Finding the Efficient Frontier: A Tool for Optimizing Your Life
I’ve been on Tai Lopez kick recently and he introduced a really interesting use case of the Efficient Frontier framework from Harry Markowitz. Famously used on Wall Street by Hedge funds investors, the Efficient Frontier methodology is how you figure out the optimal price and mix for an investment. “The efficient frontier graphically represents portfolios that maximize returns for the risk assumed.”
But Tai actually adopted this for many aspects of life. So for example, he talks about money. Not having any money is bad. We can’t afford to buy anything nice or take care of our families. And if you have no money, good luck on any success on the dating side.
So we start working on a business or get a better paying job. Our life starts getting better. We’re happy. But as we men tend to be extremists, we keep going. Making more and more and more money. Where we start to focus so much on making money that we ignore our family, our health. We start attracting the wrong kind of attention, from frivolous lawsuits or gold diggers. So our life becomes bad again.
Another example he uses is health. For a guy, not having any muscles makes you look weak, and women in general will not find you attractive. So you start to work out and build muscles. You start to get compliments and attention. So go further and use steroids and build crazy muscles. But then you start to look grotesque and women find you unattractive again.
In both cases, we’ve exceeded the optimal point of success.
So the lesson at macro level:
It’s better to be known than famous.
It’s better to be on the rise and then to have arrived.
Be a prince and not an emperor. It’s because you end up with a big target on your back. Everyone wants to take down the emperor.
Basically the point is: know when the optimal point of whatever you are doing. Yes, test the limits, this is where progress and growth is. Sometimes you only know where the top is when you pass it. But don’t overdo it if you can avoid it. Don’t overshoot. Extremism is bad in all things. Find your efficient frontier. As Morgan Housel wrote: realize “the power of enough.”
Nobody Knows Anything: Leadership is Hard
No surprise I grew up watching Star Trek Next Generation as a teen and it definitely was a big influence on my life. I loved that show because it was not just action but explored a lot of philosophical, societal and life issues. There was one specific episode called “Attached” (Season 7, episode 8 if are you interested) where Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher accidentally end up in an alien prison cell with devices attached to their necks that mysteriously allow them to hear each other’s true thoughts-whether by choice or not.
During their escape there is a scene when they become lost. Captain Picard takes charge and sets the direction. Dr. Crusher, because she can read his thoughts, realizes and says “You don’t know where you are going do you?”
Paraphrasing Captain Picard: “I’ve found as captain in a leadership role, being confident and pretending to know, is important to setting direction.”
This seems to be telling of life, adulthood and leadership. I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older and having met so many people, that everyone is making it up as they go along. Joining established companies and venture funds, that from the outside looked beautiful and pristine were true disaster zones on the inside. Top business leaders, investors, media luminaries, mentors, parents and folks you look up, are mostly winging it. They are just more experienced in doing it and are able to act more confidently. Basically, everyone you think has it all figured out or looked up to is probably muddling through life like you. There are no adults in the room.
I’m not saying you should not pay attention or listen to advice/guidance from them. You should because they have seen more than you have. But you need to learn how to get advice and knowledge from a wider range of sources and learn to think for yourself.
As Romeen Sheth wrote:
“To go from nothing to something takes hard work, intent and skill.
To go from something to amazing takes the same, but it also takes luck.
If you are lucky enough to be great, take it with a dose of humility.
And if you are looking up to greatness, take it with a grain of salt.”
It’s also true that most people just want to be led. Making decisions and taking responsibility for yourself is hard. It’s just much easier to just follow your boss’ or an authority's orders. But this is also the road to inevitable mediocrity and despair. Remember if you want to take charge of your life and be more happy, “agency” and ownership is a key piece of this.
And if you are a founder or a leader, even if you are not 100% confident, it still helps to act like you are certain, set a clear direction and have a good vision. Most people will still follow along unless they hate or don’t respect you, which is a whole different issue. Everyone is thirsting for real leadership in the world today and now is the time to step up if you think it’s you.
Alexander the Great was reported to have said: “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads June 2nd, 2024
“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is a good rundown of what’s happening economically in various countries in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4fWdjWLiE
2. "Too often, entrepreneurs try to sign free “customers” in an effort to get the product used, and that usually doesn’t work. It’s much better to have the customers pay at least something so that they’re bought in and provide honest feedback. As an entrepreneur in the early days, it’s easy to get caught up in fundraising and selling a vision. But the first huge milestone is signing up 10 unaffiliated customers who love the product. It sounds simple, but it’s incredibly difficult."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/05/04/0-to-10-unaffiliated-customers-as-1st-major-milestone/
3. "Ukraine is facing increasingly tough odds in its defensive war against a better-resourced, better-equipped enemy. Thanks to delayed aid from Washington and shortages in other NATO warehouses, Ukraine has lacked artillery shells, long-range missiles, and even air defense munitions.
These drones, however, represent a bright spot for the Ukrainians. Entrepreneurship and innovation is scaling up a sizable drone industry in the country, and it’s making new technological leaps that would make the Pentagon envious.
The age of drone warfare is here, and Ukraine wants to be a superpower."
https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-drone-startups-russia/
4. A man who give's no F--ks and willing to put money where his mouth is. Crazy good investor too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AuzAV2KVFk
5. So many great insights here for investing and growing startups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04k2fFdZPmE
6. Always learn from these talks. Rabois is a top investor and operator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8zgNDIUW-w
7. Loved this conversation. Marc and Ben discussing all things startups and tech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw4p85jSfQc&t=1334s
8. Good global geopolitical discussion. If you want peace, prepare for war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H8ttoQQd7c
9. Watching this makes me miss Japan even more. Adventures in Kyoto and Osaka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sveCiXo8aak
10. "A hyped venture space only exists after the winning company in that space has already been created, discovered, funded, and become popular. The very existence of the space proves the search for a winning investment is already over. This is the reality of venture investing, and the herd behavior operating in open defiance of this reality is necessarily limiting fund returns while denying capital to promising companies simply because they aren’t on trend.
Instead of hype cycle investing VCs should bet on founders, not sectors. That necessarily means rejecting hype-driven consensus. Generating substantial venture returns requires breaking from the herd and betting on companies that launch, not follow, hype cycles.
Instead of evaluating pitches on a relative standard — “How does this particular AI start-up compare to all the other AI start-ups?” — VCs should use an absolute standard. Relative wins are effectively irrelevant to the returns of any large fund. The real question to ask is: “Could this company become a category-creating monopoly? Could it come out on top of the power law?” Because those are the only companies that matter."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/venture-capital-space-for-sheep
11. A masterclass on social media marketing and how to build a business there. Gary Vee has been on top since 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2seNzdajZA4
12. "Remember, three things: 1) You won the lottery of being born in the greatest country on earth; 2) No one can take away the wealth of knowledge you acquire throughout your life; and 3) You can choose what mountain you climb.
And so, even though my parents and I had no money to our name, we were wealthy beyond belief. Because, kids, “wealth” is all about how you define it. To me, wealth is not your job title. It’s not your social status. It’s not how much cash you have in your bank account.
Wealth is the knowledge that you can bet on yourself time and time again to figure it out. You’ll fall, you’ll get up again, and you’ll keep climbing. That’s OK. That will happen no matter which mountain you choose to climb. Just make sure that you set your sights on one whose peak feels worth it, no matter how challenging the path."
https://www.thewealthletters.com/p/035-the-wealthy-immigrant
13. Invaluable discussion on the art of venture capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaFTiKQ5vS4
14. Japan getting closer to the West. This is a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Nv_CoR7zA
15. Lots of insights here on the venture capital industry from one of the most experienced investors in the business (29 years at NEA).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onyAulOLUU8
16. This new show looks awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-tnz-GulxY
17. Great discussion on how to build an audience and media-driven business empire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVGYxhIrVAE&t=2014s
18. "For now, the three best ways to extend your life remain boring: eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and sleeping well. We aren’t going to add decades to human life any time soon; living to 150 or 200 remains in the realm of science fiction. But in decades to come, advancements in the science of aging may still lead to therapeutic breakthroughs that lengthen human healthspan — the period of life spent in good health. Perhaps a few more people will become centenarians, but the real success would be having more years when you can live well."
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/24121932/anti-aging-longevity-science-health-drugs
19. "The notion of an invincible Red Army is propaganda. The Red Army was formidable, but it was also beatable. Of its three most consequential foreign wars, the Red Army lost two.
It was defeated by Poland in 1920. It defeated Nazi Germany in 1945, after nearly collapsing in 1941. (Its win in that instance was part of a larger coalition and with decisive American economic assistance.) Soviet forces were in trouble in Afghanistan immediately after their 1979 invasion and had to withdraw a decade later.
And the Russian army of today is not the Red Army. Russia is not the USSR. Soviet Ukraine was a source of resources and soldiers for the Red Army. In that victory of 1945, Ukrainian soldiers in the Red Army took huge losses — greater than American, British and French losses combined. It was disproportionately Ukrainians who fought their war to Berlin in the uniform of the Red Army."
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/08/opinions/victory-day-russia-war-ukraine-snyder
20. I hope VCs pay attention to this.
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/the-beginner-vcs-guide-to-not-being-a-jerk
21. A little bit tin-foil hat but this was a good discussion on geopolitics that goes counter to predominant narrative. Net net: guns, gold, land and energy are good investments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKtL1vtfd4
22. "Starbucks used to be a “Third Place” that was a community hub where people could hang out. The interiors were nice and baristas interacted with their customers. The transition to mobile orders and grab ‘n go meant that store ambience mattered less. Customers cared about “how fast can I get out?” vs. “how long can I enjoy my time here?”.
Somewhat ironically, everyone rushing to mobile orders for convenience creates long wait times. This added volume turns the work of a barista from that of a quasi-artisan into a McDonald’s-like assembly line worker. Even as the product commoditized and independent coffee shops offered the old Starbucks vibe, the current Starbucks keeps charging premium prices. Sir, I need caffeine in my dome immediately. Why am I paying $6 for a Grande Iced Coffee that I have to wait 13 minutes to get when I could grab a Red Bull from 7-11 in 2 seconds?
Further, product innovation is no longer about improving the coffee but dreaming up ridiculous new drinks that look nice on the App and appeal to younger demos on social."
https://www.readtrung.com/p/starbucks-digital-dilemna
23. "If the U.S. and Europe get what they want—a crackdown on Chinese imports—it doesn’t feel like it would result in better cars. It feels like it would keep buyers of those markets locked to cars that aren’t executed as well. It’s nakedly protectionist because deep down, all of the Western auto executives and some hawkish China pundits understand that Chinese EV and PHEV models are more compelling than what European, other Asian, and American brands have come up with.
I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. We’re cooked."
https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west/
24. "Ukraine has the support of democracies spanning North America, Europe and the Indo-Pacific — countries committed to sustaining Kyiv’s independence and punishing Putin severely in the process. Yet that support is being matched and blunted by a cohort of Eurasian autocracies lending vital aid to Moscow and making life more difficult for the West. Two vast alliances are squaring off, albeit indirectly, on European battlegrounds. The fight in Ukraine has become the first global conflict of a new cold war."
What happens in one theater of an interconnected world cannot fail to affect others. Right now, Ukraine is where the clash between advanced democracies and Eurasian autocracies is most severe: America and its allies won’t prosper if they end up losing there.
Yet it is also worth remembering that victory in a proxy fight can occur on two levels. It is a question of who wins the shooting war. But it is also a question of which coalition better uses that conflict, by learning the relevant military lessons, strengthening the ties among its members and using this war to generate the urgency and capabilities needed to get ready for what comes next. In many ways, then, events in Ukraine will shape the future. Ukraine’s war has become the world’s war, too."
25. "That said, our best proxy is the last 30 years to make some conclusions related to your portfolio allocation and income earning strategies.
Income: We know that low-wage and mid-wage work is not going to beat money printing and asset prices. This is the message. This means you want to get the highest earning position you can get and simply do the minmum as you build equity. This has been stated on this side of the web for over a decade but now you can see it in clear numbers. Your income will erode by 50% over a 30 year frame. Even if you get those promotions etc. The high paying slots you get are not keeping up with purchasing power.
The only winner is someone using their time to build equity/assets. No one should trade their time for money unless it is a one off for fun or they are doing the minimum to pay bills.
Assets: Depending on how old you are, it is now possible to figure out what to do with all of your money. Outside of emergency funds and some 401K match stuff (guaranteed 100% returns) it is actually extremely easy to figure out
Home: This is a proxy for keeping pace with inflation/prices. Assuming you are confident the area is good for the future, it means that your house is just going to represent flat purchasing power. In 30 years the house is going to keep up with the crazy changes in the world. Both up and down. Down years it is worth less but that’s during a recession. Up years it is worth more, that is during massive *asset* price inflation. In the end it largely just tracks purchasing power (good to know!)
Tech/New Growth: Tech is largely just the top 10-20 companies + crypto and roller coaster VC projects. Any money
you put in here must be untouchable. You are going to see -80% years and +100% years. The trick is making sure you have absolutely no emotions about it. Largely not a problem for our readers who aren’t particularly emotional.
S&P 500: Essentially a worse version of being long-tech. The real benefit is you don’t have to see your net worth go up and down as much. If you have an emergency better to sell this than sell the Tech stocks because it will be down *less* than tech in a mega downturn.
Apply The 4x Rule: No one knows where taxes are going, social security adjustments, health care, oil/electricity, food etc. We’re sure some of this stuff will be up more than others in 30 years. Instead we can just use the new 4x rule.
As of 2024 assume that everything will be 4x in 2054.
Home? If you want a $1,000,000 home today assume it will be $4,000,000 in 2054.
Income? If you want to spend $10,000 a month assume you will need $40,000 a month in 2054.
Assets? If you are smart and are long stocks/crypto/tech etc. Assume that if you have $100,000 today, it’ll be worth around $500,000-$1,000,000 in 2054 (being conservative with future returns taxes etc.)"
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/making-inflation-a-non-event-for
26. "The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.
Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.
In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.
The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.
Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.
The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.
Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.
And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.
Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.
Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.
Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world."
