Get Your Sh-t Together: Reliability is King
I was quite lucky to catch my friend Paul Bragiel in Japan at the end of last year. A fellow traveler and wandering global investor, it’s always good to trade notes and this time in person in one of our favorite places in the world.
I always tell people it’s important who you have in your tribe. You rise to their standards or you fall to all the default lower ones around you.
One of the big things that we both value is reliability. That you “do what you say and say what you do”. Just by doing this consistently puts you in the top 10% of effective human beings. The bar is literally that low.
We both do business all over the world and partner with people everywhere. I speak at countless conferences. The thing that distinguishes the best people and best conferences is tight planning and organization.
It’s nice to show up in a place having all your logistics sorted already. Nothing worse than showing up in a new place, without knowing your schedule and or/ having to sort out your way to the hotel or wherever. This chaos and uncertainty drains your energy. It makes it harder to think, focus on important things or even plan your own schedule as there are always other things happening in parallel. It adds additional friction that detracts from your ability to perform and make your business partner look good at the meetings.
I’m not saying you have to be ultra German or Japanese rigid & overly structured. Although I should note, this might be why I work so well with Japanese and German people. I know stuff goes wrong and schedules change all the time. That’s okay and should be expected. But some modicum of organization is critical for any well functioning business or for a relatively smooth living.
So for everyone out there, Get Your Sh-t together, learn the basics of Project Management and get better organized. It will put you in good stead. Be a reliable partner. Life is complicated and messy enough already, without you making it worse.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 23rd, 2023
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” -Anne Frank
"Nation-states are killing machines, the alpha predators of governance. Over the last five hundred years, they have slain all other competitors through an iron grip on a combination of muscle (bureaucracy, from military to academic/scientific), energy (capitalism and industrialism), and killing intent (nationalism and ideology) and have warred among themselves for dominance until only one remained (the US).
That victory late in the last century created a problem. Nation-states, particularly their most significant, need conflict to legitimize and animate their existence. Without it, they and the society they rule decompensate — the functional deterioration of a structure or system that had been previously working."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/america-needs-enemies
2. "Net net, the chance of this cohort of VCs making substantial profit is low yet personal debt is high. VC is a tough job to get, and right now, quite a few VCs are thinking about their current careers. Vintage 2020 and 2021 venture funds are likely to perform poorly save for the occasional power law winners.
Venture is still an important part of our economy that has an outsized impact, and should be supported and encouraged, even if a couple years prove difficult."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/15/vcs-challenged-by-the-downturn/
3. "All the sizzle serves a simple service: Building a brand around a commodity product. Rane was inspired by a case study he read during a short course at Harvard Business School about Frank Perdue’s successful effort in the 1970s to brand chickens (tagline: “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken”). If possible, Rane had an even harder job than Perdue: forging a recognizable brand in one of the world’s most commodified industries, lumber treating—the process of applying preservatives to pre-cut, raw lumber to ensure it lasts a “lifetime,” as Great Southern’s YellaWood proudly proclaims.
Rane took over what became Great Southern in 1970, when the owners—his first wife’s parents—died in a car crash. It wasn’t much: a near-bankrupt backyard lumber treating plant with just $163,000 in sales (adjusted for inflation). But 53 years later, largely thanks to Rane’s marketing genius, Great Southern is a $2 billion (2022 revenue) company with some 1,900 employees and 15 treating facilities in 12 states. Forbes calculates that he’s worth $1.2 billion—all but $200 million of it attributable to his 100% stake in Great Southern—making him Alabama’s only living billionaire."
4. "Thus far, the Russians have demonstrated the ability to learn and to adapt at the tactical level. This adaptation has been uneven, not evident across the breadth of Russian military operations, and many of the ideas are hardly new ones. But, it is undeniable that some learning and evolution has taken place. It is a military capability that will be central to Russia’s ongoing ability to conduct operations in Ukraine, and one that should be studied for weaknesses that might be exploited by the Ukrainian forces as well as Western intelligence agencies.
Notwithstanding the Russian ability to learn and adapt in this war, it is also clear that the Ukrainians have also been quick studies in modern war. Indeed, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, they have demonstrated the ability to learn on the battlefield and adapt. They have also shown a knack for the rapid assimilation of new equipment such as HIMARS and western armoured vehicles, and then applying these systems with great tactical competence."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-russians-keep-evolving
5. "If you live your life acting in the same manner as someone: 1) better looking, 2) born into $10M+ and 3) genetically gifted anomalies… You’re doomed to fail. This goes against all of mainstream beliefs since we glorify the “prodigy’s”.
Instead you should look for people who are not as attractive, grew up with less and don’t have any particular trait that is *not replicable*. Now you’re looking in the right places because there is no “logical” reason why the person should be as successful as they are.
If you are an extreme person, people will always say “I DON’T AGREE WITH YOUR OPINION IT ISN’T TRUE”. This is the best possible complement you can get.
If people view your extreme stance as an opinion but you *know* it works, you’re far far far ahead of the game.
Being extreme is the only way to move the needle. How do you expect extreme results without doing something extreme?
It doesn’t make any sense at all. Does not compute. Never will.
How to Become More Extreme? Pretty simple. Take more risk. Risk is just another phrase for extreme and people will call you crazy or weird. Whatever they want to say. It doesn’t matter."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/how-to-get-ahead-in-life
6. Very interesting perspective on impact of AI for white collar work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXwF0UxUqNw
7. This was a fun interview with my friend Mukund. Hope you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkvDO39hW2Y
8. "The unsettling reality is that America in the not-too-distant future is going to have a lot in common with partial-collapse societies of Eastern Europe and Latin America where gangs have more power and influence than the government; where politicians pass the laws but gangs enforce the rules.
This is the Gray Zone America you should be preparing for — not quite collapsed, but not quite standing."
https://grayzoneresearch.substack.com/p/the-disturbing-reality-of-americas
9. "It has been a rough year for white collar workers and that is effectively the topic of this post. If you’re studying something that can be turned into a single line of code, things are not going to look great in the future. If you don’t have a creative bone in your body, now is the time to up the dosage on those Super Mario sized mushrooms (joke but you get the idea).
How to Prepare
Okay probably a bit worried. That is all good and fine. We have some pretty clear guidelines on how to approach this:
1) you can get a government position,
2) you can work in sales/healthcare,
3) you can become a creative/creator since being unique is not replicable by definition and
4) you want to avoid anything that can be automated
Think of this as a bit of a gradient. The worst position? You would be highly paid with no performance contribution."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/ai-comes-for-the-overpaid-human-processors
10. I support Japan's defense force ramp up. It's a good overview on why this makes sense. Japan is a critical ally to the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx5CckLSjLM
11. One of the best investors in the Valley. Lots of solid insights on investing and helping startup founders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCeRpHPm6o
12. Be more like Genghis Khan.
https://twitter.com/KnowledgeArchiv/status/1649842731697700864
13. Excellent discussion overall. This week’s All in Podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvTTDxMuAis&t=206s
14. "This phenomenon of when value is created makes startups especially hard. Tremendous amounts of work in the early years, and not knowing if or when things will take off, is a hard risk/reward equation for most people. When it works out, it’s an incredible accomplishment. Entrepreneurs would do well to know that most startup value accrues in the later years."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/22/startup-value-accrues-in-the-later-years/
15. "Most open-source-based startups today are focused on a single product. These companies generate higher rake by adopting an open core model: making some of the codebase proprietary but source-available. Many companies have started with a similar updates and services model, but the open source companies that have shown exponential growth ultimately went public with an open core model.
The Red Hat model won’t be repeated. In reality, open core is the most economically viable model for commercializing open source software. It’s poised to replace proprietary software as the default and is the path for open source projects to develop into sustainable businesses."
https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only-worked-red-hat/
16. "Since 1971, investing in dollar assets has become such a no-brainer trade that many investors have forgotten how to actually do financial analysis. Moving forward, gold and crypto will be in focus. They are not tied to a particular country. They cannot be debased at will by a central bank desperate to prop up their financial system with printed fiat money.
And finally, as countries start looking out for their own best interests rather than serving as slaves to the Western financial system, central banks of the global South will diversify how they save their international trade income. The first choice will be to increase gold allocations, which is already underway. And as Bitcoin continues to prove it is the hardest money ever created, I expect that more and more countries will at least start to consider whether it is a suitable savings vehicle alongside gold.
Do not let the financial media present this as an either/or decision between the dollar and the yuan. Do not let the lap dogs of the empire convince you that due to certain “deficiencies” in the Chinese economy, there is no currency ready to dethrone the mighty dollar.
They are playing at misdirection — in the coming years, the world will conduct trade in a multitude of currencies, and then save when needed in gold, and maybe sometime in the near future, Bitcoin."
https://medium.com/@cryptohayes/exit-liquidity-3052309e6bfa
17. I'm down with this trend. Pop up bakeries.
"Though some reports have suggested that pastry chefs are going extinct at NYC restaurants, in truth they are just evolving. Fandom has outlasted the onset of the pandemic, she says: “Pastry places are becoming the destination, not the afterthought, or just end of the meal.” Moultrie says that for Back Alley, the secret to its success was staying nimble, and not just pigeonholing its goodies into one niche — selling angel donuts, Frito pie, and Jamaican patties all under the same roof."
https://ny.eater.com/2023/4/14/23658605/bakery-lines-trend-from-lucie-lappartement-4f
18. "Lawmakers also learned that long range missiles will be critical to any conflict. The United States quickly ran out of long-range stealth anti-ship cruise missiles during the simulation, weapons that were integral to sinking CCP warships.
America also moved to sanction China following an invasion, but many allies were hesitant to join the effort. Global supply chains broke down as a result of the turmoil, highlighting the need for companies to prepare for such a scenario.
Resupplying Taiwan once war breaks out also "is not an option," according to the source briefed on the game. The United States will have to ensure that Taiwan is fully stocked prior to any invasion."
19. Turkey playing the Great Geopolitical game surprisingly well.
“Erdogan and Putin are enemies, but they’re enemies who deal with each other and are happier and more comfortable dealing with each other than with anyone else,” James F. Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, told Yahoo News.
Turkey’s effort to maintain diplomatic, commercial and military ties to Russia while doing the same with Ukraine, a country at war with Russia for almost a decade, has been one of the most precarious balancing acts of statecraft in recent memory. More surprisingly, it has been largely successful.
Alone among world leaders, Erdogan arms Putin’s adversary with impunity while managing to offer himself as a seemingly neutral interlocutor between Kyiv and Moscow, orchestrating prisoner swaps, grain deals and preliminary — albeit quixotic — proposals to end the war."
https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-supports-ukraine-without-alienating-russia-100046689.html
If It Doesn’t Make Dollars, It Doesn’t Make Sense
Maybe I’m getting old and traditional. Maybe it’s the scar tissue from barely surviving the Dotcom boom in the late 90s and the consequent bust in 2000 and 2001 where the entire tech startup ecosystem almost disappeared. It was brutal and the metaphor commonly used during that time was nuclear winter. I don’t care how bad things get now, I don’t think it will ever be that bad in the tech industry again.
So many smarter, talented and more experienced people than me left in 2001 and 2002 and missed the consequent massive boom in tech that happened over the proceeding two decades. Like all Gold Rush towns, we have new eager people coming in without the scar tissue but also without the collective memory. Silicon Valley thrives by drinking the blood of the new, young and naive. This is innovation, new blood brings in a new perspective, a new view and a lot of energy.
But with the new influx of people something gets lost along the way: hard lessons gained from massive pain. I’ve never understood businesses that don’t have working business models. I’ve never understood why companies scaled bad unit economics or bad retention numbers. It’s okay to lose money in the beginning. I’m not an investment banker or an east coast or European VC where their conservatism requires growth metrics and traction that make no sense for early stage startup investing. Any idiot can invest in traction.
But the business model ultimately needs to work and scale. That plus It has to solve a real problem that people are willing to pay for. That is why I’ve been such a huge skeptic on most food delivery like Gorillas and micro-mobility businesses like Bird and other such garbage.
And in 2022 and 2023, everyone, whether Limited Partners in VC funds, VC Investors and startup founders are learning this lesson the hard way. Money covers up a lot of issues but cycles always turn eventually. Reality really does bite sometimes.
At the end of the day, as my old friend Scott once told me: “If it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t make sense.” Think about that. There are plenty of lessons to learn from business history.
Japan is the Best: A Code and The Search for Perfection
I loved the “Last Samurai” movie starring Tom Cruise as an ex-American soldier & mercenary captured in 1876 by a famous Samurai in rebellion against the Japanese government. It’s a fictional story with many historical inaccuracies but it’s a great story. While the American soldier is held in captivity at the samurai village, he makes an observation of the Japanese.
“They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake, they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seen such discipline.”
I know this comment may be a bit too much of a cultural stereotype. But stereotypes do exist for a reason. They have a deep sense of their cultural identity and history. The quote above is why Japan is so damn good at crafts, why their food is so good, why they are a manufacturing powerhouse. Their discipline, their sense of duty and devotion to mission whether it’s a company or national mission is unparalleled in the world. The search for perfection.
