Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 13th, 2025
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.'' -- Christian Lous Lange
"Essentially, the history of warfare can be divided into two distinct epochs. The first epoch, which lasted from the Battle of Kadesh to the Siege of Vicksburg (3,137 years), was an epoch of armies that stood up straight in formation. The second epoch, our current epoch, is the epoch of the empty battlefield in which soldiers spend most of their time trying to conceal themselves from the enemy.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the era of the empty battlefield is intensifying. The most powerful coefficient on the battlefield today is the nexus of modern ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and precision strike systems. This power is brought to bear through drones of all types – spotter drones surveilling the battlefield and strike drones which include First Person View (FPV) units. The ability of both Ukrainian and Russian forces to survey and strike the battlefield is so precise that they can find and hit enemy vehicles and positions at particular points of vulnerability: footage of FPV drones flying through doorways and windows of enemy strongpoints is now everywhere.
On modern battlefields, hiding is now a critical skill. Anything (or anyone) that can be seen can be hit and destroyed. Blanketing electronic warfare, which can deny airspace to enemy drones, remains far away, and until it arrives, the ability to win decisive victories has become very difficult. Armies are forced to disperse and conceal themselves to avoid enemy surveillance and strike systems and, therefore, find it difficult to gain momentum.
This reality was witnessed early in the war through Ukraine’s successes in using American rocket systems to strike Russian ammunition dumps – in response, Russia dispersed and concealed its supply depots. Dispersion has also now taken place with manpower and vehicles – despite the large numbers of personnel mobilized on both sides, assault actions are regularly conducted by relatively small groups (often company-sized or smaller) as these are the only forces that can be safely organized to attack."
https://im1776.com/lessons-from-ukraine/
2. "Zelensky is in a vise. Washington is no longer reliable – or even predictable – Europe is scrambling but under-gunned, and Putin’s dream of parading through Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence Square) is costing both Russia and Ukraine a generation of men.
Kyiv Post’s sources say Zelensky’s team is “regrouping,” but the vibe on the ground is grim. Ukraine’s leader can wait for Europe’s rhetoric to become reality, roll the dice on a settlement that stinks of surrender, or fight on with whatever’s left in the tank. None of it’s pretty, and none of it’s guaranteed. But if I’ve learned anything from war, it’s this: when the chips are down, you don’t fold – you bluff, you brawl, or you bleed. Zelensky’s still standing. For now."
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/48156
3. "Entrepreneurs would do well to think through the “magic moment” in their products—what wows people, what makes someone excitedly share their experience with a friend, and how they can reduce the time and effort it takes for a new user to encounter that magic moment. Magic moments, just as they sound, are incredible experiences. Even to this day, I vividly remember the magic moment from decades ago when I believed a driver could control the stereo in his car with his voice."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/03/08/unforgettable-tech-magic-moments/
4. "Now, imagine you — yes, you — created this entire universe for yourself. Like entering a maze in an amusement park, you’ve imposed these constraints for the fun of it, to create a challenge, an adventure. Why else would you do it?
Now, let’s take it further. Imagine a brilliant sun — your higher self — shining above a layer of clouds. The sun is always there, always radiating, but you can’t see it because of the cloud cover. The trick is learning how to poke holes in the clouds, letting more light through, until one day the clouds dissolve entirely and you merge with that higher self.
This is a profound shift — where you step through the illusion and start playing life instead of suffering through it."
https://newsletter.sanjaysays.co/p/feeling-tired-and-run-down-9179ee5c5ef9d381
5. Net net: it's just going to be more volatile in Ukraine and the world in general with Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDf8YBuRIvU
6. Pragmatism matters. Europe's naivety has been deadly to their populace and their own interests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh1zmDi0qN0
7. These guys are a--holes but I try to understand the opposing narratives in the Russia-Ukraine war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuxMZmMOt3M
8. You have to break out of your own narrative bubble. Factually though China is kicking our a-s. I wouldn't invest in China personally but it seems to be an undervalued market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwHnJn0ubYs
9. Understanding the economic revolution in China right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbpMPzCJetU
10. Understanding Thrive Capital, one of the top multi stage VC firms around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIIQR_FlKnw&t=45s
11. "As an investor, there is a play here - be open to things that violate the tenets of the hardware lottery. If we fund new ideas, even if they take a bit longer to generate economics, we could create the really breakthrough technologies that will get us to AGI. Of course, given the current assumption by many that AGI is just around the corner, maybe that is a difficult bet to take."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-hardware-lottery-and-the-future
12. "The most successful AI M&A strategies combine small, mid-sized, and large-scale acquisitions to create a diversified approach to AI adoption.
✅ Small acquisitions ($5M-$50M) provide technical talent and niche AI capabilitiesat a relatively low cost.
✅ Mid-sized acquisitions ($50M-$500M) offer fully developed AI solutions that can be integrated into existing operations.
✅ Large-scale acquisitions ($500M+) allow companies to establish themselves as market leaders in AI-driven transformation.
The AI race is already underway, and the winners will be those that make decisive moves now. Companies that integrate AI early—whether through acquisition, strategic investment, or partnerships—will be best positioned to lead in an increasingly AI-driven economy."
https://startupstechvc.beehiiv.com/p/buy-now-build-later-the-smartest-ai-play-for-fortune-500s
13. "Claude Code re-anchors what I expect to pay for software and the delivery time of that software, perhaps unrealistically. If it’s just a few minutes to build an Android app, how long could a fully functioning software product take to build? It might not be accurate to linearly extrapolate simple apps, build time to complex enterprise apps. But it makes me wonder.
Imagine applying this strategy across half to three quarters of a white-collar workforce & using another AI to label each action an employee takes with AI and aggregating that across an organization."
https://tomtunguz.com/cost-of-this/
14. Super fun episode this week with the boys at NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWZiyLU_G4
15. "Increased demand caused by the prospect of European rearmament has sent shares in German defence companies surging as they ramp up production.
Against this backdrop, some car factories in Germany are being repurposed to make weapons as European manufacturers battle a market that has failed to recover to its pre-Covid levels."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-open-building-military-equipment-160011493.html
16. "Current estimates put the entire force necessary to replace the US contingent in Europe at 330,000 troops or 55 brigades. That will be a stretch. At present Germany can barely muster a single combat-ready division. But getting to a place in which large European states are able to competently defend themselves does not require unleashing the demons of World War II. It requires returning to something more like the normality of Europe in the age of NATO deterrence in the 1970s and 1980s."
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-360-war-economies-disentangling
17. "However, Moore and Pasarell couldn’t stomach seeing their event move to a different location, so they brought the deal to an unlikely source: Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Ellison started playing tennis in the early 2000s after pickup basketball became too hard on his body. The billionaire received private lessons at his residence five days a week, and his instructor just so happened to be a mutual friend of Raymond Moore.
This is how Larry Ellison ended up buying the Indian Wells tournament for $100 million. He obviously has a lot of money and could afford it, but this wasn’t just a passion project. Ellison had been attending the tournament for several years and wanted to run it like a legitimate business, reinvesting profits back into the fan and player experience to build something truly special — and that’s precisely what he did."
https://huddleup.substack.com/p/how-a-billionaire-built-the-worlds
18. "Canada faces an urgent choice: continue relying on unpredictable partners and risk strategic irrelevance, or build genuine capability for autonomous action. The path forward demands recalibration of Canadian security thinking and expansion of capabilities in three domains: special operations forces, offensive cyber operations, and intelligence collection.
We must undertake a generational project to build these capabilities—not to repudiate alliances but as insurance against their uncertainty. For a middle power with limited resources, the most efficient path to strategic autonomy lies in asymmetric capabilities that provide disproportionate strategic effects relative to their cost. Special forces, cyber operations, and intelligence align with Canada's comparative advantages: a highly educated population, advanced technological base, diverse society, and reputation as a constructive international actor."
https://suthakamal.substack.com/p/canadas-moment-building-strategic
19. "All the pushups in the world haven’t prevented the vaunted Russian military from turning in a decidedly lackluster performance in Ukraine. But to the American right, perceptions and posturing and vibes are often more important than numbers and statistics. Russia gives off strength, so it must be strong.
And to the American right, strength is everything in international affairs. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and concepts like the rules-based international order or international law are laughable. If Russia and Europe are to fight, Trump and company want to bet on the side with the shirtless pushups.
Of all the reasons why Trump has abandoned Europe, this is the only one that the region can do anything about. Europeans are not going to give up their fundamental values, and they won’t be able to disabuse Trump of his dreams of partnering with Russia and pretending it’s the 19th century. But what Europe can do is to look strong. It can beef up its defenses by a huge amount, implement universal military training, build up its nuclear arsenal, and boost heavy industry and defense manufacturing. Poland is already doing all of this, and the UK, France, and Germany are already moving in the direction of rearmament. That’s good.
Europe can’t make Trump or his party embrace their values. But what they can do is to become strong enough where Trump respects them instinctively. That strength will push Trump toward a posture of neutrality, instead of friendliness toward Russia. And maybe, after the weird rightist minority that has taken over the country no longer holds power, America and Europe can reestablish their storied alliance — on a more equal footing this time."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-america-betrayed-europe
20. "Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has attacked the United States and Europe on a near-daily basis using what are often referred to as “hybrid” operations, meant to hide the hand of the Russian government and to remain below the threshold of war so as not to trigger a response."
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-courts-putin-russians-trying-kill-americans-gray-zone-hybrid-war
21. A truly unique and interesting person. Cyan Banister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1eoWu8QVIU
22. "Putin wants a weak, failed Ukrainian state. Obviously Ukraine wants the opposite.
And this war, and negatiation now is not about NATO enlargement or Ukraine’s NATO membership. It never was. Simply put it is about Ukraine’s sovereignty, independent of Russia, or not.
Ukraine will not accept any deal that undermines/fails to secure its fundamental sovereignty. For Ukriane it is about the survival of the state, and it’s people. For Putin it is about the opposite. So while Trump might see this simply as a case of war or peace, for the two main protagonists in this war and negotiations is is about something different, and war has been the result of the underlining problem/dispute about Ukrainian sovereignty.
Not sure Trump et al get all this."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/a-game-of-chicken-kyiv-or-kiev
23. Always strong sober analysis by George Friedman. Founder of Geopolitical Futures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6XttbqpM_M
24. This was a fun interview.
https://agoldfisher.medium.com/ai-robotics-the-future-of-work-328baca898fc
25. I think both of these people are CCP shills. But I try to listen to everyone to try to understand the situation on the ground. China is a major threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFV7kHgctJ8
26. Lots of good nuggets on geopolitics measurements right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLhhVDo4xGo
27. One of the more interesting characters in Silicon Valley. Alex Karp of Palantir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUK-VYCh5go
28. Lots of fun stuff this week in Silicon Valley news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6myq5J5PjI
29. One of the more original and interesting investors: Sam Lessin. A Fun conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDjDzWCdlx0
30. "Achieving peace, security, and stability will require tough decisions and sacrifices. The kind of sacrifices that win wars. Is the EU willing to make them? As Trump advances with his America First agenda, it’s easy for proponents of liberty and democracy to despair. But there’s nothing like the threat of a brutal autocrat in Russia and an unpredictable president in the White House to bring unity to the continent. The bad news is the EU can no longer count on the U.S. The good news: They may not need us."
https://www.profgalloway.com/europe-becomes-a-union/
31. "For startups, working with the Department of Defense (DoD) can feel like stepping into a fortress of bureaucracy — procurement is slow, compliance is daunting, and knowing who actually makes buying decisions is like navigating a maze in the dark. Yet, for those who learn to successfully navigate these hurdles, the rewards can be enormous.
The DoD is one of the world’s largest and most stable customers, spending hundreds of billions on modern defense systems and technology annually. Unlike volatile consumer markets, defense contracts offer not just funding, but also long-term sustainment. Small wins can lead to multi-million-dollar deals, resulting in high-margin, predictable revenue streams. And beyond financial incentives, building technology that strengthens national security carries undeniable appeal in supporting our country and our interests as Americans.
But this market is not for the impatient. Sales cycles take years, compliance is non-negotiable, and understanding who buys what, and through which funding mechanisms, is as important as having a strong product. Startups must approach the DoD with a strategic, long-term mindset — because while the opportunities are vast, so are the barriers to entry.
While we hope for DoD procurement reform, the following is a high-level primer intended to arm you with a rough framework of how to approach selling to the DoD today."
https://a16z.com/dod-contracting-for-startups-101/
32. I don't agree with this perspective but it is Alt-Geopolitics with Alex Krainer. Always an interesting take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjSuUOa9TYI
33. Damn, this was a deep and valuable interview with Silicon Valley VC legend: Doug Leone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCWz0OxE16s
34. "While innovation and new production often steal the headlines, the future of U.S. manufacturing hinges on an often-overlooked component: maintenance and overhaul — what’s commonly known as the “aftermarket.” This vast ecosystem of maintenance, repair, logistics, and related jobs is essential to ensure these innovations operate seamlessly over time. Without addressing the aging infrastructure that underpins the country’s economic engine, even the most advanced progress in hardware and technology will fall short of its full potential.
Until we inspire a new generation of young people to enter these critical sectors, the momentum behind reshoring and revitalizing manufacturing may fall short. In the meantime, the key lies in leveraging technology to bridge the labor gap while simultaneously encouraging the next generation to see the potential and excitement in these massive, essential industries."
Departures: Passings & Comfort in Ceremony
Another flight and another set of movies. I’ve been wanting to watch this Japanese movie called “Departures” for a long time but never got around to it. It’s a movie that covers the depressing topic of death but it also turned out to be about life too. Life affirming actually. Seeing death makes you appreciate life and the art of living well. Beautiful natural scenery, the Onsen hot spring, lovely music and delicious food.