27. This was such a great discussion. Two of the best podcast interviewers in the business. Chris Williamson and Tim Ferriss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G5dXlMGMf8&t=4306s
28. Always learn new things from Zeihan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYp1Ktbz-B4&t=2245s
29. Why Taiwan matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnd0uNUQqQ0
30. This week’s episode was excellent. NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0C7tBFxZ0g&t=2996s
31. "Forbes doesn’t seem to have called him a billionaire since the SPAC frenzy in 2021. It seems highly unlikely that he is one. (To be sure, Palihapitiya is almost still certainly very wealthy by any normal standard. And his challenges may mostly amount to liquidity problems given that much of his wealth is tied up in private investments.)
Palihapitiya has openly discussed his belt-tightening on the All-In Podcast.
In January 2023, he talked about looking at his household spending. “I haven’t really looked at my household budget in 2 or 3 years — didn’t even bother. Then when I looked at it, I was like wow this is really inflated to a level I didn’t even expect. It makes a lot of sense to live in a more heads down, austere way.”
In his latest investor letter published this week, Palihapitiya wrote, “While 2023 was full of challenges, we are near the end of the hard reset from zero interest rates. After a decade of low rates and rising valuations, many of the tailwinds that benefited us as technologists are now gone. Instead, disruptive change via advancements in AI and reshoring of critical industries are reshaping how companies are built.”
https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-dictator-chamath-palihapitiyas
32. In general seems like a good list for sober rational men.
https://lifemathmoney.com/how-to-be-happy-at-all-times
33. "Putin doesn’t need to take Kyiv to declare victory – he just needs to seize the rest of Donbas and hold on to what he has. At stake now is not Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but its survival. Slowing Russian forces in the Donbas will be critical now to this outcome."
https://amilburn.substack.com/p/fighting-for-time
34. This is such a great interview with two emerging business leaders. Nick Huber and Sieva Kosinsky.
Understanding Owned, Paid and Borrowed Media: Tools for Your Own Media Empire
I was flying to LA last year for my buddy Eric’s Leveling Up Mastermind from Vancouver. And as I was checking my email at the airport, I saw I had gotten a notification that there was strange activity on my Linkedin profile and I needed to send my ID to verify my account. I did not think very much of it, so I just sent it in.
But then I quickly realized that my entire account was hacked and shut down when several friends pinged me to see if I was okay because my profile disappeared. Why was this an issue: I use Linkedin as one of the media that shares all my articles and readings and thoughts. I had 24,000 followers there which is one of my main channels. It took me a while to get my Linkedin account back as their customer service sucks like it does on most online services.
So why do I share this story? In this digital day and age, as people spend more and more time online whatever you do in your career, your digital presence is critical. I’ve said before that everyone has to become a media company of ONE. I firmly believe that. It’s how you build your personal brand, how you get new opportunities & work, and how you get your point of view and ideas into the world. David Perell said “It’s your serendipity engine.”
But like everything it’s a double edged sword and you quickly forget how reliant you are on them, especially when you lose access. And you also quickly learn there are different kinds of media.
Borrowed Media: These are platforms like Youtube, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter or Linkedin where you can share content to their massive audiences.
Paid Media: which is the media you buy, like paid content you place in magazines or publications online or more commonly advertising whether on Meta or Google or Amazon or other players. But it’s pretty costly to use on a regular basis.
Owned Media: This is your own website, your own blog, an email newsletter or email list. You own this platform and
I’ve learned the hard way that if you build your media empire on “Borrowed Media” platforms you are building on sand. You never know when you get hacked or canceled because someone finds what you post offensive. And even losing access for a week or two hurts your growth.
This is why you need to focus on building out your “Owned media” first: newsletters or your own blog/website. It’s arguably the most important part and where you need to focus your initial energy and efforts. You use Borrowed media and Paid media to promote your owned media.
You never want to be dependent on one platform, and if you happen to have a large audience in Instagram, it’s not a bad idea to start building out on another platform once you get to critical mass on your main borrowed media channel like Snapchat or Youtube for example. Basically it’s like personal finance, focus & have a concentrated portfolio to build wealth, but then you have to diversify to keep the wealth. You have to treat media channels the same way. My lesson from losing access to Linkedin forced me to figure out Twitter.
As my friend and new media master Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening wrote:
“All businesses are compounding engines, but content businesses are especially so as platforms & audiences generally reward consistency over time.
You can 'freeze' a few hours of labor in time (writing one blog post, making one video) and leverage it for hundreds of thousands to millions of views over multiple years.
When given such a gift, DO NOT disrespect it by getting distracted by other opportunities, other priorities, etc.
It takes 2-3 years to spin up a micro media empire at minimum unless you're an extreme outlier, so it's tempting to give up at any point in that process.”
So if you want to build your own media empire you will have to learn the difference between Paid, Borrowed and Owned Media. And then figure out how to best utilize them. Each of these have their own advantages and pitfalls but they will be one of the most valuable tools to make your life better and help others if you use it well.
The Big Lie of Home Ownership: Freedom is Living a Possession-Lite Life
I’ve long wanted to buy a place in Japan. I just love the place so much. But last summer when I was catching up with 2 old high school friends back in Vancouver, I was talking about getting some real estate in Japan and in Taiwan. My professional wealth management friend asked me “why, if I was only going to spend 3-4 months a year max there.”
There is the hassle and upkeep of taking care of the place. Wouldn’t it be easier and more cost effective to just AirBnB or stay in a nice hotel. I could take the money I would spend on the properties and invest it in other cash generating businesses or assets.
And the benefit of not owning, is I am not locked into one location, so I can explore new neighborhoods or cities or places. Which is the whole point of travel. Especially for fixed sign individuals like me who end up hanging out in the same places over time. I need the new environment and place to force me out of my comfort zone. See new things. It keeps me from becoming stale.
So I’ve scrapped my plans to buy new properties overseas. Maybe this will change if I end up spending more than 6 months of the year in a place. But real estate ends up adding a lot of complexity in your life.
As the previously brilliant and now literally crazy Robert Kiyosaki said “Your house is not an asset, it’s a liability.” I understand the need to have a place you think you own. The reality is the bank owns it until you pay off the full mortgage. And if it does not generate cash it’s not an asset. In fact it actually becomes an anchor especially as you add up taxes and maintenance, stuff you don’t need to worry about when you rent.
It reminded me of a friend who was very unhappy at his job and was looking to do his own thing. I gave him the advice that he needed to manage his cost structure and start on the side hustle asap. Or at least look at some new job opportunities.
That was 4 months ago. I saw him again and he told me “remember when you told me to watch my cost structure? Well, with a growing family I found a good deal so I ended up buying a house.”
I knew at that moment, he will be stuck at his crap job and his entrepreneurial dreams will be stillborn. It will be almost impossible for him to take that leap while he is stuck with a monthly mortgage payment, let alone the sunk costs of his down payment. I truly hope I am wrong but he is done.
I don’t mean to be negative as I’ve been in that situation myself in the past and it’s hard to break out of this. There is too much risk in their mind to start something new even though there is more upside in it. But there is definitely more instability especially in the first 1-2 years.
So you give up your entrepreneurial dream and end up tolerating even more crap from your employer than even before. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. This is why most bosses want their employees in debt and living paycheck to paycheck. They will own you. It’s the closest thing to legal modern day slavery.
Owning a house that does not generate positive cash flow through rentals or AirBnB-ing it, will be a barrier to freedom.
So don’t buy into the lie that you must buy a house. There are opportunity costs to the money & time you get locked into. Especially if you want to start your entrepreneurial endeavors either as a solopreneur or new business whether online or offline. The fixed costs will wreck you.
Living Well: “Me Time” and Self Care
One of the issues of constant travel and flights are the jet lag and pure beating your body takes in uncomfortable seats in pressurized cabins in flights. When you fly as long and as much as I do it starts to catch up to you. I used to be able to handle it much better when I was younger but as I creep up past 50 it does take more time to recover.
I remember doing long and overnight intercontinental flights, arriving in the morning and then jumping right into meetings. And with energy and vigor. I try not to do that anymore if I can avoid it.
Getting in one night earlier helps me get oriented. It also allows me time to do my workout and exercise regime. And with melatonin, ZMA and L-theanine supplements, get a good night's rest. Sleep is important and key to recovery of almost everything.
But what I’ve been doing more of in recent years is the use of saunas and therapeutic massages. Not only are they enjoyable but they help get circulation and blood flow back in your body. 10 years ago I used to consider these unnecessary luxuries. Mainly because I probably did not think they were worth it. Or realistically just could not justify it due to pure cheapness and money issues. Now it’s standard procedure.
I consider it a good investment in health and well being. It's a performance enhancer. It’s something that helps me feel better and be more effective. And it’s a nice treat and reward for all my work.
Don’t overlook “me time” and self care. It’s a simple and easy way to enhance your life. It’s worth paying for. Don’t be a cheapskate like me when I was younger. Invest in your quality of life. Little doses regularly go a long way towards this.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 26th, 2024
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” — Dr. Seuss
"But now, my 21st year in Japan, something has happened. On Feb. 22, the Nikkei 225 closed at 39,098.68, finally breaking the record set at the end of the 1980s. It was both an economic and psychological milestone — and the result of a confluence of painstaking policy changes, geopolitical imperatives and sheer luck.
And there’s far more than the market breakthrough to prove that the country is out of its funk: everything from global diplomacy, financial and corporate vitality, military strategy, pop culture and even sports (Shohei Ohtani ranks among the world’s most famous athletes)."
2. A great discussion this week. Best convo in Silicon Valley these days (outside of BG2 & All in Podcast).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icZCYKYMSLI
3. "AI is accelerating growth in a $75b market, 20 year old market. If these growth rates aren’t a sign of anything to come, the amount of market cap creation in front of us will be a garguantuan figure."
https://tomtunguz.com/q124-cloud-earnings/
4. This is a great discussion with one of the best investors and operators in tech. Joe Lonsdale of 8VC ( Palantir and Addepar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBzy_hDb2W4
5. "America stands at a crossroads. The decline in our industrial leadership, contrasted sharply by China’s ascendancy, is not just an economic challenge, but a clarion call for a strategic, cohesive response. The urgency to act is not for a lack of competitors or existential threats, but from a diminished clarity about what to do about it.
We must redefine our national ethos with clear, powerful ideals to drive industrial revitalization and propel America into the 21st century. This means firmly committing to a set of principles, investing in reindustrialization — an unprecedented feat for nations that have previously de-industrialized — and drastically reducing administrative burden. The wealthiest areas in America should be innovation hubs, not regulatory centers. China does not inhibit themselves with IP issues or obtuse environmental policy. Ultimately, our policies must also foster an environment where manufacturing prowess is not only nurtured but celebrated. We must encourage daring individuals to build things, then actually let them do it.
Culturally, this means we must make doing hard, physical work cool again. Industrial roles won't out-pay Google or Jane Street, so they must attract talent through their mission and values. Before SpaceX, the smartest kids in school were not going into aerospace. Companies like Anduril and Hadrian have similarly elevated the status of their sectors, attracting top engineers to work on the most important issues. But this must happen across every industry and problem set, not just the sexy ones like space launch.
To some, these words may seem familiar, even trite. Regardless, I hope recognizing our industrial lag and the high stakes involved resonates deeply. This is not merely a matter for venture capitalists and politicians to pontificate; it involves us all.
You have a choice: actively engage in manifesting this industrial future, or face being drafted into efforts to reclaim lost ground – this time, under duress, and at a grave disadvantage, perhaps under new rules enforced by an adversary."
https://www.acruisingvoyage.com/p/war-for-our-world-17b
6. "The human brain has extensive circuitry devoted to imagining, and worrying about, the future. The seat of memory, the hippocampus, extrapolates possible futures from our experience of the past. Our default-mode network — the components of the brain most active when we’re not focused on a specific task — includes the brain regions concerned with the past and the future. Whenever we aren’t asking our brains to do something specific, they default to contemplating the future. And worrying about it.
An overactive default-mode network is associated with anxiety and depression, but a healthy measure of anxiety is one of humanity’s most valuable adaptations, comparable to language and the opposable thumb. NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux says anxiety is “the price we pay for the ability to imagine the future.”
https://www.profgalloway.com/forewarned/
7. "~60% at rates below 4%?? Said another way, your wages are increasing by 5.9% year-over-year and you’re paying a fixed 4% interest rate on your house. Doggies are flush! The American consumer is consuming because it can. For many, the largest personal expenditure (i.e., housing) has been locked down, in many cases at a lower rate than the inflating wages and personal income at large.
Certainly over time, this will begin to decline as homes are sold, moves are made, and doggy houses traded, but you see the point right? This can and likely will go on for longer than you think. The US consumer drives 70% of this country’s economy, and if wages continue to climb (even at a shallower clip), the impact of the 2/3/4% mortgage rates will provide a tailwind for years to come.
So consumer strength? Expect it to continue, expect the dogs to keep running. Heck, they might even be flying soon as everyone seems to be traveling."
https://www.openinsightscap.com/p/an-ode-to-the-dog-in-you-the-us-consumer
8. "If Venetians’ fortunes were at their height, they were all too aware of how far they had to fall. Threats loomed to the east and west which might knock them off their perch. Their complete dependence on the maritime trade made them vulnerable to the rapid growth of Ottoman naval power, while her modest land empire was an inviting target for Europe’s growing powers.
Nevertheless, Venice averted any sudden catastrophe. Although nowhere near strong enough to compete head-on with the centralized states that were then emerging, her inevitable decline was long and steady, lasting a full three centuries. It was not until 1797 that she finally succumbed to the tide of the French Revolution, to which no European state was immune. The ability with which Venice managed this, emerging as well as could be expected from such a time of crisis, makes it a fascinating case-study for the problem of grand strategy."
https://dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/venice-and-the-problem-of-grand-strategy
9. "In hindsight, I believe one of the best things an entrepreneur can do is to find a mentor, coach, or friend who believes in them even more than they believe in themselves. Of course, entrepreneurs are often confident and visionary, but even with that, there is always a need for help and mentorship. Finding a person who genuinely cares and believes makes all the difference."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/04/27/find-a-mentor-who-believes-in-you/
10. Grim reading but doesn't make it wrong.
"In the end, no one who wants to preserve and grow their savings they worked hard for can trusts losers, and they’ll never stop what they’re doing, so we continue on course.