This mindset may also be why their startup ecosystem is so behind the USA. My observation is that in Japan, the mindset of launching something imperfect goes against a lot of internal cultural instincts. One that keeps to super high standards and hates high risk. Although I should note this is changing fast among the younger population now. Could you imagine doing the lean startup methodology and launching a Minimal Viable Product aka MVP? How hard is that when customer expectations and your own expectations are so high. This is in contrast to America where we focus on getting stuff done but at a good enough level. And let’s be frank, a much sloppier and slapdash way of doing things.
There is a scene where Cruise’s character is learning sword fighting but he keeps getting beat. He is given advice by one of the samurai.
“Too Many Mind. Mind sword. Mind people watching, mind enemy. Too many mind. No Mind.”
It’s about being present & not overthinking. It’s about focus and just letting your actions flow. It’s like in the martial arts, you train like mad but when it comes to the fight you trust your training and let things flow. This is a good approach to take in life.
We can learn to be more samurai. “What does it mean to be samurai? To devote yourself utterly to a set of moral principles. To seek a stillness of your mind. And to master the way of the sword. Life in every breath.”
A code of honor and a way of life. So much wisdom to be gained. That is why I so deeply love the place and culture. This is also why I hope that Japan and America will continue to be closely tied at the hip economically & geopolitically. We have so much to learn from each other. I look forward to spending as much time as I can in Japan in the future.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 16th, 2023
“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
"Overall, the bottom-up SaaS approach is a powerful strategy for gaining widespread adoption within organizations. It relies on delivering a high-quality product that meets the needs of individual users and teams, and then leveraging their advocacy to drive broader adoption across the organization."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/what-is-bottom-up-saas
2. I really like this guy Justin Waller. A very positive model for many young men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Z9W7fsSf0&t=529s
3. "In software, we like to talk about must-have products vs nice-to-have products. Of course, it’s a continuum and not binary, but the most successful startups are in the must-have category and the vast majority of failed startups are in the nice-to-have category.
Only, when times are good, it’s often hard to know just how much a must-have or nice-to-have a product is as budgets are loose and grow-at-all-costs is the mantra. The easy spending can make products look more must-have than they really are. Then, when budgets contract, the truth comes out."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/08/budget-pressures-highlight-mission-critical-software-or-not/
4. This is an instructive discussion on how to leverage audiences and technology to build massive businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C3n1vqG5VY&t=28s
5. I don't like to see this but it seems to be happening directionally.
"Central banks can see the writing on the wall when it comes to the end of the USD’s prominence. As a result, they’ve been taking rapid action to stuff their coffers with a stable asset that isn’t on the decline.
Since late 2019, and increasing at a rapid rate since then, central banks around the world have been buying up gold like mad. 2022 saw the largest stockpiling of gold by central banks ever on record, with a total of 1,136 tons being purchased by nations like China, India, Turkey, and Singapore. This frenzied buying hasn’t slowed this year either, with January 2023’s purchases up by 192% when compared with December.
In other words, everyone is losing faith in the US dollar. The final nails are being hammered into its coffin as we speak.
Over the next few years, we’re going to see a gradual-yet-rapid decline in the purchasing power of the dollar, and in turn, the economic power of the United States. This is more than likely going to signal a shift in global supremacy along with it, and create even more economic turmoil than we’ve seen these past few years (as if we haven’t already had enough of that).
So, what am I doing to make sure I’m as protected as I can be during this time? I’m sure you’ve already guessed: I’m buying more gold."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-men-who-eat-gold
6. "So, the Ukrainians have worked out what seems like a coherent strategy to fight for the town. As long as the Russians are throwing increasing force into the battle, and advancing by blocks a day, the Ukrainians will continue to defend the city.
As they will the other Russian targets in the Second Battle of the Donbas. The Ukrainians will do that because they want the Russians to keep attacking, to keep them from building up fresh reserves and to keep them from building up deep defensive lines. When the counteroffensive comes, the Ukrainians want to face as small number of fresh, rested Russian troops as possible."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-23-reflections-from
7. I love the Substack product. But lots of questions on the business.
"Substack’s main issue is the absence of a lock-in effect and, consequently, limited pricing power. Ironically, that’s also the reason I like Substack as a user. The platform is built on email, allowing users to leave and take all their subscribers with them. In contrast, leaving Twitter results in losing most if not all of your audience.
From the user side, the reliance on email is a feature; from the business side, it’s a bug. If Substack were to increase its fee to 30% (the fee Apple takes in the Appstore), everyone would simply leave.
This means that even if Substack keeps growing its users, it can never charge them much money. Good for the users; bad for the business."
https://unfashionable.substack.com/p/substack
8. "What I think happened in the last two years is that the fragile remnants of the industrial work scripts lost their hold over our collective imagination. You might still buy into the belief that designing your life around continuous employment throughout adulthood is a good decision and that’s great if the story works for you, but it is no longer a collective story that everyone believes.
This is leading to weird feelings. People working remotely have found their life got a lot better but experienced a subtle emptiness that they couldn’t explain. I sense it was just the awareness of a collective lostness, being in a time in which most people don’t really share a narrative about what we should be doing with our time.
We’ve entered a choose-your-own-adventure labor economy that clearly and explicitly puts all the pressure on the individual to figure things out and everyone knows it."
https://boundless.substack.com/p/the-industrial-work-script-is-dead
9. Good perspective on Macron's visit to China. And Xi's China's issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyoYtunqPQ&list=RDCMUCsy9I56PY3IngCf_VGjunMQ&index=5
10. "It is very early in the tragic conflict over Ukraine and much remains unclear. But whatever happens, our response must be realistic and strategic, serving our interests in Europe while ensuring the prioritization of Asia. It is both right and in our strategic interests to help Ukraine and our European allies defend themselves and make sure Russia does not gain from this loathsome aggression.
But we cannot rest our strategy on a fiction—that we can fight two major wars against China and Russia at anything like the same time. We need to have a strategy that accounts for that fact, not one that ignores it or wishes it away. Fortunately, there is one, and we should pursue it."
https://time.com/6152096/us-support-ukraine-china-priority
11. "However, with the information the Chinese have collected on Western decision-making about Ukraine, recent intelligence leaks, and previous US responses to constant Chinese aggressive behaviour, the Chinese Communist Party probably believes it is able to cleverly calibrate its actions to remain just beneath the threshold of American military or economic retaliation.
The real issue then is what happens if the Chinese leadership miscalculates this strategy, or America's strategic calculus in the Western Pacific changes and it becomes less accommodating of coercive Chinese behaviour?"
12. "In Europe, NATO’s interior lines are built on a backbone of posture left from the Cold War. Permanently stationed forces, stockpiles, and logistics networks that include bases, airports, and seaports are already in place and prepared to support massive military operations.
In the Indo-Pacific, however, the U.S. military lacks the interior lines it needs to fight and win.
Its forces and equipment are concentrated in Korea and Japan, and the United States is perennially challenged to secure pre-conflict agreements for posture elsewhere in Asia. To oppose a PLA force with the advantages of magazine depth and its own interior lines, the U.S. military must adopt creative, practical approaches to develop the interior lines it lacks, from Southeast Asia to Australia through the first and second island chains.
No one knows just what it would take to win a future war in the Indo-Pacific, but one fact is clear. PLA capabilities and CCP ambitions do not afford the United States the liberty of a World War II repeat: ceding the Pacific, then spending years of blood and treasure to fight back in. Asia is a joint theater with problems that require joint solutions. Working together is the only way to win, and it begins with interior lines."
13. "I’ve seen the same patterns in friends and clients. They feel like outsiders in comparison to tech’s “anointed ones,” and end up chasing external validation as a way to try to feel like they belong.
Instead of focusing on craftsmanship or doing work that matters, their life becomes about trying to get funded by Sequoia, go viral on Twitter, or give a TED Talk. External recognition becomes an end unto itself, often at the expense of their own values and vision.
This is what I call the “status spiral.” When we compare ourselves with those we perceive as higher status, we feel insecure and doubt our self-worth. This in turn leads us to chase status as a way to try to feel better about ourselves."
https://every.to/no-small-plans/the-status-trap
14. This is a great framework for figuring out B2B Sales for founders.
https://www.formatone.io/blog/enterprise-sales-b2b-startups
15. I'm legit curious about this new Netflix show now. We all have rage inside it seems. Product Zeitgeist fit as we are in the Age of Anger.
16. Every young man should listen to this discussion.
Net net: Everyone has challenges, so do the work and deal with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3nS5u_BtvY
17. Hope he is right. But the West needs to ramp up our preparations for Taiwan’s defense asap.
"One day, China may invade Taiwan, triggering a war with global implications. But that day isn’t soon. When and if it does, the timing will be determined by China’s leader, not as the result of any diplomatic provocation, but by his own calculation of benefit and cost. For now, it’s still possible to hope that cooler heads can one day find a diplomatic solution to avert a war that would have disastrous implications far beyond Asia."
https://time.com/6270599/china-invade-taiwan/
18. No surprise here and glad it’s happening. That is why they are "special forces."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65245065
19. Another example that we are in the Age of Grifters. I feel for the victims.
https://restofworld.org/2023/generacion-zoe-leonardo-cositorto/
20. This is an information & insight rich interview. One that you will listen to many times to understand the mindset of true success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuNOFW-oVn8&t=1870s
21. "My takeaway is that precious metals and other hedges are a defensive solution at best. It’s one part of a hyperinflation survival strategy, but only as a store of value that can be traded for a more stable currency in the future. My major problem with precious metals is that they don’t generate income.
What I learned from Stinnes is that the ability to generate income during periods of inflation and hyperinflation is based on your ability to produce things of value and connect them with buyers."
https://grayzoneresearch.substack.com/p/gray-zone-research-001-dying-of-money
22. "In sum, Europe appears to be turning its back on the technologies of the future, viewing them either as threats to be regulated away, or as consumption goods to be imported from China. If you want to be a superpower, this is not the kind of thing you do. Mastery of cutting-edge technology leads to both economic and military power; the EU will not be able to substitute regulatory power or moral power in their place.
Europe seems in danger of making that sort of mistake in the modern day. It risks becoming a backward but tranquil society, smug in its relatively high quality of life, refusing to engage with what Macron calls “crises that are not ours”.
That strategy might work for a while, as France and Germany buy off the Russian barbarians and make a quick buck selling a century of accumulated technological leadership to the Chinese at bargain-basement prices.
But in the long run, a decline into weakness, irrelevance, and backwardness will not work out for Europe any better in the 21st century than it did for China in the 19th."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/europe-is-not-ready-to-be-a-third
23. "China today is very different from what it was in the pre-Xi Jinping era. Practically every private company has now been forced to establish Communist Party Committees, which interfere in management decisions.
So while entrepreneurs might appear rich on paper, they remain servants of their masters in the Chinese Communist Party."
https://www.asiancenturystocks.com/p/playing-red-roulette
24. A very solid episode of NIA: talking about culture & business on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W27JeMCLAw
25. This was a good discussion on the rise of AI. Really enjoyed this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1gMhEUXeNk&t=1666s
26. This is an extreme case of Libertarianism & frankly stupidity. And probably likely outcome: Jail time.
"It’s not the smartest course of action to decide to completely opt out of society in a place where technically, you could still be called out for non-compliance. That kind of stuff ends with you in jail, as we’ve seen above."
https://bowtiedmara.substack.com/p/sovereign-individuals-in-argentina
Lessons from TinTin: An Unquenchable Thirst for Adventure
Growing up in Vancouver, I was a nerdy bookworm with a love for comics and anime. One of the many comic series I read was TinTin, a Belgian comic series about the adventures of a journalist and his white dog Snowy.
He travels all around the world, solving historical mysteries, experiencing adventure in some of the world’s most exotic places. I’d almost forgotten how obsessed I was as a kid with TinTin until I chanced upon the recent animated movie on a flight.
It’s interesting about the little things that affect you when growing up. How the ideas and glamor of a comic book could change the trajectory of your life. I think about all the fun and exotic places I’ve traveled to around the world and all the future places I’m scheduled to be going to soon. All of this started from the kernel of an idea and my own imagination as an impressionable young child.
The little acorn of an idea that has turned into a big oak tree funded by experiences and resources I never thought I’d have when I was growing up. Now I travel the world, exploring new tech ecosystems, meeting extraordinary people, speaking at big conferences and investing in tech startups all around the world. Places I’ve thought exotic once before now seem commonplace and normal.
This also explains my deep fascination with international business and the emerging markets. It’s why I find people like Jim Rogers, John Templeton, Mark Möbius, Doug Casey, Swen Lorenz & Tim Staermose so interesting. They are the investors, speculators, wanderers and modern day adventurers. Actually I’d say modern day explorers: chasing the best deals by going where no other investors and business people dare to go. They are the models for my business life.
For anyone looking to mix business and global adventure, you don’t have to look very far for people to follow. And many of these inspirations come from the most unexpected places at unexpected times.