Daigo is a professional cellist in Tokyo who returns to his home town Yamagata after his orchestra is shut down. He takes a job as an assistant to a local undertaker who performs the passing ceremony for families of the dead.
After a rough start, Daigo starts to learn the way and begins to understand the comfort their ceremony provides for the family of the dead and the living. It’s a grim but important job. He starts to find meaning in this work. His wife and friends slowly come around to the immense value of his work.
There is a scene during a ceremony where they are met with an angry father whose wife had passed. But the caretaker lovingly and meticulously as only the Japanese do, restores the dead wife’s look, touching the mourning family deeply.
Daigo says:
“One grown cold, restored to beauty for eternity. This was done calmly and precisely….with a gentler affection than anything else. At the final parting to send them on their way. Everything is done peacefully and beautifully.”
This is also a restart for him, finding a new path to fulfillment. There is a scene of him watching the salmon swim upstream. He says: “Sad, coming all this way to die. it doesn’t seem worth it.” He is told by a wiser old man: “They want to go home, back to where they were born.”
I truly believe people go somewhere after death. Humans are energy and as the laws of physics show energy doesn’t just disappear. It just takes a new form.
There is a quote from the movie that stayed with me: “I’ve often thought that maybe death is like a gateway. Dying doesn’t mean the end. You go through it and onto the next thing. It’s a gate.”
Japanese death ceremonies are a beautiful way to send this new form on its way. And more importantly are a form of solace and closure for the living.
Weakness Invites Aggression: Peace is Achieved Through Strength
I know I write a lot about geopolitics. These things are important to understand. What’s going on? Who are our allies and who are our enemies. It affects where we do business and how. Which industries, sectors, companies and countries to invest or work in. Which countries or regions to live in.
I used to be Libertarian in the way of the “Sovereign Individual” book, which is a classic book worth reading and one ahead of its time in detailing important technology trends. It discusses the concept of escaping high tax and unfree places to lower tax and business friendlier climates.
However the great flaw in this is what happens when the places that are totally free are crime ridden anarchic hellholes like Somalia or dystopian sci-fi dictatorships like China under the CCP who have exported their surveillance state to their allies.
As @noahpinion writes libertarians eventually understand the importance of having a strong military and defense to enforce their borders against enemies coming over the hills and raping, killing and pillaging their populace as per the “Tamerlane effect” like Russia invading UKraine in 2022. Or the Hamas terror attacks in Israel on October 7th. The list goes on.
Unfortunately it seems the West and its complacent & brain dead populace has still not woken up to this. All these governments talk about doing stuff, but the only countries who seem to have stepped up is Poland who have increased their defense spending to a whopping 4-5% of GDP. Japan has truly doubled their defense spending and some of the countries like Finland, Sweden have always punched above their weight. The Baltics and many Eastern European countries who directly face the Russian threat are ramping up.
For most countries in the West, it is “performative theater as foreign policy” as American geopolitical strategist Eldridge Colby calls it. Weakly-led countries like Canada, Germany, the UK and most of the EU talk a big game but at the same time have let their militaries shrink and their industrial bases get run down. It took 3 years of war in Ukraine and Trump & his admin openly talking about leaving NATO has caused the UK, France and Germany to finally do something.
Truly unserious people there although this is also the case in America where our so-called leadership from Bush Jr to Obama to Trump and Biden have squandered all of our advantages coming out of the Cold War.
Unfortunately, we are not in a posturing world anymore but the real world now. I don’t like this at all but reality is a hard teacher. Bullies and criminals only attack the weak. This has always been the case throughout human history in every society. I hope we wake up soon and prepare our countries as the old and much repeated axiom goes: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
In the end, countries get whatever they deserve based on the good or bad choices they made decades ago. While the West is behind, maybe the new sense of urgency and action will help us catch up and get strong. You can’t be sovereign if you are not strong. This is the hard truth of human history, now reasserting itself harshly after the unwinding of the Unipolar world of Pax Americana.
Fixing Yourself and Building Momentum in Life: The Aggregation of Small Things
Q1, Winter is always brutal. You are almost always extra busy as business usually ramps up.
Additionally the weather sucks badly, at least in SF in my neighborhood, it’s wet and dark. Not as bad as in Canada and Europe but the lack of sun really affects me. All probably not helped by my mess of a home life. I honestly was feeling a bit suicidal at that time in 2024, something I’ve only felt a few times in my life (2001 and 2020 specifically).
As I wrote in an earlier post, that’s where Thailand came in. I booked a full week of fight training at the excellent Stay Wellness Resort with its own world class on site gym & Muay Thai kickboxing facilities with amazing personal trainers. There was also a top notch health and wellness clinic as well as an excellent spa.
Nothing better than 1 on 1 Muay Thai boxing intensive training. Sweating and burning out all the rage. Followed by yoga, sports massage treatments or cryotherapy or IV energy treatments. That and a sauna with a soak in Onsen Hot Spring. I also had 1 on a Personal training to help finetune my training regime. I got plenty of sun and slept very well every night.
It was amazing and all these small things together completely changed my mood and turned around my outlook. You sometimes need to get out of your normal everyday environment and rut. In fact, I would argue this may be the only way to get a breakthrough.
My point is that sometimes it’s doing a whole bunch of small things together that can help change your momentum in your life.
I felt so much better after the trip. Better about myself because I worked out hard and felt proud of doing hard things. The workouts also gave me the physical and mental strength to tackle all the challenges I’m facing in my life at home. Sometimes that is all it takes. A turnaround, bit by bit, piece by piece.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 6th, 2025
“April is a reminder that something better is always around the corner.”—Unknown
This looks great. Timely too as America becomes a gangster state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKGgw7Ob5f4
2. Good discussion this week on NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jioOgPYRevc
3. "Where in the 21st Century could Letters of Marque and Reprisal come in handy?
Cartels and terrorists have bank accounts and cryptocurrency accounts? Huh. I am sure we can weaponize some autists to go after those. Take it to a Prize Court, and they can decide how to make it legally theirs. 38% for the government that gave them a letter of marque and they keep the rest?
A fleet of boats smuggling weapons to the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden?
A cartel head travels by private jet on a regular basis and some enterprising people find a way to divert it to a US jurisdiction? What reward is there for that?
Those are just the first three things that come to mind. There are more.
If privateering was good enough for the Father of our Country, it’s good enough for me.
At sea, in the air, in space, in cyberspace…yes. Let’s make privateering great again."
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/privateers-now-more-than-ever
4. "You may not expect the President of the United States to crash the US economy on purpose, but that is what appears to happen. Hopefully this is a healthy correction that allows us to rebuild on a stronger base, but either way — put your seatbelt on.
We are in for a bumpy ride."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-age-of-economic-chaos
5. "The enthusiasm to create a multinational military comes on the heels of von der Leyen’s ambitious plans to reindustrialize the EU and establish a place of prominence in the AI arms race. Among the many problems with this vision, one is determinative: physics.
That Europe is a drone attack away from yet another energy emergency is scandalous enough, but it is also testimony to the impossibility of converting platitudes into bombs. Brussels might refuse to acknowledge this fundamental truth, let alone confront it, but it is the sort of problem that cannot be wished away. The numbers are truly shocking, so let’s break them down.
This brings us back to the EU’s fantastical plan to build a military capable of slogging it out with the Russians without US support. There is talk of investing hundreds of billions of Euros to “rearm Europe,” presumably through the issuance of Eurobonds. Even if the requisite political approvals are secured from member nations, the plan is doomed to fail from the start. The very industries essential to executing such a strategy are the ones being driven out of business by exorbitant energy costs. One wonders of what Brussels thinks bombs, bullets, tanks, planes, trucks, and ships are made."
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/project-porcupine
6. "We’re naturally optimistic about the USA coming out ahead in any sort of financial/economic warfare. That said, there is a dystopian version where this drags on for years. In that case you already know what we think: all this leads to more robots/automation.
Cost of production in the USA is just not going to work when compared to pennies on the dollar wages in places like SE Asia and South of the Border.
In the corporate world, you put in extra hours but if the company needs to restructure, you’re gone and forgotten within weeks.
The company survives, the execs cash their bonuses and you’re out scrambling.
The lesson? You are an expendable line item. A cog in a wheel. The second you forget that, you lose. The only way to win is to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an owner. Build skills, leverage, and multiple income streams so you’re treading water if you get hit vs. scrambling to make it on a month to month basis.
Your employer isn’t your family. The government isn’t family. Your boss isn’t your friend. You are on your own."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/no-one-is-coming-to-save-you-not
7. View from Taiwan of the Ukraine & USA rupture. Studeman knows what he is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AO978OsfXo
8. "If you’ve been in the online business space you’ve probably heard of funnels. They are not a well understood concept by most people (who are just winging their business relying largely on traffic)… to their own detriment.
EVERY business is essentially a funnel whether the business owner realizes this or not.
A funnel is essentially how a customer goes from “I don’t know you” to making a purchase from you."
https://lifemathmoney.com/what-the-fuck-is-a-funnel-breaking-down-a-business/
9. "But clearly, the uses of the minerals Ukraine has go far beyond the energy transition. And Ukraine has tried hard to interest the new administration in its mineral wealth.
Also, China controls much of the world's supply of these materials. Opening access to Ukraine’s supply could reduce U.S. dependence elsewhere.
"To the credit of the first Trump administration, they have always put critical minerals as a very important policy priority because they knew they were so heavily reliant on China," Moerenhout said. “That priority for the Trump administration doesn’t change at all because they are less, let’s say, less aggressive about clean energy deployment targets in the future.”
https://time.com/7262115/trump-ukraine-minerals/
10. "Actually the four point peace plan suggested by the U.K., and the BIFs, Britain, Italy and France, as leading the way, seemed sensible. Arm Ukraine, give it the tools to defend itself, try a one month truce (covering air and seas, which is more easily verifiable) with Russia first, before a full scale ceasefire. Europe made clear that Ukraine need security guarantees, and arms to defend itself.
Third, events in the WH must have been the final wake up call to Europe, that NATO is dead, the US security guarantee for Europe is over, and that they have to step up if they care about their own security. And I think we saw that over the weekend. There is zero excuse now for Europe not to massively step up its defence spending, and build back its hard power. Zero excuses.
European defence spending will step up, but as we all know it faces capacity constraints in military industries, hence a short term reliance on the US is inevitable.
But Europe has leverage, if it ever realised it.
It will increase defence spending but will need to buy off the U.S. in the short term. If it were clever it would try and get ahead of the curve by committing to a long term arms procurement programme from the US. Say $1 trillion over ten years, a deal that even Trump could not say no to. Call it the Trump Defence of Democracy Programme, whatever you need to play to Trump’s enormous ego. Likely Trump could not say not to the jobs, jobs, jobs created in the US. But this would enable Europe to get over the short term gap in defence production, giving it time to reorient its economies and industry."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-silver-lining-to-ambush-in
11. "Every convention, every rule, every norm must be tossed aside to understand and deal with him.
He is a different kind of Statesman, (some would say not one at all); one who will press the advantage when he knows he holds the winning hand, grace isn’t apart of Trump’s winning rhetoric. If he can win and take 80% he will do so. If he can push and get 100% and some of your winnings, he will do so.
Because he expects everyone else to do the same.
Trump grew up during the time where sales and negotiation was hardball. Every inch won, is hard-won and Trump has taken that to heart. If he asks for the moon, a rocket doesn’t seem so bad. Many in the institutional class won’t know this, but this is what every poor man knows now as: the Facebook Marketplace Negotiation. Or what everyone in the 80’s just referred to as sales.
Everything is a bargaining tool for Trump, nothing is off the table. The polite society Neo-Liberal “tit for tat”, arguing over “table-stakes” percentages is over. Tariffs are a bargaining tool. Retaliatory and Reciprocal Tarriffs are the same reasoning. (Trump also knows and views Subsidies as “Reverse Tariffs”)"
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/understanding-trump
12. "These folks probably don’t own a lot of Ripple, Solana, or Cardano — not many people do, after all. And so if Trump’s crypto fund goes through, these folks will be on the hook for higher taxes (or higher inflation) to pay out whoever does own a lot of Ripple, Solana, and Cardano. Trump softened the blow a bit by belatedly adding that he would have the fund buy Bitcoin and Ether, which a lot more people own. But it seems clear that if Trump’s idea goes through, a relatively small number of people are going to get enormous taxpayer-funded payouts.
Who stands to gain? Well, that’s the first reason crypto is such an ingenious tool for regimes to send money to favored individuals. Crypto holdings are anonymous — the public doesn’t even know who has a bunch of XRP, SOL, and ADA. But if you have a bunch of one or more of these coins, you can go whisper in Trump’s ear: “Hey man, I own a ton of Cardano.” And if you’re someone Trump wants to pay out, he can then just include Cardano in his list of cryptocurrencies that he wants the U.S. government to buy. Everyone knows that someone got a big payday, but no one knows who, except for the parties involved. Regime crypto payouts are inherently secret, even when done in plain sight."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-sovereign-crypto-fund-is-a-new
13. "In the US alone, the Fed and Treasury created approximately $4 trillion of credit between 2020 and 2022 in response to the Flu-19 pandemic.
The DOGE-inspired money printing could be 70% to 80% of COVID levels.
Bitcoin rose approximately 24x from its lows in 2020 to its highs in 2021 due to $4 trillion of money printing in the US alone. Given that the Bitcoin market cap is much larger now than then, let’s be conservative and call it a 10x rise for $3.24 trillion of money printing in the US alone. For those who ask how we get to $1 million in Bitcoin during the Trump presidency, this is how.
What Must Be True
I’m painting a very rosy future picture for Bitcoin even though the markets are currently in the shitter. Let’s go through my assumptions so readers can decide for themselves whether they are reasonable or not.
