Wisdom from Landman: Lessons on the Oilpatch
Landman is an excellent tv series by the brilliant Taylor Sheridan about Tommy Norris played by Billy Bob Thornton in Midland of the beautiful state of Texas. A Landman takes care of leases and the work crews of fictional Oil Giant M-Tex, trying to get the oil & gas out of the ground. He is part COO, part fixer. All trouble. Or trouble shooter at least, having to deal with accidents, lawsuits, employee issues, theft & even drug smugglers.
He is wise and grizzled. When his daughter asks him: “How come you are always right?” He answers: “Cause I spent my life being wrong. I never forgot the lessons.”
His son Norris also works the patch. We see him get hazed by his colleagues on the crew on his first day. It’s rough work and probably normal. But he does alright. When Tommy asks the crew boss how his son does on the first day, the crew boss says: “He survived. Green, real green. But he don’t say no and he tries. I mean, that’s something.”
I love this. It’s something I rarely see especially in newbies in every place I’ve worked at. Real effort and crazy good work ethic. All I see most times is a lack of humility, entitlement, crazy expectations & thinking some work is beneath them. When you are new, you do everything asked of you and more. You have to be prepared to work. And work brutally hard. Grind. This is what I did and it’s gotten me pretty far because it’s really rare.
And as the series shows besides the grinding work, there is massive amounts of stress at all levels. This is for the frontline crews doing a dangerous job, the managers who rush from crisis to crisis. Even the big boss of M-Tex who may be super rich but literally has the massive pressure & weight of the business on him. Heavy lies the crown. The tycoon, like many tycoons, is a stress basket, especially the oil and gas business. “Our business is one of constant crises interrupted by brief periods of intense success.”
But the reason people are willing to put up with all this stress is explained by Norris’s new colleagues: “It’s better you work for it real hard. You know? That way, nobody can take it away.” Very good advice.
Tommy also gives great advice to his daughter:
“You gotta love your way through the failures. You never know you’re in the last one until you are in it.” Man, this is gold, it’s relevant for startups and relationships.
But outside the drama it highlights the importance of the oil industry, something we completely take for granted. Here are some stats as stated in the show:
“Oil and gas generates $3 billion dollars a day in pure profit. It’s the seventh largest industry in the world, ahead of food production, automobile production, coal mining and at 1.4 trillion, the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t crack the top ten.
The industries completely ahead of it are completely dependent on oil and gas. The more they grow, the more we grow. That’s the scale. That’s the size of this thing. And it’s only getting bigger.”
It is critical to a functional world economy. Heck, I’ll say to a functioning civilization. Energy is civilization and one cannot develop without access to it. With all the great prosperity and growth many of us, especially on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, seem to have forgotten and overlooked this fact. As we move into a world that focuses more on atoms than bits this understanding of the critical factor of energy and oil will be back in VERY clear focus.
Access to cheap energy is one of the key factors of national sovereignty besides manufacturing (ie. Making stuff) as well as a strong military. If you don’t have these three things in this new more competitive & brutal world, you are nowhere close to being independent and sovereign as many countries in the world are learning the hard way now.
Tokyo Cowboy: Waking up Before it’s Too Late
Movies and their lessons show up at the strangest and usually right time. On a flight to Paris with my family, I got to watch “Tokyo Cowboy”. The synopsis: “a Japanese businessman goes on an unwitting journey of self-discovery when he takes a company trip from Tokyo to a Montana cattle ranch.” With a description like this, how can you not be intrigued?
The main character is a businessman named Hideki Sakai, when we first meet him he is a dedicated yet dour salaryman responsible for acquiring and turning around companies. Maybe too dedicated to his career.
Like many folks around us, he is doing what he thinks he is supposed to do in society. Rising through the hierarchy, getting promotions and money. He focuses on efficiency and numbers far too much. Over optimizing everything. Except the important things in life. I get it, I was once this guy.
There is a scene early in the movie when he takes over a chocolate factory. He sees how dedicated the owner is. He says to the owner: “you really love your work.” The owner asks him: “Absolutely. Don’t you?” The blank look by Sakai says it all. It’s the blank look of NOT understanding.
His trip to Montana is driven by a project and his own personal brainchild: turn a loss making cattle ranch in Montana into a mass wagyu beef ranch. But he starts to run into problems. The expert named Wada he hires tells him. “Beef was always meant to be a small business. Quality or quantity. You can’t have both.”
This seems like a universal axiom. Relevant to relationships, products and positioning. High end niche or mass scale. Exclusive or widely available. In my world, it’s the barbell: big massive venture banks on one side, small niche emerging venture funds on the other. Woe to those stuck in the middle.
Another complication, he is dating his boss, and during a business discussion she tells him: “speaking as your boss. You messed up.” He responds: “So I had a miscommunication. But the numbers are solid.” She wisely says: “Not everything is about reading the numbers. You need to read people too.”
She is sharp. It’s good advice & something many young business people get wrong, especially MBAs. The focus on numbers. When running a business, it certainly is about numbers, but it’s mainly about managing people: the soft stuff is the hard stuff.
We see Sakai’s lack of understanding this point. When he is about to reject an invitation to meet the ranch manager over drinks, his consultant Wada stops him and says he has to. “Look, ranching is a people business. If they wanna have a drink, we should have a drink. Drinking’s not about the drinking. It’s about building rapport.”