So go explore and pursue all your interests, and encourage your kids to do the same. You never know where you all will end up. Hopefully somewhere personally amazing and magical.
Turning Red: Growing Up in the West in an Asian Immigrant Family
I admit I hesitated watching Disney’s “Turning Red.” An animated story of a 13 year old Chinese (or Taiwanese) girl growing up in Toronto, trapped between two cultures of the individual west and the collective east. Driven by high expectations of an intense, strict, controlling mother. She wants to please her family but is also learning to find herself too. Kind of hit a bit too close to home.
I found myself entranced as I reflected on my own upbringing. As I’ve written before, I grew up under what is now widely known as the Tiger Mom method. The constant comparison to others in the community and to my closest siblings and cousins. Especially, as the eldest sibling of my family and the eldest of all kids on my fathers side. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Never feeling like you are adequate or good enough.
The lack of affection, at least until my teens, and probably the lack of positive feedback in general is pretty damaging. In fact, affection was conditional, based on conforming to their expectations. The stress on good grades, hard work and being a good kid who would bring honor, or at least not bring shame to the family.
Too bad, I was a relatively mediocre student, very poorly behaved, always in trouble at school (note: my parents got called to the school so often they were on a first name basis with the vice principals at all the schools I went to, true story here). Add on a ferocious temper that still causes me trouble to this day. I’m not what you call a model child and was pretty much an embarrassment to the family. I never met their high standards at least until I got to University, when I sort of grew up. And definitely was able to turn things around when I left Canada in 1996. Consequently, I’m also very hard on myself and drive myself intensely even when I don’t need to be.
I still have very deep lingering resentment against my mom, even though I know she was doing her best. She only ever had good intentions and wanted what was good for me. I know this now as a parent, this Sh-t is HARD especially with your first kid.
The irony of all this, is that my life, on most measures, turned out pretty good. I’ve surpassed everyone I grew up with. I’ve crushed them all. And I would love to shove what I’ve done in front of all the teachers who put me down—-worthless sub middle class fu-kers. Yes, I still feel the intense anger here at how I was treated by them. Albeit, I think this was in good part due to the environment and opportunities I found in the USA. I had a clean slate, Backed up with an intense work ethic, pure rage plus a total fear of both failure and poverty.
Yet I find myself repeating some of the things I hated being inflicted on me, towards my daughter. I even do this to my startup founders. I’m harsh, I have high expectations, I very rarely, if ever compliment or give positive feedback. I’ve become everything I resent in my mom.
And this is why a fairly good portion of my founders hate me. I would estimate this to be 10-15% of my founder pool which is a pretty big number. But this is a conscious decision for me. If you want to truly help, then tell them the truth even if it hurts. F—k them and their weakness. If they want vapid useless advice, go to other VCs who claim to be “founder friendly.” I make no apologies here.
Having said that, it has made me rethink my parenting style. It’s one thing being cold and harsh to a supposed adult that startup founders are. And I stress supposed adults, as some of them are complete man-children. But it’s a different thing to do this to your child, who is still developing and learning. I’m trying to figure out the right balance of high standards and expectations but still showing affection & care. Or at least not making the affection conditional on success and meeting high standards like it was for me. Thankfully my kid is very competitive and very self motivated, so it’s not like I have to push her.
And I see it as a second chance to help myself. I’m working on seeing my Tiger Mom upbringing as a blessing & gift, not a curse. I would not be where I am without it and without my parents. Any success I have in life is a tribute to them and them only. Yes, I’m still dealing with the small emotional traumas that come with it but at least I was able to channel it into some level of societal success. That’s NOT nothing.
There is a great quote in the movie: “people have all kinds of sides to them. And some sides are messy. The point is not to push the bad stuff away, it’s to make room for it. Live with it.”
So some advice for all of us:
“Honor your parents but don’t forget to honor yourself.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 9th, 2023
“Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.” -John Lennon
"The US dollar for all its problems is still the World’s Reserve Currency. The United States still owns SWIFT. And most of global trade is still denominated in USD. However, this does signal the beginnings of detrimental ambitions and actions.
While American Nationalists will say these are only small trades, or insignificant quantities; while true, they signal a shifting in the winds.
It is akin to the philosophical/economic idea known as the problem of pennies: A penny is in of itself worthless and useless by itself; but with enough of them they become a kings ransom.
These actions may seem small and trifle. But with enough of them they add up to something much larger. With so many of these deals being done so rapidly, it is clear the World believes that America is not only unstable, but can be challenged openly.
In fact America and the West keep tripping over their own feet when it comes to innovation and new technologies, a prime example being Crypto."
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/financial-fight
2. This is a good global macro take on what’s happening these days. USD is still fine as Global reserve currency unlike the nutty takes out there this week. BRICS are over-rated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzsvdXbSqpA
3. "The more entrepreneurs spend time with other entrepreneurs, the greater the chance they find a match for a future startup. Entrepreneurs combining on new startups is a strong signal this works and an integral part of startup communities."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/01/entrepreneurs-combining-on-new-startups
4. This is gold. And something many growth stage startups are learning the hard way now.
"Either a high-velocity, low-ACV or high-ACV, low-velocity sales motion can work as long as all the pieces – including the type of customer, lead gen strategies, and sales processes – are aligned. Go-to-market strategies that take a long time to close small deals are prohibitive.
If you’re in the losing quadrant, you must determine whether tactical improvements (getting better at sales, changing pricing, or improving efficiency) can solve your problem or if your situation requires a pivot.
If things are trending in the right direction, keep going. If you’re in the losing quadrant and don’t see progress, it’s time for a deeper discussion about your product-market fit."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-difficulty-ratio
5. What a brave and honorable man. We need more people like this in the world these days. It was a different time back then It seems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEIOv8mVeHQ
6. "Balaji’s specific bet might be more reasonable if the U.S. were an emerging market (EM) like Argentina. But because U.S. is a global reserve currency, it can get away with a lot of challenges that an EM cannot.
Central to Balaji’s view is that the U.S. will lose global reserve currency status and thus act like any other country facing a currency crisis. He believes that the money fleeing banks will go to BTC or RMB instead of staying within the country. He concedes that if you don’t believe this is possible, his case for massive inflation won’t make as much sense.
So the real question is how much longer can the U.S. be the global reserve currency (GRC), and what needs to be true for America to lose our GRC status. After all, dollars were one 40% of global GDP, now they’re closer to ~15-20%, so dropping even further is not crazy.
It’s possible everything depends on that. Because that’s what Balaji’s best predictive skill is — realizing when an assumption we took for granted has now changed, and extrapolating second-order effects out from that change. Let’s hope, as he does, that he isn’t right this time."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/examining-balajis-bet
7. "Picking the right company has always been critical, but it's more important now than ever before. Unlike in 2021 when the entire tech sector was thriving, the 2023 job market is split between companies that will never meet their inflated valuations and promising companies with discounted stock prices."
https://junglegym.substack.com/p/navigate-your-next-negotiation-carefully
8. What a cool story.
“I have a really wide variety of interests; it’s so odd,” she said with a laugh. “I love to learn. I’ve gotten into so many fun things in my life.”
Today, Schroeder sees the remnants of her patents everywhere. Department stores and toy shops selling brands like RoseArt and Crayola are lined with glow-in-the dark drawing tools and toys inspired by Schroeder’s original phosphorescent invention.
And to her, that’s all right. Natural, even, for the life cycle of inventions.
“It doesn’t have my name on it now,” Schroeder said. “It’s not about me. It’s about what’s out there now for people and knowing I’ve touched them.”
https://blog.hubspot.com/the-hustle/youngest-female-inventor
9. Important discussion on the future of war and lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSKhQBcfGF0
10. This is a very complacent view in my opinion. Taiwan and USA needs to ramp up defenses ASAP.
"Milley said Taiwan needs air defense, anti-ship cruise missiles, and anti-ship mines. But he said the island itself, its population of 23 million—including 170,000 active duty military and 1-to-2 million reserves,—and China’s lack of experience make a takeover unlikely. “It favors the defense. It would be a very difficult island to capture,” he said.
“For the Chinese to conduct an amphibious and airborne operation to seize that island—to actually seize it?—That's a really difficult operation. But Xi put the challenge out there, and we'll see where it goes.”
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/03/lower-rhetoric-china-says-milley/384693/
11. Interesting concept. New Fertile Crescent. It's a bit more of a mercenary view than I like but for the adventurer investor this seems promising.
https://mailchi.mp/be29f68a4286/investing-in-the-new-fertile-crescent?e=123a1c25c4
12. This is one situation where the USA is drastically under-reacting (versus over-reacting). The true threat of China, very scary stuff.
Worth watching: I learned alot and am even more worried now. Hope people pay attention here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5wpzKvPc3U
13. Libertarian stance by these folks which I dislike. But I do agree commodities & gold will be good investments.
The elites of West have screwed up due to complacency, arrogance, greed and incompetence allowed BRICS to rise & through bad moves in global monetary war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPNgl1tXKE
14. Lots of good nuggets here on the geopolitical scene from Zeihan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiStIGhLJm8
15. Some good personal finance advice I wish I heeded earlier. Worth reading the whole thing twice.
"The second major conclusion is that lifestyle inflation is an absolute killer. You will be poor forever if you spend your annual raise on “new stuff” since your savings from the prior year will mean nothing.
Put some math behind it. If you’re earning $100,000 and saving $20,000. That’s 20% and you’re doing just fine.
You go and get a raise to $150,000. And. You continue to save $20,000. That is 13.3% and now you’re saving *LESS* than you were last year on a percentage basis.
In short, you got a raise but you’ve made it harder to keep up with your lifestyle to the tune of ~8 years"
"You can either start building an income now to offset your living expenses or play the 1/100 odds you move up quickly in the corporate game to a 1% income for 10+ years."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/personal-finance-planning-and-avoiding
16. "This significant uplift in mobility and survivability support to the Ukrainian army tells us that not only have battlefield conditions changed since the beginning of the war, but that the coming offensives by the Ukrainians will look different to those that have been conducted north of Kyiv, in Kharkiv and in Kherson in 2022.
While these previous Ukrainian offensives may offer some insights into the fight ahead, there are many reasons to expect that the coming months may see an evolved approach by the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainian Offensive Will Be Different
The first reason for this is that the Ukrainians are facing a different Russian Army now than compared to 2022. Not only does it have a different commander in General Gerasimov, but there is a different balance of professional and mobilised troops.
While much ink has been spilled about how mobilised troops are better at defensive than offensive operations, the reality is that the coordination of a scheme of defence over several hundred kilometres of front line is still a complex and fraught undertaking. It is certainly a more substantial undertaking than just plopping troops in trenches with anti tank weapons!"
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-coming-fight-will-be-different
17. "The answer is that AI is going to spawn future professions and skillsets specifically related to the field of “prompt engineering”. In many ways, prompt engineering will become the only profession as AI proliferates.
Think of prompt engineering as the ability to understand real world problems and then properly frame and convey the problems to an AI to help solve (ex: using ChatGPT to research and then draft an essay on a topic for a target audience or Copilot to help write lines of code for an app your building).
In the near future (I’m talking very near), your ability to understand how to use AI tools and apply that knowledge specifically to your job/industry will add significant value your employer or client.
Prompt engineering will be a clear value driving differentiator between those that have the skill and those that do not."
https://www.thesovereignindividualweekly.com/p/job-future
18. "Make no mistake: these are historically unprecedented quit-rates from Japan’s best & brightest. And, in my view, when the next generation elite begin to move, something very fundamental is changing.
Unfortunately it is, to my knowledge, not possible to ascertain where the quitters go due to personal privacy protection rules. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that a fair number do not move on to large prestigious companies but actually join start-ups."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-6-elite-on-the
19. Good news: Russia has coalesced most of Europe against them. Deservedly so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEe6yySL6ps
20. Mimetic desire drives everything. This is a great discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpA5k1c4Ey4
21. I enjoy these little geopolitical snapshots from Zeihan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyoYtunqPQ
22. Good advice for aspiring VCs.
"To be clear, venture is one of the best jobs in the world, and it’s an extremely privileged opportunity that I’m grateful for each day. But you require both luck and a very long-term mindset to do it well. Most other financial services businesses (hedge funds, traditional private equity, etc.) are far more lucrative if money is your sole goal.
If you want to build something special, expect to do it for over 20 years"
https://writing.erictarczynski.com/p/five-lessons-building-venture-fund
23. "This financial crisis will end the short-term boom-bust cycle and, more importantly, end the long-term boom-bust cycle with catastrophic consequences. This is the event you should be preparing for.
Here’s why I think this.
First, right now, banks can park their cash at the Federal Reserve risk-free at nearly a 5% yield, which reduces the incentive for them to approve loans heading into a period of financial uncertainty.
The net result is that we’re likely to see credit rationing as banks improve their reserve ratios by pulling back on loans. This will decrease economic activity.
Second, this is accelerating the end of the short-term boom-bust cycle as credit availability dries up and commercial banks are less willing to provide loans.
