses, practice is playing for ourselves. Once I discovered this little secret, I became free to focus my own time, attention, and creative energy on things that matters to me and maybe no-one else."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/changing-perspective-changes-everything
5. "It feels as if I’m meeting a man putting himself back together, and not quite sure how all the parts fit. He is still reeling from grief, while also embracing a new life, one that includes a surprise career change."
6. "VC investment business model is similar to the book publishing and movie industries — it is dominated by betting on “blockbusters” and the power law. A few stars in the portfolio will create the vast majority of your returns, while the rest of the portfolio loses money. This is why all of these industries focus investments on their winners and add more follow-on investments to those that show signs of becoming blockbusters, while cutting their losses on all other investments."
https://yrjo.medium.com/analogies-v-3-f0a6f607030e
7. "Yes, success could be measured as revenue, status, or scale, but that’s not what success looks like to me. Suddenly, I’d have to transform from a writer to a manager, and that’s not at all what gives me pleasure in this life.
So I urge you to ask yourself the question: What are you working so hard for right now? What does your ultimate happiness look like? If you look at your trajectory, are you just filling the time until you reach that destination — or can you find a more direct route to the destination by making it your life’s work today?
Remember, we’re all investors in this life. No, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about time. As the quote goes: “Time is a currency you can only spend once, so be careful how you spend it.”
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-kanye-wests-private-academy-b1b
8. "You might know these devices as Ouija boards. But Ouija is a brand, like Kleenex or Tupperware. And at one point in time, it was a multimillion-dollar business.
“Think of Coke and Pepsi. Coke is probably number one, Pepsi is number two. There is no number two for the Ouija board,” the museum’s owner, John Kozik, told The Hustle.
When Kozik points out other brands in the collection, guests often assume they won’t work as well because they’re not “official,” as though ghosts harbor a brand-name preference.
This is the story of how, thanks to the combined forces of spiritualism and capitalism, Ouija became the go-to for communing with the dead."
https://thehustle.co/the-strange-business-history-of-the-ouija-board
9. "Of all the frankly disturbing predictions of how technology might be used to limit our individual freedoms in the near future, it’s CBDCs that worry me the most. Simply because when those in power have the ability to coerce, manipulate, or force people’s actions by controlling their ability to use money—our basic means for survival in today’s world—they would gain the godlike ability to engineer the behaviour of an entire population.
Or as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger aptly put it:
“Who controls money can control the world.”
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/control-the-world
10. For SaaS Founders and investors everywhere. Lots of solid data points.
https://kellblog.com/2022/10/30/key-takeaways-from-the-2022-keybanc-saas-metrics-survey
11. Some good frameworks and thoughts in investing here. Whatever you think of Chamath there is much to learn. (I like his perspective)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXV2Zqke5MM
12. So much wisdom from one of the greats of VC.
"The collective venture community needs to get its head around the new reality as fast as possible. The more people see what’s really going on, the quicker that will happen. In ’09, the response to the downturn was pretty swift. But you had the benefit that ’01 was only seven or eight years in the rearview mirror. While there’s still some institutional memory around the Valley, it’s been a very long time since 2009.
I try to convey that they need to get in front of this. In a couple meetings, I’ve heard an owner or founder say, “Well, you know, we just need to buckle down until things get back to where they were.” And I’m, like, “No, the fantasy was the past five years.”
What we’re in now may just be normal, right? This may be average. And that’s very hard for people. It’s especially hard for a founder.
Everybody says, “We’re getting to the bone.” Everyone says that. And I know it’s a touchy subject because people are losing their jobs. But companies—even small start-ups—are way more resilient than people realize. It’s the norm that you cut 30 percent, and everything keeps going. You don’t lose all your customers. And some people find, “Oh, wait, we’re moving a little faster.” Sometimes things get better. I mean, yes, eventually some companies go bankrupt. But I’ve never seen someone do too much. You can always hire back. I think 95 percent of the time, the failure is the other way, of not doing enough."
13. "Lastly, the fourth takeaway is that being exposed to a variety of fields, perspectives, and people can be an incredible competitive advantage. As I mentioned in the book notes for Robert Greene’s Mastery, my wife and I are constantly talking about how to expose our daughter to as many ideas as possible. It feels dumb that parents think this way for their children, but we lose sight of the importance for ourselves as we get older. We are all children at heart."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/curiosity-can-change-your-life
14. "As I look at the distance between now and my date of birth, I realize I’m closer to the end than to the beginning. The good news is we can all push the ending farther away if we try. We just need good information (check) and to do the work.
From what I hear, immortality can get a bit lonely, so keep the above in mind when preparing food for those you love — or share this post with them.
Eat right, live longer and feel better."
https://bakadesuyo.com/2022/10/nutrition
15. For those who are interested in Micro-Private Equity this is an amazing conversation. Codie is the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrgusUWqTTY&t=51s
16. Taiwan is awesome and special. Glad people are slowly discovering its importance.
"Culturally, Taiwan is very much not China, and this becomes apparent as soon as you leave the airport. The food — and food is Taiwan’s national pastime — is obviously Chinese-derived, but is really its own thing. It blends all the regional cuisines of China into a mishmash, because the Nationalists came from everywhere, and it adds touches from Japan, but it also has plenty of the purely original flourishes that emerge from any rich consumerist society.
Milk tea is everywhere, as you might expect, though tastes have moved beyond the classic boba formula. The urban layout of Taipei, the signage and architecture and design, are definitely not Chinese, nor are they Japanese; they’re something new and recently made. Almost two years ago I wrote that “Taiwan is a civilization”, and I stand by that formulation.
Why should a peaceful, prosperous, gentle country like Taiwan be forced to prepare for the threat of invasion and bloodshed? There is no principle of human morality or justice that says they should have to. Instead, it’s purely the law of the jungle; there are predators in this world, and they will conquer what they can until they are stopped.
China’s leaders want to conquer Taiwan not just because they want to rival the old Qing dynasty in territorial extent, but because Taiwan represents something to them that they can’t abide — an alternative blueprint for Asia. Perhaps even more than Japan or South Korea, Taiwan shows people in China and its satellite states what they’re missing — a way of life where people can just be themselves, instead of living in service to a grand empire."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/eleven-days-in-taiwan
17. "What counts at the level of Grand Strategy are two sets of fundamentals. First is Mass: population, economy, technology. Then Mass x Cohesion = power. With no cohesion, there is no strength at all, even with a lot of Mass. Second is what a country has abroad: allies, neutrals, enemies.