Trump will debt-finance America First.
Trump is using DOGE as a way to cull political opponents addicted to fraudulent income streams, curtail government spending, and increase the likelihood of a US government spending slowdown-led recession.
The Fed will respond pre or post-recession with a raft of policies that will increase the quantity and reduce the price of money.
Given your worldview, it’s up to you to determine if this makes sense."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/kiss-of-death
14. "The good news here is that a country doesn’t actually have to produce a bunch of standout inventions and Nobel-winning scientific discoveries in order to get rich. Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan all have higher per capita GDP than Japan does. So the question of “Where are all the Chinese breakthroughs?” might ultimately not matter to China’s leaders. Being “giant Korea” or “giant Taiwan” doesn’t sound like a particularly bad fate.
Still, I do wonder why China, with its vast talent pool, its avalanche of research funding, and its huge consumer markets, hasn’t produced more game-changing inventions and discoveries yet. I really doubt it’s a function of autocracy — the CCP would surely reward a Chinese researcher for inventing mRNA vaccines or the transformer model or Crispr. And Frank Wang wasn’t punished for inventing the modern quadcopter drone — in fact, he’s a billionaire, and seems to be escaping the negative attention that peers like Jack Ma have received.
One possibility is that China’s economic institutions reward fast-following and intense competition over breakthrough innovation. The lack of strong intellectual property protection might make it economically pointless to invent something really new — it’ll just get copied by someone else who takes all the money. That seems like it would encourage more incremental advances. In science, incentives for quantity of papers over quality might be the culprit. These incentives, along with various industrial policies, might produce intensive overcompetition, which I believe Chinese people call “neijuan”.
Whether China can tweak its system to produce more breakthrough discoveries and inventions is an open question. Whether it should even care about doing so, given the success of countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, is another open question. The country certainly does tons of innovation, and maybe the incremental kind is all you really need.
But if the scarcity of breakthroughs persists, I think there’s the possibility that, between that and China’s censorship of art and culture, 21st century great powers might simply turn out to be a bit more boring than their 20th century predecessors."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/is-china-inventing-big-important
15. Fascinated with this city. Megacity of Chengdu in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqmPUsnWg14
16. A Hopeful view. Lesson from history for Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-QXz9wotrU
17. Super interesting company.
"Sequoia-backed Mach Industries, the defense tech founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, landed a contract with the U.S. Army and has plans for its first factory, Thornton told TechCrunch.
The factory will be 115,000 square feet in Huntington Beach, California, where Mach’s headquarters is located, CEO Thornton said. While that sounds like an expensive zip code for a weapons factory, Southern California — in the shadow of SpaceX — has become a hotspot for America’s burgeoning defense tech industry.
Mach is also announcing it was selected by the Army Applications Laboratoryto develop a vertical takeoff precision cruise missile it calls “Strategic Strike.” This was a developmental contract that was awarded in the third quarter of 2024."
18. "For LPs, the implications are clear: backing specialists is a performance-driven necessity.
Generalist funds have been the go-to model for a long time, and it makes sense. The risk is spread across various industries, so if one area takes a hit, the whole portfolio doesn’t suffer. Diversification can help smooth out returns over time and give the flexibility to chase new opportunities—crypto yesterday, AI today, and ‘let’s see’ tomorrow. They can move where the action is, which can be an advantage in a fast-changing market.
In a world where technology is evolving at the fastest speed we have ever seen, the ‘jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none’ approach is becoming increasingly fragile.
Specialist firms have one big advantage: depth. When your thesis is laser-focused, you’re more likely to spot the real outliers early—before the noise kicks in and the price tags skyrocket. And if you’re right? The upside is exactly what LPs should be chasing—a 47% higher chance of landing in the top quartile. Of course, specialisation has its risks—if the sector struggles, so does the fund. But that’s the game. Instead of relying on generalists to cover everything, LPs should manage risk by spreading allocations across multiple specialists."
https://jamesheathvc.substack.com/p/why-specialists-will-win-the-next
19. "So Ukraine seems to have agreed to sign the minerals deal, and go along with Trump’s peacemaking plans, but they are not going to accept anything the Russia and the U.S. try and impose on them. Important there that if Ukraine is going to be pushed to de facto accept the loss of any territory to Russia, there is zero chance that this would be accepted without cast iron assurances that the territory remainng under control by Kyiv is secure. At the minimum I would think that will require a cast iron commitment that the U.S., West will continue to supply arms to Ukraine so it is able to defend itself.
NATO membership and bilateral security guarantees are nice (but unlikely) to haves but in the end the best assurance of Ukraine’s security is its own armed forces having the tools to defend the country. Russia, of course, will demand demilitarisation of Ukraine - specific limits in Ukraine’s military capability, not that Ukraine is a threat to Russia but obviously as Russia wants to invade Ukraine again in the future. I think there is zero chance that Ukraine will accept any deal where limits are imposed on its future military capability - unless that is others, like NATO, provide the direct security guarantee."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/zelensky-bowed-but-but-beaten
20. The Danger Zone right now in Asia. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfbv2eHEdbY
21. "Venture investors are moving away from things without AI, not realizing there will still be some great businesses that just never need AI. Or, there will be some businesses where one possible market differentiator will be to be the one non-AI player with a higher human touch.
Venture and PE groups are probably both undervaluing companies that sell tech to the government, in light of recent cuts (and perceived coming cuts). Government has to be modernized and stay competitive and I expect these startups and growth companies will do better than people expect - particularly those that have both government and commercial customer segments.
And finally, agent deployments, which will definitely happen long term, are probably a little too aggressive. At my venture fund, we have a thesis that in 2026 you will start to see a lot of AI deployments break because they were put in to replace a human workflow that was only partially understood. Investing in the companies that benefit when that happens will be profitable.
In general, this is an easy strategy to execute.
Pick an area that was a good investment area that people now think is suffering from changes (DOGE, AI, etc).
Think through the catalysts that will cause the problems of the aggressive change to be realized by the powers that be.
Invest against that."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-chestertons-fence-ai-investing
22. "An interesting trend I’m seeing in AI startup business models is paying per outcome instead of per month or year, which is the traditional with SaaS companies. My guess is that it would be unappealing for incumbents—who are used to guaranteed per user revenue—to shift to a performance-based model. Mike agrees, saying that counter-positioning—taking advantage of an incumbent’s reluctance to adopt a new model that undermines their existing revenue streams—is a powerful way for startups to compete.
It’s also a tale as old as time. Back in the 1990s, when Microsoft decided to compete with a startup, it was effectively a death sentence; it just had to bundle the competing product into Windows. But Google countered this by monetizing through ads instead of per-seat licensing. Microsoft couldn’t undermine Google’s business model by bundling anything into its operating system. (In case you were wondering, the sea change in this case was the web.)"
https://every.to/podcast/how-ai-startups-can-win-with-better-strategy
23. “Different & Excellent “ equates to something that doesn’t exactly look like other VCs. Could be pinning their thesis on a category of technology or type of founder that isn’t yet understood by the investment community. Or contrarian in the number of companies and/or dollars invested per company compared to their peers. Maybe even a strong POV on what value they can add that isn’t typically available to early stage founders. These firms aren’t carbon copies of anything else out there. In fact, they probably aren’t generally replicable.
But they take advantage of their unique founding partners, very often the type of people who would reject — or not get hired by — ‘traditional VCs.’ Here we have to torture the models to really understand the quantitative sensitivities around expected performance. And how quickly the firm can process new information and adjust if portions of their hypothesis need tuning once in market. But we’re interested in taking this risk when the person and opportunity warrants it."
24. Good debate on USA-CCP relations in Trump 2.0. I fall in the Beckley camp not Rein camp (who has business interests in China so very biased) but I guess we will see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcM6e__1wm0&t=10s
25. Important to understand China, where most countries have the most critical trade relations in the world + Relations between US & China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPggTcQQa8s
26. An alternative take on the recent geopolitical events. USA's master plan?
I do think George Friedman has been right more than wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksfn_7H92tc
27. A good what's up in Techland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAJmfNHvWI0
28. Ryan has been a great observer of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGnqfihVPH0
29. "Similar to Germany's gas dependency, US allies became heavily reliant on American leadership and security. Trump's recent words and actions has shattered their perception of American reliability. They are now questioning whether the US would genuinely defend them if push came to shove. Asking themselves: is the US working with Russia? With Tulsi Gabbard in her current position, can sensitive intelligence be safely shared without leaks?
Instead of increasing NATO contributions in cooperation with the US, allies now look to increase military spending to operate independently of the US. This small distinction is important, it means the US is losing influence, not gaining it. Before the new Trump administration, this outcome was not what anyone in the US intended."
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/the-ghost-of-charles-de-gaulle
30. Very insightful interview with one of the next gen of Sequoia Capital. Good discussion on Spacetech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o93vbkkYm1I
31. "Despite these challenges, Rosander noted that Sweden has been proactively embracing drone technology, with law enforcement and the military rapidly developing and procuring unmanned aircraft systems.
The Swedish government has partnered with the defense industry to develop a drone-swarm technology platform at record speed — a clear sign that lessons from Ukraine are shaping future strategies.
For Nordic Air Defence, the goal remains clear: scalable, effective, and affordable counter-drone solutions for the modern battlefield."
https://nextgendefense.com/defense-disruptors-nordic-air-defence/
32. "If the U.S. is truly stepping back, Europe faces a new paradigm. The days of 2% of GDP as a NATO benchmark are obsolete. If left to defend itself, Europe will likely need to spend far beyond the 3% number being floated now, with ~ 5% being the base rate for a reasonable starting point to match Cold War-era defence efforts. The only question is whether political leaders and the industry will move fast enough to make up for lost decades before it’s too late."
https://substack.com/@joshuasamuel88/p-157372636
33. "Defence procurement isn’t just about buying the most advanced tech—it’s about logistics, training, and interoperability. Countries overwhelmingly prefer to stick with proven systems they already operate rather than introduce new “SKUs” of tanks, aircraft, or missile systems, which add complexity and cost.
This dynamic creates a powerful incumbency advantage for existing suppliers. Once a system is embedded into a military’s operations, switching isn’t just expensive—it’s operationally risky. Seperately, margins tend to be higher on mature products versus new systems that carry development and execution risk."
https://substack.com/@joshuasamuel88/p-158432828
34. "Crises typically concentrate minds in Europe - the EU only tends to function effectively when it has a bullet (this time literally) close to its head. And I think the biggest existential security crisis that Europe has faced, perhaps since the Berlin airlift, or before, finally forced Europe into action, and this week we have seen activity across a number of fronts, including the U.K. leading efforts to come up with a European/Ukrainian peace plan to end the war in Ukraine - to help alleviate the risk of a bad peace imposed by Russia and the USA.
We have also seen Europe finally pull its finger out and announce huge new financing programmes for arms production, to the tune of many hundreds of billions of euros. The obvious question is why Europe has done nothing for the past three years, over the duration of the war in Ukraine, when surely the threat from Russia was already crystallised and existential? Misreading Russia - even appeasement by some - in the run up to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was bad enough, but Europe sitting on its hands and doing nothing to assure its own security for the past three years is surely criminal.
But we are where we are, Europe is finally stepping into gear.
The problem for Europe though is that while the financing pillars of Europe’s rearmament are now in place, it will take time to build factories and build out actual defence capability in the field. This is time that Europe does not have - the threat from Russia is now, not in five years down the line, albeit in five years time the threat from Russia might be even more extreme.
The outlook is grim for Europe - which raises the question why Europe has not got the obvious for so long, sitting on its hands on issues like seizing immobilised Russian assets for Ukraine.
European inaction might well be the cause of its own downfall."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/europe-faces-existential-risks
35. "Despite the conventional wisdom, people lose money in real estate. Homes are illiquid capital-intensive assets that come with “phantom” costs: Insurance premiums, maintenance bills, and property taxes — all of which are expected to rise due to climate change. Owning also limits diversification, as homes are close to workplaces, meaning a local economic downturn or a natural disaster could wipe out your equity at the same time you lose a job.
Historically, the S&P averages a 10% annual return, outpacing housing at 4% to 8%. Moreover, real estate brokers typically charge around a 6% commission — 60x the transaction cost you’d pay for a low-fee ETF that tracks the S&P. The advantage of homeownership is forced savings, as people don’t want to risk the hassle and shame of eviction. Another advantage: Owning can stabilize monthly housing costs relative to rents.
If economic security is the nutrition of a capitalist society, then maybe we need to stop thinking of housing as an investment, but a consumable (e.g., food, energy, education). The construction of millions of low-cost units for young people, coupled with tax-advantaged incentives to invest in the market would result in a better path to wealth. In addition, we need to remove housing from the growing list of sources of anxiety for young people. It’s housing, not an investment strategy or the arbiter of whether you’re worthy enough to mate, start a family, or earn status. Economic security and deep and meaningful relationships are the American Dream, not a mortgage payment. The call sign for the next administration should morph from “Drill Baby Drill” to “Build Baby Build.”
https://www.profgalloway.com/project-2028-housing/
36. "When it comes to AI, I believe that prioritizing adaptability over resistance will serve us better in the long run. We didn’t abandon writing after the printing press, and we won’t stop thinking because of AI. Our skills will settle around overseeing and evaluating, instead of raw creation. This shift will be uncomfortable—we’ll likely lose some depth in areas AI handles well—but the trade-offs enable new capabilities we are only just beginning to imagine. The only way to discover them is to lean into using the new technology."
https://every.to/learning-curve/how-knowledge-work-will-evolve-in-the-ai-era
Noble Obligations & Skin in the Game: The Harsh Reality of War in Medieval Times
I was thinking of how important history is and how damaging ideologies take hold in society. The first thing dictators and ideologues do is to go to the history books & rewrite it to remove context and justify their views. This happens everywhere and every country.