Credit and loan deterioration are early warning indicators of a recession."
https://grayzoneresearch.substack.com/p/tremors-before-an-earthquake-on-the
24. "Every meeting that I had with a VC informed not only my perspective of that individual, but of the firm they worked for. It informed the likelihood that I re-engaged with their firm for subsequent rounds. It informed what I told other founders when they asked about my experiences fundraising.
A decade later, those experiences — both good and bad — informed how I chose to enter the world of venture capital.
Most significantly, they informed the way that I try to show up for the founders each and every day."
https://chrisneumann.com/blog/founders-never-forget
25. "But important context herein is that key Western IMF shareholders see the absolute strategic necessity for Ukraine to be financed through this war and the early part of reconstruction assuming a base case of the war petering out in the first half of 2024. So with that context the IMF team were tasked with coming up with numbers which seemed coherent under a certain set of assumptions. They have.
The macro forecasts are fingers in the air but that’s fine as those same key Western shareholders have provided the IMF with sufficient financing assurances that they will continue to write cheques for Ukraine to enable it to win this war almost whatever the macro outturn ends up as being."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-gets-a-new-imf-programme
26. I love these discussions on global macro economics and the VC side. It’s really good this week.
Everything has an expiration Date: Overstaying your Welcome
I had an interesting conversation a few days over breakfast with a very sharp & capable Egyptian entrepreneur. He has built an incredible business but only after trying and failing badly a few times before he found this new business. Now they are a literal rocket ship with crazy good margins, unit economics and a massive new Series B to boot, impressive in this fundraising environment.
One of the big things we talked about was scaling and how this was the second major trigger point of failure in the tech startup world. You find yourself in the strange position of product market fit but yet you can’t keep up with the demand due to scaling issues. And everything you did before that worked so well doesn’t work anymore.
And this is usually the result of having people who were great last year but now just don’t have the skill set or experience to help you get to the next stage. This is pretty common and something pretty well understood in Silicon Valley. I discussed these different stages here: https://hardfork.substack.com/p/the-jungle-the-dirt-road-and-the
It’s actually quite important for anyone in the startup operating and investing world to understand. We all have an expiration date in the roles, companies and actual locations and places. Heck we have that in romantic relationships and marriage. Everything has an expiration date. You basically have to know when to quit.
I’ve said many times, in my career, I’ve always overstayed at most places by at least a year or two. My last year at Yahoo! & 500 Startups were awful experiences for me and pretty sure also for those I worked with. Needless political battles, and a lot of petty little things which I do take majority of responsibility for. Frankly, I was burned out, disillusioned and had stopped caring. Thus it’s easy to become unmotivated and not a little bit bitter.
Yet my deep fear of the unknown, the comfort of knowing the place and total lack of courage and laziness kept me there. “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t” as the old saying goes. This is what keeps people working in bad situations or places for decades. This is what keeps people in bad relationships for a long time, even a lifetime. Taking sh-t and indignities that no self respecting person ever should.
So how do you know when you are hitting your expiration date? A couple very obvious signs:
You stop learning. Where before you were learning a tremendous amount, you have stopped learning. Basically your learning curve has flattened. If you feel like you are the smartest person in the room, that’s a bad thing.
You stop caring and your quality of work goes down. Where before you worked a tremendous amount of hours and couldn’t wait to get to the office. Now you have a feeling of dread every Sunday night. You can’t wait for the weekend. The excitement and romance is gone!
You dislike, hate and don’t respect all the new senior people coming into the organization (they probably hated me too :). And you do everything to avoid interacting with them.
You stop believing in the mission. Or maybe you still believe but don’t think the organization is doing the right things to execute the mission. You literally stop caring.
If you are feeling all of these things, you need to get the F-ck out as soon as possible. You are wasting your energy, and maybe most importantly, your ultra precious time. Time, which is the only non-renewable resource we humans have. Time to learn new things and work on amazing new opportunities. Time with people you love and respect. Time to really LIVE.
Trust yourself and your abilities and make the move before it’s too late. Better to plan and initiate the change yourself than to have it inflicted on you.
Massively Relevant Lessons from a Cowboy’s Life
As my readers have noticed already, I’ve taken so many learnings from the “Yellowstone” tv series. There is this scene where an old cowboy is trying to educate a new guy into “the life”.
“It’s the most glorious work that you can do that no one ever sees. It takes every inch of you. You are going to risk your life, your horse’s life. And no one knows if you won or you lost. It’s art without an audience till the day you die. Then after you’re dead, you don’t have an audience either. You’re just gone. You’ve got to want this life. You’ve gotta want it, all the way to your bones. And if you don’t, it will be absolute hell on earth.”
Sounds alot like entrepreneurial/ startup life doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds like almost any career outside of media and Hollywood. Hard, thankless most of the time and only personally meaningful.
You have to really want it. You have to go all in and commit if you want to be good at it. This is the universal law of success. Do things well even when no one is looking. Because you will know. It’s in the details and the nuances. You have to treat it like a craft. The two steps forward and one step back. But never relenting and always pushing. Learning along the way.
That’s how you get from being an amateur to becoming a professional. And then from a professional, to the sublime heights of an artist at the top of their game.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 2nd, 2023
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney
This is a worthwhile discussion on the role of AI in global competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kJSUlC2MQM
2. Not sure what I think about this. Extreme other side of complacent & coddling weak management.
"Elon Musk is a cruel business leader who has been looking for someone who is harsher than him to take over Twitter, and I believe he found a person who is a hardcore version of himself.
His name is Steve Davis, and he is a brutal, brilliant entrepreneur who values money before anything. He is a relentless man whose main goal is to make money, and he will destroy anyone or anything that stands between him and his goal. Davis will do whatever it takes to get ahead, including exploiting workers."
3. "And speaking of the historic moments, Gordon Moore, member of the Traitorous Eight, co-founder of Intel, and most famously, the formulator of Moore’s Law, just passed away. So there is a very real sense of a generation shift in the air in tech at the moment. Gordon Moore is gone, just a couple weeks after a somewhat less venerable institution, the Silicon Valley Bank, exited the stage. But at the same time, there are interesting signs of genuine renewal, and the launch of Atomic Semi feels like one of them.
It is news to a lot of people, but there hasn’t been much actual silicon manufacturing in Silicon Valley for decades. The fabs mostly moved to Asia, and the few significant manufacturing facilities left in the US are not actually in Silicon Valley.
While there is of course a ton of design work and specialized laboratory work that happens on the campuses of Intel, AMD, and other chip majors and minors in the region (mostly concentrated around the southern tip of Silicon Valley), actually making the chips has been a business for other geographies."
https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/silicon-valley-generation-shift
4. "Awards are fun and exciting.
Awards are not success.
Startup success is only bestowed by customers — not by mentors, investors or media. Customers decide where to spend their budget and whether or not a product is useful. The market decides, not the media.
Accept startup awards with a smile and stay focused on the customer."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/03/25/startup-awards-dont-equal-success/
5. "I'm writing this mostly as a warning. I know a lot of indie founders are hopeful that AI is the next big platform that will produce the next wave of bootstrapped startups (similar to the iOS store, Shopify store, etc).
I believe there will be opportunities for established bootstrapped startups, who already have a strong customer base, to incorporate AI into their products.
And everyone can benefit from AI-assisted coding, problem-solving, and outline writing.
But it seems, with AI, I think most of the upside will go to big companies (especially to OpenAI), not new AI-driven startups."
https://justinjackson.ca/chatgpt-business
6. "I spent eight years building my last company. And I made a lot of mistakes.
One key mistake I made was not aligning my work with a purpose I cared about. Another was approaching the work with a finish line in mind.
I hold ambition quite differently now."
https://www.mattmunson.me/rethinking-ambition/
7. Net net: we are behind in hypersonic weapons and really have alot of work to do to catch up.
8. Not just a bit curious about this event.
"The Big Sandy Shoot, “the largest machine-gun shoot in the world . . . a uniquely American event,” is held two weekends a year, in March and October, outside Wikieup, Arizona, a remote census-designated place halfway between Vegas and Phoenix on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Shooters pay $325 for a spot on the firing line; observers who aren’t local pay thirty-five dollars at the gate.
Shooters, staff, and observers come here from all over the world. At the fall shoot, I talked with folks from Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the UK, and Australia, to name just a few countries, and nearly every part of America. Many have come for decades; at least one guy I talked to had been to every single event over the shoot’s thirty-five-year history.
I was glad to have come to this weird, beautiful, fucked-up weekend in America. And I was glad to leave, even if I never got to see the guy shoot the machine gun off the back of the disco boat or ask him why. I don’t know that there’s a satisfying answer to that question anyhow, except for “Because we can.”
Because America. Because men. Because freedom. Because it feels better than anger. Because fun. Because obsession. Because history. Because friendship. Because family. Because batshittery. Because joy."
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a43271740/big-sandy-machine-guns/
9. This is a good discussion on making non-consensus investments as VC.
Looking back: All my best investments were initially disregarded by most investors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTlf-d9yzE&t=2s
10. "Emerging markets are one area that could provide investors with a wide variety of opportunities that are relatively, but not exclusively, less correlated with developed markets."
https://www.thelykeion.com/finding-relative-value-in-emerging-markets
11. "As millions of Americans stream “Sex and the City” and other old sitcoms, warm nostalgia has been accompanied by a cold dose of skepticism about the characters’ apartments and houses.
Were they paying far beyond their means, or are we judging with a 2020s perspective?
The Hustle analyzed the salaries and living situations of several famous sitcom characters over the past few decades as a lens on today’s housing market."
https://thehustle.co/what-old-sitcoms-reveal-about-americas-rising-cost-of-housing/
12. "So in summation this is why I have given the Ukrainians the clear benefit of the doubt. The Ukrainians, who have the best intelligence, have decided to fight for Bakhmut. They have had a admirable track record in this war of making the right strategic call, and they have articulated a clear strategic vision of what they are trying to accomplish.
The same goes for Ukrainian commanders. Their track record is such that it would unusual that they all of a sudden became stupid. Meanwhile, it is the Russian attacks on Bakhmut were the runs that ran out of steam before Ukrainian forces failed, indeed the Russians are now stuck in a terrible position with lots of exposed bulges in their lines.
If the Ukrainians had withdrawn, they would have given this depleted, exhausted force to claim a political victory and at the same time dig-in and rest for a coming Ukrainian counteroffensive."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-21-a-defense-of-the
13. "Of course, some of the American politicians who are providing the political impetus for TSMC to move production to the U.S. may not be so enamored of the Canada solution; they’re hoping that TSMC’s investments will create jobs for Americans, after all, not for Canadians.
But the central imperative of national security and supply chain security would be fully satisfied by TSMC fabs in Canada. And if American politicians really want to boost local industry, they should consider reforming their onerous permitting processes, opening up their country to skilled immigration, and not using industrial policy as a vehicle for giveaways to local nonprofits, care industries, and domestic metal producers.
So if I were TSMC or Samsung, I would be taking a look at Canada as a place to diversify into. And if I were the government of Canada, I would think about bolstering these natural advantages with a vigorous industrial policy to cultivate foreign investment — and, eventually, domestic investment — in the chip fab industry.
So far, Canada has mostly ignored this possibility, but if there was any moment to try to move into semiconductor manufacturing, that moment is now."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-not-put-tsmc-and-samsung-fabs
14. One more important front in the new Cold War.
“When we talk about U.S.-China tech competition, when we talk about espionage and the capture of data, submarine cables are involved in every aspect of those rising geopolitical tensions,” Sherman said."
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-tech-cables/
15. "Corporations are responding to the housing crisis on their own since in many regions market and political forces seem incapable of getting housing built. Binyamin Appelbaum writes about the trend of corporations building housing for their workers, a move that reminds him of the old company towns of the 1800s."
https://www.workfutures.io/p/the-return-of-company-towns
16. Enjoyed this interview with Fitness Influencer Mike Thurston.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Ci0ucV3qg
17. "He’s the world-famous singer of a dozen club anthems and a dozen more crooning, desirous ballads, but tonight the superstar is politely waiting at the door. Across eight studio albums, Usher is one of the defining artists of the ’90s and the aughts. His music is for house parties, clubs, breakups, grind trains, and affairs. From his sophomore album, My Way, on, he has become almost synonymous with a good lay or a good time.
He performed at both of Obama’s inauguration concerts and introduced the world to a shy Canadian teen named Justin Bieber. But in the 2010s his output mellowed, and he seemed to disappear from the spotlight. At least before he found himself again, here, in Sin City.
You see, Usher believes in Las Vegas, like someone who saw the glamorous first hour of Casino but not the subsequent stressful two hours of Casino. For Usher, Vegas is a place of renewal, a place of rebirth. The healing powers of Vegas have baptized him and made him anew. “Las Vegas is very important because it actually speaks to my career, to be in a place where I can dream, where I can incubate ideas,” he says. “A place where I can be creative.” Onstage, that means that he’s putting on the biggest, most brazen show of his life.