As for its economy, Russia, though not a rich country, is entirely self-sufficient in food and energy. This is not true of most countries. The same G-7 sanctions that could not stop Russia could stop Xi Jinping’s China, which must choose between fighting wars and eating protein. Yes, more than a year of rice reserves and some months of frozen pork can be stored, but not the immense amounts of soya beans China imports to feed animals for milk, eggs and meat.
We all saw that Russia is weak in allies, because instead of attracting neutrals to its side, it frightened them into joining Nato or at least to remain neutral. Russia is also weak in allies because, even though it has a navy, it is not a maritime power."
https://unherd.com/2022/11/vladimir-putins-failed-strategy
18. "You could argue that Elon controlling Twitter acts as off-balance sheet marketing for Tesla, SpaceX, and every other company he builds. Auto makers typically spend 2-3% of revenue on marketing. Ford, GM, Hyundai, Subaru, Kia, and Ferrari spent a combined $10 billion on advertising in 2021. Mercedes-Benz, Renault (Renault, Nissan), and Stellantis (Fiat, Chrysler, Peugeot) don't break out advertising expenses, but reported $22.8 billion in Selling, General, & Administrative (SG&A) expenses in 2021.
As a comp for SpaceX, Boeing paid $2.9 billion in SG&A expenses in 2021, or 4.7% of its revenue. For Tesla, that 2-3% of revenue would come out to $1-2 billion in marketing expenses. That's close to the estimated interest expense due annually on the debt financing the Twitter acquisition
Elon stands to benefit whether or not he can actually improve Twitter's underlying business. Owning Twitter ensures marketing benefits to Elon's other businesses. And Twitter's core product is a top of funnel for Elon to build other consumer products over time. Elon may look to China as an example, where the largest social platforms not only keep people in touch with friends and entertain them with videos, but also enable payments, food delivery, travel bookings, and hundreds of billions in ecommerce transactions.
Early product experiments are just the start. Most will probably fail. In the words of Rohit Krishnan on Twitter, "I have a feeling this is gonna be a Masterclass on speedrunning through things other folks have done and figured out for the first few weeks / months, which is both the benefit and drawback of first principles [everything]."
https://www.thespl.it/p/elons-twitter
19. "Traveling has become an accelerator where most distractions loose their pull. It’s only the basics, the everyday essentials that matters, and that’s when surviving also means thriving.
In a world where everything has become easy, the hard stuff is where the real value lies. Focus on the hard and life becomes easier and much more rewarding."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/traveling-is-no-vacation
20. "So here we are. Increasingly advanced unmanned boats packed with explosives will be yet another threat to contend with. Everyone is watching the conflict in Ukraine very closely, especially potentially nefarious actors including China, Iran, and North Korea. Take the latter for instance. They could unleash hundreds of similar boats — even ones that need no communications and go after static targets — onto targets in South Korea at the opening of the conflict, which already features a conventional war plan that works to achieve ultimate chaos above all else.
The fact is that these are weapon systems that can relatively easily achieve considerable range and will have the command and control architecture to support them. As such, they are growing into the realm of regional capabilities."
21. This is a great interview. Lots of great thoughts on entrepreneurship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMv3hgIE-V4
22. "Marooney, a GP at Coatue, says that firms “have to earn the right” to survive. “There was the path where you did some investments and made money. It’s like, no, you’ve got to earn the right and not everybody is going to earn that right … and I think that is healthy,” the investor said.
I’ll end with a term we’ve been dancing around all through the intro, which is “quiet quitting.” Bloomberg Beta investor Roy E. Bahat posted a thread describing how seasoned venture capitalists may be quietly going into “easy mode,” aka, becoming a less active, minimum viable player of the team. Maybe their name helps the firm close new funds with LPs, and maybe their calendar doesn’t need to be busy with a ton of introduction calls, just annual investor meetings.
If we combine quiet quitting with natural selection cycles and the difficulty of tracking just how active a venture capitalist is, we experience a confusing, fragmented landscape. No one is incentivized to say that they aren’t doing business as usual, which creates a landscape of extremes."
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/29/venture-capital-will-soon-be-brimming-with-ghosts
23. "It’s worth noting that there is one important exception to everything I just wrote: if you raise money from a VC firm that is very narrowly focused on your industry, they likely have a more extensive (and more relevant) network of downstream investors. But for most founders — particularly at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage — that isn’t the case.
At the end of the day, fundraising takes a lot of work. And successful fundraising is built on the back of considerable planning and preparation. Identifying and researching your target investors is one of the most important parts of that and, unfortunately, it’s not something I — or any VC — can do for you."
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/do-your-own-fundraising-research
24. This is a really good idea and needed. Bringing more transparency to VC industry and shines a light on emerging fund managers.
25. "Letting events on the batlefield take their course carries its own dangers for Putin. The spectre of defeat will hang over the Kremlin. The decision-making process will malfunction and frustrations will grow among the elite. Potential successors will start jockeying for position. The military will get caught between their need to conserve forces while not abandoning strategic poisitions, between a system demanding success yet incapable of providing the necessary resources.
Faced with stark chocies Moscow might suddenly discover a serious interest in negotiations. Until then, however, there is little choice but for Kyiv, with Western support, to persevere with its efforts to liberate territory until a point is reached where a Russian defeat can no longer be denied – or, to use another Churchillian phrase, to ‘keep buggering on.’
https://samf.substack.com/p/why-putin-prefers-war-war-to-jaw
26. Yikes Is really the only thing I can say here. It's gonna be a rough ride for everyone in the next few years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTCqXcbgCH4
27. "The more new content there is, the more likely we are to consume old content. The same is true for ideas and ideologies. The rivalry between Netflix and Disney+ illustrates why.
Economies of scale aren't as valuable in a world of abundance. This is most apparent in media but has consequences for geopolitics and religion.
Consider the case of Netflix. Most analysts predicted that, given its scale advantage, Netflix would build an insurmountable advantage in streaming. That didn't happen. Why?
As Ben Thompson and Eugene Wei point out in their recent podcast: In a world of abundant choice, most content is substitutable. Instead of watching one thing, you can watch another. Very few shows are a "must-watch."
Shows and all other cultural products benefit from network effects. A show becomes more valuable if all your friends and colleagues watch it: Watching it gives you something to take about, and NOT watching it means being left out of the conversation."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-vader-paradox
28. "I’m just as tired as you are of this story. Politicians, pundits, podcasters—everyone is trying to get their pound of Elon flesh, hoping to drive clicks to their website.