Plan remains the same, high net cashflow to overcome the suppressed real returns our policy makers who preach about capitalism, rules based order, and democracy force on us, and work to diversify assets across jurisdictions since there is no united front among western policy makers so best to have assets in multiple jurisdictions so one set of policy makers don’t have absolute control over your life.
Then never trust them with your bitcoin and if you store gold be careful."
https://twitter.com/radigancarter/status/1784267750833000948
11. One of the most important companies trying to scale and rebuild American industrial capabilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVthhttRyso
12. An excellent conversation on founding startups and doing Venture investing at a top tier VC like USV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TacZQk1OHo0
13. "In these coming battles, U.S.-armed Ukrainian soldiers have a good chance of heavily degrading Russian manpower and equipment, Kallberg believes.
"One thing that this highly lethal equipment will do is it will increase even further Russian losses," Kallberg said, underscoring the heavy casualties Russian troops have already suffered in terms of experienced contract soldiers and officers, especially in recent months.
"For a real offensive combat, you need bigger units who can support each other… That's not going to work because Russia doesn't have tactical leaders like captains and lieutenants.
"So, facing more modern Ukrainian arms… any offensive they try will likely be a disaster."
https://kyivindependent.com/us-aid-military/
14. What a solid conversation on Islam, business and having the right mentality for success in life. Building your Custom Made reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1INfBlRPZ-Q
15. "The average celebrity publicist does not have fans. But Paine, the 52-year-old redhead seen trailing Swift at awards shows and rubbing shoulders with Gayle King in the Eras Tour VIP area, has become a Swiftverse cult figure in her own right. Fans post reverently about her PR machinations and share videos of her expertly attending to Swift’s needs: smoothing out Swift’s dress on the red carpet, leading Swift right past a scrum of reporters whose questions have not been approved, subtly offering Swift what appeared to be water at the Video Music Awards—a night when the star was filmed dancing in a manner that suggested inebriation.
Swift has trained her followers to look for meaning in her every gesture, outfit and Instagram caption. Paine’s own work—the stories she chooses to respond to, the narrative she puts forward in the media—has become part of that lore."
https://archive.ph/3PlhW#selection-2521.0-2537.183
16. "So getting back to NVIDIA, I don’t see any force stopping the juggernaut in the next few years, other than a huge decline in the need for AI compute, and that seems unlikely. Any startup competitor could easily be acquired by NVIDIA for tens of billions of dollars and it would barely be material given NVIDIAs market cap. And while the other major chip companies are mounting a challenge, particularly AMD, the demand for GPUs is so great, and will be for the next few years, there is room for massive growth for multiple players.
When NVIDIA eventually slows down, I suspect it will come from one of two areas. The first is a surprising shift in market use cases. Given the long development cycles of computer chips, it’s hard to be as responsive to the market demands as software companies can be. And product designers have to choose some level of predictability and reliability in their components and their partners, which is why they favor proven tech over innovative new designs most of the time. But the way NVIDIA benefited because their chips for graphics cards happened to be a good match for new AI workloads - I think something similar could happen to slow them down. Some new popular AI workload will be a better fit for something other than a GPU, but a chip that is already established in the market in other ways.
Or secondly, it comes from a company that is building their own chips and decides to get into the broader semiconductor business. This means Apple, Amazon, Facebook, or most likely - Google. But all those companies, even if they can compete technically with NVIDIA, lack the infrastructure to sell and support chips and those who develop them. Building those capabilities will be slow."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-factors-impacting-nvidias-defensibility
17. Luke Belmar is the man. Always so much to learn from him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPTv2tWDwPo
18. "The pursuit of optimization in various aspects of life is understandable, and often commendable. But the relentless desire to squeeze every scrap of productivity or efficiency from each moment has unintended consequences, and is a robotic way to live. I’m still unsure why anyone would want to take inspiration for life from insects.
I also think it’s a clear symptom of why so many people are unhappy in the modern world. Balancing optimization with flexibility, spontaneity, and an appreciation for the present moment is key to a holistic and sustainable life. And isn’t that what we should be aiming for? Not all of it might be ‘efficient,’ but that’s the point."
https://www.hottakes.space/p/the-plague-of-over-optimization
19. This video makes me miss Japan even more. I love that place. Counting down the days till I return there later this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6USQPm8N4Uk
20. Insightful discussion on the future of democracy. Worth listening to as it does a good job predicting civilizational rise and collapse. Do we enter a new world order?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHmYg8Gtzk4&t=1s
21. "To say that everything is a cult is a bit of an overstatement, but as a general framework for understanding the world at the moment, it is helpful. The way we consume content, the way fandom works, the ways we sort ourselves into tribes and camps online, even the way lots of industries work, including the news business — it all has shades of culthood. This is easier to see if you set aside the more extreme examples of cults, like the ones that end in mass suicide or shootouts with the ATF, and instead think of cults as movements or institutions that organize themselves around the belief that the mainstream is fundamentally broken.
Understood this way, there are lots of cults, or cult-adjacent groups, and not all of them are bad. But if society keeps drifting in this direction, what will that mean for our shared democratic culture? How much fragmentation can we sustain?
Today, especially in the media and entertainment space, we have this really interesting popularity of new influencers or new media makers adapting as their core personality the idea that the mainstream is broken, that news is broken, that mass institutions are broken, that the elite are in some way broken and elite institutions are broken. The fragmentation of media that we’re seeing and the rise of this anti-institutional, somewhat paranoid style of understanding reality, I see these things as rising together in a way that I find very interesting."
22. Tai Lopez is a legend and polymath. So many great ideas and wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygnDW96vM14
23. "GQ columnist and avid gym-goer Chris Black isn’t built to lie on a beach all day. So when he needed to unwind, he caught a flight to the UAE, to spend an exhausting but rewarding week living, training, and recovering in a “Fitness Suite” 35 stories above Dubai."
https://www.gq.com/story/pulling-weeds-with-chris-black-i-went-on-vacation-to-work-out-even-harder
24. "Pairing the common warbot with the common soldier, in an effective design and execution of new doctrine, training, and acquisitions, is the difference between the American military winning future battles and bleeding out into irrelevancy.
We can’t effectively design and train large formations on man-machine teaming without first getting the basics right, and that means the integration of warbots big and small at the lowest levels. It requires everyone, from senior leaders and policymakers down to the E4 team leader, to think well and good about the integration of man and machine beyond the Terminator-ethics hysteria. Whether you like it or not, your next battle buddy might be a warbot, so start thinking well and good about how you’re gonna work together."
https://www.breakingbeijing.com/p/the-dawn-of-combined-minds-doctrine
25. Jackson has built an incredible Aerospace and defense-tech portfolio at Silent Ventures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oeUEpi_NUs
26. This is a good thing btw. Japan getting strike carriers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKVtkoLfxHc
27. My new fave podcast. Great discussion on what’s happening with AI models.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTwZzUApGkA
28. Excellent episode. You will always learn new business stuff from this show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFusIKG542c&list=PLIBc05HkMJHFpVxxZTD-_MbTAYtwAOEg_&index=1
29. "1. Paid social traffic will eventually die. When I say die, I mean it’ll stop performing well as the highest income users will pay for not seeing ads.
Today you can make a product and test it with paid ads. In the future, you will have to pay influencers to promote you. This is already true and will get even truer as social moves from free to paid.
2. The future of ads is influencer marketing. Since the only way to reach a wide audience is via paying influencers (paying the platform will be a thing of the past), the value of influencer marketing will increase.
Of course we might see some sort of tiering where the base paid social media plans will still show ads and the only the top plans are fully ad free. Even if this happens, the top customers will only be accessible via influencer marketing.
3. Build an audience NOW. If you want to profit from this trend, you need to build an audience NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week – NOW.
Start posting regularly on any social media platform and try to grow. If you do the work now you will reap the rewards later."
https://lifemathmoney.com/the-future-of-social-media-is-paid/
30. "And although his perspective is very much that of an investor, anyone — founder, investor or employee — can learn from his approach. Treat people well, help others even when you have nothing to gain in return, and be “outrageously reliable”.
In the long-term, you’ll have more success. And it’s a hell of a lot more fun."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/to-win-transactions-dont-be-transactional
31. "So now we’re swinging back the other way, and business apps are trendy again. Between 2023 and 2024, Matt Turck’s data landscape grew by 42 percent, from 1,416 companies to 2,011 companies. The general-purpose analytics categories—BI, data visualization, and data analyst platforms—grew by only 26 percent, but domain-specific categories—product, sales, marketing, finance, HR, legal, and customer experience—grew by 56 percent.6
It’s the circle of life in Silicon Valley: Bundle, unbundle; centralize, decentralize; pivot horizontally, pivot vertically. Build multipurpose analytics and BI platforms that are sold to data teams; build domain-specific tools that prestructure common departmental data sources and predefine popular business metrics. Do your analysis freehand; trace a ready-made template. Alternate between the two forms of BI. Though each cycle works a little better than the last, nothing fundamentally changes."
https://benn.substack.com/p/bis-third-form
32. This is a pretty sober discussion. But great lessons for VCs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZKuQko0vmo
33. "New consumer devices are emerging because AI allows you to use the sensors, silicon, and interfaces developed for smartphones in novel ways. AI can take the input of large amounts of ambient data, such as the audio from your conversations and your behavior as you use your computer. Then, AI can output unique insights based on that corpus of data—much more personalized, sensitive, and accurate than what regular software can do today. It can also leverage existing data for new actions, such as following voice commands more closely. Basically, it’ll listen to what you say and bring out smart stuff that you missed.
While my description may be banal, the possibilities are exciting. Smartphones are dominant, but aren’t perfect. Consumer addiction is—at least in my estimation—largely due to the monetization of smartphone app stores and the form factor of the device. If AI can evolve our relationships with devices, it’s a meaningful change. An AI ambiently crunching data and performing tasks without the distraction of a screen is net good for humanity. And, as a happy capitalistic coincidence, it would probably make the inventor of said device the owner of several large yachts."
https://every.to/napkin-math/the-ai-hardware-dilemma
34. Cloud continues to grow along with its Capex. But this is why big players will dominate AI.
https://tomtunguz.com/capex_conquest
35. "Language barriers are the very earliest thing that companies have to overcome when they build factories overseas. The fact that TSMC still can’t even communicate in English means that it’s still very early days.
That’s why it’s so unhelpful to declare that TSMC’s factories in America are a “debacle”, just because of a modest delay at the outset. Foreign direct investment is a long, winding, arduous journey. It’s not the kind of thing where we should expect everything to run perfectly smoothly on the first try.
Meanwhile, the mystique of East Asian culture is just not a good lens through which to view challenges like this one. Cross-country cultural differences are real, but they aren’t as impactful on business as people like to think. Humans are humans, and they can learn."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/whos-afraid-of-east-asian-management
36. "Today there are striking and troubling similarities between our current moment and the original Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union that defined the second half of the 20th century. Once again, the world is witnessing two major powers engaged in a global competition for supremacy, trying to lock in an economic, technological, diplomatic, and military advantage anywhere and everywhere an opportunity presents itself.
Virtually every region of the planet is a battlefield for this confrontation: from the scramble to secure mining rights for critical minerals and advantageous trade deals in Africa and Latin America, to the establishment of economic and military partnerships across Asia, to backing opposite warring sides in Europe and the Middle East."
https://time.com/6971329/us-china-new-cold-war/
37. "But if we’re not wired for conflict, we’ll meet the same fate as if we never reproduced. Evolution is a competition for resources, and conflict is inevitable. The ecosystem isn’t much concerned with who plays fair: Everything is prey to something else; conflicts arise over resources, mates, territory, and pride. We either develop a reward system that deftly chooses battles, or we’ll be consumed by a species that does.
Humans are not immune. We evolved hiding in the trees while stronger, faster, and more sharply clawed creatures roamed the savanna. So we developed a robust neurological system for identifying threats, gauging their severity, and responding quickly, often before we’re conscious of the threat level. But fight-or-flight wasn’t enough to shepherd us out of the forests. First we had to develop our superpower: cooperation. The cocktail that’s made us the apex of apex predators is cooperation on the rocks of conflict. Under threat, we become a “band of brothers,” establishing “sisterhood” to “fight the power” and form “one nation, indivisible.”
https://www.profgalloway.com/enemies
38. Best conversation in tech and Silicon Valley right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXrCso5PBo
39. "Of course, plenty of software companies sell to non-software companies. By and large, the economy is doing fine but not growing fast adjusted for inflation, so the sales from software companies to non-software companies have been slow and steady. Sales from software companies to other software companies have been nonexistent, resulting in an overall malaise in the software business.
When does it all end? I don’t know. We’re still bouncing along the bottom. At some point, things will pick up, and we’ll get back to a more aggressive growth orientation as a software industry. Hopefully, that’s in 2025, but you never know. The lack of investment by software companies and software companies selling to other software companies has been eye-opening to me and is one of the important reasons why the software industry has struggled for nearly 2 1/2 years."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/05/18/software-recession-continues/
Yudo: Lessons from The Way of the Bath
I love Japanese culture and discovering new aspects of it. I’m a big Onsen aka Hot spring fan as well. But what I love is the philosophical underpinning behind almost everything in Japan, whether it’s food, martial arts, the arts and crafts.
Japan is one of the most unique cultures in the world, it was an Island nation closed off to the rest of the world for over two thousand years until the 1600s. Yudo, or bathing culture, is an example of the unique aspects of Japanese culture and I really enjoyed the movie of the same name. It was funny but also remarkably touching.
I saw it as a fictional story version of Jiro Dreams of Sushi but around bathing culture. The Japanese search for perfection in whatever they do. One should have a philosophy of life and one should live it with purpose.
Here are some interesting thoughts I grabbed from the movie.
“Since antiquity, the Japanese people have lived in awe of nature, serving as a model for willing submission to one’s fate. And unwavering devotion to forge ahead. That is what people have called “finding the way.” The way of tea, of flower arranging, or of incense.
There is another. The way of bath, Yudo.
While the paths to perfection are many, there is no final destination point. There is only finding one’s way in daily life through assiduous practice. It is that pursuit of perfection that illuminates life itself.”
This illustrates the beauty of Japanese culture and why so many of us are entranced by Japan. But it also shows us what the path to excellence in life looks like, whatever it is that you do.