I happened to chance upon a fascinating and really eye-opening tweet thread by @rfhirst on warfare in the Dark ages/ Middle ages. How it’s been so cleaned up and glamorized by Hollywood. The reality is that it was ugly and brutal. Just follow this X thread: https://twitter.com/rfhirst/status/1762973688570520056
He examines the archaeology of the man of Kent, a 20-25 year old Anglo Saxon male who died due to combat. He died horrifically, with over 30 wounds across his body. Remember that back then, warriors fought with blades, swords and axes, and fought face to face and in mass numbers of men.
@rfhirst goes on to write:
“The reality of death in medieval combat ought to be widely known, not for sadism but as an antidote to certain modern attitudes which conceive of the Middle Ages as that time when Lord Knobhead grew fat on cheese and wine whilst the peasants broke their sorry backs for a carrot.
A cynical attitude which sees past warrior-aristocrats as undeserving of what luxuries they enjoyed is easy to hold when one's concept of their raison d'être is informed by the simplified & sterilized depictions of modern media; almost nonchalant, unskilled, open and accessible.
Plentiful food and fine clothes, lands and titles of honor were bought at the price of abandoning all hope for a long life, so few lived to see 30 winters, and having to time and again witness horrors which lay beyond our comprehension - horrors which no cynic today could endure.
In speaking so of the horrors of war it ought not be thought that this detracts from past heroism. If anything it bolsters it, magnifies it, and commands from the modern reader with true knowledge a solemn respect for each and every man who mustered on through the heat of battle.”
The first lesson I take from this, is that we are super lucky to be living in present times. The second important lesson is that most of the super successful did not cheat someone to get to where they are at (some do but I find this is a tiny minority who usually end up going to jail). They literally live and die by the metaphorical sword. It’s high risk and high gain. Yes, if the business they start ends up succeeding they do well. But they go through a lot to get the business up and running. If the business fails, they suffer the consequences.
We should be venerating successful entrepreneurs & bosses. We don’t actually know what they go through or hide employees from. And they usually do it right. They support families through the jobs they create and the value they provide to customers. Business owners carry the load and the stress of the business. They don’t get to have time off or have weekends off unlike employees.
The brain damaged anti-capitalist and socialist movement taking off in America is dangerous and risks ruining the prosperity that has made America so amazing. Remember how well socialism worked in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Cuba or Argentina. We need to remember this. And we need to treat our entrepreneurs better. Not every founder, like the noblemen of old, is an oppressor. We miss many aspects and context of what they do for us. In fact, they may be doing the most honorable thing possible.
The Pure Cold Reality of the Fighting Arts: The Restorative Effects for Men
I’ve trained off and on in martial arts throughout my life. Okinawan Karate as a child and even got to brown belt. As an adult I trained in Muay Thai, Systema, Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And then life and business and family got busy.
So after almost 17 years and frankly a stressful few years after Covid and a wreck of a family life, I came to Thailand to train in Muay Thai with my business partner Fares. It’s good to have an escape from regular life and get the creative juices & body moving.
And it’s no hardship, we went to a nice resort with all the amenities, an on-site sports medicine/ treatment center, a nice spa and onsen, a massive gym, lots of classes in yoga, fitness and professional Muay Thai fighters.
Nothing better than to talk business and plan our year and initiatives after some fight training and sitting in an on-site Hot spring to recover from the day. Or even better to have a good Swedish massage to fix all the knots in your back from training.
Imagine yourself punching, kicking and kneeing for an hour or two straight. The punches that were strong and straight are now weak and off balance. You are out of breath and you take punches and kicks yourself. There was nothing more clarifying than getting a punch in the head. When you get hurt it means you messed up badly.
This was most men’s lives thousands of years ago. When other men would come and take what they wanted if you didn’t fight back. There is something clarifying and cleansing about martial arts. Whatever aches and pains and how exhausted you feel, it is an amazing feeling of accomplishment. You sleep so well. You wake up clear headed. Any and all anger I’ve felt has been burned out. I’m more calm and focused than I’ve ever been. Nothing like the feeling that you left everything in the ring. I think only athletes, MMA fighters and soldiers truly understand this.
And you just get tougher. As the Norwegian special forces motto goes: “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” If this is true, I must have been VERY weak indeed. :)
I wish I had done this martial arts retreat earlier. So for all those men out there dealing with massive problems in your life, I recommend taking up martial arts. Look at what it has done for Mark Zuckerberg in the last few years, the level of confidence he has gotten from MMA training. Silicon Valley nerds can learn something here. You have to be smart, rich AND fit. Only then can you be a true full human.
Even a week of intensive and intense training will change your perspective and life. Besides, there is a harder, harsher and tougher world coming. So this will help you get prepared for it now. As a passage in Bushido says: "The only solution for bad and violent people are good people that are more skilled in violence."
Idealism Versus Pragmatism: The Inner War of Silicon Valley
ROI versus just building something for the sake of building. Investing versus extracting. Doing stuff for money versus doing stuff for free.
The world we want to build versus what we can build with what we have.
What makes Silicon Valley work is the fine balance between the two. These are generalizations of course but east coast scenes tend to be a bit more extractive and transactional.
It feels like the frame of “what’s in it for me” is always present.
The west coast aka Silicon Valley tends to be more of the give before you get, but this can go too far. You end up spending a lot of time with people who take advantage of this and who end up sucking up your time, with little to no benefit to yourself.
We value building but then we also end up with a whole bunch of over-funded money bleeding startups (hello 2021 & the AI Bubble in 2023 to now) with no business model or ability to monetize at all. Chasing the ideal or the cool.
A big part of Silicon Valley ethos is being helpful (really helpful unlike when VCs say this). It’s about giving the benefit of the doubt. And helping others realize their dreams. This is what makes the place special.
But we could use a dose of hard edged capitalism sometimes as practiced on Wall Street. It’s a fine line to take but could be the difference in the tough business of building the future.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 30th, 2025
“The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” – Les Brown
"What I do know is that his description of the Artificial Man is an apt metaphor for many “leaders” and figures in the public eye today. Such figures also flourish on social media, where being an anonymous provocateur and an attention-seeker has become a substitute for demonstrable accomplishment.
We may contrast the Artificial Man to the Man of Substance. The man of substance elevates not only himself and those around him with real achievements, he dignifies every job he undertakes.
The chasing of empty acclaim means nothing. Yet for the Artificial Man, appearance is everything; he surrounds himself with empty statements, elusive and shape-shifting accomplishments, and platitudinous mists."
https://qcurtius.com/2023/02/11/the-artificial-man-and-the-man-of-substance/
2. "The paper finds that, in areas where working-class men are doing better, marriage rates go up, cutting the marital class gap in half. Making men more “economically viable,” to use one of Scott’s favorite terms, turns out to be key to improving marital prospects.
There’s a corrosive downward spiral at work right now. As the economic prospects of men without a college degree decline, marriage rates fall. That leaves millions more men and women without a partner to share the responsibilities and benefits of family life. In other work by AIBM, we show that half of men without a college degree aged 30 to 50 now live in a household without children.
Without the positive pressures that come from being a father and husband, men are even less likely to really go for it on the work front. They are more likely to be unemployed. They become more vulnerable to addiction, more socially isolated. All of which makes them less attractive as potential spouses. Boys raised in single-mother households then struggle in school and in life, and they have difficulty finding a mate and forming a family, too. And so the cycle turns. The economic struggles of boys and men become entrenched across generations."
https://www.profgalloway.com/marrying-up-and-marrying-down/
3. "You can probably guess why it reminds me of consulting—the game of Civilization and the one that firms like McKinsey play in real life aren’t all that different. They, too, are tasked with efficient resource allocation. They, too, will sometimes have to sacrifice many people to achieve victory. The gaming software of choice was Excel, but there isn’t all that much difference between optimizing financial models and optimizing a civilization. I had one friend who, as a 24-year-old strategy consultant, built a spreadsheet that led to 3,000 people losing their jobs. Victory! (It still haunts him to this day.)
Perhaps the appeal comes from the fact that building startups can feel like a video game. A tweak of a button color here or an adjusted sales email headline there, and suddenly you win money in your bank account. The labor is still on a screen, still optimizing pixels, but rather than imaginary points, you get real dollars.
So video games, when viewed correctly, have transferable skills and attitudes that can help technologists win. However, I worry that in our embrace of these games, we have accidentally let something darker, meaner, and greedier into our tech culture’s subconsciousness.
Said simply: I worry that big tech CEOs view everyone other than themselves as NPCs (non-playable characters). I worry about this because they’ve, like, said it.
The perspective this term ultimately represents is that in their world, their perspectives—and most importantly, the victory in the games they play—are the only things that matter. Those who disagree or get in the way of that outcome are just NPCs, sacrificial cavalry units, factory workers fired in the name of efficiency. Each of us regular people are just units on the digital board."
https://every.to/napkin-math/playing-civilization-7-is-like-being-a-ruthless-corporate-consultant
4. "While tariffs and trade relations may change over time, an expanding global production network creates more robust channels of market access for Chinese companies, particularly as local jobs become attached to Chinese factories. One might see this as the third phase of China’s development of global supply chains more generally. The first phase was about securing access to resources.
The second phase—the Belt and Road Initiative—was about building the infrastructure for global production and shipping. And now the third phase is about securing access to markets.
While tariffs and market access are motivating Chinese firms to build new plants abroad, how they’re going about this is not driven by economic interests alone. Beijing is trying to shape the global expansion of Chinese manufacturers, including which countries they invest in and how. Beijing is encouraging Chinese companies to build plants in “friendly” countries while discouraging them from investing in others in a kind of “industrial diplomacy.”
Countries across the developed world and the Global South alike are eager for Chinese companies to build factories in their markets, with the promise of new jobs and new technology. Given its attractiveness, Chinese manufacturing investment can be used by Beijing as a geopolitical tool to reward certain countries and punish others."
https://www.high-capacity.com/p/china-is-trying-to-reshape-global
5. This was a fun podcast interview with my friend Alastair.
6. 2025 SaaS Vibe check. All spot on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CjJnhmPy3o
7. Title says it all: Financial Nihilism & Political Instability. Well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6HESVcM4Ic&t=191s
8. "The old adage “your fund size is your strategy” has never been more true. Many funds who have grown tremendously in size find themselves forced to shift strategies — and their brands have not always caught up to their new reality. But a corollary adage also applies for founders: “their fund size is your fundraising strategy.”
In other words, founders should think very carefully about which investors they are targeting and why. Raise from a fund that is too small, and you may find they are unable to help you when the chips are down. Raise from a fund that is too large, and you may find they are not the true company-building partners you were hoping to work with."
https://medium.com/angularventures/five-emerging-vc-swimlanes-a6f39d9ae0e9
9. "The next time you hear an entrepreneur lament how hard it is to fill a role, remind him that 10 to 20% of his time should be spent on recruiting—both for roles open today and roles that will be open tomorrow."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/03/01/recruiting-on-non-recruiting-work-trips/
10. "Power might work if there were no consequences—if karma didn’t exist. But history tells us otherwise: No empire holds power forever.
Yes, the U.S. has power now, but it won’t always. I don’t know exactly how that shift will happen, but I know it will. How do I know? Because every other empire has arisen and has passed.
And when that time comes, the best insurance policy is having helped others when we had the chance."
https://wisdom2events.substack.com/p/power
11. A Cold ruthless look at present geopolitics. The Neo-Liberal world order is dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-knLXnai3Mk
12. Trying to understand the ever changing geopolitical world. Interregnum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZQu9wwJ3vo
13. This is the right take in my view. Does Europe step up? I hope so but doubt it. Either way America is not reliable anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXoreH_5coA
14. "So what was supposed to be another operation Danube turned into a long, bloody and a very destructive war.
And, as the war progressed, the definition of what counts for the victory in this war was changing.
Long, arduous, WWI style battles for the mining villages and towns of Donbass were all counted as the great wins. And they indeed were, under the new measuring scale (of what counts for success).
But the fact that the scale did change, was a massive, enormous defeat that hardly anyone could predict in January 2022.
Back then, consensus was that in case of Russian invasion, Ukraine could hold for weeks, or days. Or may be hours.
Hardly anyone predicted it would actually hold for years.
At this point, I don’t see any sign of victory for Russia."
https://kamilkazani.substack.com/p/three-years-of-war
15. Listening to the tinfoil hat perspective of geopolitics. Just trying to understand the nuttiness in the world right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO7bhSRGhoI
16. "But some founders are opting out of this nonsense and I do think we will see more of them do so.
It is easier than ever to bootstrap a company to sustainable operations. Some founders will do it. Others will notice. Maybe it will even become fashionable to do so.
At least one can hope."
https://avc.xyz/drinking-from-a-firehose
17. "The question, then, is how to ensure the longevity and continuity of a regime based on vibes and a cult of personality rather than shadowy men in grey suits. No matter how one looks at it, whether the policy is one of returning to the traditional NATO, Western alliance configuration, or the America Alone policy of MAGA, democracy stands in the way of achieving either.
America’s rivals do not know whether they’re going to get a sweet pipeline deal, tariff slap, a barrage of ATACMS, or a gay pride parade from the increasingly schizophrenic hegemon."
https://morgoth.substack.com/p/the-deep-state-a-necessary-evil
18. "Therefore, Europe faces a choice: either increase troop numbers significantly by more than 300,000 to make up for the fragmented nature of national militaries, or find ways to rapidly enhance military coordination. Failure to coordinate means much higher costs and individual efforts will likely be insufficient to deter the Russian military. Yet collective insurance means moral hazard and coordination problems need to be credibly solved."
https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/defending-europe-without-us-first-estimates-what-needed
19. "While fostering next-generation primes like Anduril and Palantir is an important step toward modernizing defense capabilities, it may not fully address the Pentagon's need for speed and adaptability in today's rapidly evolving threat landscape. A "Moneyball" strategy, focused on buying wins through smaller, specialized players—would complement this effort by delivering high-impact solutions without the overhead of creating new mega-contractors.