Missing in all this chatter is a thoughtful analysis of what the problems and potential resolutions are. But this is a company worthy of serious study. Twitter is a perfect case study of the shifting power dynamics of the ad market and how to make money in this era of the internet."
https://every.to/napkin-math/how-elon-wins
29. Do I think the layoffs should have happened? YES. But this seems to be a really bad & awful way to do it.
Firing people and Lay offs always suck as someone who has been on both sides of one (many times) but this seems really thoughtless & cold (in contrast to one done at Stripe).
"After the layoffs, we asked some of the employees who had been cut what they made of the process. They told us that they had been struck by the cruelty: of ordering people to work around the clock for a week, never speaking to them, then firing them in the middle of the night, no matter what it might mean for an employee’s pregnancy or work visa or basic emotional state.
More than anything they were struck by the fact that the world’s richest man, who seems to revel in attention on the platform they had made for him, had not once deigned to speak to them."
https://www.platformer.news/p/twitter-cut-in-half
30. The guys excel when they discuss the tech industry.
The Dumbest Person in the Room: Always Slightly Behind the Curve in Silicon Valley
I think back to when I first moved to SF in 1999. My friend Chris introduced me to his eldest brother, early 30-something, Larry was in management consulting at that time. I remember being very impressed by him. His big goal was to cut his cost structure and maintain a good basic lifestyle while he invested his savings in investments. A precursor to the FIRE (Financial Independent Retire Early) movement.
He also bought a multistory apartment building, living on the top floor while his tenants paid the mortgage. This was back in 1999 btw, before 2003 when everyone rushed to get into real riches before things imploded in 2008. I should add this was when prices were reasonable and not so crazy. He did well.
Or another friend who I will anonymize for his privacy. A former American banker at Goldman who took off to Eastern Europe to do PE (Private equity) in the early 2000s. He traveled the world before he came back to San Francisco to start a niche CPG company at the start of the energy foods craze. He was an early adopter of Tim Ferriss remote work, 4 Hour work week style of business. He ended up exiting the company and then using his earnings to do micro PE fund rolling up software businesses from a remote massive sized ranch while building several side businesses for multiple revenue streams. A remote work and portfolio entrepreneur before the term was coined. This was in the mid 2010s before it was cool.
Forward thinking is the term I’d use here. People who you knew were sharp or ahead of the curve but then you realize a decade or two later just how far ahead they were. I’m surrounded by so many of these folks it’s quite exhilarating and depressing at the same time.
Alex Danco coined the term “Upside Regret” which is the missing out of something or underestimating someone that ended up being very successful. It’s like missing the chance to angel invest in Coinbase or Solana, or join PayPal or Facebook in their early days for example. I’ve definitely had a bunch of these which I highlighted previously here:
https://hardfork.substack.com/p/lessons-not-regrets-missing-life?s=w
But for me, the real “Upside Regret” is more about not realizing or understanding & internalizing key concepts or ideas earlier than I eventually did. The crazy amount of upside that I missed to my quality of life and personal finances is “oh so” high.
This is why I read so much, take as many classes or courses as I do, and go to as many interesting conferences like Founders Summit, the Leveling Up Mastermind or Capital Camp. And of course, I try to talk to and invest in as many awesome founders and VCs (I also do small select LP cheques on occasion).
This is the only way to keep up. And for the most part, it’s damn fun, so I don’t always mind being the dumbest person in the room. I’ve come to accept that I may always be slightly behind the curve. But just as the tortoise who loves the game, I will keep on going, slow and steady to win the race in the end.
Limiting Beliefs: Invert, Invert, Invert to Get to Bigger & Better Life
A “Limiting Belief” as defined by Lifehack.org is:
“is a state of mind, conviction, or belief that you think to be true that limits you in some way.[1] This limiting belief could be about you, your interactions with other people, or with the world and how it works.”
We’re all driven and act on the beliefs we are raised with, through our families and friends, our education and experienced through our lifetime. We usually don’t even question them as they are so ingrained in us. But this is a big mistake as our beliefs are our programming and set our capacity in life and achievements. They limit us to what is possible. Just like how a computer program sets specific limits, these beliefs set artificial limits for us.
Things like “I can never dance/fight/ sing as well”, or “I suck at math” or “Only Stanford and Harvard grads raise money from VCs.”
We all have some version of these playing around in our heads. And as my therapist always asks me: “How does this serve you??”
To go further from:
“Limiting beliefs can have a number of negative effects on you. They could keep you from making good choices, taking new opportunities, or reaching your potential. Ultimately, limiting beliefs can keep you stuck in a negative state of mind and hinder you from living the life you truly desire.”
(Source: https://www.lifehack.org/858652/limiting-beliefs)
This is why self examination is so important. Understanding yourself and what drives you. Understanding what you want and why you think it is hard or even impossible to get there. Question yourself, question your assumptions and use first principles. The article listed above gives you a great overview on how to identify these limiting beliefs so you can alter them.
I also try to tie beliefs with big ambitious end goals. When I think about big goals, I set it at some time in the near future and then work backwards. Break the goal down into smaller bite sized pieces, year by year, month by month, week by week and day by day so it becomes easier to process. The goals should be so big that they scare you.
Then you surround yourself with other outstanding, smart(er) individuals. Do this by friendship groups, business partners and even masterminds, which are formal groups of people who get together regularly to help each other grow and keep each other accountable.
This is not even a confidence thing: you probably want to be less than confident. That means your goals are HUGE.
Better to lack confidence than be overconfident. This way you work harder and over prepare.
This explains the difference between female and male founders I’ve noticed in all my years. Female founders tend to work harder and perform more to compensate. Men tend to be overconfident. And while this is great for pitching, presenting and fundraising, it doesn’t always lead to great operating skills. Or willingness to develop them. Obviously generalizing but in my somewhat large sample set, it rings true. If you lack confidence but have big goals, you will over prepare.
The point here is: we are our own gating factor. This is why I love the concept of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and all of Tony Robbins stuff. You learn what your limiting beliefs are and then you systematically challenge and reprogram yourself to be better. You brainwash yourself. Then you also surround yourself with awesome people whether online through the content you consume or live in person.