“The foundation of Japanese aesthetics is nature itself. We revere and appreciate it. We accept it as a model for how we lead our lives. Happiness is not pursued. It is realized. In the smallest pleasures lies the richness of life. That is the reason the way of the bath exists”
Yudo is about finding joy and satisfaction in the simplest things in life. Even an everyday hot bath.
“Soak in a bath, wash the heart and return to innocence. Bathing is happiness.”
Kintsugi: What is Broken Can Be Mended
It’s hard not to be depressed, distressed or weary when one looks out toward the world and news and social media.
It’s been such a rough couple years since 2020. First the pandemic and insane lockdowns, the BLM riots, a contentious election in the US. Followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel Oct 7th, 2023 and the breakdown of the world into different factions. Crazy high Inflation and a strange economy where the rich get richer but where everyone else is falling behind.
Up and down stock market and mass layoffs in tech and Wall Street and now Main street.
The middle class is being crushed by technology and a new form of globalization. The populace of most countries are divided between political ideologies. Left versus right. Traditional versus Degeneration. Everyone seems insane and the world seems broken and fractured.
Many of us haven’t fully recovered from the psychological scars caused by Covid pandemic and lockdowns, especially our kids. My family and financial/business life was wrecked that cursed year of 2020.
While business-financially I’ve more than recovered, 4 years later my family life is still a mess. Especially with my beloved daughter, both being in the awkward teenage years and her lingering stress from the challenging 2020 time has strained our relationship badly. It continues to be a source of pain for both of us.
But I recently discovered a Japanese pottery style called Kintsugi. It takes broken pieces of pottery and repairs it by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered silver, gold or platinum. The results are absolutely beautiful. It looks so much better than before it was broken.
It is linked to the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi: “a worldview centred on the acceptance of transience, imperfection and the beauty found in simplicity. Wabi-sabi is also an appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature that remind us that nothing stays the same forever.”
I’ve decided to use Kintsugi as a model for life going forward. “The Conversation” article goes on to say: “There are no attempts to hide the damage, instead, it is highlighted. The practice has come to represent the idea that beauty can be found in imperfection. The breakage is an opportunity and applying this kind of thinking to instances of failure in our own lives can be helpful.”
I believe that whatever is broken can be fixed. Especially when it’s your own fault. But like all things important it will be hard and takes immense commitment, effort and time. Commitment and effort is something I have in spades. And with some time, good results should be inevitable.
Like Kintsugi, the hope is that your breakages in life can be repaired and ultimately made even better and more beautiful with time, care and effort.
The Mongol Doctrine Part 2: Every Action Has an Opposite and Equal Reaction
I wrote in a previous post about the savagery of empire building in geopolitics and business. And as the title states there is always a counter reaction to savagery, whether from employees, competitors and other countries.
I have long deplored the weakness in the West and in most of the modern world. Cutting defense budgets, letting their militaries decline and their citizenry get complacent. But there are several countries that stand in opposition to this. Countries like South Korea, Finland, Turkey, Singapore and Poland.
No surprise, this is a direct reaction to their past history of being conquered, badly treated and despoiled by neighboring countries. Finland by Russia and Germany. South Korea by Japan & North Korea. Turkey by Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia after World War 1. Singapore by Japan in WW2 and threatened in modern times by their immediate neighbors. Poland was partitioned by Russia, Germany, Austria & Turkey multiple times.
Consequently they have developed very strong professional militaries as well as military reserves. They have it seared into their history and know really bad things happen to their people when they are invaded or conquered. I should add that the occupations by Japan, Germany and Russia tended to be particularly brutal and harsh.
This is something that seems to be forgotten by many countries in Western Europe. And I would even argue in America and Canada. I understand as many of the NATO countries including Canada are free riding on the American military and defense shield by spending below the required 2% of GDP on defense spending. The problem is America cannot be counted on as we seem to be entering a period of isolationism as the world de-globalizes and moves into a multipolar situation. Less order and more chaos.
I pray people wake up before it’s too late. The world is only becoming a scarier place. Power and strength is important. This is why bullies and criminals only prey on the weak. They know trying to tackle someone strong will cost them too much. Someone who can fight back and inflict costs back upon them. This is true at the individual level, at the company level and at the country level.
I learned this term the Mongol doctrine from a sci-fi series of Battletech, as practiced by Clan Jade Falcon. The doctrine involved the use of ostentatious violence against opposing armies and civilians alike to cow enemies into submission. Not just an eye for an eye, but 2 eyes for one of yours. A harsh and severe response to aggression against you and yours. This is the only language barbarians and criminals understand.
While I deplore violence and savagery, it’s a reality of our world. You can’t hide from it forever. And you need to be prepared to use it if someone will be coming to harm you, your family or your friends. Don’t rely on anyone else or even the police as many learned the hard way during the BLM riots in 2020 and the extreme progressive stupidity that has reigned in Blue cities of America aka LA, SF, NYC and Chicago (aka Chiraq).
Get strong. Get trained. Get rich. Get smart!
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 19th, 2024
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.” — Seneca
"Transitioning from founder-led sales to a hired sales team is often a difficult process. Failure rates are high with new sales hires, and many of the lessons have to be learned over and over again.
Once product-market fit is achieved and the business is working, the next step is to hire a process-oriented sales assistant to take all the lessons learned, document them, and start mapping out the sales process. With this in place, then it’s time to hire a sales leader to build a team focused on running a scalable process and delivering results."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/04/20/from-founder-led-sales-to-a-sales-team
2. Such an excellent conversation this week. For those in venture capital, this is a must listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lADBhTbmUQ
3. Mr Perell is a very wise young man. There is so much here. Worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqo-V_vMuKA
4. About time this bill got signed in the USA.
"Finally, the passing of this bill will be a considerable morale boost for Ukrainian citizens and those on the front line. As President Zelensky noted in a tweet just after the bill pased, “our warriors on the front lines, as well as our cities and villages suffering from Russian terror, will feel it.” It is a major vote of confidence in the future of Ukraine.
The passing of this bill may also prompt other nations to step up their support for Ukraine. There are multiple nations besides the U.S. that have stepped up and provided very significant amounts of aid for Ukraine, including the Baltics, Denmark, Poland, Scandanavian nations, Japan, Germany and Britain. However, some nations have been laggards, including my own country of Australia.
Hopefully this bill might prompt the government in the land down under to be a little more generous in supporting the survival of Ukraine.
But for now, the aim will be to get the aid bills back to the Senate and then signed by President Biden in the coming days.
Then the hard work of rapid delivery of aid, and the stepping up of U.S. military industrial production, begins."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-ukraine-aid-bill-passes-in-the
5. Loved this conversation. All about creativity, writing and finding your own path career wise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udwLnrzRIVo
6. I LOVE This Show: Shogun.
"Why do you think a show about feudal Japan is really connecting with people right now?
It’s so educational. We really get to understand where Japanese people are coming from, what their history was like. It’s nothing like that right now. No one’s walking around with a sword, but it still teaches us the roots, so I’m so happy. It’s very relative, because it’s talking about politics, human relations, and understanding different cultures—things that you don’t agree with but have to accept. You can come from anywhere and still be able to relate to that. It’s fascinating."
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a60504025/anna-sawai-shogun-mariko-interview/
7. Excellent conversation. Pomp is a friend but I learned a lot from his stories of service in Iraq. He also has a great view on business, investing & BTC and careers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll22w3BByY8
8. "Shore Capital moves just as quickly as its founder. The health care–focused microcap investment firm sealed 801 deals from 2020 to 2023, making it one of the world’s busiest buyout shops. Its assets under management soared sevenfold to $7 billion during that period, as stellar returns convinced early investors like the University of Notre Dame and Sequoia Capital’s wealth management arm to steadily boost their commitments.
But with its 15th anniversary this year, Shore remains a minnow in the ocean of private equity—where the largest fish, such as Apollo, Blackstone and KKR, oversee more than $500 billion apiece. That’s by design. “We’ve turned away billions of dollars,” Ishbia says. “In private equity, when you’re good at your job, you raise a bigger fund. My thesis was, ‘Who stays in microcap?’ The answer is basically nobody.
STAYING SMALL is working out big time: Shore’s average internal rate of return on its 14 exits, all in health care, is 53%, net of fees. That’s nearly triple the average net IRR of U.S. buyout funds raised since 2009, according to data from Cambridge Associates. After Shore took its 20% to 30% cut of profits, its exits multiplied investors’ money by 5.5 times on average, also nearly triple the average total value to paid-in capital multiple of U.S. buyout funds raised during that period.
Shore has never unloaded a company for less than three times cost before fees, nor, it says, has it ever suffered a loss. “Those are top 1% returns in private equity,” marvels one investor who asked not to be identified, citing his organization’s press policy. “That’s rarefied air, right? That’s more like venture capital than a traditional buyout firm.””
https://archive.ph/wYUZZ#selection-691.0-695.835
9. "Gig drivers don’t face an edict for speed like past Domino’s drivers, but Wells says the requirement to be fast is built into the job, with drivers hurrying to make financial incentives, avoid bad ratings, and ensure the food is warm upon delivery.
“Your livelihood depends on you getting somewhere and getting there fast,” she says.
That kind of motivation can be dangerous.
When Behrend was preparing his Domino’s case, he remembers speaking to behavioral scientists who explained that delivery drivers stressed by time constraints get a form of tunnel vision. They focus on their destination and less on the world around them, leaving themselves and everyone else vulnerable, because they must arrive a little bit faster.
The 30-minute guarantee may have ended decades ago. But its legacy lives on. "
https://thehustle.co/originals/the-failure-of-the-dominos-30-minute-delivery-guarantee
10. "The show, called “In Good Company,” is the brainchild of Nicolai Tangen, a 57-year-old native Norwegian and former London hedge-fund manager who in 2020 was named CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. That is the arm of the Norwegian central bank operating what is known as the oil fund, enriched by the nation’s vast oil and gas revenues.
The fund has never been bigger than it is this year, at around $1.6 trillion. But Tangen felt the fund—and the people running it—could be better understood by the public.
“We aim to be the most transparent fund in the world. It struck me that the real transparency here would be to show the Norwegian people what they own,” Tangen said in an interview. “I thought, you know, we own all these companies, we own big stakes, we actually have access to these CEOs.”
Each show featuring a corporate leader at the microphone typically begins by noting the number of shares the Norwegian fund owns of that company, along with the often eye-popping value of that investment. ($5 billion of Exxon shares, $4 billion of Nvidia, $2.2 billion of Disney, etc.)"
https://archive.ph/eHeIC#selection-2555.0-2591.7
11. I like Justin Waller. He is a good man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaekT0Dl1x4
12. "That disbelief was the very reason I’d been keen to study Traba, after hearing CEO Mike Shebat on a podcast. Speaking to 20VC’s Harry Stebbings, Shebat had proudly championed his startup’s long hours, “Olympian” work ethic, and mission to build a $1 trillion business. Despite having no previous interest in Traba’s market of light industrial staffing nor familiarity with Shebat’s career, I found myself intrigued by his rhetoric. He was saying something profoundly obvious in one respect – that building an extraordinary company takes extraordinary work – but also transgressive. There are few more efficient routes to an internet argument than to eulogize the 80-hour week.
Traba is taking a different approach. While peers and forebearers emulate the decadence of a banal, patronizing Rome, Shebat is aiming for something closer to Sparta. Intensity, effort, sweat – these are not the unsavory byproducts of building a company; they are the end, in and of themselves. “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things,” the poet Ranier Marie Rilke wrote. Above all, this seems to be Traba’s pitch: tech’s best talent wants a mountain to climb, not a nap pod."
https://thegeneralist.substack.com/p/traba
13. This is a masterclass in writing and storytelling from 2 masters. What a great conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2BnqYArwaw
14. "Russia’s influence in its immediate neighborhood has been diminishing, too. The bulk of non-Russians in the former Soviet borderlands want less and less to do with their former overlord and certainly do not want to be reabsorbed by it. Armenians are embittered, Kazakhs are wary, and Belarusians are trapped and unhappy about it.
Eurasianism and Slavophilism are mostly dead letters: the overwhelming majority of the world’s non-Russian Slavs joined or are clamoring to join the European Union and NATO. Without Russia menacing its European neighbors, NATO’s reason for being becomes uncertain. But that means Russia could break NATO only by developing into a durable rule-of-law state, precisely what Putin resists with all his being.
Russia’s basic grand strategy appears simple: vastly overinvest in the military, roguish capabilities, and the secret police, and try to subvert the West. No matter how dire its strategic position gets, and it is often dire, Russia can muddle through, as long as the West weakens, too.
Peace comes through strength, combined with skillful diplomacy. The United States must maintain concerted pressure on Russia while also offering incentives for Moscow to retrench. That means creating leverage through next-generation military tools but also pursuing negotiations in close cooperation with U.S. allies and partners and aided by so-called Track II exchanges among influential but nongovernmental figures."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/five-futures-russia-stephen-kotkin
15. Crypto Hayes on Global Macro. A long but valuable discussion to prepare for your financial future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hozhK-NKkQo
16. Italian Badasses of WW1. The Arditi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlMJ7HImSck
17. Top conversation between two of the most interesting people on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql8aB0tqC0o
18. "So if you are a founder worried you’ve missed the window, don’t. It’s a land grab right now, but a single research paper can mean the difference between [not at all useful] to [useful] and therefore a new opportunity unlock. Obvious in hindsight, but tricky timing to predict. It's going to be an exciting (and wild) few years."
https://www.sarahtavel.com/p/rolling-thunder-of-ai-opportunities
19. This is a must listen to for anyone B2B founder. How to figure out Product Market Fit. One of the best frameworks I've seen in a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc1Uwhfxacs&t=1545s
20. "U.S. officials are worried that their hopes of developing a green industrial base will be derailed by China. This is not an unreasonable concern, but the current focus on looming “overcapacity” in green tech (and other sectors) is both confusing and unhelpful.
Instead, the focus should be on underconsumption—both in China, and elsewhere—which is what actually threatens the viability of the green transition, as well as global economic and financial stability."
https://theovershoot.co/p/chinese-overcapacity-is-not-the-problem
21. Always an excellent conversation between two high performers in business and life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axE2Ef8_lbI
22. What a surprise, cultural clashes at the TSMC plant in Arizona.
"The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive hierarchies at the company; Taiwanese TSMC veterans described their American counterparts as lacking the kind of dedication and obedience they believe to be the foundation of their company’s world-leading success.