Offstage, nothing is off-limits: He’s riding his Vegas high and wants to pursue brand collaborations, restaurants, fashion, jewelry, skin care, makeup. Me, dumb, thinks it’s depressing to make every part of yourself consumable. Usher, smart, doesn’t see it that way. “You can do so much!” he says optimistically. “The question is: Is it aspirational? That’s the thing.”
https://www.gq.com/story/gq-hype-usher
18. "Six months on again none of these measures have advanced Russia’s cause one whit. Ukraine has been badly hurt but its relative military position is improving as more Western supplies come in (albeit not as fast as it would like). Putin’s strategic choices have narrowed. Perhaps he will persevere in a Micawberish sort of way, hoping that something will turn up. The arguments against conceding that this venture has been disastrous remain profound and there is no evidence that his position in the Kremlin is under threat.
Yet he and his generals must have some misgivings about the consequences of a successful Ukrainian offensive with so little to show for their own. The best bet is that he will insist that his generals continue on their current course, perhaps taking even more risks to get a victory of some sort.
I would still, however, not be wholly surprised if at some point he put in an anxious call to his friend XI Jinping to ask about how he is getting on with his peace initiative."
https://samf.substack.com/p/still-bakhmut
19. "But while home usage of 3D printers has not taken off, stealthily the technology has been inveigling its way into our lives in other ways. Almost all – 99% plus – custom hearing aids are now 3D printed in acrylic resin, and have been for years.
Additive manufacturing is widely used in dentistry: teeth aligners, which are increasingly taking the place of traditional wire braces, would be almost impossible without 3D printing. Adidas and Nike use the technology in their shoes. There are 3D-printed parts on all new aircraft and in a growing number of cars.
We’ve been here before, of course: 3D printing will save the world! So why believe it now? There is growing evidence that the hype, this time round, might not be overstated. Not all of these developments will touch our lives immediately. Nasa and all space-exploration companies already use additive processes to make parts for their rockets.
But they are also investigating the challenges that will arise once they land on the Moon or Mars. They will not be able to carry all the resources with them, so they have to find methods for construction and providing food: perhaps using the directed energy from the sun and the materials they will find on the ground. Nasa funds one project that is looking into recycling the urine, faeces and breath of astronauts on long journeys to make food and plastics for 3D printing."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/12/3d-printing-the-new-technology-comes-into-its-own
20. I do like this important discussion on how the world is getting harder.
So the best people need to get tougher themselves. Worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nvM0n7pWc
21. This is such a great fount of wisdom and real practical framework to deal with the amount of crazy in the world now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmiRTbIcLrA
22. This is a very cold view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Very different from the narrative being pushed right now in the USA.
I am pro-Ukraine but geopolitically this is important to understand the situation in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYT75nQE4uI&t=4366s
23. This is a wake up call for all Americans by a former US military officer.
We are at war so we better prepare. Recommend the books as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-LL_zml8sg
24. "Obtaining rich proprietary training datasets will be the key challenge for startups looking to create AI models for industry verticals. Crowdsourcing this data from the professionals who work in these industries may be an excellent approach to solve this problem.
Moreover, crowdsourcing should create a flywheel: as users contribute data to the model, the model gets smarter and more capable, which draws in the next set of users, who provide the next set of data. This data network effect should create a strong moat around the business.
That said, potential risks or downsides related to the give-to-get model, such as data quality, privacy, and intellectual property concerns, must be addressed proactively by startups in order to ensure the long-term success of their AI models."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-give-to-get-model-for-ai-startups
25. "His fan base lived all over the English-speaking world, and it seemed to defy race, class, and religion. Tate appealed to the rural American pro-gun constituencies and to the anti-vaxx, anti-mask communities; he appealed to schoolboys in Sydney and working-class immigrants in the U.K., to young rideshare drivers and to jet-setting tech bros.
Tate’s saturation was so complete that he reached into the blue villages of New York City, where many boys in their bedrooms found his rude and ruthless evisceration of every sacred liberal value hilarious. Feminism, environmentalism, gluten intolerance, literature, Harry Styles, Lil Nas X — Tate assaulted all of these with pejoratives the boys themselves knew not to use.
Outside of school, they took pictures posing like him, their fingers laced together with their index fingers pointed like steeples; they made machete jokes in the group thread and listened to Tate in the gym; in private, they said, “He’s my guy. I love him. He’s so smart; he’s so relevant.” But when girls were around, the boys knew to keep quiet. Girls hate Tate."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/andrew-tate-jail-investigation.html
26. Love to see this. Solo GPs growing in Europe. It's a good thing although this also shows how the EU lags tech trends in USA by a few years.
https://sifted.eu/articles/europe-first-female-solo-gp-fund-news/
27. "U.S. early-stage hardware startups are seriously disadvantaged by a persistent lack of financing. Meanwhile, China has been pouring money into Chinese—as well as U.S. and European—tech startups.
Recognizing this problem, Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to spend $75 million to invest in dual-use hardware startups. However, the Pentagon has proven reticent to embrace a venture capital–style approach, even though research has demonstrated it is optimal for driving innovation."
https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/03/venture-capital-gives-america-a-strategic-edge-in-the.html
28. Excellent discussion on creativity in the age of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfvPVmcBd7Q
29. This is a masterclass for those who love businesses, dissecting them and creating them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IKyi9gfxqw
30. Wowza! That’s alot of moolah.
https://www.dmarge.com/unidentified-multibillionaire-tax-payment
31. There is a great discussion on tech and AI here. Well worth listening to. AI is the next great platform.
Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold?: Living Well is Winning
Anyone in business or life, who is trying to do anything big or meaningful, will always end up having scores to settle. With a ledger to track and to keep clean. People who have done wrong, cheated or lied to us with malicious intent. I’ve certainly run into many of these people in Silicon Valley. My ledger is very long.
In fact, if I’m honest, they are the motivation and drive to do more, get more money, to drive more influence to prove them wrong. And also get into a better position to get back at them. Or perhaps a stronger position to ensure they never hurt you or your interests again. To hit and hurt them back someway or somehow.
But after 2 decades of this, I’m starting to realize this is just not sustainable at all. And in fact, it’s completely unhealthy. You can only hate so much. Rage gets you only so far. It burns you out. Too much tension is just plain unhealthy for you. It simmers beneath, and grinds and chips away at your soul.
The best way forward is not necessarily forgiveness. I am not that mature or enlightened yet. But I’m focusing on living the best life you possibly can. Doing all the things I’ve wanted to do. Pushing myself and Living the grand adventures I always dreamed about. Going all out because the only person you are accountable to is yourself and your family.
Take your leash off. Move single-mindedly to make a life so awesome you forget these awful people. Who will be little blips and ghosts in your memory. Just leave them in the rear view mirror.
The best revenge is treating them like the non entities that they are. Maybe that’s good enough for now.
Ruthlessness Wins: Extreme Behavior in Highly Competitive Markets
Beth Dutton is one of the most brilliant and machiavellian characters in the excellent Yellowstone television show.
One of things she said was illuminating:
“I’ll do anything to hurt our enemies. If I hurt others, so be it.
There is no such thing, not in the kingdom. There is no morality here. There is “keep the kingdom or you lose the kingdom.”
It’s a very zero sum view. Sadly many people think and operate this way these days. They approach life with a cold ruthlessness. I’d even say sociopathism. Is it surprising that we have so many sociopathic people in senior ranks in government, business and global organizations like the UN, EU, CCP or World Bank?
I think as the tech industry has become more important, mainstream and larger, the previous cooperative, “pay it forward” mentality that I loved is slowly disappearing. I’m observing a much more transactional and win-lose mentality coming in.
I also think this is also due to the much more Darwinian environment that the USA is in now. Hard times are here. It’s the new “Hunger Games” in the post Covid & post-Zero Interest Rate world, so people are in survival mode. And thus, more willing to do more ruthless things to survive. You already see this in places like New York City, or at a larger level: India, China, Nigeria and many of the larger emerging markets. Places full of smart, ambitious people struggling to survive. Obviously these are rank generalizations but people tend to lie, steal and cheat in these environments. It’s whatever it takes.
I don’t like it but it’s reality. And we do what we need to do to survive and win. If your opponent has no morals and follows no rules, it’s much harder to beat them.
It goes against my nature, having been raised in kinder, gentler Canada. Something that I think has not served me well here in the USA. It’s how I had been outmaneuvered by opponents internal and external to the organizations I worked for in the past. People there are willing to do whatever it takes to win. But I’ve learned this the hard way as normal: from personal experience and a lot of pain.
You still need a code and mine follows that of the US Marines. “No better friend, No worse enemy.”
I act with honor and treat my friends and allies well. I keep my word and give people the benefit of the doubt. But for my enemies & competitors, there are no rules. I’ll do everything and anything within the bounds of law to win. Once they are shown to be my enemies, I’ll treat it as a zero sum game just like them. If they win, they are taking money, resources and food from my family. The world is harsh, so you have to be too. This is the new world we are in, whether we like it or not.
Besides, as the Grand Inquisitor character said in the Anakin TV series: “Revenge does wonders for the will to live, doesn’t it?” ;)
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 26th, 2023
“I get up in the morning looking for an adventure.”--George Foreman
"Sure, getting yourself a second (or third, or in my case this year, a fourth) passport will require some kind of time and effort commitment on your part. But in my opinion, it’s always time and effort well spent.
In the time of the Mongols, you needed to be one of the born elites to achieve a level of travel freedom only a few possessed. Sure, getting yourself a second (or third, or in my case this year, a fourth) passport that gives you more elite status will require some kind of time and effort commitment on your part. But in my opinion, it’s time and effort always worth spending."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-most-valuable-item-on-earth
2. "History definitely doesn’t support Balaji’s assertion that hyperinflation happens with lightning speed. José Luis Saboin-Garcia, who studied episodes of hyperinflation in a large number of countries, found that they all go through a period of at least a year during which inflation is above 50% but not yet above 500%.
In other words, Balaji is not just betting on a U.S. hyperinflation; he’s betting that thanks to digitization, a U.S. hyperinflation would happen faster than any hyperinflation has ever happened in any country in recorded history.
But anyway, let’s take a look at why Balaji thinks the dollar will crash in the very near future, and why that’s extremely unlikely to happen.
Basically, he thinks that hyperinflation will come as a result of a massive failure of U.S. banks.
The idea is that the Fed’s interest rate hikes have made essentially all U.S. banks insolvent, by lowering the values of their bond portfolios. This, he believes, will cause depositors to flee the banks for the safety of Bitcoin."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/in-which-balaji-gives-away-at-least
3. "A corollary: Making a decision and moving forward is often more effective than extended deliberation about the decision. Deliberation assumes we know how to reason about the future, but even experts aren’t good at that. Making decisions and gaining experience is how to find the right answers, if the organization is introspective enough to also face the truth when it turns out the original strategy is incorrect."
https://longform.asmartbear.com/predict-the-future
4. "China has already concluded that humans should be kept out of the battlefield as much as possible. It’s a compelling approach. Everyone is a conscript. Even the lowly fisherman in a tiny boat technically now comes under the rubric of the Chinese Navy. But, few will be asked to fight. Instead, they are replacing humans with code.
The next war for China is a digital operation run by highly responsive and obedient self-replicating robotics, informed by the best data sets and AI that exists anywhere in the world today. Humans won’t even be needed for decision-making. In conjunction with super-computing, AI is replacing Generals, especially as the warzone expands beyond a battlefield and across the entire supply chain.
What is the West doing? More weight is being placed on the most superhuman individuals in the military – Special Ops. There is a logic behind this. Special Ops Forces (SOF) have become the “easy button” because they have the military's best impact/expense ratio.
They are relatively inexpensive and punch far above their weight. But as SOF leaders themselves keep pointing out, they can only do their job if supported by the rest of the massive American/NATO military infrastructure. Yet, the West is still enamored of the idea that an individual with experience and judgment will win over automation and AI.
This is the tip of a more profound philosophical split between the
West and the East."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/war-in-an-era-of-intelligent-machines
5. This is an excellent discussion on Ryan Reynolds and Bali's 1M dollar Bitcoin bet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQgsFh5lX_s
6. "Poland is not only building the strongest Armed Forces in Europe (after Ukraine), but it is also building the defense industry needed to sustain it. It is also diversifying the suppliers, increasing the speed of delivery, and reducing its dependency on the U.S.
The bottom line is that Poland is thinking, planning, and acting according to NATO’s late strategic concept. It is building military power to do – if needed – what the U.S. and NATO will not: i.e., fight alongside the Armed Forces of Ukrainian to stop a war that threatens European security and stability."
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/14676
7. A very sober discussion on the recent China-Russia Summit.
It's a fair view versus the hyperbole I see from so many other folks online. The Global South matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6ha8BpI2vI
8. Balaji is a brilliant man and has been right on alot of stuff. He might be right here but not sure I agree with his timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWZCePHC80w
9. Jason nails it. This is why most VCs are in cognitive overload and hence not responsive.
https://twitter.com/jasonlk/status/1639261814516228096
10. This is a great episode and gives a good understanding of what’s happening with the macro economic environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub9QcwSgbjc
11. "In our experience, founders have long evaluated VCs based on things like a firm’s brand, name recognition, or domain expertise in a given sector.