That is why I prefer being based in San Francisco most of the time, despite the gross city mismanagement, the crime, the high costs and bubble of arrogance and douchebaggery at times. It’s full of super smart & ambitious people. These all help motivate, inspire and provide models for you to remove your negative programming and get ahead.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 30th, 2022
"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."— Joseph Campbell
Very good explanation for the dysfunction happening in China right now. What used to be a very well run country early 2000s and early 2010's is gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8r1DH1Hw8&t=188s
2. "But self-interest should also ensure strong involvement of the private sector in Ukraine reconstruction, if indeed the rebuild bill will be in the order of USD500 billion plus. Western companies who pledge to assist in the Ukraine rebuild should benefit from participation in contracts and financing projects and the expected sharp and rapid recovery in the Ukrainian economy. Huge amounts of money will be spent in Ukraine and large returns reaped. That should be an incentive for most to get involved.
For many Western businesses, investment in Ukraine also provides an opportunity to improve their global image - some sullied by investments in Russia, and their slow move to exit their investments in Russia. Companies increasingly say that ESG is central to their business decisions. Helping Ukraine’s reconstruction, and the defence of Western Liberal Market Democracy in Ukraine should be the ultimate ESG play.
Western big business should invest in Ukraine as it’s the right thing to do - to push back on neo-patrimonial / corrupt system spearheaded by Russia as an alternative, even in advanced democracies. It is their moment to show where they were when there was a need to stand up and be counted against a regime conducting war crimes and genocide?"
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-how-to-fund-reconstruction
3. This looks good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ElPJ719nh4
4. Grifters gotta Grift it seems.
5. Proud investor in this company. Go TheNEO!
6. "This time is no different. The companies, technologies, and offerings may have changed, but the froth and overconfidence are the same because human nature never changes, only people’s experiences do. You just wouldn’t understand, they said. You’re too old to get it. No . . . we do. Unlike those younger, we’ve just seen the aftermath once innocence is lost. As the water retreats, the sand castles crafted by charlatans crumble and investors lauded as visionaries are exposed as illusionists; their outsized returns merely byproducts of favorable tides and timing.
So as central bankers withdraw liquidity, someone needs to step-in to refinance or otherwise replenish the capital. Given the unprecedented deluge of global liquidity, even a small tightening of financial conditions will have an outsized impact on asset prices if the handoff isn’t smooth. Yet the prices and interest rates demanded by the public markets to sustain our heightened expectations will be much higher than the evergreen printers churned by our central bankers.
Ponder that for a moment. We’re transitioning from a world where interest rates were near or at zero for more than a decade to one hovering near 5% in less than a year. There’s a whole generation of investors who don’t understand the value of money because money/financing was free. Now we expect them to all to adjust nimbly? Impossible. This will hurt, things will break, moral hazard will return to heighten morale hazard as sentiment falters. It will be a painful, but necessary lesson, that is until central bankers shift from tightening to firefighting. They won’t want to bail everyone out, but choice is a luxury when system failures cascade."
https://openinsights.substack.com/p/our-q3-2022-letter-and-look-ahead
7. The importance of an Industrial Policy which the US does not have. Jones Act needs to be repealed. Critical to rebirth of US Economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc128K695R0
8. An excellent conversation. Brad Gerstner is a great addition here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5IzFvBQ-Zo
9. "All this to say that if you were betting, you'd wager on Colombia's democratic institutions holding up over the next four years. The Petro government doesn't seem to be especially powerful or united, and its approval rating has already dipped 20 points since inauguration. The most probable outcome seems to be a pivot to the center, particularly as financial markets place constraints on Colombia's budget.
That said, it's far from a sure thing that we'll get that approach. Much of the pro-business wing of things is being held up by one man, the finance minister. If he were fired or resigns, that would be a major negative shock to Colombian assets. As discussed, Colombia is running sizable deficits right now, so there needs to be a competent and respected figure that can talk to international bondholders.
---
My personal view is that Colombian assets are now so ridiculously priced that it's worth taking a long position on the Peso, Colombian stocks, or local real estate."
https://ianbezek.substack.com/p/the-petro-panic-colombia-has-crashed
10. It's all about semiconductors. China's tech industry has just been massively gutted. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XqMKu0HJyY&t=354s
11. This was an immensely valuable discussion for anyone learning about media and the edge of the internet. SO GOOD! Lots of insights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGP4_mfwRKw&t=4181s
12. I definitely need to slow down sometimes & breath. Rushing is bad if you are doing it all of the time.
https://www.mattmunson.me/rushing
13. "There are real benefits to age, specifically experience and perspective. But that additional perspective and experience comes at a cost, as our representatives have a difficult time understanding new technologies and how society has changed. Folks who have ideas for change and the hunger to set them in motion are shut out, left with staff roles or positions in private enterprise.
In business, entrenchment is profitable for shareholders, though eventually an innovator will rise. In politics, the biggest winner is often the politician — and when governments are dysfunctional or allocate scarce resources poorly, we all suffer. We need more churn."
https://www.profgalloway.com/churn
14. Taipei is a great city and one of my favorite places in the world.
"At ground level, Taipei offers a unique shopping experience. The streets are lined with nice little shops and restaurants — and when I say “little”, I mean tiny even by Japanese standards. These are almost all on the first floor, as in most cities. Unlike the concrete facades of many buildings, these shops are fresh and cheery and clean and new-looking.
There are far fewer boutique clothing stores than in Japan, but restaurants seem to largely make up the difference. The food is every bit as good as you’ve heard — eating is one of Taiwan’s favorite pastimes. Craft stores are also common, and the quality seems very high. I noticed quite a few jewelry stores, which seems odd in a country where everyone seems to dress down."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/taipei-urbanism
15. "When life really hits the fan, what are the two things people will turn to?
Necessities.
Vices.
That is it. Any commodities purchased online with discretionary income that are seen as pure, high priced luxury will likely fall in a recession, save for those customers who are well off who will not notice much a of a dent in either income/assets or both, likely because they are already wealthy.
Everyone else? They will focus on making sure they have four walls of shelter and utilizes paid for, and then turn to alcohol, tobacco, fast food, and soft drinks as coping mechanisms. If they see a $9 or $12 product they can add as a pick-me-up every once a while? They may grab that too.
So what does this mean for eCom? Cheaper products often perform better in a recession. The lower AOV, the less of a decision a purchase is to a customer."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/ecommerce-in-a-downturn
16. This is an excellent tool for fundraising and I agree this is a smart approach to synching on fundraising. (some folks use Discord)
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/whatsapp-the-ultimate-fundraising-tool
17. "Perhaps, from the outside, a chef using a wheelchair makes for a compelling story; the guy who got shot and came right back into the kitchen, running things from his wheelchair like a boss. But Aleem's story is a different reality: the guy who took over a decade to come back. He'd been working away in his food truck, and he'd never told his story, never shared the details. It's only now that he's ready.