Some 2,200 employees now work at TSMC’s Arizona plant, with about half of them deployed from Taiwan. While tension at the plant simmers, TSMC has been ramping up its investments, recently securing billions of dollars in grants and loans from the U.S. government. Whether or not the plant succeeds in making cutting-edge chips with the same speed, efficiency, and profitability as facilities in Asia remains to be seen, with many skeptical about a U.S. workforce under TSMC’s army-like command system. “[The company] tried to make Arizona Taiwanese,” G. Dan Hutcheson, a semiconductor industry analyst at the research firm TechInsights, told Rest of World. “And it’s just not going to work.”
TSMC insiders told Rest of World the key to the company’s success is an intense, military-style work environment. Engineers work 12-hour days, and sometimes weekends too. Taiwanese commentators joke that the company runs on engineers with “slave mentalities” who “sell their livers” — local slang that underscores the intensity of the work.”
https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/
23. So many good takes on startups and entrepreneurship from Greg Isenberg. Lots of advantages of studios and multi-preneurship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylT8SYsdrsg
24. "I sometimes catch myself thinking like a beta cuck loser. And when I do, I must remind myself of the overarching macro theme that the entire retail and institutional investing world is starting to believe. That is, all the major economic blocs (US, China, European Union “EU” and Japan) are debasing their currencies to deleverage their government’s balance sheet. Now that TradFi has a direct way to profit off of this narrative via US and soon-to-be UK and Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETFs, they are pushing their clients to preserve the energy purchasing power of their wealth using these crypto-derivative products.
As explained above, the political situation in the US gives me extreme confidence that the money printer will go Brrrr. If you thought it was absurd what the US monetary and political elite did to “solve” the 2008 GFC and COVID, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The wars on the Pax Americana periphery continue to chug along primarily in the Ukraine / Russia and Israel / Iran theatres. As expected, the warmongers from both political parties are content to continue funding their proxies with borrowed billions of cash money. The cost will only increase as the conflicts escalate and more countries are drawn into the melee.
Calling all degens to the Left Curve. Your hunch that money printing will accelerate as politicians spend money on handouts and wars is correct. Do not underestimate the desire to remain in office of the incumbent elites. If real rates become positive, then re-assess your crypto conviction. But until that time, let your winners run, you glorious degenerate piece of shit."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/left-curve
25. Instructive discussion on how to do outbound sales in startups. Worth watching several times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PStlYeAc_zQ
26. No exits, no VCs in the long run.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/24/venture-capital-vc-fund-advice
27. This came at the right moment for me. Listening to Justin Waller is always helpful, more so today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JSWTyEZxbA&t=3741s
28. "A Ukrainian army that is resupplied with air defence and artillery munitions, and with the increase in morale that has accompanied the U.S aid bill approval, will make any expansion in Russian offensive operations in the coming months very difficult indeed.
The new ATACMs are an important new capability for the Ukrainians. It enhances their capacity for operational strike and complicates ground and air defence operations for the Russians.
But, like all weapons, the new, longer range ATACMS are no silver bullet. They will be an important component in Ukraine’s operational strike capability but will need to be used judiciously to ensure their best effect and to slow Russian adaptation to them.
While the Russians may eventually adapt to the impact of these weapons, as they have shown in the wake of new weapons being introduced, they are an important capability for Ukraine."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/ukraine-gets-long-range-atacms
29. "This is all good news for founders & users : more models, more choice, better performance across domains, lower costs for training, tuning, & inference. If the recent weeks are any indication, we should expect further flurries of advances & specialization."
https://tomtunguz.com/snowflake-arctic-model/
30. "Anyway, I thought an analogy of why we should be concerned my nerd friends would easily understand is The Borg from Star Trek. They represent a metaphor for what authoritarian far left state control might look like (with a technocratic flavor, on brand for modernity). In a Borg world, you will own nothing and you will be happy.
The Borg's relentless pursuit of assimilation mirrors the totalitarian nature of communist regimes, where dissent and individuality are taken away in favor of conformity to the collective ideology. Just as the Borg assimilate other species into their hive mind, communist regimes seek to assimilate diverse cultures and beliefs into a homogeneous state-controlled system. Dissidents are quickly stamped out or locked away if assimilation is not possible."
https://www.hottakes.space/p/do-not-be-assimilated-star-treks
31. "No tranche of weapons can give Ukraine an easy path to victory—defined as the expulsion of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, or the achievement of a position from which to negotiate a full Russian withdrawal. (And the gratuitous delay in U.S. aid has undoubtedly made this path more difficult.)
From the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022, reporting on the Ukrainian war effort has whiplashed between pessimistic and optimistic narratives: Ukraine is doomed! No, Ukraine is beating Russia! No, Russia is winning after all! We have now been in a pessimistic phase for the last five or six months, coinciding with the standoff over aid to Ukraine in Congress. But while sober realism is warranted, defeatism is not."
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-ukraine-war-outlook-a-candid-assessment
32. "Asia is a place where the U.S. is both badly needed, and in a position to do a lot of good, by helping democratic nations remain independent of an expansionist superpower. The Middle East is an increasingly irrelevant quagmire — a violent region with little to offer and little hope of resolution.
The days when the U.S. was powerful enough to defend the entire world at once are long gone. Now we have a choice of whether to stretch ourselves to the breaking point in the hopes that we can somehow bluff our way through all the conflicts at once, or to refocus our hard power on the points of maximum leverage in the defense of global liberal democracy. That doesn’t seem like a difficult choice.
So those are the five things I think the U.S. needs to do in order to bolster both its own security and the security of its allies, in the wake of the recent breakthrough on national security legislation. They are all difficult tasks that will require both sustained political will and delicate, skilled management. But I believe they are all within the realm of the possible."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/what-america-needs-to-do-now-on-national
33. "If an expert would see a few hundred examples of something in their career, an eager novice with AI is now able to process 1,000. It might be the closest we’ve ever been to true democratization of information. At what point does a novice who is willing to use AI start to overtake an expert who resists?
Studies show that AI improves performance by 43 percent for the least-skilled workers, compared to only 17 percent improvement for the most skilled. There now might only be a 5 percent gap between novices and experts. Some specialties will be safer than others, but in others, experts might not be able to command as high a premium.
Luck will continue to play a factor, but sustained differences in outcomes will be defined by good judgment, strong character, and excellent taste. Atomic Habits wasn’t guaranteed to be successful just because it had a great title and drew from the best sources. It still had to be a good, well-written book, drawn from Clear’s own life. Clear directly practiced everything he wrote about, modifying the book as he integrated its advice into his life, giving relatable anecdotes throughout. It is real human experience that will remain valuable in the future, not expertise."
https://every.to/p/how-to-become-an-expert-at-anything-with-ai
34. Another great discussion on the news from the edge of the internet and popular culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzS8gsOtR9c&t=37s
35. "No one should expect a Russian collapse overnight. Even the most optimistic scenarios for Ukraine envision a long and costly war of attrition. Unfortunately, the lengthy and agonizingly difficult process of passing this aid bill suggests Washington may not be so patient.
If the new aid allows Ukraine merely to preserve a new stalemate on the battlefield rather than make significant gains, international pressure on Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow may grow more prominent. Ukrainian leaders will counter that they have no reason to trust that Russia will honor such a settlement.
As for Russia’s own calculations, the passage of the aid bill was an important signal to President Vladimir Putin that there’s still strong political support for Ukraine in the United States, even if it’s not quite as robust as it was two years ago. Of course, that could all change next year if former President Donald Trump, who would likely pressure Ukraine to give up territory to end the war, returns to the White House.
Ukraine and its allies have been reaching out to Trump and his allies in hopes of hedging their bets, and in a slightly positive sign for Kyiv, Trump ended up backing the new aid package after it was structured as a loan rather than a grant, an idea he had floated earlier.
But it’s safe to say that leaders in both Kyiv and Moscow will have to continue keeping one eye on America’s political climate even as they plot their next moves on the battlefield."
https://www.vox.com/2024/4/24/24138541/ukraine-russia-us-aid-congress
Hearts on Fire: Concept of Aliveness
I heard this term and concept on a podcast interview with David Perell. I love this idea of “hearts on fire”. Aliveness. Similar to Samo Burja’s “Live Player” which I wrote about earlier: defined as “a person able to do things they have not been able to do before.”
Basically, people who live with creativity and who can make something new. Someone with purpose. This is the reason they seem so animated. Excited. Alive. You feel energized talking with them.
But most people we meet are the opposite of this. They take your energy. You feel drained after spending time with them.
It’s because most people you meet are living broken societal scripts. Unhappy. Barely getting by. Unoriginal. Unthinking. They are zombies or lichs (archaic English form for “Corpse”). Not yet dead but not alive either. Going through the motions of life. Blind on remote control. Comfortable but unchallenged. Following, not leading.
What does it take to break out and become alive? To find their purpose and authenticity. 3 very simple things: Honesty, Courage and faith.
Honesty about your feelings and reality. How about how unhappy you really are and how much your life sucks because of your own choices
Courage to take action and do something about. Even if it goes against what society, friends and family tell you. Gain a Willingness to fix and upturn the scripts in your head.
Faith that you will figure it out eventually and that you can deal with the inevitable challenges that come up.
This is how you get to live a life worth living.
Learning from the Midwit Curve: The Majority is Usually Wrong
There is the funny Midwit Curve we’ve all seen before on X formerly known as Twitter.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit/photos
I especially like this one: https://twitter.com/lawrencekingyo/status/1686004413666607104/photo/1
It’s a bell shaped curve where the majority is in the middle. Most people are “Midwits” in some form or other. But that is usually not where excellence or innovation happens. It’s the people at the edges that actually make sense or are right.
As Codie Sanchez says: “Excellence comes from deviance.” Reality is that the results are very binary as you will either be really right! Or really, really wrong. And that’s okay. As I’ve learned in venture capital, when you are right, it more than makes up for the loss.
When something seems stupid, unbelievable, too obvious or even like a conspiracy theory you might be onto something. Everything that was a major company now was laughed at in the early days. Companies we all know of like AirBnB or Stripe or Carta.
All my best investments were non-obvious and contentious. It’s why the billionaire investor Peter Thiel asks the question: “What revolutionary truth do you know that no one else agrees with?” Basically, what is your secret? It helps you surface overlooked ideas, beliefs or insights. Things that are not commonly known or understood by the mainstream yet. This is your edge.
As Mark Twain famously said: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
The Mongol Doctrine: Savagery Works and the Hard Lessons of History
I listened to Joe Rogan discussing Dan Carlin's excellent podcast on Genghis Khan and the establishment of the incredible Mongol empire. So many people were killed that the carbon footprint was reduced by 10 percent. Basically they killed 10% of the world’s population. 40 million people. A very distant descendent, Tamerlane took a stab at this horrific record by doing the same thing hundreds of years later, killing 5% of the world's population.
Unfathomable today as this carnage was mainly done with blade, spear and hand to hand violence unlike in our modern day industrial age of bullets and missiles.
So why do I recount this gruesome history? Well it’s the history of man and empires. People are brutal and ruthless and those who birth empires are even more so. It’s relevant to our modern day age. We see this at geopolitical level and even our business level. And there is no place in the world where empire builders thrive like America.
Quoting fictional media tycoon Logan Roy of the dark business drama “Succession”:
“I don't like being outside the U.S. for too long. There's a mercilessness I miss. Yeah, living with the safety catch off, f-cking without a rubber. Everywhere else feels so soft.”
Reality provides its own characters. Bill Gates, aka Saint Bill of philanthropist fame was incredibly ruthless when he ran Microsoft, he crushed competitors completely. The line of companies he destroyed is a very long one. Long enough that Microsoft fell under Antitrust investigation by the US government.
People forgot how brutal old business tycoons were. Folks like John D Rockefeller of Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie of Carnegie Steel, JP Morgan, Jay Gould, Henry Ford. All pretty awful humans who built massive empires.
In our modern day we have Larry Ellison of Oracle, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Peter Thiel and his PayPal mafia. All brilliant business people. Yet no one should make the mistake of crossing these people.
I’ve been reading about Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Hedge fund fame. The world’s biggest hedge fund. I loved his books “Principles” and “The Changing World Order” and listened to many of his podcast interviews. He comes across as this wise, kind older intellectual sharing his wisdom.
But in the book “The Fund”, he comes across as an egotistical, narcissistic and overall horrible human being who bullies and runs roughshod over his staff. A cult leader in all but name. I know of the anti-business and anti-rich tendency of the media and society but if even 1/10th of the stories are true Dalio is not a man worthy of following.
Reality is there are very few saints out there. As Tai Lopez says: “Empires are built on blood, sweat and violence”. Even in the technology industry in Silicon Valley. In general, it’s a meritocracy and people tend to be more win-win and abundance minded.
Like everywhere, there is a dark side very few people see or talk about. I’ve also seen some pretty awful things while working here. I’m not perfect either and have done some things I’m not always proud of. I acknowledge this. I do wonder sometimes if I would have been more successful if I was more ruthless and vicious. But I have some lines I can’t cross and a code I follow. I prefer to sleep well at night.
Business empires are started and run by people. And people by nature are flawed. But that does not mean we can’t try to aspire to be and do better. Especially if you are trying to play the long game.
But we all need to be aware that there are those ruthless and even sociopathic people out there. And that is why you need to become strong, rich and self sufficient yourself to counterbalance these people. Evil wins when the good people do nothing.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 12th, 2024
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” — Dalai Lama
Jim Rogers is an international investing legend. I've been learning from him for 30 years now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlno_fb1m1Q
2. Lots of good insights here. Input versus output driven strategies in VC. Always some new frameworks to learn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7n_LGvdcTo
3. "In a long conventional war, production really matters. And China has, since the turn of the century, become by far the world’s biggest producer. Even before the current massive splurge of production, China was the world’s largest manufacturer by far, making as much physical stuff as the U.S. and all of Europe combined.
The country’s current effort to increase that share even further threatens to make China the “make-everything country” in reality, turning the rest of the world into a de-industrialized hinterland. If that happens, the democracies’ edges in technology and training will prove short-lived, and they will likely lose a long war unless they can very rapidly remember how to make physical goods en masse.