Findings from the NNCTA reinforce the need for tools to evaluate readiness systematically, align investments with mission-critical needs, and ensure scalability across sectors. By adopting smarter metrics and leveraging structured assessment platforms, defense agencies can redefine how they maintain technological superiority while fostering a diverse ecosystem of innovators.
Ultimately, achieving this vision will require overcoming entrenched bureaucratic challenges and adopting flexible acquisition models, something that the Department of Government Efficiency might address, but the payoff could be truly transformative: faster innovation cycles, reduced risks, and sustained global leadership in critical technologies."
https://advancehumanity.substack.com/p/the-new-defensetech-game-lessons
20. Best show on Silicon Valley right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGmOYNWiV1A&t=139s
21. "A lot of software today is built on relatively little proprietary knowledge and personal experience. It is built by people with passing exposures to the problems they’re solving.8 It is built by founders who arrive at their ideas via an incubator and a pivot. It is built by Geoff.
That used to be ok, because our unique talent for technology more than made up for our naiveté elsewhere. Founders could build huge businesses by plowing technology into analog problems, and investors like YC could build huge funds by selecting for whiz kids over world-weary experts. And they could both succeed because technical leverage mattered more than domain-specific taste.
But I’m not sure that will work for much longer. Just as it’s becoming harder to out-write an LLM, it’s becoming harder to out-develop one too. And if experts can prompt their way to a product just as easily as those of us in Silicon Valley can, what winning talent are we left with?"
https://benn.substack.com/p/the-end-of-yc
22. "The fourth explanation is that President Trump and his Administration believe that the United States is one of three great powers caught up in a multilateral order characterized by increasingly hostile rivalries. Over the past few years, the other two “Great Powers” have formed an alliance against the United States. While critics want the Trump Administration to rely on Allies, Trump believes these allies are weak and politically unstable.
Under this interpretation, the Administration understands that the United States cannot withdraw from this rivalry or ignore the world, but it is also limited on what it can achieve, and limited by the resources available. They believe that while the United States has some important strengths, America is also burdened with significant millstones around her neck.
Unlike prior Administrations, it seems clear to me that President Trump views many of our allies as millstones that sap American power and encumber the United States with responsibilities that aren’t her own. I’ve written this before, but I will write it again, President Trump and his team believe that the United States can no longer afford the luxury of providing two “common goods” to the world:
#1 – Security
#2 – A Market of Last Resort
The United States started providing these “common goods” (and I use that term with its definition from political economy) following the Second World War and as the Soviet-American Cold War started. At the time, the United States represented nearly 50% of global GDP and we were the only major power not devastated by WWII. We had massive industrial capacity that we could direct towards helping our friends. Between 1947 and 1991, leaders in Washington sought to provide the security and economic stability to allow Western Europe and the East Asia periphery to rebuild themselves, while resisting Soviet domination. As Western Europe and East Asia recovered, we encouraged those countries to share the burden, but that was only modestly successful. The United States did this for its own self-interest, but Americans also paid significant costs for building and maintaining this system."
https://chinaarticles.substack.com/p/bizarre-great-power-triangle
23. "Building borders and defensive walls is taking the place of protecting other nations and spending trillions on endless overseas engagements. The Vances, Gabbards and Hegseths make the claim that many of these adventures are deadly, costly and pointless, the Ukrainian meatgrinder being a case in point. A more isolationist America, a multi-polar world with Beijing and Moscow as distant partners is the emerging foreign policy doctrine for which Trump is only the messenger. That is what is driving the change and that is what informed the clash in the Oval Office last Friday.
This is not to say that the world should be throwing Ukraine under the bus. On the contrary. The free world should be committed to see this through and ensure that Putin’s aggression is stopped in its tracks and Ukraine somehow ekes a win out of this bloody stalemate. But under the current circumstances it cannot and those that could help deliver such a result - the US and Europe together - are unable to deliver that right now. Avoiding a Third World War is, and here Trump did make a valid point, one of them.
So in the end, it will come down to a negotiated settlement and provide that what Zelenskyy has asked for: security guarantees. Once the dust settles over this meeting and the Europeans have put their heads together it may well be that an arrangement can be made to work that will solidify some sort of deal with Putin. It will shift more of the burden to London, Paris, Berlin and a number of other European capitals. That is what Trump wants and it is unfortunate for one of the bravest men of our time that he is one of the first world leaders to bear the brunt of the Trump foreign policy doctrine and a newly emerging geopolitical dynamic. He and the people of Ukraine deserve better."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/security-guarantees
24. Helpful list.
"When I say evil, I mean EVIL. I don’t mean people who are merely sharks (highly selfish and only care about themselves). Evil is much more than sharks – they are people who enjoy watching the world burn.
With these types, you want to identify them and stay away i.e. don’t have sex with them, don’t make them your business partner, don’t become their “close friend” or associated with them, etc. because anyone who comes close to them takes damage (today or tomorrow).
This is unlike sharks because with sharks you merely need to be extra careful in your dealings but otherwise it’s a non-issue. Sharks might even make good business partners and you want to have some of them on your side.
On the hand, you never want evil on your side because evil wants to destroy you the moment you don’t look eye to eye with them."
https://lifemathmoney.com/11-signs-of-evil/
25. "Given the scale of the existential threat Europe faces, this production capacity is far below what is necessary. For comparison, the Lockheed Martin currently produces around 700 JASSM-ER cruise missiles annually, with plans to expand output to over 1,000 per year. Meanwhile, Russia missile manufacturers are producing approximately 1,200 cruise missiles and 600 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles annually.
The likely Swedish acquisition of the Taurus KEPD 350 represents an important step for European security, potentially opening the door for additional Taurus orders by other states. It is unfortunate that Taurus production had to wait until 2025 to hopefully be restarted, but better late than never.
This being said, Europe still faces a major gap in production capacity, and unless large-scale procurement contracts or public investments materialize soon, European missile output will continue to lag behind operational requirements."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/taurus-news-and-the-future-of-the
26. "But Trump’s treatment of Zelensky, and his tolerance of Putin’s invasion, also illustrate a deeper and more important shift. America’s foreign policy is now fundamentally extractive, focused on forcing weaker countries into making economic concessions. Trump’s insistence that Ukraine surrender mineral rights to the U.S. in exchange for aid was the traditional action of a Great Power extracting value from a client state — the same type of thing the USSR did to the Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War.
For eight decades after World War 2, the U.S. defended the postwar geopolitical and economic order based on norms. That’s gone now. Under Trump, America acts like a gangster demanding protection money.
In any case, America’s abrupt turn from moral beacon and defender of the free world is unsurprising, given the fundamental immorality of the Trump administration. If you have the morality of a gangster, you will behave like a gangster."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-is-ruled-by-gangsters-now
27. Southern Italy for the win.
"Southern Italy now has the best value proposition in Europe from a cost of living and lifestyle point of view. Real estate is incredibly cheap, to the point that the real cost is the cost of the renovations rather than the cost of the house itself.
The cost of living is extremely low. It is now much more affordable than Eastern Europe and even the Balkans, but without the economic dynamism. Yet the quality of food and produce is vastly superior. I even paid €1 for a beer one evening in a bar in Palermo during happy hour (happy hour lasted until 11pm)."
https://mailchi.mp/41edf0278ee8/probably-the-most-affordable-part-of-europe?e=123a1c25c4
28. "Then from a portfolio perspective, I like to align my investing across the capability spectrum. Think about an allocation like 60/30/10 - 60% AI that seems to have a proven match to a task and is going somewhere, 30% to stuff that shows promise but isn’t there yet, and 10% to speculative AI that could be game changing but, could also blow up entirely and never make it. The 10% is often the most overhyped stuff, and you need exposure to it but, it’s very unlikely it’s as close as the pundits would have us believe.
AI has some characteristics that make it uniquely difficult to predict its future. I expect we are still several major disruptive moments away from really settling in to a more stable AI future. I think following the self driving car market is a good gauge of progress, partly due to the technical learnings but also due to the fact that cars require a lot of safety and security and will lead the framework development for how we think about AI and safety in other domains."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/conflicting-ai-opinions-and-fsd-as
29. This guy hates America but his view that the tech containment of China by the US has failed seems correct. Unfortunately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L3wUW_ckic
30. This is Gold. Listen to this. "War Mode"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0AB6pZpotg
31. A good case for Europe in the world. Also important to understand the landscape of sovereignty for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxDmHvGZtPQ
32. The New American Industrial Association. #Reindustrialize America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJHoSzM5UXw
33. How to thrive in the age of AI. Great conversation here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE1AjTnsubI
34. Educational discussion on the future of war. USVs & Drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuxTUtITvMA
35. "A new multilateral defence bank aimed at tackling growing security threats will offer private sector lenders risk guarantees and help standardise procurement rules in Europe, which its founder describes as a “disaster”.
Announced on Sunday, the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank — the first multilateral development bank for defence, which seeks to secure £100bn in capital — aims to solve the defence financing gap in western countries.
It plans to issue AAA-rated bonds backed by shareholder nations to get “cheap capital” for defence procurement quickly into Nato countries, across the EU and into Indo-Pacific allied nations without increasing government debt."
https://www.thebanker.com/content/9e120840-4cbf-45cf-a10c-39d0090ae8f5
36. "There are many other forces one can cite, and we could further explore the broad network of global interests that have aligned to attack America's leadership position in the world. A long list of countries, from China to Israel to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran, all have active roles in what's been unfolding, and everybody has their own preferred angle. Political division, extremism, organized crime, lack of education, and relentless information warfare have been constants, as well.
Also implicit across every angle explored here is the primacy of oil, gas, and other extractive industries. The end result is a laissez-faire approach to energy, mining, cryptocurrency, and the privatization of governance. With no effective government left to regulate industry, we can expect unbounded effects on climate and the environment, with Putin's Russia as a primary beneficiary.
One more caveat: it is a grave error to view Trump, Putin, Musk, or the others merely as grifters — or greedy, or motivated by profits, or only wanting to benefit from government contracts. Theirs is a bid to remake the world; they want power and the chance to impose their worldview onto everyone else.
Second, they don't think money (in the form of fiat currency) is real. Their goal is to replace fiat currency with an entirely new global financial order, and a supranational monarchy to match. For example, Musk wants to use Starlink at the FAA to capture the global aviation system, not score some measly government contract. It's time to think bigger. "
Family, Sacrifice and Drive: More Yellowstone Wisdom
I swear John Dutton sounds like an Asian immigrant parent. There is a monologue to his kids on the ride home after he becomes Governor. Speaking of the Dutton family ancestors.
“What an embarrassment to the sacrifice it took to give us a home. But I tell you what, sacrifice is exactly what we are going to do. It’s what you are going to do.
You are going to sacrifice your ambition. Sacrifice your fear and your weak self-loathing heart. You are going to kill all of that and get strong no matter how it scares you……”
This is most Asian immigrant kids' childhood messages and inner monologue. It’s why we do whatever it takes to get strong or we crumble.
That is life. To survive and hopefully thrive. Life is full of conflict and competition. Life is war. So adapt or die.
Crush Your Enemies Totally: More Yellowstone Wisdom
There are always things to learn from Yellowstone. During John Dutton’s swearing in ceremony for Governor, Dutton’s enemies are sitting in the audience. One of them is the Indian tribal chief Rainwater who is chided by his advisor.
“You had a chance to be rid of him. You did nothing and he grew stronger. It’s slave rules for you now and it’s all your fault.”
This is where we sit geopolitically in the world. No one fears us and no one respects us. Why should they, we messed up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Red Sea and our half assed support for Ukraine.
Our lack of strategy, our lack of will to do what is needed: all half assed efforts there. We should have glassed all our enemies' lands. Gutted them with our monetary power and trade instead of shipping all our industry and jobs to our biggest enemy.
Compounded by internal tribal warfare between extreme stupid left and right wing morons in our government and media, fighting culture wars that distract us from the enemies literally at our borders. I truly hope I am wrong but America from 2004 till now will go down as the biggest self inflicted wound geopolitically in history. Modern day America’s version of emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burns down.
We are our own worst enemies if we don’t wake up. I for one am not counting on this. I will do everything I can to help further my country's interests via investing in the latest technologies and our best people. Building companies in Defensetech, deeptech and software in general. That and unabashedly, helping to suck in as much talent as possible from the rest of the world to the USA.
At a personal level, I will continue to build my fortress. My mental fortress, my physical fortress and my financial fortress to weather the storm that is coming. I strongly suggest you all do the same soon. Reality is that violence seems to be coming which sucks. But violence is also needed to defend what you believe in and what you love.
Deciphering Chaos: A Unipolar World to Multipolar World
To many people in America and around the world, the new Trump administration has been a literal shock to the system. One minute bringing amazingly talented people into the administration like Bissent, Rubio, Waltz, Keith Kellogg & many brilliant Wall Street and Silicon Valley individuals like Lutnick, Feinberg, Kupor and Krishnan. Even the talented but horrific Elon Musk. And then the next minute, there are the appointments of complete wackjobs like Kesh Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Hegseth & RFK Jr. It’s so bizarre.
Then hitting out at firm allies like Denmark, Canada, and at least somewhat ally’s like Panama and Mexico. Albeit I understand the focus on Panama and Mexico, who are frankly in bed with the CCP. It’s been so nutty and everyone is trying to keep up and figure out what is going on.