In a world of higher rates, we believe that founders should now also pay attention to a VC’s ability to actually manage their portfolio to success (converting TVPI to DPI) and employees should get smarter before accepting an offer from a given startup. This not only has an impact on the VC’s distributions, but importantly its real value to the founders and their employees.
Finally, for LPs allocating capital, factors like correlation and DPI should be increasingly top of mind, because running with the crowd may not be the safest strategy after all."
https://chamath.substack.com/p/advice-to-startup-founders-and-employees
12. "The hardest round to raise so far in 2023 is the Series B. Although, all the early & mid-stage rounds have fallen to levels not seen for 5-10 years."
https://tomtunguz.com/2023q1-venture-market/
13. This twitter character James Medlock is fascinating.
I lived in small S socialist country, its okay for the average Joe & provides a good living.
But it's not for those looking to go big. Still good interview below.
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/repost-interview-with-james-medlock
14. "Guns, bunkers, private islands, crypto, secession … connect the dots. The venture catastrophists now have a vested interest in the nation’s decline. They’ve invested too much in Doomsday not to root for it — maybe even catalyze it. Balaji has a million dollars on the line; Andreessen Horowitz has $8 billion.
Much of their catastrophizing is in response to elements of U.S. society that are legitimately broken.
The question is: What do we do about it? For too many, the answer is quit: Instead of fixing the Fed, start a different currency. Instead of healing our divides, split the nation in two. Instead of making this planet more habitable, colonize other planets or put a headset on that takes you to a meta (better) universe. But here’s the thing: We’re stuck here, and with each other.
Spoiler alert: No matter how many rough-cut gems you can shove up your ass or how plush your bunker, there is no escaping the fallout of our democracies failing. Because our democracies are largely capitalist and accept, if not idolize, people who aggregate the wealth of small nations. If shit gets real — I mean real — bunkers will likely become easy targets in the recalibration of society.
The previous sentence is a pedantic way of saying the best bet (by far) is to double down on a society that already has Netflix, Nespresso, and Girl Scouts. Citizenship is not just an obligation; it’s also a trade. In the case of America, the best trade is to invest in each other and what MLK called our “beloved community.” We need reformers, not quitters."
https://www.profgalloway.com/quitters/
15. "But there’s an alternative version of events being pieced together that is far more sinister — and convincing. It appears that these banks, especially Signature, were the victims of an opportunistic campaign to decapitate banks serving the crypto industry.
Not only was the bank run opportunistically exploited by regulators to shut down Signature, but it may even trace its origins to Choke Point 2.0. Did the Biden Administration actually instigate the now-global bank run as part of a grievance campaign against the crypto space? If so, this represents a colossal scandal, and one that the Biden administration must be made to answer for.
The preponderance of public evidence suggests that Silvergate and Signature didn’t commit suicide — they were executed."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/2023-banking-crisis
16. "That division isn’t helping another big problem for VC: its reputation. It wasn’t stellar headed into this year, when some of the perils of throwing too much money at startups—with too little scrutiny—became apparent in the blowups of failed crypto exchange FTX and e-commerce startup Fast. But last week has done far more serious damage to its image."
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/venture-capitalists-made-a-big-mess-of-svb
17. I always learn stuff from listening to Zeihan. Agree with 80% of what he says. Pay attention to demographics, supply chains and energy & resource flows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9zU4cBCf1U
18. "One of America’s only airplane repo men, he’s spent more than 2 decades flying all over the world on behalf of banks, reclaiming aircraft from broke businessmen, crumbling corporations, and drug lords."
https://thehustle.co/airplane-repossession/
19. "The other difference in the coming offensives is the growing asymmetry in the quality of equipment. The Ukrainians, with the infusion of western aid, have improved the quality of their tanks and other vehicles. The Russians, having lost much of their best kit in the first year of the war, are turning to much older tanks and armoured vehicles drawn from Cold War stores. This will have an impact on the battlefield, and not just because of the age and technological disparity in vehicles.
Imagine you are the tank crew of an old Russian tank, that is 3-4 times as old as you are. And, imagine then you have been briefed that you will be coming up against the latest Western tanks. Regardless of what the ludicrous Russian propaganda tells us, this will have a significant impact on Russian morale."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-coming-ukrainian-offensives
20. "AI is supercharging growth and revenue, as consumers are eager to pay for AI at the application layer for products they already love. The common narrative right now is that AI value will accrue to OpenAI and big tech, but the less spoken narrative is that early to mid-stage startups applications are already seeing growth."
https://chapterone.substack.com/p/getting-hit-by-the-ai-lucky-truck
21. "From here, I have no doubt Japan’s VC and start-up ecosystem will continue to evolve at an accelerating rate. Nothing succeeds like success, and the reality of both the technocratic elite and the Prime Minister’s office now fully aligned on an industrial policy to support and foster Start-up Nation Japan is poised to keep momentum going.
The primary risk, in my view, could be the government doing too much: a key reason for why the venture capital model is successful is because it encourages failure. For every unicorn you get, say, 1,000 failures. the model works because it creates a market place where only the best survive. Japans capitalism is the worlds undisputed champion of protecting against failure.
The good news is that the rapid growth in both fiduciary and corporate VCs should ensure against “zombie start-ups” becoming a hallmark of ‘new capitalism’."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-reality-check-5-are-start-ups
22. "I believe that this wave of technology will augment our creativity as oppose to replace it. However, the text and image models are improving so fast that we can’t rule out AI completely winning the creative race. At least based on technical ability, speed and volume.
But that is why the Van Gogh story is so relevant. “The Starry Night” is a reminder of what creative work — with or without the assistance of technology — is worth being made. And worth us caring about.
In the face of ever-improving generative AI, the only thing I know for sure is that each person will be able to cultivate one competitive edge: yourself. You need to express yourself more. Your life more.
Your quirks more. Your humor more. Your filter more.
Translate your own experience into creative work. Because if you are only expressing what can be “seen”, technology has it covered. But what can be “felt”? That is still uniquely ours."
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/the-camera-van-gogh-and-the-starry
23. It's a great convo today on the government war on crypto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60UN8RVkhyw
24. "We’re back in a phase where alpha seems to be coming from technical innovation (crypto, climate, biology, AI) and not just business model application (XYZ but a marketplace!). It’s not just that it takes time to understand these technologies but each of them bring their own new networks and talent to the forefront.
You have to be *in* these networks to see the best early stage opportunity, not just wait for intros to land in your inbox."
https://hunterwalk.medium.com/death-of-the-generalist-seed-vc-1e1dc8bb490e
The Contractor & the Death of Loyalty: We Are All Him
“The Contractor” is a film about a Special forces operator who gets discharged after many years of distinguished, honorable service. He struggles to find his way and support his family after the military, so he joins a secretive Private Military Company otherwise known as a PMC.
His new boss said something that really struck me:
“We gave them our minds, our bodies, and our spirit and they chewed us up and spit us out. Left us with fear, rage, uncertainty, a sense of abandonment, betrayal and finally self loathing and guilt. As if everything that happened was our own goddamn fault.”
This is an extreme case and situation, especially for military men who have served and given as much as they have for their country. And this is why we honor them. But for us civilians we sometimes feel this to some extent too. Especially when we work for someone else. Not everyone is fortunate, smart or lucky enough to discover entrepreneurship early in our life.
How many of us have given all of our time, energy and soul for a company? We were loyal. Foolishly, loyal I might add. And then we find ourselves discarded when we weren’t useful or there were tough times in the business.
How many people do you know who worked for decades at a company or at minimum put their heart and soul into a place. Only to be tossed away like garbage, treated worse than trash. I know plenty. Heck, I’m one of them.
This is a fact of life in the market economy. It’s easy to become bitter and angry after what you feel you sacrificed for them.
But I’ve come to think about this in a different way. You’ve learned new important skills that you can stack on your previous knowledge, you built an incredible new network of people you can do business with in the future. And maybe most important if you are good at what you do, you build a good rep.
As they say:
“Our reputation is the only commodity we got left in this game.”
I think everyone needs to experience this feeling of disillusionment and betrayal. You learn a harsh lesson about the world. It’s the only way you can learn about yourself, to discover your mission. It’s the only way you truly understand the importance of becoming entrepreneurial. The freedom and control of the future you can build through this path.
And for those who are still working for someone else, I’ll leave you with some great advice from an old friend and boss. “Make Love, but Don’t Fall in Love”. The point: do your job well but don’t get too attached.
And most importantly, make sure you are building your side hustles and other income streams separately. You owe them nothing except a job well done. But you also owe your future self this. Become an owner. I can tell you this: I’m never ever working for anyone again. I’m done with the salaryman life & mindset. It’s the road to nowhere.
So I will end with a quote from the movie:
“Cash is real. It’s okay to cash in. It’s pure Darwin out here. We’re trained to be ruthlessly adaptable. Use it. We’re all just mercenaries in the end.”
Life is Unfair: Get Over It
I do remember all the times when things didn’t go my way or when I’m treated badly or unfairly. I’d get angry and curse the world and well, everything.
As I’ve gotten older and hopefully wiser, I’ve slowly realized how stupid this is. Blaming other people, other things, the world or the situation is futile. And a complete waste of energy.
Shake it off. Expect nothing from anyone. Louis L'amour wrote in one of my favorite Westerns “Flint”:
“Don’t trust anyone, even me. To trust is a weakness. It ain’t necessarily that folks are bad, but they are weak and afraid. Be your own man. Go your own way.”
The way forward is understanding that you can’t control what other people do to you, but you can control how you react. Hopefully with less anger and rage than I do.
I recall a great quote from the patriarch, John Dutton of the tv series Yellowstone:
“Let me tell you what fair means. Fair means one side got exactly what they wanted in a way the other side can’t complain about. There is no such thing as fair.”
The sooner one realizes this, the better they can move forward with dealing with all the hard things life inevitably throws at you.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 19th, 2023
“Adventure is not outside man; it is within.”--George Eliot
"So the most helpful clues to understanding Silicon Valley today may come from its favorite ancient philosophy: Stoicism.
An ancient Greek school of thought, Stoicism argued that the only real treasures in life were inner virtues, like self-mastery and courage. The Stoics offered tactics to endure pain and pleasure without complaint."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/style/silicon-valley-stoics.html
2. This is a masterclass on coaching and I learned a lot, especially as someone who has Anger management issues. Mochary is one of the best in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVkiQY8KkOQ
3. This is a very optimistic view of the USA vis a vis Russia and China. I hope he is right but we cannot afford to be complacent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpU5DKR2BBs
4. Interview with VC Mark Sister on the SVB mess.
5. This is where the guys shine: discussing the tech industry and the SVB mess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEee7dAk25c
6. "Although collapse is by no means a foregone conclusion for the Eurozone, the inability to address its deep system problems raises serious concerns. In the face of growing political complexity within the Eurozone, leaders in both Europe and the United States must recognize the inherent fragility of the currency union and work together to help promote economic and financial stability.
If the Eurozone is to survive, its member states must be willing to make mutual sacrifices for the collective good. Ultimately, just as the creation of the Eurozone is rooted in European politics so shall its survival rest upon the future of European politics."
https://shatterpointsgeopolitics.substack.com/p/shatterpoints-addendum-hidden-fractures
7. "The immediate next steps are to have two banking relationships and a strategy to have deposits over the FDIC $250,000 amount either insured across multiple banks and/or in ultra short term government T-bills. Bank failures are extremely rare, but with a little work, the tools and systems are already available to minimize any potential exposure."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/03/11/bank-hygiene-for-startups
8. I'm gonna be there!
https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/things-to-do/meguro-river-sakura-festival
9. "The decision to back Ukraine is finally rebooting some elements of the defense–industrial base and an attendant healthy manufacturing workforce. This is essential for deterring China. But it will not be enough if the White House, Congress, military leaders, and the business community fail to seize this moment together and prepare the nation."
10. I really like this newsletter and sorry I missed the Thesis Festival.
https://www.jasonshen.com/143/?ref=jason-shen-cultivating-resilience-newsletter
11. Well said.
"To be honest - I think the real lesson is not about FDIC insurance, it’s about risk and black swans.
This is a black swan event.
But I’ll be damned if I haven’t been seeing a lot of these black swans lately.
Once in a hundred year virus causes a global pandemic
The global reserve currency hits the highest inflation in 40 years
Invincible monopoly tech stocks (FB, Amazon, etc.) drop more than 40%+
FTX turns out to be a big fat scam
The past year has felt like the Flight of the Black Swans.
They migrated to my neighborhood, and it turns out, black swans sure do like shitting directly onto my shoulder.
So beware.
It’s black swan season."
https://shaan.beehiiv.com/p/just-happened
12. "The West can ignore these lessons at their own peril or use them to transform existing capabilities into future war-winning advantages.