In a post two years ago, I tried to illustrate the sheer size of the challenge that the U.S. and its allies are facing. It’s something we need to be taking very seriously. Anyone who scoffs at industrial policy or the idea of bringing back manufacturing in the U.S. and Europe needs to be able to answer the questions raised by this post."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/sizing-up-the-new-axis
4. "So from the perspective of dealing out a painful reprisal to Israel (for its attack on Iranian military officers in Damascus) this massive attack fell flat which is a relief for not just Israel, but the entire world as it translates into a possibly more muted response, but more on that later. The other key thing is that an international coalition worked together quickly with a number of Arab states lining up behind Israel. It proves the thesis that the Middle East is getting more and more aligned to act against Iran’s aggression which has been the root of the region’s instability."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/dont-yet-they-did
5. No wonder chocolate has become so much more expensive.
https://thehustle.co/originals/why-chocolate-is-skyrocketing-in-price
6. "Hype is a physical force that deserves a place on the periodic table. The global social and economic impacts hype can have are just as powerful as oxygen or hydrogen. But just as the elements are natural forces that we can bend to our will, hype is something we all ought to have a better grasp on.
Hype comes and goes. Stories wax and wane in people's minds. Conviction, true conviction, is not born of consent.
Conviction born from the draw of hype is rarely built to stand the test of time.
Investments made in the peak of hype rarely turn out to be the best mechanisms to compound capital.
Careers bred in the throes of hype are rarely anchored in fundamental truths.
People need to understand the sine waves of hype as the energy around a category inflates and deflates. Some, like meal kits or micro mobility, were maybe never going to persist. Others, like crypto and VR, are simply being forged in the fires of hype inflation and deflation.
The most important lesson, I think, is for more people to try and build things because they believe they are true. Because they're based on true principles. Critics and champions will come and go. But conviction, banked and cooled by belief and pragmatic evaluation, can be unstoppable."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/hype-deflation-and-inflation
7. "In the end, this quest for a moral billionaire forced me to confront my own beliefs about wealth, power, and the nature of goodness in a complex world. I finished the exercise with hope—not because I found a simple answer to the question of what it means to be both wealthy and virtuous, but because I have discovered that even among the most powerful, there are those who strive to make a positive difference. While money corrupts, it does not corrupt absolutely.
Even within a system that often rewards greed and self-interest, there is room for those who choose to prioritize the greater good. And that, in itself, is a reason for hope."
https://every.to/napkin-math/can-the-truly-moral-billionaire-please-stand-up
8. "Previous eras of creativity have mostly looked a bit like sculpting. A sculptor takes a block of material and carves it, slowly but surely, into shape. Nothing happens without her hand. Even when an assistant is involved, the sculptor pores over the project, because their human input is important at every point of the process. So too with writing, or programming, or painting.
This era of creativity is going to look more like gardening. A gardener doesn’t grow plants directly. Instead, she sets up the conditions for the garden to grow. She takes care of the soil, the water, and the sunlight—and lets the plants do their thing.
So too with AI. As more of our time is spent being model managers, we won’t be directly making as much creative work. That’s like pulling up a plant to help it grow. Instead, we’ll be creating optimal conditions and letting the models do their work.
There’s one difference, though. A gardener can’t directly modify her plants. She can’t change their DNA by hand. But a skilled model manager can take any output of a model—sentence, code, image, or video—and modify any part of it themselves.
So we won’t have to leave sculpting behind as a creative skill. We’ll just be able to use our chisels and hammers more judiciously—and only when it really matters."
https://every.to/chain-of-thought/capability-blindness-and-the-future-of-creativity
9. "We lose more than we win. Everything takes time. Our hopes get shattered in thousands pieces, but we remain eternally optimistic and excited, we rise to try again cause it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey."
https://2lr.substack.com/p/clear-eyes-full-heart
10. One of the key people in the center of Silicon Valley for the last 2 decades: Sam Altman
"In the right place at the right time. Seemingly endlessly well-connected. Fast-moving and decisive. Founders backed by Altman echo such observations of the OpenAI CEO, who has become increasingly a household name since the rise of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the explosion of interest around generative AI. Altman has little time for startups these days, he told Forbes recently. But he remains at the top of cap table wish lists for the cachet and such ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ situations.
Altman’s investment portfolio appears to have been modeled off an appreciation of that approach: a bifurcated strategy of smaller, speculative bets mixed with several highly-concentrated, larger positions where he keeps much of his wealth. One can lead to the other, as was the case with Reddit, in which Altman and Hydrazine led a $50 million funding round in 2014 and Altman took a board director seat. He continued to invest in subsequent rounds for the next seven years; he and his funds now control a stake worth $580 million as of market close on April 5, though only an estimated 14% is part of Altman’s personal wealth — the rest belong to the funds’ other investors, filings indicate. (Altman’s second Hydrazine fund holds the bulk of it: $470 million in shares, close to half of the fund’s entire gross asset value, according to filings.)
Another big position is believed to be Stripe, Altman’s self-described highest-performing investment, which reached a $95 billion valuation in 2021 and more recently announced a tender offer for employees at a $65 billion valuation in February. In 2020 and 2021, as Stripe’s value soared, Altman shelled out $43 million for a Hawaii mansion, and $27 million for an upgraded San Francisco house. Guests at Altman’s 950-acre Napa ranch purchased in December 2020 have jokingly called it “the house that Stripe built,” a source with knowledge told Forbes."
“Sam is rare in that he’s a capable investor, but he’s also making bold bets,” says Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn cofounder and former longtime OpenAI board director. “A lot of investors are fearful of failing. They invest in things that will make money, but aren’t going to be potential big public failures. Sam is very comfortable with taking the big bet.”
And it’s those investments, not $80-billion-plus valued OpenAI — in which he has consistently asserted he holds no equity — that land Altman on this year’s Forbes list of the world’s richest people for the first time."
https://archive.ph/gSBCV#selection-997.0-1015.7
11. Garry Tan is doing God’s work. San Francisco is a better place with him here. He puts money where his mouth is and works actively to improve things instead of checking out like so many other well off tech people. He is also a great investor to boot & someone I admire & like.
"Though he plays the angry guy on X, Mr. Tan said he was optimistic about the future of the city. He said he thought the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry, centered in San Francisco, would hasten the city’s revival.
He recently moved Y Combinator from Mountain View to within the city limits and just a couple of miles from its struggling downtown. He presses the founders of start-ups accepted into the Y Combinator program to live in San Francisco because he thinks proximity to one another is so essential — and because it’s a boon to the city he loves.
“This is our oil. This is our industry,” he said. “Hollywood has movies. New York has finance. San Francisco has building the technology that billions of people use.”
He thinks moderate Democrats with common-sense ideas are taking back their city, and he’s supporting centrists on the November ballot in hopes they will seize a majority of the board of supervisors."
https://archive.ph/bMzSQ#selection-1183.0-1203.198
12. I enjoyed this interview. Joules, ex-military, now business man and gentleman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIkryJeK81k
13. This is a great interview, learning about how to manage others better and also how to manage yourself better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHCtb80SUHQ
14. Seems to me a situation of lesser of evils, geopolitically. Vietnam over China. Or the enemy of my enemy is at least not my enemy.
"Today, countering Beijing’s regional assertiveness takes precedence for the U.S. Yet Lan’s fate shows that China and Vietnam remain at their core very similar beasts. On Thursday, more than 60 human rights and environmental rights organizations wrote a letter to Apple to highlight the Sept. 15 detention of Ngo Thi To Nhien, the executive director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, an independent think tank focused on green energy policy—the latest in an ongoing crackdown on environmentalists.
“All these companies say they are ‘de-risking’ their supply chains by moving out of China to Vietnam,” says Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “But what are they really supporting? Companies with very fancy codes of conduct are investing in a country where human rights abuses are systematic and pervasive.” Lan’s case shows that while America’s rivals have changed, Vietnam’s autocracy remains distinctly unruffled."
https://time.com/6966231/truong-my-lan-death-sentence-vietnam-corruption-business/
15. Loved this discussion on the art and science of venture capital at the seed stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8NkdLhkA10
16. Great overview on the tech opportunities that exist in Vietnam. As an outside observer, the signs are bullish on the country both from a global macro perspective as well as startup one.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lessons-from-new-vietnam-christopher-m-schroeder-jylwe/
17. "Do you think AI tech will stop getting better and better simply because it’s making you anxious? Hell no. No one cares about your “AI Anxiety”.
This is a train coming at full speed.
No government or anyone else can stop it or legislate it away.
Learn to use the tool so you don’t get replaced by the tool.
Most people are so far behind that they haven’t even used free tools like ChatGPT yet.
And ChatGPT just generates text.
Most aren’t even aware of AI video and audio capabilities.
Check this to see some videos that were generated by AI using a single prompt.
If you haven’t been following AI, prepare to be completely shocked and have your mind blown.
It will keep getting better and better."
https://lifemathmoney.com/will-ai-take-away-jobs-and-how-ai-will-change-the-future-of-work/
18. Jason Lemkin is the best. I always learn stuff when I listen to him. I also appreciate his directness and honesty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYmNgzXxkWo
19. The ultimate global value investor. I've been following Jim Rogers since I was a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75OIolX4r0s
20. Solid conversation on how to evaluate and analyze civilizations & society. What makes an effective society and institution?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw74a1dPEJQ&t=11s
21. All Saas founders need to listen to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fWi9hk0Sw&t=1308s
22. Jeremy Giffon, a young brilliant deal master.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt8rCc4u_Gs
23. Lots of good nuggets of wisdom here. Here are some I liked specifically.
1. "Spending an extended period of time in another country, ideally one where people don’t speak your language expands your horizons in multiple ways.
You become a traveler instead of a tourist, and you discover things you wouldn’t otherwise.
You see the difference between being on vacation somewhere and living there.
You’re forced to learn the language and get out of your comfort zone.
There’s also no itinerary- just a series of potential adventures waiting to unfold, and stories waiting to be told
But more than anything, spending an extended period of time in another country makes you see that your own is not the center of the universe. There’s a whole world of opportunities, people and experiences beyond the borders and boundaries of where you live.
2. "At some point in your life, you have to accept the reality of dreams that won’t come true. If you accept whatever it is you don’t want, but can’t change, it loses its power over you. Paradoxically, you might end up getting what you want."
3. "The more you expect from life, the more it disappoints you. The less you expect, the more it delights you. Whenever I’ve expected nothing from creative endeavors, dates, and almost every other situation in my life, I’m always pleasantly surprised. It’s better to be pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly blind sided . And one way to avoid the latter is by lowering your expectations."
https://medium.com/@skooloflife/46-reflections-on-a-life-a-half-over-367c495b1484
24. 2 of my business heroes. I love how they both carved out very unique business paths and intertwined interesting life paths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgH0d5TWeWc
25. Must listen to interview with Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap. This is great to understand what’s happening in world of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8T1O81W96Y
26. One of the most underrated and quiet VC funds and Fund of Funds around: Hummingbird. Lots of interesting insights here like Good founders reference badly. Size of fund matters & small funds rule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmRynLYrDkA
27. Interesting discussion with ramifications for AI. Inference versus training infrastructure. Groq versus Nvidia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UneoszmxRGg
28. Europe finally waking and stepping up for Ukraine while America supplies embarrassingly falters. I hope it's not too late to properly support Ukraine against Russian invasion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ4ZXeQ4-V0
29. "Russia has massively scaled up drone production to supply its troops on the front with as many as possible. This only highlights the importance of supplying Ukraine with more air defense systems to protect the Ukrainian military and civilians alike from Russian drone attacks."
https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-a-look-at-the-drone-arsenal-russia-uses-against-ukraine/
30. Latest from the edge of the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YI_wdO_hE
31. "If we’re measuring velocity in days or weeks, it might seem obvious to directly tie a startup’s velocity to the number of hours you work each day. But startup velocity is far more than just hours worked (a nuance that many adherents to startup “hustle” culture get wrong). Velocity is not only about how hard you work, it’s about how you work.
At a fundamental level, startup velocity is a measure of a company’s sense of urgency."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/velocity-one-metric-that-matters-most
32. PE for SMB and crushing it. Shore Capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOVMp8ytr4
33. Title says it all. Investing in an age of conflict. Not the world I want but it is the one we are in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHqYutwvOGk
34. One of the best conversations on what’s happening in the tech industry by two legendary SV investors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4BQCaVMjg4
35. How India meets its amazing potential geo politically and economically. Future superpower.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GbsYh2kx7Y&t=1s
36. My new favorite insider conversation about Silicon Valley news and topics around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PrcJF0dmLM&t=972s
37. "Nation-States and Non-State actors have realized that Total War or even Guerrilla War ala the GWOT is unsustainable and ineffective. Ukraine is in stalemate and terrorism is a multigenerational strategy.
What is effective, however, is attacks from the shadows. Deniability is the new stealth. For retaliation can only occur if one has proof. Else it is “unwarranted”. This is the major differentiation between what people call the 4th Generation of Warfare and the 5th Generation of Warfare. It goes militaries beyond borders and into complete deniable operations.
Now the threats are more numerous and the weapons democratized. The attacks come from everywhere. The next attack is just as likely to come from a State as it is a mischievous angry teenager.
The West is not proactive anymore, it is reactive.
The surface area of the Western Order is too large to defend from the vectors of attack. In a philosophical sense the West must decide what encapsulates the West and defend that for a chance to survive. Else it will die by Lingchi — colloquially known as death by a thousand cuts.
The West due to leadership, capability and lack of foresight has lost its grip upon the International Order. As a result we have seen the ensuing chaos over the past several years.
This isn’t just an “American” problem it is everyone…
Now that the chaos has started to spiral there is no stopping it.
Regionality of Power will enter primacy once more.
Our Global Peace has ended
And in its ashes a new World"
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/systems-disruption
38. "Cash is king. You want to give me money, I’ll take it. As long as there are no strings attached. Startups get in trouble when they draw-and-quarter themselves by selling roadmap (i.e., non-existing) features to a diverse set of customers.