BUT most shocking to many of us is the hatred and disrespect to Ukraine and President Zelensky particularly. Pushing for a blatantly one sided deal on minerals. Calling Zelensky a dictator, and the bizarre public dressing down of Zelensky at the White House on Feb 28th. The bullying. Both sides lost here. And as Quintus Curtius said: “It's Amateur Hour. You never air your disagreements in public. You never fight in public. Why? Because it makes both of you look like losers and pudwacks. This whole scene is cringe beyond belief.” I’ve spent most of March trying to make sense and process all of this.
This was a wake up call for everyone. Our enemies are laughing as our allies around the world begin to rightfully question American commitments. I keep writing that the world has changed. Yet so few people have taken action. 3 years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, most of the European Union has not ramped up defense spending, built up their defense industrial base or militaries nor inflicted the harshest possible sanctions on Russia. Despite a larger population and wealthier economy, with the EU being 9 times larger than the Russian economy and 3X the population of Russia. European leaders (Canada too), full of half measures with a lot of virtue signaling, platitudes and talk, while leaning very heavily on America to lead and do the hard work.
Unfortunately for the world, America, the benign power is gone, or at least the pretense of one. Here is the transactional giant. A gangster of capitalism. One that doesn’t pretend about a “Rules based order”, honorable goals and a better world. Only a better world for America. America First, where everything is transactional.
Noah Smith describes this very well in his newsletter: "But Trump’s treatment of Zelensky, and his tolerance of Putin’s invasion, also illustrate a deeper and more important shift. America’s foreign policy is now fundamentally extractive, focused on forcing weaker countries into making economic concessions. Trump’s insistence that Ukraine surrender mineral rights to the U.S. in exchange for aid was the traditional action of a Great Power extracting value from a client state — the same type of thing the USSR did to the Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War.
For eight decades after World War 2, the U.S. defended the postwar geopolitical and economic order based on norms. That’s gone now. Under Trump, America acts like a gangster demanding protection money. In any case, America’s abrupt turn from moral beacon and defender of the free world is unsurprising, given the fundamental immorality of the Trump administration. If you have the morality of a gangster, you will behave like a gangster."
I don’t like this at all but here we are. America, the unpredictable, as Morgoth writes beautifully: “America’s rivals do not know whether they’re going to get a sweet pipeline deal, tariff slap, a barrage of ATACMS, or a gay pride parade from the increasingly schizophrenic hegemon."
Living in a Kleptocratic America is also going to become even tougher and meaner.
This Tweet by @vylpill stuck with me: “American life is brutal because you have to be above average to be average. You have to be successful just to get by. Everywhere else you just have to be normal and you're set: you'll have a job, house, wife, etc. In America to get that you basically need to go ubermensch.”
Europe better wake up or they will get eaten. Small countries like Taiwan also better wake up and arm up. No one is coming to save you. So be prepared to save yourself, your family and your tribe. The Unipolar world is GONE. Globalization as we know it is over. Reality is painful and harsh.
If you have not internalized the lessons of Game of Thrones, now would be a good time to do so. The world is gonna be much tougher and meaner. Social darwinism rearing its ugly head again. Every country and every individual needs to get sharper, stronger and tougher. Realpolitik is here. In this new world order, the ends justify the means. So steel your heart for what is coming. Ruthlessness is a must if you want to make it through the rest of this decade. It is the time of the beast.
I will end this with an apt quote from the movie "Fury":"Ideals are peaceful, history is violent."
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 23rd, 2025
"In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move." – Henry Rollins
"Generally, Verkhovodov thinks the West has not yet fully grasped the level of development that is happening in Ukraine. In part, he says, this is because Ukraine’s society is geared towards the war effort, and with its resources stretched, it cannot spare the time and energy needed to promote its industry abroad. And defence is a conservative industry that is traditionally difficult to disrupt.
“You need face to face connections to build trust, to convey information. And you cannot really travel that easily to Ukraine,” he says."
https://globalventuring.com/corporate/ukraine-defence-tech-startups/
2. Hard to argue that Europe is the biggest loser in the last decade, especially as the world goes back to Great Power spheres of influence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5viGGlPOTg
3. Never underestimate anyone, let alone your enemies or opponents.
"Except that in the real world beyond the little X app on your phone, simply calling someone “dumb” does not actually defeat them, any more than Rachel Maddow actually “destroys Trump” when she says mean things about him on MSNBC. Maybe saying that Elon has a 110 IQ makes you feel like you beat him in your little online fantasy world, but out there in the actual world, he is still ripping up your national institutions at breakneck speed.
People who think that denigrating Elon’s capabilities will somehow defeat him or make him go away are simply fools — not low IQ, but simply unwise people reacting suboptimally to an external challenge. Elon Musk is, in many important ways, the single most capable man in America, and we deny that fact at our peril."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/only-fools-think-elon-is-incompetent
4. "Europe, in particular, has been shielded from major disruptions thanks to steady economic growth, technological strength, strong alliances, and the absence of immediate existential threats in its neighborhood.
All of that has now changed—unfortunately, for the worse. Economic growth has stagnated, Europe has lost its technological edge in key areas, its alliance with the United States is in disarray, and a very real existential threat has emerged in the form of a revisionist, imperialist Russia that may soon come to believe aggression and war are rewarded."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/europes-new-security-environment
5. "Entrepreneurs in the growth stage would benefit from considering how they could double their revenue without adding new headcount. What positions would remain? Which ones would be outsourced? Which roles would need to be filled by more experienced hires? What would be the advantages and drawbacks? Entrepreneurs should evaluate the relationship between in-house employees and scale earlier than they might have in the past."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/02/22/double-revenue-with-no-additional-employees/
6. Lots of tinfoil hat geopolitics. Some of it actually makes sense.
But they are correct that we are in a new world order of great power politics now. The so-called "Rules Based" consensus driven world order is over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiCAZHQPihw
7. I follow Doomberg, who is a very clear headed observer/analysts of world economics, energy and geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li_hkOdvRpk
8. Tin Foil Geopolitics analysis. Lots of illuminating ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9yJ4Lzxkig
9. Alt-Geopolitics. Don't agree with some of this but it's good to understand other points of view as we try to get what is going on right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6V0trfmTzM
10. Hope this is enough of a deterrent for the CCP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNody_rSZB8
11. Entering a multipolar world. Has been the case for the last half decade now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g66XSY6JNpw&t=1s
12. Hard to argue with any of this. Russia is laughing at America's stupidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdVmz8G6gQ
13. "Today marks three years since Russia’s illegal, unprovoked, and brutal invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have heroically fought the war with grit and determination, but they have also, against the odds, innovated on and off the battlefield.
In addition to establishing a defense tech initiative called BRAVE1, the country has also hosted tech conferences like IT Arena, even amid the problems caused by the war.
Ukraine is now the leader in AI-enabled drone technology and has become a magnet for Western companies and investors keen to support the country, and Europe. But is it enough? If the recent news is anything to go by, Europe is only now waking up to the fact that it will have to get closer than ever before to Ukraine if it is to maintain and defend its own security."
14. Germany the sick man of Europe. But more needed than ever. Waking up now though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X06UteSWyo0
15. "Getting things right is only half of the puzzle. Another piece is doing so at the pace of defence innovation in war time. Berezhny argued that the arms race took on such a velocity that the lifetime of any solution is roughly three months. “This speed of adaptation is what still keeps us alive,” he concluded."
https://www.resiliencemedia.co/p/dispatches-from-brave1s-defence-tech
16. "The constraints on Western industrial capacity make it difficult to provide Ukraine with the hardware and ammunition necessary to generate the firepower advantage it would need to reclaim territory. While it is already a tall order for U.S. and European industrial bases to quickly close production gaps with Russia, this challenge may become insurmountable with Beijing allegedly providing lethal aid to Moscow.
China is the most productive economy in the world by manufacturing output, and if it were to serve as a wild card—furnishing Russia with combat equipment and ammunition—the West might not be able to catch up.
Much of the modern weaponry sent to Ukraine has fallen short of expectations, failing to make the “game changing” impact on the battlefield many had promised. Sending Ukraine more will do nothing to change the reality that there are no MIRACLES in modern warfare.
The ubiquity of loitering munitions, hunter-killer drones, and GPS jamming have diminished the effectiveness of military aid to Ukraine."
https://www.adamtownsend.me/ukraine-155mm-game-changer/
17. Alt-geopolitics assessment but much of this actually makes some sense when you step back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLGtODVOgCA
18. Lots of insights and learnings on the situation on the frontlines of Ukraine. UGV & FPVs will become even more important in 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O5CeEfuPgY
19. This is an important question to answer. I still think there is a chance that Trump pivots back to support Ukraine. God I hope this is the case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3__lYAu2mjQ
20. Latest overview on Geopolitics around the world. Net net: chaos and change. Interregnum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-F3ufYQgNk
21. "In addition to hustle and one’s existing network, I’m always interested in whether or not a ‘needle magnet’ is being built alongside the other efforts to find startups. What’s my needle magnet definition? Some force that pulls exceptional startups to you, directly or via intermediaries, in a privileged and sustainable fashion."
22. "The problem though is that this deal still leaves the issue of specific security guarantees for Ukraine unaddressed and without those assurances any peace will not be sustainable, and neither will Ukraine’s future economic, social and political development. Actually this deal is not worth the paper it is written on without those very same assurances. No US entity will invest in Ukraine unless it feels that Ukraine is secure from future attack from Russia, which it will not be without these very same security guarantees."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-all-that-shines-is-not-gold
23. Cyrus Jannssen is a paid CCP shill but this interview with Stephen Roach is educational. China is rising whether we like it or not, and our engagement with them is still important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwlrS0p9jL8
24. Great episode this week. NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_7sOunKt9A&t=2328s
25. We need more people like Erik Prince in the world. Educational interview here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx1Yoi3-mls
26. I like Joules Sullivan aka Sartorial Shooter. Lots of good stuff here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2kMpybodek
27. I detest both of these people for their anti-America & anti-West stance but you learn from everyone. This is a good geopolitical take. Part 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQVt0MHed6k&t=56s
28. I detest both of these people for their anti-America & anti-West stance but you learn from everyone. This is a good geopolitical take & good understanding of what is happening in Europe and China. Part 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCGkIG3iHVQ
29. Always fun but nutty conspiracy theorist geopolitics. Listen with a good filter but some alternative takes on geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORfzlz6avdg
30. "Independence is the best financial goal for most people. But independence is more than just financial – moral, cultural, and intellectual independence – is one of the highest levels you can reach in life. “There is only one success,” says poet Christopher Morley, “to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
Derek Sivers once put it a different way:
All misery comes from dependency. If you weren’t dependent on income, people, or technology, you would be truly free. The only way to be deeply happy is to break all dependencies.
That’s why independence – financially, intellectually, morally – is one of the highest goals you can achieve."
https://collabfund.com/blog/pure-independence/
31. Don't resist technology. Great wide-ranging conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zef9cdnu2zU
32. Good update on what's up in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79NvO_Fi4Go
33. "And there we have it. Europe is refusing to admit that it is in an abusive relationship with Trump. Its afraid, has normalized the abuse, is ashamed of its own weakness, and is constantly the subject of intimidation. The more European leaders run to Trump for any signs of affection, the more they seriously wait to start arming to defend themselves, the more the pass off Trumpite threats and forgive his cooperation with Putin, the more difficult it will be to leave.
Europe’s only way to look after itself and deal rationally with Trump is to admit that it is in this abusive relationship—and have the self-respect to move on."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/why-is-europe-staying-in-an-abusive
34. "These four principles—narrow ICP, counter-positioning, aligned GTM & product, & positive brand building—don’t just help startups capture market share; they redefine markets entirely."
https://tomtunguz.com/your-icp/
35. Always wanted to visit Medellin and Colombia in general. Live Like a King in Medellin.
My Content Map: A Tool for All Creators and Make No Mistake, Everyone will be a Creator
Investing in yourself is more than just about money. It’s about education and self development. Taking David Perell’s “write of Passage” was a game changer for me and kicked off this newsletter. I’ve continued to invest in my own education outside of the masses of books I buy and read.
I am taking classes from my buddy D aka “Art of Purpose” aka AoP on how to get good at Twitter. AoP is a former public school teacher turned Twitter master and millionaire online educator I met at my buddy Eric Siu’s Leveling Up Mastermind. It’s been an eye opener and raised my admittedly crap Twitter game. But the classes have also helped me understand social media and audiences better too.
One of the exercises we had to do was a content map. What are you deeply interested in and enjoy thinking and researching? It has to be personally interesting or else you will not work at it and be consistent.
That is why we see the rule of 5 in the creator world: most podcasters, bloggers, and newsletter writers quit after releasing only 3-5 pieces of content.
But it also needs to hang together in some narrative and overarching theme. This part was incredibly challenging for me as I am pretty much interested in far too many things.
History, the technology and media industry, company building, sales/marketing, personal finance, geopolitics, psychology, self development, creator economy, entrepreneurship, venture capital and startups. Way too many strands which don’t really tie together and explains the mess of my content and brand. It’s like that old Napoleon saying: “he who defends everything, defends nothing.”
That is why the Content Map was such a painful but helpful exercise.
Here is what it looks like:
Why does this matter? Everyone needs to be a creator in some form and build an audience. A very targeted niche audience. You are building a movement and community, a place to share your ideas and knowledge and to get feedback. Figuring out what you stand for and what your content map is will be the first step.
Patisserie Coin De Rue: Tragedy & Triumph in the Pursuit of Perfection
I saw this lovely Japanese movie, a drama about a cute bakery in Tokyo, that specializes in affordable but top end patisseries.