The danger of dominant military organizations is that, short of lessons learned in the unforgiving crucible of combat, they tend to fall back on comfortable assumptions and ignore any signals of change that contradict their most-cherished strategic beliefs. We can do worse than to listen and learn from the incredible innovation happening in the Ukraine."
13. I love this guy. For anyone wanting to be better, watch this. How to be independent and self sovereign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A1t2vKOPZQ
14. "The threat from PRC nationals legally entering the US in order to engage in espionage activities is voluminously documented. The costs of failing to deal with this threat for decades have already been significant. Addressing this issue decisively and swiftly is well within the ability of each US administration. All that is lacking is the will to do so."
https://patrickfox.substack.com/p/lets-fck-with-xi-part-1
15. "Today, stablecoins solve a very real pain point in the crypto capital markets. They may not totally line up with the core tenets of crypto — namely, they are not decentralised whatsoever — but the point of stablecoins is not to create a decentralised product where it isn’t needed. Instead, they are simply intended to provide a fiat tokenisation service the banks refuse to offer."
https://medium.com/entrepreneur-s-handbook/dust-on-crust-300d4b5cf3ec
16. "It will feel like chaos at times. But remember that human societies always gravitate towards order. Chaos in this sense doesn’t need to be a pit of despair. Instead, it’s a ladder of opportunity.Don’t avoid or ignore what’s happening. Pay attention, learn from it, and focus on where order is beginning to reestablish itself. Treat the chaos as an opportunity. Position yourself ahead of the herd."
https://www.thesovereignindividualweekly.com/p/chaos-ladder
17. "Conclusion: Put this all together:
1) you should have multiple bank accounts as mentioned many times - one should be crypto only, period, full stop for all your CEX transactions,
2) you should move any major money to a large “too big to fail firm”especially if you run a small business,
3) it is best to take excess money and do either T-bills or crypto. This is more art than science.
The middle will get crushed since people will sell their stocks/401Ks to try and pay their mortgage as layoffs ramp up and 4) watch the unemployment rate.
The Fed has already said they are fine with up to about 4.6% and we’re at 3.6%. This gives you a rough guideline on when they would get concerned (around 5%).
In case it isn’t clear, the goal is to absolutely crush anyone in the middle. If you’re average joe buying boring stocks, you’re paying an expensive premium for them since the earnings yield on stocks is *lower* than the risk-free rate."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/silvergate-silicon-valley-and-signature
18. "I’ve observed many salespeople fail at executing their Qualification process because they failed to address the Baseline Frame.
Baseline Frame:
The prospect sees you as Low Status and you need to earn the right for them to follow your sales process.
Whether this is objectively true or not doesn’t matter.
It’s what the prospect believes.. therefore it is something you need to address *before* you can proceed to influence them."
https://bowtiedsalesguy.substack.com/p/give-a-little-to-get-a-lot
19. Codie is the best. So much to learn here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NNoDmHd-h8
20. "SVB, he said, was the “most generous” of the tech lenders because the loans helped fuel its broader banking business.
“They were the easiest money for an unprofitable, early-stage to mid-stage tech company,” said Abelson. “That is gone.”
Herndon of The Guild thinks less availability of venture debt could be good for tech startups. “It’s all fun and good until the time to pay back the loan occurs,” he said. “I think we all would be better off burning a lot less cash.”
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/svbs-failure-means-easiest-money-for-startups-is-gone
21. Chip wars! The most important yet forgotten industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BvUpkwXCTg
22. "In this situation, if I were people in the VC/startup world, I would cool down any anti-government rhetoric. In happier times, libertarian outbursts were just part of the ecosystem of ideas that kept Silicon Valley and the U.S. government at arms length, allowing their symbiotic relationship to persist.
Today, after VCs loudly and successfully demanded government help for their portfolio companies, angry attempts to blame the government for the whole debacle will look like biting the hand that feeds, and will risk refocusing the techlash from big tech companies to VCs.
Beyond that, if I were people in the VC and startup world, I would think twice about expanding fintech startups’ role in the world of lending and debt, and their connections to the traditional banking sector.
When tech can boom and crash without taking down the banks, it’s free to innovate and build and take risks — and the government will have a strong incentive to leave it unmolested. That formula has worked well until now; it would be a shame to tear up a favorable arrangement."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/will-government-regulate-vcs-and
23. I like learning about these morning routines of successful folks.
https://yfsmagazine.com/2023/03/07/tech-founder-aliya-grig-shares-her-ultimate-morning-routine/
24. "As Alexandra Prokopenko puts it, “Russia is drifting toward a yuan currency zone, swapping its dollar dependence for reliance on the yuan.” Interestingly, as Russia turns to the yuan, China needs to accumulate greater and greater reserves in dollars. The global system develops into a hierarchical or tiered structure, with Russia entirely dependent on the yuan, without affecting the status of the dollar."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/russia-is-drifting-towards-a-yuan
25. "TL;DR: As Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last week, $3B+ in funds flowed through the startup ecosystem to other startups, particularly neobanks Mercury and Brex. This catalyzing event gives Mercury the opportunity to aggregate startup demand, build the Booking. com of startup banking and create a new gathering place for technology startups and capital."
https://sacra.com/research/mercury-unbundling-silicon-valley-bank/
26. Good tips for building in public from someone who has done it well.
https://kp.substack.com/p/building-in-public-advice-for-newbies
27. Lesson that all technology is usually dual use.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/europe/china-made-drone-downed-eastern-ukraine-hnk-intl
28. This seems like NOT a best practice in doing lay offs.
"But this week, Zuckerberg announced plans to lay off another 10,000 workers and will do so in a piecemeal fashion over the next few months. People who work in recruitment will be immediately impacted, those in tech will find out in April, while business workers will learn their fate in late May. Additionally, Zuckerberg had been hinting at these layoffs for weeks, further extending the air of unease at the company.
It’s a bad way to do layoffs, which experts say should be minimal, compassionate, and clearly communicated. Doing so little by little will leave workers on edge and drive away people Meta wants to keep, and there’s also a good chance it will hurt the company from growing in the future."
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/3/16/23642978/facebook-meta-layoffs-bad
29. "The financialization of tech was necessary, in some ways. As computing grew ubiquitous, especially with the rise of the smartphone, the market opportunity for technology products exploded. The moment called for financial rigor, planning, and — yes — VC funding. And financially minded people soon pushed the tech industry into an exceptional economic position.
But the tech sector, or at least parts of it, then trended into over-financialization. Instead of thinking about what problems they could solve for people, some companies looked only at growth and margins. They acted extractive, not like the startups at demo day.
Doordash, for instance, counted tips toward its minimum delivery worker payments, changing only after an uproar. And as this happened, VCs — not builders — became the tech industry’s most recognizable names."
https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/the-over-financialization-of-tech
30. Vox hit piece, but I understand. It's hard sometimes to take these 20-something supposed millionaires seriously.
But if the messages helps some young men better themselves, then I am all for it.
31. "Christian Angermayer is an optimist.
“We should all be happy,” he says with a smile on his face, but also a sense of concern. “We are living in the most amazing time in the history of humanity, but a lot of what we read out there in the media is very negative. Looking beyond headlines and at the facts, people should be happy, but they are not, and mental health is the biggest healthcare issue out there.
Hence, I have made it my mission to help shape and build a future for humanity that is much more positive, and progressive—a world that I want to live in.” By any metric, Christian Angermayer’s mission statement is a lofty one, but if anyone is capable of achieving it, he is.
Only 44 years old, the German entrepreneur and investor has already made significant contributions to the business world by not only starting three ‘unicorns’, but also being the lead investor in another four, and even two ‘decacorns’. He features on Forbes magazine’s World Billionaires list with a net worth of $1.2b.
As the founder of Apeiron Investment Group—his family office and private investment firm—he is renowned for investing in biotech, fintech, and blockchain sectors, particularly in cutting-edge companies that push boundaries—including challenging the limits of human life expectancy."
32. "In closing, an analyst asked whether particular verticals contributed to the growth rate decline. The answer: “No, it’s been broad-based.”
Mongo’s earnings call underscores the new budget constraints across buyers & paints a stark contrast to the massive growth in the previous year.
Software budgets aren’t yet showing signs of growing."
https://tomtunguz.com/mongo-earnings-2023q1/
33. "In the immediate aftermath, observers are doing what they do after a complex catastrophe — cherry-picking the proximate cause that suits their politics and priors. It wasn’t rising interest rates, poor risk management, the concentration of the depositor base, or Venture Catastrophists on social media. It was all of it."
https://www.profgalloway.com/venture-catastrophists/
34. "Now, I do think it’s worth acknowledging venture capitalists really are, for the most part, incredibly annoying. There is a reason for this. A venture capital firm is just money, and beyond a startup’s Series A the game of venture capital mostly consists of persuading the very best entrepreneurs to take money from you rather than the other guy.
This dynamic naturally places a great prominence on brand, or reputation. Among top VC firms, reputation is mostly made by record, both as a great ally to founders, and — most importantly — a winner. But for firms or venture capitalists with less of a track record, you’ve pretty much just got Twitter. Given venture capitalists are also people who tend to have a lot more time on their hands than they’d generally like you to think, this is a recipe for incredibly dramatic status games, all played loudly out online, which is just to say I get it.
I can’t stand a lot of these people myself, many of whom have spent the last week begging journalists to write hit pieces on my friends at Founders Fund, as it is easier to demonize a firm for acting responsibly in the middle of a crisis than it is to introspect and ask oneself difficult questions like “why did I tell my founders to sit still in the middle of a burning house,” and “how did I, a person literally professionally meant to understand risk, not understand this?”
https://www.piratewires.com/p/on-euthanizing-venture-capitalists
35. This is a great conversation this week. The Reset of VC!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwfiqYocc0&list=RDCMUCESLZhusAkFfsNsApnjF_Cg&start_radio=1
No Margin of Error: Lessons from Small Countries and Smaller Companies
Singapore, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia, Israel, Kazakhstan, all tiny countries surrounded by large geopolitical powers. Small populations, poor in natural resources & energy. They have very little room for error. Hence the folks who run these places really need their Sh-t together or they will get eaten. They have to play the geopolitical and diplomatic game better than anyone else. They have to have good long term planning and proper execution and investment in their people and policies.
Contrast this to the United States. A big massive population, the biggest economy, the most powerful military. A place rich in money, resources & energy and food. Geographically secure and well positioned with plenty of margin of error. Because of this, the place operates with a level of dysfunction intolerable in most countries. We have grossly incompetent, ignorant and venal people running the place. The reason for this is that we have no near and present threats. So it’s easy to become complacent and overly tolerant of incompetence. There is Nothing to make us wake up and force us to get things in order. At least not until we face some real massive pain. Small countries, like the ones I mentioned earlier, do not have that luxury.
This is also the reason why Big tech companies are not ones you should emulate. Bad management & dysfunctional cultures are a feature not a bug in Silicon Valley. Go down the list: Salesforce, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle, Uber, Netflix etc. etc. are all fat, bloated and poorly managed companies.
They can get away with this because they have amazing business models and crazy good profit margins. All this allows them to get away with incompetence.
The only well managed FAANG companies are 1) Facebook because Zuckerberg is a great operator and probably sociopathic & 2) Amazon under Bezos (also a great operator and probably sociopathic) with the addition of massive offline components & complexity. Thus by nature they have to get their stuff sorted well or the model breaks. Just like an airline or complex industrial manufacturing company. Running these kinds of companies smoothly and efficiently is incredibly hard.
The point I’m trying to make as I’ve stated before is that Silicon Valley giants are probably the wrong model for top exemplars of management. We overlook the importance of business models which turn them into de facto monopolies in their sectors. Their cultures are a result of the business model, not a driver of their business model.
There is so much bloat and fat at these companies, I reckon they can fire 50 percent of their staff and have little impact on their overall business. In fact, margins may even go far higher after.
This is why I believe in startups. Small is beautiful because there is almost zero margin of error. Startups have to operate at a crazy high tempo to survive. If something is not working, they have to fix it right away or they die!
So the analogy of small countries does work with small startups. The future belongs to the small and focused, not the big, powerful and shockingly dumb.
Efficiency & Over Optimization: the Path to Neurotic Unhappiness
I got along very well with my bosses when I was at Yahoo! Many of them became good friends and mentors of mine.
I remember when one of my bosses told me: “we get along because you have extremely high standards & work ethic”. This really meant something to me because he was Japanese and was known to be an incredibly dedicated and tough boss. We would work through the night sometimes or definitely very late.
This definitely seeped into the rest of my life as it happened at a very pivotal time in my life and career of mid-20s. It’s served me very well as this perfectionism, these exacting high standards helped me become a pretty good operator. I overly optimize everything, my diet, my schedule, my meetings, almost everything. I show up for meetings on time, I follow up and do what I say. Religiously. And it’s shocking how this puts you ahead of 99% of the people out there which is a sad comment on people but also explains much. Simply by just doing the basics and working hard.