"I would pray all the time, that would help a lot." Aleem prayed until he felt something change. "I had to go through the emotional cycle, where I had to learn how to accept what God gave me, or the situation that I was in, and how to be able to work with it. And I had to figure that out by myself. There's no other way to put it. Somehow, with a leap of faith I was able to accept the situation. And there was freedom in that."
https://www.foodandwine.com/chefs/aleem-syed-toronto-chef-thg-chicken
18. This is timely and I'm actually quite bullish on the future of Japan.
"Importantly, even without the exchange rate, Japanese companies are cheap, with 49 percent of listed companies trading below book value, their assets worth more than what you must pay in the market to buy them.
Japanese companies trade on a 12-times price-to-earnings (PE) multiple, which is cheap compared with the 24-times PE multiple commanded by those in the United States.
When buying Japan Inc., you basically earn back your investment in half the time—corporate earnings alone will let you recoup your investment in just 12 years in Japan, while you must wait 24 years in the United States. So, the costs of buying and operating productive assets has become very attractive in Japan."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/what-to-buy-in-japan
19. "The project, led by the Soviet-born billionaire Vladislav Doronin, is the first outpost in the city of Aman Resorts. Based in Switzerland, with properties in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the western U.S., Aman has long occupied the zenith of luxury travel, offering sui generis experiences in exotic, secluded locales: coastal Vietnam, the mountains of Bhutan, Moroccan olive groves, the pinewoods of southwestern Turkey.
With nightly rates that can exceed $4,000, the resorts are principally characterized by an otherworldly beauty that arises from pairing unsullied landscapes with exquisite minimalist design. They emphasize tranquillity, peace, and (inevitably) wellness. But Aman New York was conceived in conflict."
https://www.curbed.com/2022/10/aman-new-york-vladislav-doronin.html
20. "In late 1992, the UK branch of the vacuum manufacturer, Hoover, offered an impossibly sweet promotion: If a customer bought any product worth £100, he or she would get two free round-trip flights to the United States.
For the 84-year-old electronics brand, it was meant to be an eye-catching way to boost dwindling sales, escape the gloom of a recession, and shrug off increased competition.
Instead, it led to the destruction of the company — a precipitous downfall that saw multimillion-dollar losses and customer revolts."
https://thehustle.co/the-worst-sales-promotion-in-history
21. "They say misinformation is harmful. I say their laws are dangerous.
As I’ve spoken about many times in this newsletter, if your nation is going down a path you don’t agree with, there are always actions you can take. For example, the acquisition of new passports or residencies that will allow you to live elsewhere, or the creation of an independent income that will offer you the ability to call another place home.
But even better? To me, that would be the act of resisting any company or nation-state that believes they have the power to decide what is or isn’t true."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/dangerous-laws-incoming
22. "This most recent NOPEC threat is a dangerous gambit. Unlike prior bluffs, Biden is pointing this particular weapon at a time when his targets have good reason to believe he might actually shoot, potentially triggering a series of preemptive moves and an irreversible escalation that leads to a situation with no winners. If there are dots of potential doom to connect, you can bet we are on it. Let’s dig in.
What makes the current incarnation of the NOPEC threat different? It comes in the aftermath of an unprecedented sanction that froze Russia’s foreign reserves. While many were quick to cheer the move as an excellent way to punish Putin for his invasion of Ukraine, we had our doubts about the efficacy of the policy, and whether the West had fully thought through the consequences."
“…This move substantially increases the risk that the US dollar loses its privileged status as the global reserve currency and, at a minimum, likely ensures a polarization of the global economy into at least two camps – the West in one and Russia/China/Iran/Saudi Arabia plus other targeted or aligned countries in the other. If $20-30 trillion or more of global GDP spurns the preexisting reserve currency, is it still the reserve currency? If reserves can be negated overnight, are they even reserves? How many other countries must hedge against the possibility of similar sanctions?”
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/listen-jack
23. "Human nature is to look at the ideas directly ahead. What problem do I have right now? What idea do I care most about? While these are the logical starting point, and should be encouraged, it’s important for entrepreneurs to step back and think big. If everything went stunningly well, what could this become? Does that meet my ambitions?
While some ideas start small and become bigger than expected, most often, small ideas start small and stay small. During idea selection, take the time and energy to think more about what could be and ensure there’s the potential for greatness.
Make no little plans."
https://davidcummings.org/2022/10/22/make-no-little-plans
24. "Think of your will as fire. How do you increase the inner flame? How do you prevent it from burning out? Furthermore, how can you combine that fire with the fire of your people and ignite a firestorm? A purifying conflagration. These are the things the first men had to think about. How can he steel his heart for the struggles, the battles, and the wars ahead of him?
The Sacred Fire inspired man. It offered protection, warmth, and a chance for reflection. Maybe for the ancients, the Sacred Fire ignited their own inner fire. You must imagine the inner fire within yourself. What makes that fire grow? What starves it? Take note of each and build your life around forging a powerful inner fire.
Fire and fanaticism are worth more to you and our side than the deepest intellectualism."
https://resavager.substack.com/p/the-sacred-fire
25. "One of my main takeaways is that mastery takes time. There are many skills that I have been practicing for approximately 5 years. That is only about 50% of the way to the 10 year timeline of intense study that Greene points out is needed for true mastery. Good reminder that we all must stay persistent, disciplined, and obsessed with learning."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/pomps-notes-on-mastery
26. Good perspective on possible VC investment environment in 2023.
https://mobile.twitter.com/zachcoelius/status/1584642085918887937
27. We should all be watching this move very closely and what it means for the US dollar dominance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7naJ6SSXli8
28. "For Ukraine the front-line troops may be able to cope while many civilians at home struggle without electricity and water. Residents of Kyiv are being told to prepare for blackouts of four hours a day. Elsewhere hospitals, transport and critical social infrastructure is being given priority. Concrete slabs and sand are being brought in to protect important energy sites.
In the west of the country preparations are being made to accept more internal refugees from the east as mass evacuations may be unavoidable. No one pretends that this winter will be anything other than miserable, but there is no evidence that it is making the people of Ukraine any less determined to win the war.
From the start Putin has relied on coercive pressures to deliver the political victories that he has failed to achieve by military means. For all the suffering he has caused in Ukraine he has yet to succeed. The resilience of the Ukrainian people will certainly be tested by the freezing weather, as will that of Russian soldiers, away from home, poorly led, often cut off from supplies and in exposed positions.