That’s why you should define strategic revenue (e.g., in the first three ICP rings) vs. opportunistic revenue and then religiously enforce this rule: if it’s oportunistic revenue you have to sell what’s on the truck. Don’t even bother asking for roadmap commitments. Maybe give those sellers lower quotas in return. But don’t let them ruin your future by selling your scarcest resource, R&D capacity, for non-strategic purposes."
https://kellblog.com/2024/04/19/how-to-detect-if-your-startup-has-a-faux-focus/
39. "I had my first child at 42, and it changed my life. I became more responsible, focused, concerned about the future, and empathetic. In sum, I became a better American. Children make us better. We care for our kids, but do we love children? Somewhere along the way, we lost the script as a society. If we have the resources to address these issues — and we do: Nvidia added a quarter of a trillion to the economy in 5 minutes post-earnings — but continue to look the other way, then we have to ask: Is America worth investing in? And do we really love our children?"
https://www.profgalloway.com/war-on-the-young/
40. I always enjoy this kind of conversation. A good rundown of the big players around the world geopolitically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEQPbokAh2o
41. "Do you think Mr. Beast himself is out there watching videos like 100 MILLION ORBEEZ IN A SWIMMING POOL?
No.
He’s a producer, not a consumer. He’s PRODUCING content, not consuming content.
As a result, the wealth of the masses ends up in his pockets.
Money flows from consumers to producers."
The Value of Unstructured Empty Time in Your Life
I have a hard time with an empty, unscheduled day. I’ve been taught to always be busy. It was how I grew up and how I built my career, working my ass off. I feel guilty when I don’t do anything.
But I always remind myself to think about Naval Ravikant’s quote "Creativity starts with an empty calendar and ends with a full one."
I keep harping on this point but it’s so important for one’s mental health and productivity.
I try to keep at least 2-3 days a week with a completely empty calendar. During these days I just chill and do whatever I feel like. Watch Netflix or videos on YouTube, read a book or surf the Internet. Maybe I’ll write or do some errands or chores. The day is totally free to do whatever I want.
The reality as an investor and business owner, I’m always thinking of my business and my investments anyways, at least in the back of your head. But I’m in the creative business so mindlessly grinding away at it is not always the best way forward. Especially when my work is about innovation and insight. It’s not a factory or manual labor job which is about straight up direct inputs and outputs.
I’m an introvert, so this solitary time is especially effective and appealing to me. But this is important for both introverts and extroverts who are in the creative business and especially entrepreneurs.
Yes, sometimes you have to grind things out and put in the hours. But remember that breakthrough ideas and insights happen in unstructured relaxing time.
This pacing is important and you should remember that it’s a marathon not a sprint.
Too Much of A Good Thing: Drawbacks of a Life of Excess & Why Constraints Are Good for You
I recall my stay in Taiwan in the summer of 2023. It was a rough summer on the family side so I retreated into a lot of good food. I also love the delicious tea drinks that Taiwan is renowned for around the world. It got so bad I was ordering 6-8 orders of oolong, green tea, passion fruit tea, orange tea like every day. For myself!
And as they say, too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. I end up not enjoying it as much when it’s so easily accessible or just normal. It’s like when you have too much Vitamin C or D, that it becomes toxic to your body.
I tend to go pretty extreme in life as my family knows. It’s one of my best and worst traits.
I gorge myself on amazing food when I am in Japan or Taiwan or really anywhere I visit.
I have way too many books. Like literally 20,000 books at least, so many that I pay for storage and cannot ever read in my lifetime, although I will make an attempt to do so. That is why I am called the ultimate Tsundoku, Japanese term for a person who acquires reading materials but lets them pile up in one's home without reading them.
I travel far too much in my goal to join the Centurion club which are people who have visited at least 100 countries. I’ve now visited 74 countries as I write this in 2024. But all at the neglect of my family.
Too much money? You would think having too much money is not a problem. But actually Morgan Housel wrote about this. It can become an issue due to Social Debt.
“A subtle problem with money is that assets are easy to measure but liabilities can be hidden. Measuring lottery winnings is simple: $3.9 million, down to the penny. But how do you measure losing your privacy? Or the nagging doubt that some friends only like you for your money? That’s way harder.
When you bought a new, bigger, house, you thought you’d be happier. But then you realize that the reason you wanted a nicer house was to socially compete with other people who had nice houses. So once you got a nice house, you just started dreaming about even nicer homes.
Once you accept that having the nicest home in your social group is your goal, it becomes not only an obsession but a game that cannot be won, since the group you compare yourself to shifts with each salary increase you receive.
My theory is that the more money people have, the more social debt they tend to be burdened with.”
What an interesting insight. That there can be too much of a good thing. Although you can argue the other side of this is Stalin’s quote “Quantity has a quality of itself.”
So why do I raise this? I think it shows that constraints are important. That quality can be far more important than quantity. And there can be too much of a good thing.
But based on my experience in life and business, it’s not usually the big companies with tons of resources that change the world. It’s usually startups with much less money and people but more high quality and focused people who actually succeed. This is because the big company has too many legacy businesses, people and mindset. Basically social debt.
It’s not always the rich kid who does well in life, it is usually the Poor Smart & Hungry kid who does. Poor kids like startups have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So don’t worry if you don’t have a lot now. You can absolutely change this. Constraints drive creativity. Too much can sometimes become a curse.
Peace Through Strength: Your Regular Reminder to Get Strong Physically, Mentally and Financially
I’ve recently taken to watching Korean and Japanese movies on my many flights. Korean movies about their fight for independence against a vicious & repressive Imperial Japan during the turn of the 20th century like “Assassin” or “The Battle: Roar of Victory.” And basically any Japanese samurai movie. I highly recommend “The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai”. These are all Incredibly well written action movies.
Watching these movies I get a sense of unease as it's a reminder of a scarier time. That chaos and violence that can appear anytime and at any moment. Savages & barbarians that can come over the mountain and disrupt your life brutally as we have seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
Strength is strength. We’ve gotten used to peace & prosperity. And many of us have gotten complacent. Or worse, adopting self-damaging ideology like Wokeism that makes us give up our strengths out of guilt. We fear exercising power but our many enemies do not. If we continue down this path we will be at the mercy of others. Reliant on their good will and benevolence. And this is the worst situation any person or country can be in.
The reality is that we are entering an ugly new world for a while. As a history major and global macro watcher, I see that we are leaving a Unipolar Hegemony, the Western world order run by the United States and the almighty US Dollar. We are going towards one of multipolar sort, of many new strong players like China/ Russia/ Iran, as well as India, Turkey, Poland, Nigeria, Indonesia among the top of the list.
Many new players are showing up. Each with their own interests. A works with no permanent allies, only permanent interests. It’s going to be chaotic. And we let it happen because of incompetence, corruption, decadence, arrogance and complacency in the West. This is what kills empires, countries and companies throughout history.
But it’s not too late. We need to understand that good intentions need to be backed up with power and strength. Power and strength is neutral and can be used for good or evil. Our peace, values, freedoms and way of life must be defended against both internal and external enemies.
As a country, we need to rebuild our industrial base, our education and repair the cultural/economic divide in our society. Drive out wokeism, DEI & ESG garbage from our government, schools and Companies and be more pragmatic.
At the foundational level, fix your brain. Meditate. Fix your media diet, stop watching the news both Fox and CNN and MSNBC are garbage. They are both wings of the same bird filling your brain with useless drivel. Manage your social media intake better. And for heaven’s sake and your own sanity, please stop scrolling through IG or TikTok. These dopamine hits wreck your ability to focus. Go read some books on history and business or watch documentaries. Learn to think critically and for yourself. Get mentors that could be virtual or historical or real.
But before you get financially fit, you have to get physically fit. Go to the gym, fix your diet and have less processed foods. Fix your sleep and train in some fighting arts. There is no excuse to be out of shape or obese unless you have an injury or medical condition. Otherwise, you will become a burden to your family and society. A dependent on others.
At the individual level, every man needs to get their financial act together. Make money and fight the hedonic treadmill. Stop being a consumer and become a producer. Build and Make something. Sell something. The tools exist and there are plenty of problems out there to solve. The Solopreneurship wave is here. This is your path away from dependency on others.
Do this and you can unite your thought, sight and action. Live focused lives like the Japanese samurai did. Singular in purpose. As Lord Kawai said in “The Pass”: “Our strength of will is the only thing that can save this domain.”
Find other people who are into self improvement and build your tribe. It’s gonna be ugly and you don’t want to be a lone wolf in this mess. But a tribe will only accept you if you bring something to the table and are able to hold your own.
The point is we are fast running out of time. It will be chaotic at Global level, country level and city level. We are already seeing the rise of crime and break down of civil order in many cities in Europe as well as the blue states in the USA due to the stupid policies being implemented in these places.
My question to you is do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? If you prepare yourself, you may even begin to thrive in this new world order. This is a time that we will see the rise of many warlords and caudillos aka strongmen, as they are called in Latin America. Not the world I want but it’s the world we are in. One that requires perpetual readiness.
Take responsibility for your own life and destiny NOW before it’s too late. Lord Kawai said: “From now on, we rely on ourselves! As a modest domain, only self reliance, self respect and belief in our own strength will allow us to survive! Do your best and let Heaven take care of the rest.”
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 5th, 2024
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” ― Aesop
"Impressive people seem to have boundless belief in themselves. How else would they have grand visions, raise that kind of money, or honestly get up in the morning? The truth is that the most impressive people are anxious overachievers. They must prove something — to themselves, their parents, or the world."
2. "To add some clarity to where I stand on investing in AI - I think the opportunity is massive. But unlike other types of technology that came before, it won’t all start with startups and expand up market. There will be opportunities everywhere, but I think pre-seed and seed AI companies that look like the pre-seed/seed companies of the past decade, will not be nearly as successful.
Find business models that are more than software, because pure software will become less defensible over time. More and more I like models that bundle software with something physical: sensors, services, a needed human touch, etc.
Consider companies that can benefit from strong ecosystems, particularly in GTM. The SaaS wave of the last 15 years was weak on channel partnerships as an early GTM focus. I think that will change. If you have a lot of channel partners or other integration and ecosystem partners who benefit from your success, there are many people who are incentivized to make sure you aren’t replaced.
Look to apply AI in industries that have not had to defend much against the innovator’s dilemma. This could mean bigger more vertically integrated business models but, in many cases I think that will be the right play."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/how-i-think-about-ai-investing-in
3. "QT removes liquidity from the system. As of March 2022, the Fed allows roughly $95 billion worth of UST and MBS to mature without reinvesting the proceeds. This causes the Fed’s balance sheet to fall, which we all know reduces dollar liquidity. However, we are not concerned about the absolute level of the Fed’s balance sheet but the pace at which it declines.
Analysts, like Joe Kalish of Ned Davis Research, expect the Fed to reduce the pace of QT by $30 billion per month at its May 1st meeting. The reduction in the pace of QT is positive for dollar liquidity as the Fed’s balance sheet rate of decline slows.
When the TGA balance rises, it removes liquidity from the system, but when it falls, it adds liquidity to the system. When the Treasury receives tax payments, the TGA balance rises. I expect the TGA balance to swell well above the current ~$750 billion level as tax payments are processed on April 15th. This is dollar liquidity negative.
Don’t forget it's an election year. Yellen’s job is to get her boss, US President Jeo Boden, reelected. That means she must do all she can to juice the stock market to make voters feel rich and ascribe this great outcome to the slow “genius” of Bidenomics. When the RRP balances finally go to zero, Yellen will spend down the TGA, releasing, most likely, an additional $1 trillion of liquidity into the system, which will pump markets.
The precarious period for risky assets is April 15th to May 1st. This is when tax payments remove liquidity from the system, QT rumbles on at the current elevated pace, and Yellen has yet to start running down the TGA. After May 1st, the pace of QT declines, and Yellen gets busy cashing checks to jack up asset prices."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/heatwave
4. This was a great discussion on owning businesses, business and life philosophy and finding your mission through business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U2goTmqo3Y
5. "In 2002, Musk kick-started a new era for the city when he founded SpaceX from a modest office there. By the time SpaceX outgrew El Segundo and moved to nearby Hawthorne in 2008, Musk had cemented El Segundo as a home to top-flight engineers. Some of them—like Radiant co-founder Doug Bernauer—have stayed to start their own companies, while many others have helped form the bedrock workforce for the newest startup boom.
Within the Gundo, almost every startup hopes to turn the Defense Department or some other government entity into a customer. It was an unpopular strategy until Thiel’s Palantir and Musk’s SpaceX proved that startups could secure government contracts when competing against established giants like Raytheon and Boeing. And the increase in defense tech startups in the Gundo mirrors the broader rise in venture-backed startups working defense purposes over the few years, spurred on by SpaceX’s example, as well as rising geopolitical tensions in places including China, Ukraine and Israel. Realistically, of course, securing government contracts remains a long and potentially fruitless endeavor, which could mean many of the El Segundo startups disappear as quickly as they appeared.
Many of the founders expressed to me the feeling that America had fallen behind other countries like China, and that their work in the Gundo is helping the U.S. recapture its faded manufacturing glory. Cameron Schiller, co-founder of startup Rangeview, which uses 3-D printing to produce parts for the military, said he felt himself and the Gundo startups had a common mission.
“We had ideas and things that were very American, but they were old American. They’re not ‘Build this B2B SaaS maker software doohickey to deliver your groceries 10% faster,’” Schiller said. “We wanted to rebuild the fabric of the country.”
6. "Generally, research finds that when we’re challenged or struggle in ways that we believe we’re capable of overcoming, those struggles eventually invigorate us and lead to a sense of meaning and accomplishment.
But when confronted with struggles and challenges that we feel powerless to overcome, that’s when we get demoralized, and in extreme cases, experience trauma.
Throughout history, people erred on the side of subjecting each other to more pain. This is because most of human history fucking blew. War, famine, plagues, slavery, tyranny were the norms of the human condition, not the exception. So people were hard on their kids, hard on each other, and had little sympathy.
This changed about a hundred years ago with the rise of Freud and widespread acceptance of psychology. These days, you could argue that in some ways, we are probably too soft."
https://medium.com/@markmanson/why-growth-requires-struggle-741e59f02072
7. My buddy Alex knows the business of VC very very well. This was a great interview on what’s happening in Venture and the tech startup land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1LrSdUVO7s
8. "Our search for revenue durability. The final point, on revenue durability, is the real clincher. Everything about LLMs seems to make revenue durability more challenging than ever. As VCs, our approach has been to try to focus tightly on this question as we evaluate the current generation of AI-first/LLM-powered companies, both on the infrastructure and application layers.