This one falls into “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” but for cakes. I love Japan and I love cakes. I was originally pulled in by the beautiful shots of how pastries are being made. But the human drama was excellent.
The big lessons from the movie was that of persistence, obsession and keeping high standards in the pursuit of excellence. The hard work, the early mornings, all the mistakes to get to a high level.
That and the high personal price one pays for pursuing excellence. In the movie, one of the main characters loses his young daughter to a tragic accident, due to being late in picking her up because of his obsession at work. As a father, that scene was devastating to me personally. I still shudder when I think of it, it’s so heartbreaking.
But there were so many wonderful scenes of how a simple cake made with love could bring so much joy and happiness to people. How it can be a solace to someone.
As quoted in the movie, “when you are doing what you love, it shows.” I guess that is the ultimate lesson. If you can make or do something that brings joy to someone you should do it. And if you are lucky enough to be able to do this, then you have found your craft and place in this world.
The Legend and the Butterfly: Power Corrupts
In lieu of visiting Japan, I have been on a Japanese movie kick. I watched documentaries, comedies and was excited to watch a samurai drama tracing the rise of warlord Oda Nobunaga and his marriage to Lady Nohime. For anyone who knows Japanese history, Oda was considered one of the first unifiers of warring states of Japan in the mid-1500s.
We learn that his marriage to Lady No, who was a brilliant samurai noblewoman, was key to his rise to power. Giving him wise counsel and encouraging him when he was down. She helps channel his ambition. He embarks on his conquest to reunify Japan against the other warlords.
Yet Oda pays an incredible price. He fights many battles with lots of killing. He becomes ruthless in the accumulation of power, crushing everyone and everything in his way. “At this time, I have no heart. I haven’t been a decent man in a long time. I am not a man. I am King of the Sixth Heaven Demons.”
We see how this affects him, as the weight of it all drained the joy out of his previously carefree and joyful life. He ages tremendously, becoming demon-like and this is reflected in how scary his face becomes to everyone around him.
“Look at his face. Can you see how exhausted and miserable he is??”
He eventually realizes how much he has sacrificed on the altar of power.
“I killed an enemy that challenged me. I built a castle like no other at Azuichi. I achieved so much that even the Emperor admires me.
What for? What was it for?”
This is the question so many of us ponder or discover the hard way at the end. The quest for power, wealth and fame. Success. It’s so alluring and attractive to us when we are young. But what a price we pay. Such a heavy price.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 16th, 2025
"April prepares her green traffic light, and the world thinks: Go." —Christopher Morley
Topical discussions on what is happening in Silicon Valley. The wise Naval is the guest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI5qI6ej-yM
2. Lots of great insights on where the world of technology & business is going. Useful for investors and workers to understand where the puck is moving to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt7ckZDTtis&t=1903s
3. "Round-two entrepreneurs are some of my favorite types of entrepreneurs to work with. After years of effort that didn’t result in success, they still want to pursue the entrepreneurial journey again. That resilience separates casual entrepreneurs from those who are truly committed.
Failure is normal and often the most common outcome. But just because you’ve been knocked down doesn’t mean you can’t get back up. Round-two entrepreneurs step back into the arena with a newfound perspective—and a little extra spring in their step."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/02/15/round-two-entrepreneurs/
4. "If these accusations get anywhere is anyone’s guess —if Argentina’s past is any indicator, my bet would be that this won’t having any implications for Milei’s presidency locally, just like with so many politicians before him—, but they will be an unnecessary additional distraction next to more crucial topics like Argentina’s economy and Milei’s political success in the October elections.
The more important damage is that to Milei’s image abroad, since most people outside of Argentina were probably not aware of his previous endorsement or simply forgot about it because the chainsaw was roaring with such great success. The fact that nobody on the Milei team thought about the potential consequences of his actions or simply didn’t care, is worrying to say the least.
His political team will have to think long and hard on how to avoid these things from happening in the future, and Milei would do well to focus solely on the matters at hand, which is the October elections and the Argentine economy."
https://www.bowtiedmara.io/p/libra-imbalanced-confidence
5. "To end on a positive note, there was one silver lining that I saw: Europe seems to be waking up - albeit very slowly. J.D. Vance’s speech, for all its flaws, may have served a purpose: It forced Europeans to confront an uncomfortable reality.
If the U.S. isn’t coming to the rescue, Europe has no choice but to take responsibility for itself.
The question is: Will there be enough time before the storm arrives?"
https://stationzero.substack.com/p/a-storm-is-coming-what-i-saw-at-the
6. "To be clear, I don’t quite agree with the idea that the elites have totally abandoned ‘shaping the world’ in exchange for merely maintaining the status quo—at least not directly and intentionally. Rather the process transitioned toward this emergently due to the elites’ inability to harness the unpredictable fluxes they had unleashed with their monetary and social engineering leviathans, particularly of the ‘Nixon shock’ era and Bretton Woods annulment.
The distinction is this Potemkin existence is essentially a de facto rather than de jure system. It’s a tail that wags the dog because the system’s main imposed characteristics are designed more to reactively stave off collapse, rather than proactively re-engineer society into an altruist’s vision of the future. Again, the distinction comes from the inherent urgency of the demands for this change: the elites have no way of stopping their system’s slow-mo demise, and instead resort to perception control to buy time."
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/hypernormalization
7. "In contrast, the standout new dynamics - and reason for my MAGAnomics worries - is a significant drop in Japanese exports to the Global South. This is were head-to-head competition against Made-in-China has intensified, were Japan has been loosing ground, and is poised to loose further market share and profitability if Trump’s policies raise further the costs for China to do business in (or with) America.
China’s manufacturing capability and capacity have grown and evolved consistently. China is now a perfectly viable global competitor to Made-in-Japan. Famously, China surpassed Japan as the world’s number one car exporter; and the breadth of head-to-head competition against China is growing rapidly: first, it was textiles and toys; then the Shinkansen bullet train and electronics; last year, cars; and next up — machinery and capital goods: already China’s exports of industrial robots have more than doubled in the last five years while Japan’s are down 12%. A similar story in construction and mining machinery, up almost 3-fold for China, down over 10% for Japan (same five years).
Clear-speak: Trump’s America is frightening, yes it needs to scare the world to survive at home; but it thereby empowers global leaders. After decades of “Japan should play a greater part in the U.S.-Japan alliance” Trump’s America puts an end to diplomatic niceties and leaves Japan’s elite with no choice. They now will become more independent, more self-sufficient, more aggressive, assertive, and more focused on self-centered material results. The “free ride” is over — which fuels both the local corporate- and political metabolism."
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/maga-worries
8. "TDL;DR: The next generation of AI is imminent, and companies are working feverishly to be at the forefront of it.
The practical result of all this is that an individual will continue to become more capable than ever before. You can use AI to generate fully-coded apps, bring projects to life that once required entire teams, or even push forward on cutting-edge research. The question is which problems we aim all this energy at—and whose vision guides us."
https://every.to/context-window/just-add-vision
9. "But more importantly, I think that from Europe’s vantage point, it mostly doesn’t matter which interpretation of America’s recent words and actions is more accurate.
Whether America really wants to focus on deterring China in Asia, or whether it just wants to retreat from the global stage and focus on bullying Canada, Panama, and its own minorities, that doesn’t change the cold hard fact that America is retreating from its role as the guarantor of European security. And whether or not Trump’s people actually think Russia is a threat to Europe, that doesn’t change the fact that Russia is a threat to Europe. And whether Trump’s people truly care about free speech, that doesn’t change the fact that Europe’s people are angry about recent immigration waves, and if that anger isn’t accommodated through the democratic process, Europe’s stability could be in danger.
In other words, both the challenges that Europe faces, and the fact that the U.S. is not going to help with those challenges, are clear and obvious. Europe must either stand on its own against the threats that face it, or capitulate to those threats.
Fortunately, some of the Europeans may finally be realizing this.
Nor is it fanciful to think that Europe might unite to fight Russia. Even if the U.S. formally withdraws from NATO, or simply refuses to come to its allies’ aid, NATO command can serve as a unified military command for any and all European efforts against Russia. Crucially, NATO also includes Turkey and the UK, who aren’t in the EU, but both of which are rivals of Russia. In fact, without a Trump-led U.S. weighing the alliance down, it could be free to become the pan-European military force that the region needs.
The other danger is that each European country will look after its own narrow interests, throwing the other countries to the wolves. There’s a tendency of each country to view the nations to the east of it as buffer states — a defense-in-depth to hold off the Russians. This is a dangerous fantasy. The more Russia conquers, the more powerful it growth, since it basically enslaves each conquered group into its army to conquer the next group. When the USSR attacked Poland in 1919, it did so with many Ukrainian troops; when it menaced West Europe during the Cold War, it did so with Polish troops. And so on. Europe has to make a stand and put up a hard wall, instead of letting Russia continue to absorb and enslave its people bit by bit.
If the U.S. abandons Ukraine to Russia entirely, as now looks fairly likely, it might make sense for Europe to actively intervene in the war, helping the Ukrainians stop Russia from grabbing any more territory."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/its-time-for-europe-to-stand-up
10. An incredible interview with Palmer Luckey of Oculus Drift and Anduril. I'm glad he is on our side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwSycrvcwAs&t=11319s
11. Sober and yet still optimistic view from the Munich Security Conference. Ukraine will be a military industrial giant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHZT4uk9Cjk
12. "Taiwan has learnt the central tech lesson from the war in Ukraine: the next global conflicts will heavily feature cheap, small drones – and in large numbers.
So as an electronics and hardware component giant – especially relative to its size and diplomatic status – it is trying not only to develop a domestic industry, but also become an arsenal for the free world, building drones and devices for allied militaries worldwide.
The Taiwanese government estimates that the domestic drone industry will produce USD $150 million in drones this year, with goals to increase that eightfold by 2030. Thousands of drones have been ordered by the Ministry of National Defense to boost the domestic supply chain, and millions of dollars in funding have been dedicated to R&D.
And not all of the drones will be aerial. Given the island nation’s deep connections to the ocean, they are pushing to develop technologies in this realm as well.
Another marine science center, located on the southern tip of the Taiwanese main island, is currently being used for the testing of underwater drones."
13. "Imagine American factories no longer crippled by semiconductor shortages. Picture grocery store shelves stocked with affordable food, and fuel prices that don’t drain wallets. That’s the future a negotiated end to the Ukraine war can deliver — and it’s a future where America stands stronger.
The time for endless proxy wars is over. It’s time for a bold, pragmatic strategy that secures American supply chains, strengthens our economy, and restores our global dominance. Ending the war in Ukraine isn’t just good policy; it’s essential for America and the EU’s future."
14. For all SaaS leaders. Pipegen.
https://kellblog.com/2025/02/16/you-cant-eat-pipegen/
15. "Europe has become a third-rate power economically, politically, and militarily, and the price for this slowly building predicament is now due all at once.
I don't summarize the sad state of Europe out of spite or ill will or from a lack of standing. I don't want Europe to become American. But I want Europe to be strong, confident, and successful. Right now it's anything but."
https://world.hey.com/dhh/europe-s-impotent-rage-7edae302
16. "The same principles apply to basically all aspects of life: investing, health, relationships etc. You are playing a game of probabilities. Can’t complain about having bad dating options if you were hitting up E-thots every day and going to house parties with the 50 year old narco.
While you might be the exception to the rule, power lifting and playing football at age 40, the chances are slim that it works out long-term. The data is already out there to steer yourself to flexibility, lower overall weight to avoid injury and a clean diet.
You have to come up with a system for your investing and biz ventures. We could care less about price action for 1-2 years let alone 1-2 months. There are graveyards full of people who sold all their META stock at $40 or all their BTC at $2,000. *Our* strategy is to build stuff that can work for 5-10+ years. If for some reason you have a gift for options trading then honestly go for it, just know you’ll never convince us to go down that route. It isn’t a core competency and would probably cost too much time to learn."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/general-life-themes-for-the-sentient
17. So many great lessons and ideas for making your life better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JfRPXYFQHE&t=949s
18. Snapshot of geopolitics from some ex-CIA officers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxnug2u7VKg
19. "You can take the shot without being afraid to fail… because in the long run we’re all failures, since none of us are immortal. We are not gods.
Like a girl? Go talk to her.
Hate your boss? Start an online business.
Stressed too much about your work? Care less, build a side hustle.
Health problems? Exercise, eat clean, and do what you can to fix it.
Do what you can do to fix the problem instead of being sad and depressed about it.
If you fail, so what? Try again."
https://lifemathmoney.com/1-year-from-the-death-of-jon-anthony-from-masculine-development-takeaways/
20. It's all about political will here. Europe waking up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JogpD0ZtI-E
21. "Imagine the US as a colossal investment management firm (America Capital Partners) operating in—and controlling access to—the world's most successful business ecosystem. This ecosystem is so dynamic that it constantly runs hot: American consumers and businesses, empowered by innovation and high productivity, generate demand that constantly exceeds domestic supply, creating persistent trade deficits.
These deficits aren't a bug but a feature: they reflect the ecosystem's dynamism and purchasing power, which in turn makes it so attractive to foreign investors. And it’s this very vibrancy that enables America Capital Partners to attract such a large volume of Assets Under Management (AUM).
The mechanics are elegant: when Americans buy more than they sell abroad, they export dollars. Those foreign sellers, enriched by American consumption, then face a crucial choice about what to do with these dollars. Given America's unmatched investment opportunities, sophisticated financial markets, and strong property rights, they typically choose to reinvest right back into the American ecosystem."
https://www.driftsignal.com/p/will-trump-and-musk-break-the-greatest
22. "Europe simply can't have it both ways. Be weak militarily, utterly dependent on an American security guarantee, and also expect a seat at the big-cat table. These positions are incompatible. You either get your peace dividend -- and the freedom to squander it on net-zero nonsense -- or you get to have a say in how the world around you is organized.