The key question at for this winter season is how many of the troops ordered to hold their positons at its start will be there at the end."
https://samf.substack.com/p/general-winter-knocks-at-the-door
29. This actually could make sense. If anyone can do it, it’s Mr Beast who is a pioneer on many fronts.
https://watcher.guru/news/mrbeast-plans-to-raise-150m-at-a-1-5b-valuation
30. This was a great discussion on the edge of the internet. So many great observations on the growth of technology and crypto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g06_pHUPfNQ&t=1996s
31. "With no shortage of people already at the company excited to work with Elon, the departure of political zealots and lazy malcontents would not even matter were Elon incapable of recruiting. But when it comes to recruiting, Elon is uniquely well-positioned. Among technologists, this is a man perceived as the very best the industry has to offer. In the months to come, he’ll attract a flood of smart, new people. They will bring ideas, and they will bring enthusiasm.
The authoritarian culture that was born after Trump’s election and metastasized after Covid has captured almost every major institution in the country, and every major technology company. But there is now at least one public space that exists beyond the influence of the One Party. The rebels have stormed the radio tower. Authoritarianism may still be ascendant nationally, but there’s a glimmer of hope for weirdos and skeptics."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/elon-musk-has-taken-twitter-day-zero
32. "Another way of saying that is "being contrarian, and right." The name of my firm is literally Contrary, so it's something we think about a lot. If you think and do what everyone else is thinking and doing, that's a fine way to make friends but not a recipe for outsized investment returns. Finding the things about which very few people agree with you is the way to create opportunity for massive outcomes.
Peter Thiel is often the investor people think of when it comes to making contrarian bets. There’s a quote of his that always surprises me because it moves away from just "disagreeing with everyone" to focus on a more important dynamic for doing things differently:
"The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/the-hype-cycles-of-venture-capital
33. "Change is hard, it’s merciless, like a steamroller crushing everything in its way. Changing means saying goodbye to the past, to the safe and comfortable, to the known and familiar, and venture into a world where everything is a moving object."
https://fewerbetterthings.substack.com/p/you-gotta-learn-to-love-the-process
34. "We have now reached a point in the startup ecosystem where for large VC funds, a startup achieving a billion-dollar outcome is meaningless. To hit a 3-5x return for a fund, a venture partnership is looking to partner with startups that can go public at north of $50B dollars. In the entire universe of public technology companies, there are only 48 public tech companies that are valued at over $50B.
Simultaneously there are close to 1,000 venture funds all trying to find these select few. This is a huge problem. It is likely that many of the funds deployed over recent years will be some of the worst-performing of all time."
https://every.to/napkin-math/venture-capital-is-ripe-for-disruption
The Amazing Age of Access: Parkour as a Metaphor
I was watching an excellent documentary on Parkour called “Pushing Progression: Freerunning.” Parkour is the sport where these amazing athletes run, jump and land off these buildings and city landscapes, performing amazing feats along the way.
It’s fascinating and exemplifies how extremely globally competitive this sport has become. World Champions literally come from anywhere and everywhere. One day, they are practicing their trade in obscurity, the next day they are winning competitions and becoming known in the growing community.
Tony Hawk was the narrator and he said:
“I think The Internet accelerated sports progression because it levels the playing field, anyone can produce content and can show what they are doing and what’s new immediately. And I love that the Internet provides that to kids and the Internet provides that to people who want to make a career out of it but didn’t have the resources to uproot themselves and live where the industry is. And now the industry is everywhere.”
It seems blindingly obvious but as long as you have an internet connection you literally have a big doorway to a whole world of opportunity.
One of the elite athletes in the documentary said something very profound, that: “Parkour as a sport definitely lives on the Internet. And that is the main place for creative exchange.”
They go on to say that:
“You have this library of material where you can go and study which is amazing.”
“We have seen a huge progression because as soon as there is a community where they mirror what you are doing and where you can mirror them.”
I think this goes beyond Parkour. I think it’s directly relevant for every single hobby, industry, business and your career. The amount of great knowledge one can dive into, share and play off of. You can learn from the best wherever you are. It’s easier than ever to understand what is global maximum. Basically once you know what the global standard of excellence is, you can practice and push yourself to get to it. This is reflective of how global the nature of competition has become.
But despite this amazing opportunity, the big missing piece in most people is the attitude/ mindset of constant education and learning. Just because you do have access doesn’t mean someone will use it.
As Naval Ravikant said: “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that is scarce.” So sadly true. Opportunities are literally everywhere around you, but you still have to show up and do the work!
Let Your Rage Flow: Anger as a Mechanism for Progress and Achievement
I have anger management issues. I think we all do. But I really do. This has been a double edged sword for me. It’s gotten me fired from a job back in college days. It’s caused issues with my family and friends. But it’s also motivated to intense levels of self improvement in the never ending hope of proving myself to the world.
This anger stems from shame, feeling looked down upon, treated unfairly by people around me which has led to a massive drive that is unending. A massive chip on my shoulder. And as the excellent & wise investor Josh Wolfe has said:
“Chips on shoulders lead to chips in pockets.”
Boy, does it ever. But it’s a hard journey and takes a high price.
It reminds me of a very good fantasy fiction book I read recently called the “Bladed Faith” by Dalglish. A master is speaking with his student.
Master: “Anger is good, it is useful.”
Student: “My mother, she said anger is a fire. And if I let it, it would burn me up and leave me hollow.”
Master: “But she is right. Anger is a fire, it does destroy but it can do so much more. Fire fuels my forges. It melts steel and crafts weapons. I do not want your anger ended. I want it to flare so brightly, it lights the entire island aflame. Do not deny it. Do not hold it back. Let the fire grow. Let it burn.”
In the end it’s a valuable tool but one you need to control and learn to use properly just like you would with a blade or gun. And if you are able to manage it well, it can be incredibly powerful & motivating.