LLMs and GenAI provide powerful new tools for technology vendors and customers alike. They change the playing field, but they do not change the fundamental rules of the game. Within the new (and still emerging) rules of the LLM/GenAI game, we continue to search for companies that have a path to creating significant customer value while capturing value for their shareholders."
https://medium.com/angularventures/revenue-durability-in-the-llm-world-5d655b22f07d
9. Jocko Willink is da man. So much to learn from this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_PKYpZihqQ
10. "I’m sure that to someone in the Navy’s public relations department thinks that simply refusing to talk to reporters about these problems means that the problems have been solved. This is typical of the ostrich-like mentality that I see among a very wide variety of Americans, from Congressional staffers to tech moguls to news reporters and pundits, regarding the imminent threat of war with China. But refusing to talk about problems doesn’t make them go away; it simply makes us less prepared to deal with them.
China’s leaders, meanwhile, labor under no such comforting illusions. In addition to their massive military buildup, they are taking various other actions that might or might not entail purposeful preparation for war, but definitely have the effect of making China better-prepared should a war break out.
For example, China’s dominance of the battery and electric vehicle industries helps insulates them against a potential blockade of their oil supplies through the Straits of Malacca.
Xi has also commanded the country to improve its food self-sufficiency; since the country was 94% self-sufficient in food back in 2000, this is probably not an impossible task. That will insulate China against any possible blockade of food imports in the event of a war.
As for finance, China has been stockpiling gold and urging trading partners to do more business in yuan. That should help neuter threats of financial sanctions, like the one Janet Yellen just issued.
Again, I don’t know which of these measures represent purposeful preparation before the launching of a great-power war. But they all definitely make China better-prepared. Even as the U.S. tries its best to ignore its glaring inability to build ships and missiles and ammunition, China is shoring up its key weaknesses in fuel, food, and finance.
All of this should scare you a bit. It certainly scares me a lot. The possibility that revisionist great powers will launch a world war in order to overturn the global order is now a lot higher than it was a few years ago, and arguably even higher than one year ago. Americans need to be screaming our heads off about this, so that we can start planning for this disaster today, instead of allowing ourselves to wait and be blindsided by it. We need to be warning our friends, and telling them to warn their friends. We need to be talking about this on national TV, in the New York Times, on podcasts, and on whatever social media the CCP still doesn’t control.
Right now, what I mostly hear is a deafening, horrible silence."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-are-still-not-worried-enough
11. llluminating conversation.
"The 1930s are used as a more common reference to the current sanctions on Russia instead of China. We are not sanctioning China. We are only trying to prevent the acquisition of high-end chip capabilities for the sake of reducing Chinese military capabilities.
Since Japan is an oil importer, the WWII oil embargo was a serious hit to the Japanese economy. You are correct that there was a clear connection between the oil export ban and Imperial Japan’s decision to go into French Indochina and the Dutch colonies to gain access to the resources.
There was a discussion in Japan that harsh sanctions on Russia would put Russia into a corner, causing them to do something unthinkable like using a nuclear weapon. But Russia did not use a nuclear weapon, and now they are still trading oil to China, India, and elsewhere.
From a Japanese point of view, there's always a reference to the 1930s when it comes to the question of economic coercion. There is a national memory. But this argument is separate from the question of economic security. Economic security is a debate about how to prevent economic coercion from being imposed on Japan. Something that hasn't changed since the 1930s is that Japan depends heavily on imports for energy and food. We are vulnerable to economic coercion, so we need to think of the how to mitigate those risks."
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/japans-economic-security-renaissance
12. Good state of Saas in 2024 from Jason Lemkin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvS3tJFmunY
13. An excellent discussion on the basics of growth hacking from Silicon Valley. Elliot is a legend here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1cicJ3OTvg
14. "What happens if I don’t make this investment?
This explains a lot of what I’m seeing in the market. Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with a company per se. The revenue traction is fine, the market size is interesting, and the founders are good. But the company just doesn’t feel special. If an investor were to pass on this company, it’s unlikely to be a pass they look back on with deep regret.
In my experience, most investors are unwilling to express this sentiment to founders because it’s awkward to say to someone excited about the business they’re building. Instead of saying this, they find another reason to pass on the company and move on."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/what-happens-if-i-dont-make-this
15. "Talent and funding are great, but they won’t get you anywhere if customers don’t want to buy what you’re selling. And that’s where recent economic and political tailwinds come in. Tensions with China and Russia have created pressure on our government to fund defense innovation.
Strained relations with China are also causing companies to rethink their material sourcing and manufacturing for the first time in years or decades.
Additionally, rising minimum wage laws and intensely seasonal hiring needs in sectors like agriculture are pushing many industries toward increasing automation in order to survive.
These global trends are an immense tailwind for startups focused on robotics, manufacturing, defense, energy, and many other areas."
https://www.codingvc.com/p/the-golden-age-of-deep-tech
16. Drone war shows the new face of war. We (USA) are really behind the 8 ball here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2wZctmpH9o
17. So many great mindset ideas for great success in life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWPKPAGDdpU
18. Great discussion on being an operator-investor. And the big difference in styles between Founders Fund and Khosla ventures and being an independent thinker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7gZz2MhaPw
19. Innovation in war happens on both sides, unfortunately this is one from Russia. Guided precision heavy explosive bombs which has contributed to their advances in recent months.
20. "Services businesses are a promising next frontier. With massive market sizes- the Big 4 alone brought in $200B in revenue last year- and a relative dearth of dynamic tech talent, the ground is fertile. Historically, common wisdom has held “services businesses aren’t venture backable.” Compared to software businesses, services performed by humans tend to be low margin, hard to scale exponentially, lumpy in revenue, etc. etc. There are many cautionary tales. But change is afoot… hastened by AI, cracking open new, huge opportunities for founders brave enough to go against the tired wisdom.
We even have a beacon out there showing the way: Palantir. What started as a services business is now amongst the most highly-valued (on a multiples basis) venture-backed company in the industry. There’s much to be learned from its march to higher margins and recurring revenue. And with the rapid advancement of AI, I’d argue we’re on the verge of a Cambrian explosion of Palantirs.
Service businesses that leverage both AI and humans to deliver holistic solutions to clients are poised to outgun and outpace the services behemoths that’ve dominated for the last 50 years. Legacy providers are ripe for disruption: their business models rely on human labor and hourly billing which can be turned on its head by AI-enabled vendors.
Further, their “product” (humans) is very difficult to integrate AI into. While software incumbents are having a relatively easy time adapting to the GenAI wave, services incumbents will struggle. Founders, this is a boomtown moment to seize."
21. What a nutty story. White collar criminal sentenced to death (albeit she did apparently steal billions).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68778636.amp
22. Punching above their weight geopolitically, the Arab Gulf States: UAE & Saudi Arabia & how they are balancing the major world powers around them (ie. USA, China, Russia, India).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kzpNTx2PSc
23. Title says it all. Net net: unlearn everything you think you learned from 2019-2021 in startup land.
It was ZIRP era stupidity and most of it was wrong and irrelevant for this new leaner environment now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QMWRSlO7l0
24. Brian Singerman of Founders Fund is one of the best investors out there. Plenty to learn from this convo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBzhRVRIf2Q
25. Bit late to this. Man, Qatar is so wily. Building up their ties with Turkey, Iran & Russia and leveraging their natural gas reserves & massive Sovereign Wealth Fund to beat the Arab state blockade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyVTPcy6r0A
26. 6-8 years of man and material left? The limits of the Russian war machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Vtck34kRs
27. "Our fast thinking system is an incredible tool. It allows us to drive cars, compare prices, recognize friends at a distance, and play sports. But its availability makes us lazy. Why do the hard work of thinking through a problem when we can just “go with our gut”? In any decision of consequence, it’s good policy to slow down, get out of the stimulus-response cycle, and let your slow thinking catch up. That’s not to say we should disregard our gut — just don’t let it take the wheel.
Ideas are yours to play with, disassemble, shape, and apply where needed. I’ve taken the idea of “slowing down” and mixed it with atheism and stoicism to enhance my personal relationships. When my kids are disagreeable (i.e., awful), or my partner is upset/angry, I often respond as if it’s a threat to my authority or value. I reflexively escalate and get back in their face(s). I now try to disassociate. What I mean by that: I take myself out of my “self” and see someone I care about upset. Being an observer, vs. being in the line of fire, inspires different emotions."
https://www.profgalloway.com/think-slow/
28. "PMF isn’t attained permanently, but sustained over time as companies & complexities grow. As they scale, startups move up-market, expand into new geographies, add new product lines, & develop new customer acquisition motions."
https://tomtunguz.com/extreme-pmf/
29. "Tull, Helberg and the other Idaho attendees see the recent boom in defense tech as a critical bulwark against China and its ambitions. They believe the startups are producing the types of weapons and technology the U.S. needs to secure itself against the rival nation. Overall, China is becoming a topic of intensifying focus in an increasingly hawkish Washington—where dramatic debates over TikTok bans and ominous hearings about China’s military took up a noticeable part of Congress’s winter agenda.
As Tull’s ambition has risen alongside the broader growing interest in defense tech, he’s raised $1.8 billion from investors like Guggenheim Partners for his U.S. Innovative Technology fund, which also contains some of his own personal wealth. (Forbes estimates his net worth at $3 billion.) Tull isn’t stopping there. He is currently in the process of raising even more for the fund, with a goal of securing a total of $3 billion.
Tull’s rise to prominence as a top defense tech investor—and emerging GOP heavyweight—offers a stark contrast with his commercial interests and political spending of a decade ago. Back then, he was growing his film production company, Legendary Entertainment, largely through financing simply plotted blockbusters that resonated with Chinese audiences (he later sold the outfit to China’s richest person). Along the way, he directed some of his Hollywood millions to Democrats like Hillary Clinton, whose political action committees received over $1 million from Tull in 2016. (He still sometimes gives to Democrats, though at a much reduced level.)
As his transformation has occurred, Tull, once a fixture on magazine covers and red carpets, has grown intensely private, retreating to a new home base in Pittsburgh. (He wouldn’t comment for this story.) “He’s very uncomfortable with trying to run out and beat his chest in public,” said longtime friend Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder.
The change may seem discordant, but Tull, 53, has in fact long displayed a chameleonlike flexibility of identity. His skill as a shape-shifter came up unprompted when I discussed Tull with Ray Mabus, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, who described it as “his protean nature.” Added Mabus, who has known Tull for more than a decade: “He is a pretty nimble mind.”
In fact, over the years, Tull has been all these things: laundromat owner; venture capital scout; Hollywood financier; minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers; investor in an eclectic bunch of nondefense startups through his holding company, Tulco Holdings, including Colossal, a startup that intends to revive the woolly mammoth; weapons tycoon; and budding political power broker."
30. Love his newsletter. Contrary Ventures has a very differentiated offer in the VC business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jjM5SUH_A
31. "The key is that there are two major categories of investors, whereby one is focused on unlimited upside, and the other is focused on a minimum return combined with downside protection. When fundraising, entrepreneurs should understand the two categories of investors and think through the pros and cons of being upside-focused or minimum return-focused."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/04/13/investors-focused-on-upside-or-minimizing-downside/
32. This is a scary forecast on the future of war and geopolitics. Basically we may be close to tipping from a Cold War into a hot war. Worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7CDp2JX3Kk
33. Entering a world where everyone is an investor. 2 of the smartest guys on the planet here talking about crypto, it's back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzoQU0bob0o&t=935s
34. This is a unique take from a surprising source but I certainly hope he is right that Russia will lose in Ukraine.
I wish & pray for Ukrainian victory over Russia even though it looks grim over there right now.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1779217033374089501
Enjoying the Small Things: More Japanese Wisdom
I’m pretty known for my deep love for all things Japan. I’ll literally watch and read anything about the place. One of my favorite things are samurai movies and anime series like “Rurouni Kenshin: The Wandering Swordsman.” There is a great scene when he is with his fencing master and he states what his master told him when he was young.
“Cherry trees at dusk in spring, stars in summer, full moon in fall, and snow in winter. Those things alone give alcohol taste. If it still tastes bad, that proves there is a sickness inside of you.”
This was definitely deep. But think about our own life situations, recall the numerous situations when you are having a delicious meal, all the things you were dreaming of or your favorite dishes say for Christmas or Thanksgiving.
But due to some setback at work or a fight with your spouse or kid. Or you are distracted or feeling bad, or maybe feel some guilt about something you did, the food just ends up not tasting as good as you remember. Despite looking forward to it for so long.
Our inability to let go, our inability to be fully in the present. This ruins our general happiness and it happens all the time. Our brains are one of the most powerful tools in our kit but they sometimes work against us. Actively looking for the next thing, pushing our buttons, making us dissatisfied with elements of our life. Overthinking all the time. It is a kind of sickness inside of you.
That is why you need deep focus on the present. Meditation helps a lot. Only then can we reach zen: a feeling of peace, oneness, and enlightenment. Only then can we get close to perfection. Complete pure dedication and commitment to the moment and technique.
Pushing yourself to the physical extremes. Using your will and spirit, going all in.
As one of the samurai characters said: “To vanquish you and be the mightiest of them all, I will fall to any depths of savagery.”
Short of going to war or a fight to the death, this activity gives you an appreciation of life. When we are focussed on big things and surviving. When we are safe and bored, we come up with stupid petty things to worry and trouble ourselves with. (This explains a lot of the mental illness and woke garbage in the West).
“In that moment you fear death, you find the will to live. If you sacrifice yourself to protect those you hold dear, they will grieve for you. They will not be happy. Your own life is worth as much as any other. Only when you understand the gravity of it will the ultimate technique be yours. Your life does not only belong to you.”
This illustrates what I love about Japanese culture. The embodiment of “we are all in it together” versus the extreme individualism we have in America. I think we miss out on many things when we embrace our individualistic tendencies too much. And we sadly only come together during times of tragedy and challenges. Only then do we realize we have obligations to others. We have obligations to ourselves and to society.
Strong societies are made up of strong communities. Strong communities are made up of strong families. Strong families are made up of strong individuals. It’s time to get strong because as Kenshin’s master says: “The strong survive, the weak die. Reality, plain and simple.”
And it all starts with very small things.