Which brings us back to Trump doing Europe a favor. For all his bluster and bullying, America is still a benign force in its relation to Europe. We're being punked by someone from our own alliance. That's a cheap way of learning the lesson that weakness, impotence, and peace-dividend thinking is a short-term strategy. Russia could teach Europe a far more costly lesson. So too China.
All that to say is that Europe must heed the rude awakening from our cowboy friends across the Atlantic. They may be crude, they may be curt, but by golly, they do have a point.
Get jacked, Europe, and you'll no longer get punked. Stay feeble, Europe, and the indignities won't stop with being snubbed in Saudi Arabia."
https://world.hey.com/dhh/europe-must-become-dangerous-again-13413d78
23. "So yes, Americans are buckling up for not so much a World War or an Empire, but rather a new world order where managed conflicts are the order of the day. It is, given that we are dealing with Trump, driven by fast transactions often with huge monetary incentives, but underneath all these pieces is a defensive strategy for an increasingly fractured and de-globalized world. And the latter came into being long before Trump. Let’s see how this wake up call is digested in capitals around the world."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/broad-strokes
24. Good teardown on Fake news by DJT re: Ukraine. All Facts here.
Or maybe there is a master plan here. God I hope so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_etB3c3qOLI
25. An educational and sober conversation on war & the geopolitical scene with Erik Prince.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMgzm_9K50&t=358s
26. "Firestorm Labs is 3D printing drones in spaces tighter than the average Washington, D.C., apartment.
Why it matters: Additive manufacturing is incredibly attractive at a time when capacity — so often held hostage by specialty parts, single producers and backorders — is king.
The bottom line: "We believe that decentralized manufacturing is how we're going to win," Magy said."
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/firestorm-3d-printing-drones-california
27. A more optimistic take on what's happening in Europe right now. The Post American era. Hope he is right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upBMCjRXBDM&t=192s
28. One of the keenest observers of Russia here and the effect of a lack of European security strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLDTHTIkhFg
29. "The key bottleneck is though now not finance but military equipment and supplies and unfortunately, despite three years of war, Europe has failed to put its military industrial complete into gear. Europe still remains heavily dependent on the U.S. for military supplies, a situation which will be slow to improve. But financing can perhaps help therein and again freeing immobilised Russian assets - the full $330 billion - could be used to fund the biggest ever European arms procurement deal from the USA. Europe should announce a huge $500 billion to $1 trillion arms procurement programme, significantly funded from immobilised Russian assets, and commit to buy much of the weaponary from the U.S.
Therein if Europe came to Trump with the largest arms procurement deal in history, say $50-100 billion a year for the next decade, securing in the process hundreds of thousands of US jobs, I doubt that even Trump could say no to that. Call it the Trump Defence of Democracy Programme, or whatever to glitter in his eye enough to get his agreement. The defence of Europe is now a needs must, we must do whatever we need to do."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/the-answer-to-the-uk-and-ukraines
30. Demographics are destiny. Implications for Europe, Russia and China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nn5PnUobDA
31. Always a fun and critical conversation on the latest Silicon Valley news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0iREcK5JzU
32. "Most Americans don’t like it when their leaders sell them out to their enemies.
If Trump starts cozying up to China as well as to Russia, as I predict he’ll do fairly soon, the American people will get even more negative about his regime — especially because economic factors are likely to become headwinds at the same time. Eventually, if disapproval gets very high, the Democrats will be able to rally the American public around something other than bland messaging about health care or the identity politics that failed them in previous years.
There’s another big problem with the Metternich-Lindbergh idea, which is that China also gets a vote. Russia is probably happy to take a breather and get the U.S. off its back, but China might not be satisfied with dominion over a third of the world. It’s unlikely to see an introverted, inscrutable, autocratic U.S. as a true ally. And China’s leaders will worry that another change of U.S. leadership could bring American power back to challenge it in Asia.
For this reason, if the U.S. appeases China, they’ll keep trying to weaken American power, even in the Western Hemisphere. They’ll step in as Canada’s patron and protector, as well as the countries of Latin America; the U.S. won’t be able to dominate South America as it did in Lindbergh’s time, and South America has plenty of resources that China would like to monopolize for itself. Shorn of the assistance of Japan, South Korea, and India, the U.S. would not be very capable of resisting Chinese encroachment in its own back yard."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-is-being-sold-out-by-its
33. "Why are the Europeans and the West as a whole so worried? One is security, especially for eastern European countries. If Russia takes over Ukraine, there’s a fear that they will move on to conquering other countries. Two is ideology. In the Cold War, the U.S. fought all over the globe, including Korea and Vietnam, to stop the spread of communism.
After decades of fighting and intense competition, the Soviet Union collapsed and Democracy won. This war is also seen as a battle of ideologies, democratic countries teamed together to help Ukraine win against a larger autocratic regime. Countries all over Africa have fallen to autocrats over the past few years. Will democracy win this one, or is it the era of autocracy?
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/swimming-in-strange-water
34. Fun episode today on All in Podcast. Lots of interesting stuff happening in tech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxP55dZjqZs
35. Trying to make sense of the confusing geopolitics of recent weeks. George Friedman opines. An Un-Anchored world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-okIcAADYE&t=86s
36. "According to data from Dealroom.co, the share of European defence tech investments has risen to 1.7% of venture capital funding in 2024 from just 0.4% in 2022, reaching nearly $1 billion.
Much of the money flows to western Europe but the number of funding rounds has tripled in central and eastern Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Dealroom.co data showed."
Hard Reality of Life: There Will Always Be Problems
Not sure why I thought this. But I always thought there would be a point in my life that things got easier. That there would not be any major problems. Boy was I wrong. I think many of us have these thoughts growing up and it is shocking, yet comforting at the same time.
There was this great passage written by Sam Harris I found on Twitter (Thank you Brett Berson) that I found reassuring. And I hope you will find it helpful.
"Were you really expecting to have no more problems at some point in your life? You're just going to wake up one morning and none of this would be happening? There would be nothing on your to-do list. Do you actually want nothing on your to-do list? Life is mostly about solving problems, and you can solve these."
So my problem, more than anything else, was that I was treating problems themselves as anomalies. I was tacitly assuming that I should be able to get rid of all my problems and avoid any new ones. Even though this sounds ridiculous, that was implicit to me thinking and to my emotional life, to the way I was meeting each new problem.
But of course, I can never get to a place where problems stop appearing, and neither can you. Life is an unending series of complications, so it doesn't make any sense to be surprised by the arrival of the next one. The magnitude of the problem might surprise you, but the fact that new complications in your life are arising hour by hour is absolutely to be expected.
Very soon, some machine that you are relying on to do work or to keep you comfortable is going to break. This is guaranteed to happen. You're also going to catch a cold in the not-too-distant future, and your plane will be late, or your luggage will get lost. At some point, you'll injure your knee and need to see a doctor for it. It can't be any other way. Really, it can't be any other way.
And the expectation that it can or should be some other way is a great source of unnecessary suffering. Suffering that actually makes it harder to solve the problems we should be faced with. Ironically, this is a problem that you can solve, and you can do that by expecting more problems to arise every day of your life. It's like you're playing a video game. Did you expect that there would be some incredibly boring level of this video game without problems? This is the game we call existence. Problems continually arise, so enjoy them.”
(Source: https://twitter.com/brettberson/status/1757887022650536264/photo/1)
So welcome problems that come your way. Embrace them. Believe you can handle them. It means you are alive and part of the human race. And hopefully living well.
Sliding Down Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: The Coming Years of Civil Rage
For anyone who does not know Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, according to Simply Psychology:
“There are five levels in Maslow’s pyramid. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualization.
Maslow asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for survival were met (e.g., food, water, shelter), higher-level needs (e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate behavior.” (Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html)
We spend our lives trying to move up this pyramid. But what goes up must come down. That is the cycle. The West is clearly declining in the biggest “self-own” in history as stupid monetary and social policies are implemented and we continue to make badly thought out geopolitical moves in the wake of growing peer powers in China & Russia that hate us, and powers like Indian and Turkey who have their own interests and alignments.
At a macro level, it’s hard not to notice the startling decline of the West in every major city I go to in Europe, Canada and the USA. Crappy infrastructure especially the airports, a sense of gloom in the populace outside of places like New York and Silicon Valley (and these places have their own issues).
In most Western European capital cities I can’t help but see a lot of poor and somewhat aggressive young migrants from Africa and the Middle East who clearly have not assimilated at all. I’m in general pro immigration but what I am seeing in Europe and USA show there is too much of a good thing. No point bringing people in if you can’t support or afford them. It only leads to disappointment, then disillusionment and then anger from both residents and immigrants.
This is a signal of the cluelessness and self-destructive policies implemented by our incompetent politicians. Or worse, politicians who know these policies do not actually affect them as they are insulated in their secure estates and gated communities unlike the rest of the populace.
Growing inequality everywhere as the costs of living go up for most people, while the wealthy stack more assets. Extremistan is here. For those not numbed by alcohol, drugs, video games and Netflix, many people will notice they are sliding down the socio-economic ladder. Life will get tougher for most people. They will literally be sliding down Maslow’s Hierarchy into survival mode for food, water and shelter. Safety will definitely be gone as crime skyrockets from desperate people.
And there will be massive amounts of rage by the populace against the elites and institutions. This will only be counteracted by violent police and military suppression in some countries.
This is my forecast. I hope it does not happen but I’m seeing signs of this direction everywhere in the West. The natives are literally restless. It’s hard to read this. It was hard to write this.
So what is the point besides scaring you? Well it should be scary. And you should mentally prepared for this. It fits much of what I write and exhort people to do. So consider this a regular reminder of the basics.
Get healthy and physically fit. Learn to fight.
Get financially fit. Make WiFi money and have skills that are useful like online marketing, project management or knowing how to invest.
Have assets that are light and are considered hard like gold, BTC & ETH. Couple thousand dollars in USD wouldn’t hurt. Have assets in many different places, countries and jurisdictions like Singapore, Dubai or Switzerland.
If you live in the city, make sure you know your neighbors well and it’s good to have firearms that you know how to use. Couple thousand in ammo rounds are good. Make friends with military, local law enforcement, fire and safety people.
Probably not a bad idea to have a farm and some farmland that you can access
It is also helpful to have other citizenships in relatively stable, resource filled and secure places like New Zealand or Chile or Portugal.
Having a plan B and prepping can’t hurt. A wise person should always consider the possible scenarios and prepare for them. Don’t trust our elites or the authorities to get us out of the mess they put us in. Look at how they handled Covid as an example.
You have no control of what’s happening but you can control how you react to them. And most importantly you can control yourself. Take ownership of your future.
Luxury Beliefs Are a Signal of the Peak
It’s hard for me to see otherwise smart but naive people follow stupid ideas. DEI, Wokeism, socialism and insane environmental/ ESG ideas and also try to inflict them in the world and others with zeal.
Examples of stupidity abound. The idiot environmentalists stopping traffic or vandalizing famous museum artworks. The protests for the “oppressed people” of the week. Defund the police or most insidious spread of pro-socialist/ almost communist views when there have been so many examples that this is just the road to societal hell as we have seen in the Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Argentina multiple times and most recently Venezuela.
Pacifism is another example of a luxury belief. In the bad old days like hundreds if not thousands of years ago, we had to do what we had to do to survive. Life was widely dangerous and unstable. If you did not fight or kill you would die and your genes would not get passed on.
How fortunate are we that this is not the case anymore and that there is some level of prosperity and stability in our world that we can afford more diversity of thought and ideas. That we have plenty for now that we can afford to help others.
There are studies that show that when people or organisms grow in an area of scarcity, these individuals just become tougher. When resources & stuff is scarce it literally is “I win, you lose and starve”. It requires ruthlessness and drive to survive in these environments.
If you grow in an area of plenty, you tend not to be as sharp. Access to plenty eventually leads to softness, ease and lethargy. Our modern world of abundance and comfort has wrecked humans. We are maladapted. Look at the high level of obesity and mental illness in our societies today. All signs of unfitness and brokenness.
This reminds me of when well intentioned & pampered Western kids join NGOs and go to third world hell holes. They quickly find their comfortable views upended by the harsh realities on the ground. They are usually disabused of their ideals very quickly. Sometimes violently.
Sadly this is where the Western world is going. People who have been hidden from the reality and harshness of the world now face this new world disorder for the first time. A unipolar world to a multipolar world. This was inevitable but has been sped up due to complacency and weakness of the West in mind, body and spirit.
Radigan Carter writes on this:
“Most in the west don’t understand fanaticism because their entire life is devoted to avoiding pain. From Fed preventing losses in their investments, to wanting a pill to solve an illness instead of enduring the discipline at exercising, to not missing a meal, to being able to go without air conditioning or hot water.
People who spend their entire life avoiding normal everyday volatility will never understand the expense and dedication required to win against those who live long volatility as a lifestyle. And that is what fanaticism is at its heart, it is taking upfront pain for a potential reward in the future. It is the very definition of long vol.
Which is why most in the modern west don’t understand it. They can’t even stand a 20% drop in their vanguard account.
So since we aren’t really going to commit to the level required to win, no point in doing it at all I think. But I may as well be speaking a foreign language talking about this to some. They want to watch military montages to AC/DC and feel good while not taking any personal pain, so ok.”
Within our societies, things are only going to become more competitive, rougher and tougher.
This is going to be a shocking wake up call for many people. It will be a Darwinian test of survival for many people and countries over the next decade. Similar to what happened to the Roman Republic with luxury and comfort leading to incredible rot and weakness as well as viciousness. So better be prepared for this now.