Channel the rage you feel inside. Draw on that fury. Use your anger against injustice or unfairness or evil to take action even if you feel it’s hopeless. Use it to do good and right the wrongs you see. Use it to make yourself better. Use it to build something. Use it to accomplish great things that will make the world better. Use it as the tool that it is.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 23rd, 2022
"Weaknesses are just strengths in the wrong environment."— Marianne Cantwell
This was a deeply interesting conversation on the future of business. Audience and personal brand matters. Also some good tips on biohacking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K11qpEo898I&t=13s
2. Great episode of NIA: lots of food for thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmVLHsADBWQ&t=6s
3. Great overview of a very exciting startup. Compound: The Digital Family Office.
https://www.thespl.it/p/compound-digital-family-office
4. "So German industry is wrapped in a cocoon of regional and national capital, insurance and export guarantees, facilities, and grants along with an arcane and complex tax and legal system impenetrable to outsiders but designed to allow the appearance of upholding workers' rights and keeping the capitalists in their place but internally creating plenty of room for manoeuvre.
Expect to see these activated and expanded on steroids by the current government whose only response to anything is pile on the debt to shield the citizenry from the consequences of its own intransigent stupidity.
Additionally, there is a current concerted appeal to the old wartime solidarity in which the German people came together in the aftermath of the last World War to share pots and pans and provide each other with camaraderie in the midst of suffering, hunger, and hardship.
It is hard to believe that the modern day aging German population, with its sense of entitlement, reliance on a generous welfare system, and sense of superiority, not to mention their hypochondria on full display during the past two and half years, will stand for much discomfort to stand strong with the poor Ukrainians. But you never know."
https://www.thelykeion.com/middlestanding-together
5. "With few allies in industry and even fewer among the major oil-producing countries, Biden has successfully alienated the very people he needs most. The SPR was created to take leverage away from OPEC, and, in draining it, the US is giving it right back. Expect the members to press their advantage."
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/past-the-salt
6. "At this point we’re seeing incentives in action. All the easy money is gone so people are going to start optimizing for self preservation. This means all your co-workers will stab you in the back if it means saving their jobs. It means any handshake agreement is going to go backward and anything in writing is the only thing of value (lawyers will love this as they collect fees for all the back-outs that go to court).
More and more hacks and scams will occur. This will be across the board in crypto. People will learn that many hacks/scams were also “inside jobs” where the fund raiser was the one who stole the funds. Generally speaking, you’d think this would be a bad thing.
Unfortunately, everyone gets to watch up close as the people who get scammed *double down* on the scammers! We now have Grant Cardone and Dave Ramsey as good examples of people doing just this “home prices only go up” while simultaneously selling their homes. In the end, it’s one thing to go down when the price of your stock goes down.
It’s a completely different thing to sell everything and tell everyone else to buy (or worse raise money from them and sell it to them!) ← which is exactly what happened in many cases.
Anyway. Just assume that when you trust other people with your money and when you don’t have something in writing you will lose it all. That simple."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/more-rate-hikes-and-cash-balance
7. There is a lesson here for everyone.
"The idea that you can "deescalate" in each and every situation is delusional. From time to time you must stand up and fight and there is no way around it. You may choose whether you will take a fight in more favourable or less favourable situation - that's it."
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1580232435719376896
8. WOW: China's semiconductor industry is in big trouble to say the least.
https://twitter.com/jordanschnyc/status/1580889341265469440
9. Always a great conversation. Learning lots here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftNCKO_crGE
10. "After eight months of operations (and eight years since Russia started this war), Ukraine has several senior commanders who are seasoned strategists and operational artists. They clearly know their enemy well and know how to balance strategic risk and opportunity.
These commanders, including Generals Zaluzhnyi, Syrskiy and Kovalchuk, are skilled in providing intent and guiding their staffs and subordinate commanders through the planning and execution of large-scale military operations. This is a rare skill that few military institutions master.
Finally, the north-eastern and southern Ukrainian campaigns have highlighted a significant asymmetry in command philosophies between Ukraine and Russia. Russia centrally controls operations; Ukraine allows its subordinate leaders more freedom to exploit opportunities through mission command.
In rapidly moving military activities, military leaders who do not have to constantly refer to higher headquarters can set and dominate operational tempo, ultimately seizing the initiative. The Ukrainians have done this, and the Russians have not.
So far, the Russian Army does not appear to have an answer to what the Ukrainians have achieved in the past three months. The recent missile strikes across Ukraine in the wake of the Kerch bridge attack will have almost no impact on the military campaign. The Ukrainians have answered the questions of earlier this year about whether they could conduct offensives as well as they could defend. They have done so in the most resounding of ways. Ukraine is smashing the Russian Army and has developed a mastery of modern war that many will seek to emulate."
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-tale-of-two-generals-how-the-ukrainian-military-turned-the-tide
11. This is a big deal. The silent war that has been happening in last 10 years between China and US is now more formal. This split is coming fast and hard.
https://twitter.com/zaoyang/status/1581322067211083777
12. Worth a read here for newbie and old investors.
"Because of 1 and 2 combined — easy access and lots of LP interest — there are *tons* of these deals on the platform. It’s probably 60%+. If you look closely, you’ll see that ~80%+ of the deals on AngelList that involve a tier 1 lead VC are bridge rounds. It’s rare to see a deal led by a tier 1 VC, where it’s the lead’s first time investing.
Here’s the thing: these investments, as a whole, heavily underperform.
Why? All of venture investing follows a power law distribution, and it’s no different for the tier 1 VCs. Sequoia has a better distribution than others, but the pattern is the same: 1–3 investments per fund drive almost all of their returns, and 30–50% of their investments are losers. If you were to buy a fund that is the bottom 50% of Sequoia’s investments — you would almost certainly have negative returns. If you want to mirror Sequoia, it’s extremely important that you get into their best investments.
Their best investments don’t do bridge rounds. So the very act of buying up all of Sequoia’s (or A16Z’s, Founders Fund’s, etc.) bridge rounds is an exercise in adverse selection. As a whole, you’re going to buy an index of their money-losing investments."
https://medium.com/unpopular-vc/a-word-of-caution-to-angellist-lps-d1ad41574bc5
13. This is a pretty geopolitical & historical act when we will look back at this.
14. "Becoming an Anticitizen is to refuse to be tied to one location, one system of rules, or one nation. To become someone who knows the world is laden with more opportunities than their birthplace can solely provide. Someone with the spirit of rebellion boiling in their blood—someone who won’t blindly obey.
Is that you? I hope so.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: whatever you do, just don’t leave it until it’s too late to create your own backup plan, or to start taking the steps to become an Anticitizen yourself. And take action now.