It’s all about the mission and goal. This is the reason I “Get Sh-t Done” like a machine.
Unfortunately this trait has also turned into a very sharp double edged sword. I am highly intolerant of people who don’t do the work, have a crap work ethic and frankly, unreliable. I try to cut them out of my life quickly & have no time or patience for them. Unreliable people drive me berserk!
I also tend to over optimize my schedule and be incredibly intolerant of deviations from my plan. I get so much angst and if I am honest, deep anger and rage when things don’t go as planned.
I am so task-driven to get things completed that I ignore everything around me: my health, my family and many times my peace of mind and happiness. How can you have peace of mind when there is another goal on the horizon?
Don’t really have an answer here. I’m trying to ring fence my calendar and not over-schedule myself. I’m trying to keep open blocks of time and learning to say NO to opportunities. I should add that as I am writing this, I am not doing a good job in this department. Still overcommitted to too many things. I still drive myself crazy when things inevitably do not go as planned. I need a high level of predictability which is impossible in the world we live in.
Thus, to help myself, I try to meditate as much as I can, breathe calmly when things don’t go according to my plan and repeat “Inshallah” (God’s Will) to myself.
Efficiency is great for business. It makes you a great operating executive but not sure whether this is an asset in your personal life. But better to have than not I guess. Another conundrum to wrestle with. Life is messy and you need to just accept it which is hard for a Type A like me.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 12th, 2023
“Life is an adventure, not a package tour.”--Eckhart Tolle
"These trends have resulted in an overhang of companies that either (1) lived without product market fit and survived well past their natural expiration point, or (2) hired way ahead of progress and burned large sums with high valuations and now are stuck with little progress per dollar and a large preference stack.
When will companies run out of cash?
Many companies are likely about to meet a hard reckoning. This is likely to start end of 2023 and accelerate through end of 2024 or so. The likely timing is +/- 6 months. It is based on when companies last fundraised at scale, 2021, and how much runway they raised."
https://blog.eladgil.com/p/startup-decoupling-and-reckoning
2. "The joy/sexiness/luster of being a venture capitalist is starting to fade right now for so many people new to the business. When I say ‘new’ I mean people that started in the venture business between 2018-2022.
I believe the best seed and vc funds know how to treat both founders and LP’s as customers and shareholders at the right times."
https://www.howardlindzon.com/p/venture-capitalist-customer-shareholder
3. "The next time an entrepreneur excitedly shares their idea, ask questions about the market, and encourage them to doggedly pursue customer feedback, while being open to better, adjacent ideas during the process. Pursue great markets and find the best ideas within them."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/03/04/fall-in-love-with-the-market-not-the-idea/
4. "Ukraine has a path to victory still - I can see better Western armaments giving its scope to launch counteroffensives to recapture sizeable chunks of occupied Ukraine, even to the point that devastating defeat and the collapse of Russian forces in Ukraine is possible, even likely, but certainly more likely than that of Russian victory."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/time-is-not-on-putins-side
5. "The reality is that if the Russian do capture Bakhmut, they are seizing rubble. It is a town with minimal strategic importance, with almost no remaining infrastructure to support an occupying force. That the Russians have invested so much in its capture speaks volumes about their poor strategy in this war.
For the Ukrainians, they will be withdrawing into defensive zones in the Kramatorsk areas that they have had eight years to prepare. And the city sits on higher, more defensible ground than Bakhmut. Any advance on the Kramatorsk region is likely to be every bit as bloody for the Russians as its campaign for Bakhmut."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut
6. "As a society, we’re very attracted to the idea of “grit” and “gutting it out”. Meanwhile, there’s a huge stigma around “quit” (related terms include include backtrackers, chickens, defeatists, deserters, dropouts, wimps and anytime I try to do 20 burpees in a row).
But if you think about it, “grit” and “quit” are two sides of the same coin. By sticking with a project, you are choosing not to quit and vice versa."
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/grit-vs-quit
7. I do love glamping.
https://www.thesisdriven.com/p/staying-outside-the-rise-of-glamping
8. "You couldn’t ask for two better representatives of the NBA’s current divide.
In one corner, Draymond Green, the self-anointed leader of what he terms the New Media, an insurgent generation of players-slash-content creators (mostly podcasters and analysts) who aspire to cover the game by, in his words, “actually analyzing the game of basketball” and giving players their flowers while they can. It’s a noble pursuit, at least on paper.
Perkins, on the other hand, is the traditionalist, an avatar for what Green sees as the Old Media (mostly TV analysts) and everything wrong with it: hot takes, clickbait, and easy soundbites that flatten appreciation for the game. What makes Perk especially disappointing to Green is that he’s a former player, someone who should ostensibly know better."
https://www.gq.com/story/nba-generations-media-war
9. "The toll was so high, that the British came to understand that they had no hope of exerting strategic control over Massachusetts, and pulled out entirely in 1776.
Greene understood instinctively why Bunker Hill mattered and was not a British victory. When the results of the Battle became known, he answered with the quote above—that he would gladly sell the British another hill at the same price. And in a way he did. Though I dont have time to have too much of a historical digression here—Greene would later be sent by Washington to command colonial troops in the south, where he would ‘lose’ most of the battles he fought, but in such a way that he exhausted British forces in the South (led by Cornwallis) who became so worn out by Greene that they retreated northwards to Virginia.
There the British forces found themselves trapped at Yorktown—and I’m sure many of you know the result.
Nathaniel Greene would have known how to understand the importance of the Battle of Bakhmut—and his understanding remains the one that matters."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-18-the-end-of-the
10. Good advice for solopreneurs or aspiring sovereign individuals moving to Latam.
https://bowtiedmara.substack.com/p/the-sovereign-individual-stack
11. "Where Bankman-Fried effectively (but still allegedly) stole billions of dollars from regular people around the world, Hayes has never been accused of taking anything that didn’t belong to him, or lying to his customers, or running a crooked business. “He’s absolutely one of the good guys of crypto,” says Nic Carter, the co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, a blockchain-focused investment firm. “BitMEX never screwed over their clients, never got hacked, never lost money.”
If anything, Hayes has become something of a bitcoin martyr. “He’s not the typical bad actor who embezzled money or stole money or did something really nefarious,” says Daniel Bresler, a partner at the law firm Seward & Kissel, which specializes in crypto and financial crime. “He didn’t follow rules that some people say shouldn’t exist in the first place.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/arthur-hayes-bitmex-crypto-interview.html
12. "Despite spending less than 24 hours in Singapore, the journey was successful: The airline miles propelled Coy into platinum status on Delta, putting her in an elite group of frequent flyers and qualifying her for several perks.
“Sacrificing that one weekend was absolutely worth it,” said Coy, who also made a similar trip to Budapest.
Trips like this are known as mileage runs.
These are flights where the mileage is the purpose, not the destination. Travelers take them to earn or maintain elite status with airlines like Delta, United, American, Southwest, or Alaska.
But are the miles really worth the trouble? And how do mileage runs stack up in a post-pandemic world of higher prices and fewer flights?"
https://link.thehustle.co/view/5f3b700a2c81bf63140abd4biai76.dr3/6cd8a10d
13. "It is powering moguls and mini-moguls, supporting budding empires like The Free Press, Letters from an American, Not Boring by Packy McCormick, Lenny's Newsletter, Platformer, The Ankler., and many more. It is overvalued and underestimated, intolerant and permissive, loathed and adored.
Kleenex, Velcro, ChapStick, and Coke are all brand names that have come to define a category; Substack has wiggled its way into this distinguished, stuffy club as a precocious little urchin. Newsletters are not simply newsletters anymore; they are Substacks – sometimes even if they are not on the platform.
It is, in short, news, in every sense of the word.
Substack is not a publisher nor a simple tool. It is a network, an ecosystem, an engine alive with word and culture and thought; an empire of narratives."
https://thegeneralist.substack.com/p/substack
14. "Make no mistake: moves are being made right now to limit your personal freedom, your freedom of movement, and your freedom of choice. Moves that will target your finances, your ability to earn, and your ability to spend your money the way you see fit.
Since starting this newsletter, my big focus has been on personal freedom. But the centrepiece of that is always getting your financial house in order.
Growing an independent income that you have full control of. Creating investments that pay you regardless of what is happening in our world. And having the financial means to be able to move to the city, state, or country you choose to live in, to acquire new passports and residencies, or simply to go somewhere else you can experience more freedom."
https://abundantia.substack.com/p/the-monster-is-here
15. This is wacky. An ancient shark attack.
https://bigthink.com/the-past/ancient-shark-attack
16. "In the past few months alone, Japan has pledged to double defense spending and acquire long-range weapons from the US; South Korea has acknowledged that stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential to its security; the Philippines has announced new US base access rights and is talking about joint patrols of the South China Sea with Australia, Japan and the United States.
Those might be the biggest initiatives, but they are far from the only events that have left China increasingly isolated in its own backyard as it refuses to condemn the invasion of a sovereign country by its partner in Moscow while keeping military pressure on the self-ruled island of Taiwan."
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/05/asia/ukraine-war-us-pacific-alliances-intl-hnk
17. Albania is amazing and I look forward to exploring this beautiful country more (and eating their delicious food).
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/in-albanias-tourism-revival-food-plays-a-central-role
18. Must read and follow.
"In this blog post, we’ll explore 7 different streams of income that can help you achieve financial independence and build long-term wealth.
From passive income streams like real estate income and dividend stocks to more active income streams like entrepreneurship and royalties, there are a variety of ways to increase your earning potential and secure your financial future."
https://ofdollarsanddata.com/7-streams-of-income/
19. "One of the best decisions we can make is to reject the cultural expectations that shift and change with the wind. And to accept the fact that we don’t need to run with the cool kids to be happy.
We can choose to be ourselves instead."
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/much-cooler/
20. This is critical and a must read. Also very timely. How to manage your startups cash.
https://www.codingvc.com/p/cash-management-for-early-stage-startups
21. Good interview here. Peter Zeihan on geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMQ-azCtv8
22. Luke Belmar dropping some knowledge bombs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPnpoq3tVOk
23. "We kick back and expect this to be a Bond film. Pass the popcorn. We are failing to understand the implicit message in all this. The line between civilian and military is blurring. China and Russia are both making it clear that they see everything and everyone is “dual use”. Militaries have long argued that technology could be used for either civilian or military purposes.
But, these days, the most valuable technologies have become dual use. Just as a car can kill you or drive you home safely, so it is with modern technology. The most sophisticated computer chips ARE the weapon. IP theft and patent trolling has been a battlefield with China for years for a reason."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/you-are-the-combatant-in-this-war
24. Good discussion on innovation. Yes, her funds are not doing well but this is a cogent discussion on investing in innovation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44QUsV376GI
25. "If you must panic, panic early.
That’s the conventional wisdom ricocheting around Silicon Valley right now as technology institution Silicon Valley Bank looks precarious.
One founder at a venture capital event in San Francisco relayed that investors were fleeing to the edges of the room to call founders and warning them “not to be last in line at a bank run.”
https://www.newcomer.co/p/panic-erupts-as-venture-capitalists
26. "The Battle of Bakhmut is illustrative of one final difference. In Bakhmut, as it has through this whole war, Russia seeks victory through destruction – destruction of towns and cities, destruction of lives and Ukraine’s economy and will to exist. Ukraine, on the other hand, seeks victory through building.
It has built a unified Ukraine that is sovereign and able to defend itself, while also building for the world an example of how free people can join together to defend what they value."
27. This is really sad. End of a Silicon Valley icon. Also emblematic of the boom and bust cycle of Silicon Valley too.
https://www.newcomer.co/p/breaking-silicon-valley-bank-fails
28. "The longer-term effect of SVB’s collapse on the broader tech sector is likely to be negative, but not catastrophic. This episode and the general disruption and uncertainty it causes will add to the general air of pessimism that has prevailed since early 2022.
SVB also provided a lot of other financial services to companies, and it will be annoying and dispiriting to have to find new providers. And SVB was itself an important tech investor, so its demise will exacerbate the overall startup funding crunch.
In a way, this is just one more shoe dropping in the slow deflation of the Second Tech Boom. (On the bright side, more pessimism probably means higher returns for those who are both willing and able to invest while others are shunning the sector.)"
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-was-there-a-run-on-silicon-valley
29. What a mess. Like startup founders had nothing to worry about before this, now just one more crisis to sort out.
“Some of the companies that seem to be panicking may have had all their deposits sitting in cash with SVB rather than sweep accounts [that were not on the bank’s balance sheet], which is kind of stupid anyways,” he said.
Startup executives were also grappling with the broader legacy of Silicon Valley Bank, which had a reputation as a partner to tech firms that wouldn’t “put you out of business when you struggle to pay them back,” said Pat Kinsel, chief executive of Notarize, a Founders Fund-backed digital notary startup, which has worked with the bank at his previous startups.
“SVB going under means that many, many more startups will die when the going gets tough when they otherwise would have survived and thrived with their help,” he added."