Whether it’s tracing your ancestry to uncover whether you have claim to a second citizenship, setting up a business to become less financially dependent on someone else for your income, offshoring or diversifying your investments across multiple nations, or moving abroad to begin living a higher quality of life. Do something. Anything. And do it today."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/anti-citizen
15. "For crypto-enthusiasts, the blockchain’s potential to create a bank-free utopia is best observed in countries whose economy is, in some way or another, compromised. Despite the cultish grift that has come to define crypto in the United States, a use-case like Afghanistan acts as a sort of paragon of its initial objective: decentralized global finance. But while it’s true crypto use in Afghanistan continues to scale, so too do the concerns around it."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/09/afghanistans-crypto-lifeline.html
16. It's About time.
"The actions are being described as an “economic war”, and the phrase is not hyperbole. The primary purpose of these export controls is not to protect U.S. industry or to stop the leakage of intellectual property to economic competitors. Their purpose is to kneecap China’s semiconductor industry — to slow down the country’s push for technological self-sufficiency.
That push has a lot to do with why the Biden administration went ahead and did this now instead of waiting.
Computer chips power everything these days, including everything military, so in the event of a war that cut off China’s supply of chips, the country’s vaunted manufacturing complex would be in trouble. Specialized chips, like AI chips and the processors used in supercomputers, are especially important to the areas of innovation where China is trying to push past the U.S."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/biden-declares-economic-war-on-the
17. I always learn new things from these stories. Nuns versus a Big Co monopoly selling communion wafers.
https://thehustle.co/how-nuns-got-squeezed-out-of-the-communion-wafer-business
18. "You should never try to replace a product-led motion with sales-led one (or vice versa). The goal is always to layer. Product-led sales allows you to evolve your GTM by introducing new growth motions while leveraging existing expertise. Avoiding starting from scratch increases your chances of success and helps prevent you from making incorrect assumptions."
https://www.endgame.io/blog/elena-verna-ready-for-pls
19. The Technological rise of China is over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ_HeCalYq8
20. An interesting take which I don't agree with. Hong Kong used to be an amazing place. Sadly the CCP has wrecked the potential there.
21. "Just imagine what will happen when we decide to break free from our one-sided addiction of having pretty much everything we consume produced in China. This will mean a huge homeshoring or friendshoring boom, capital investment on a massive scale into the reindustrialisation of our own economies. Well, maybe not so much in Switzerland, but a lot of production could move back to Europe, to Mexico, to the US, even to the UK. We have not had a capex boom since 1994, when China devalued its currency.
Sooner or later, Switzerland will have to bring back some forms of capital controls. That will be a feature worldwide. We have gotten used to sitting in Zurich or London and investing money in the US, in China, in Malaysia or Mexico. There are some emerging markets that are attractive today, as they have low levels of debt. But in a world where large parts of the global economy are in a system of financial repression, there will be all sorts of capital controls.
That means that as an investor, you best invest in jurisdictions where you plan to spend your retirement. To me, that means I don’t want to be invested in China at all, for example. The risks of getting stuck there are way too high, as the example of Russia has shown. Many investors today still pretend that we’re in the system that we had from 1980 to 2020. We’re not. We’re going through fundamental, lasting changes on many levels."
https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-the-world-will-experience-a-capex-boom-ld.7606
22. "What point am I making here? There are 26 letters in the alphabet, and that’s very easy to feed to an AI and have it do whatever it wants with that dataset. There are a finite amount of colors that can be created through the hex code system, which gives AI the data it needs to create any sort of art it desires to.
But as a society, I think we have completely butchered the concept of talent identification and and have focused on almost all the wrong data points and questions to be asking, which renders AI in this industry completely useless. By introducing AI into human evaluation processes, we are allowing it to run with the flawed system that humans have stitched together, which does a complete disservice to the potential of the world."
https://words.seedscout.com/p/youre-only-as-good-as-your-data
23. "Our beliefs about ourselves can improve our lives. And when we believe in others we can improve theirs too. Believe in the people you’re close to.
Please take some time to reconsider and update your expectations about yourself and those around you. It can make a big difference. (And if you don’t, I’m going to have a dag tsog demon decrease your willpower, shorten your lifespan, make you obese, and cause you to become unhappy.)"
https://bakadesuyo.com/2022/10/expectations
24. This is what so many China bulls are missing. And why their rise is probably over.
"By reorganizing the CCP as an extension of his person, Xi puts all that in jeopardy. Rewarding loyalty over competence degrades the quality of top personnel. Eliminating competing factions robs decisions of needed criticism and consensus. And centralizing power in the hands of one man mean that that man’s mistakes become national failures."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/xi-jinping-forever
25. "An ever-growing middle class has been emblematic of China’s ascent ever since Deng Xiaoping kicked off the country’s economic transformation in the 1980s. That progress now risks being reversed as millions of people in China face rising living costs, fierce professional competition, a real estate bubble and sluggish growth."
26. A little bit gossipy but an interesting profile about the former CEO of Google. People need to give the guy credit, Google would not be the dominant company it is without him.
https://airmail.news/issues/2021-6-26/the-adulterer-in-the-room
27. "By 2100, India will be an economic powerhouse, with a third of world economic output. That’s double the current share of the US and China, the current co-leaders. With that steady productivity catch-up, India’s massive population edge — almost 50 percent larger than China and almost four times the US — becomes decisive. But again, this assumes steady productivity catch-up. And the sooner the better, of course.
Were today’s Chinese workers already as productive as American workers, according to the paper, China’s GDP would exceed US GDP by a factor of four. Now India in 2100 will still be just 35 percent as productive as the US. Although a huge leap from today’s seven percent level, that’s “still miles away from the US, China, and WEU. And it indicates India’s potential to become an even larger economic force through time.”
https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/why-the-21st-century-might-be-the
28. "Quality of Life is Better if You Work: That’s right. Rewind to when you were a kid and had summer vacations. Unless you were from a rich family you got quite bored as there was nothing to do except play sports all day (These days? Video games if you are not a good athlete).
Most people in their 60s who are rich and well off do some work. They just enjoy what they are doing and typically clock in around 15-25 hours a week (this is our observation). You don’t want to be working 40-80 hour weeks and you certainly don’t want to hang out with Karen from HR every quarter for your “review”.
This is what “everyone else is doing” and is “normal”. Going back in time, it would be smart to actually master a few things: 1) a sport that will last until you’re 70+ such as tennis (pickle-ball when extremely old), golf, lifting weights and biking/hiking, 2) starting an internet business the *first* month after starting a career/job and 3) setting up one internet business for an exit in your 30s as you may change priorities - kids, supporting your parents etc.
By Getting the Bag Early You Will Prevent the Steep Decline in Functional Capabilities."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/mainstream-advice-guarantees-a-life