And this rapport is needed. When his consultant gets into an accident, he is stuck by himself & has a bad start with the ranch hands when presenting his new vision of the ranch. It’s awkward because it shows how little he understands their business. And the culture clash. So painful to watch. He is just the man in a suit showing up every few years trying to tell the local experts aka ranchers and cowboys how to do their job.
But Sakai slowly learns. It’s like a Japanese modern City Slickers (for those old folks who know the Billy Crystal movie). He also starts to learn about himself, the deep emotions he keeps bottled up inside. Japanese culture (like many Asian cultures) can be a stoic and some would say oppressive culture. You stifle your emotions to fit in. (Taiwan used to be a Japanese colony btw, so I get this).
His guide and minder Javier schools Sakai on getting the ranch hands on board with his plans. “You could change their minds but you are doing it wrong. You gotta meet them halfway. Learn how we do things here. You gotta speak their language. And I’m not talking English. You know. Get them to trust you and they will listen.” So basic, so simple yet so powerful. And it works in movies and in real life.
Sakai ditches the suits and dresses like a cowboy. He starts to learn the ways of the cowboy and goes on a cattle drive with the ranch hands. It’s neat to see him learn, adapt and grow.
Something all of us need to be doing on a regular basis. Sakai starts to love the life. He enjoys the camaraderie with the cowboys. He even finally notices and appreciates the beautiful wild Montana scenery all around him.
He also learns that efficiency is not always better. “I thought I was making things better…….
If I have to destroy it to save it, then I won’t be saving it at all.” This was exemplified by the take over of the previously custom handmade chocolate company. One that he wrecked by changing to cheaper chocolate bean suppliers and putting in new processes to speed up production to increase margins. He discovers the chocolate tastes waxy and terrible.
This reminds me of widespread financialization and private equity-ization of large swathes of the American economy, which has led to ruin for these industries and companies.
Well at least Sakai-san wakes up before it’s too late. He has a re-awakening of his soul. He has a chance to fix things. And so do we all. “It’s not all about the numbers.”
It ends with Sakai on a horse overlooking the gorgeous Montana mountain scenery of the ranch he has just acquired himself to save it. To me it also shows that he has saved himself.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Nov 2nd, 2025
"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything"--George Bernard Shaw
"There’s a mismatch here between two visions of the emerging economy.
So which one is real? Are we entering an AI-driven boom time like an out-of-control Monopoly game? Or will we be too broke to eat breakfast?"
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/is-the-bubble-bursting
2. Learning from China. Very interesting discussion here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze8fbNgsZ0s
3. "Civilizations, Spengler argued, are not constantly marching toward utopia. They are instead living organisms that grow, age, and die.
Spengler believed that Western culture — which he called the "Faustian" civilization — was already in its twilight. The signs were there for anyone who dared to look: declining faith, exhausted art, shallow materialism, and bloated cities. A century later, his ideas feel eerily prescient."
https://www.theculturist.io/p/does-history-repeat-itself
4. "Canada is at a crossroads. We can continue with shallow venture capital markets that leave our innovators underfunded, our technologies foreign-owned and our national security dependent on imports. Or we can deepen our domestic venture capacity, treat capital as the strategic resource it is and align our economic and security interests.
Venture capital is defence capital. It is the risk capital that fuels the companies and technologies that will shape Canada’s economic resilience and security for decades to come. We have the policy tools to mobilize this capital now. The only question is whether we will act before it is too late."
5. Idealists vs Realists in a new world of Economic Statecraft. This is a must watch for global macro strategists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GBEwilEYuw&t=903s
6. What a cutting teardown on Canada, the West and Baby Boomers. Hard not to criticize any of this though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E83dpuyvpiM
7. What an excellent interview with a global view of investing opportunities. Lots of great insights for the independent minded investor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d8NomiX7Q0
8. A truly excellent episode this week. Business & topics at the edge of the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwlgQMBwWl0&t=623s
9. This is gold. Some interesting takes and framework for figuring out where to live for entrepreneurs. Location really matters for health, wealth & happiness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPNAy44jic8
10. "The world, distracted by CCP grandstanding, rarely notices. But this is no accident. It is deliberate concealment: an approach that prizes readiness over spectacle, and quiet mastery over brash display. It can be wise, the ancient strategist Sun Tzu observed, to appear weak when you are strong. Japan’s restraint, often mistaken for weakness, is strategic misdirection—concealing the steel beneath the silence.
Where tyrannies roar to appear invincible, liberal democracies must endure by remembering—not only how to fight, but why they must.
Japan’s defense budget for fiscal 2024 stood at ¥7.95 trillion—nearly $54 billion—part of a sweeping five-year plan totaling ¥43 trillion under its 2022 National Security Strategy. That figure is set to reach 2 percent of GDP by 2027, marking its largest military investment since the Second World War. The message is quiet but unmistakable: Japan builds not to provoke, but to endure. It does so without fanfare, assuming unheralded leadership—guiding the region not through domination, but through cooperation and example. The CCP cannot protest Japan’s moves here too loudly; doing so would puncture its fiction that Beijing dominates Asia. The irony is plain: The more the CCP blusters, the more it obscures the steady rise of its rivals—led, increasingly, by Japan."
https://www.commentary.org/articles/mike-burke/japan-liberal-democracy-us-ally/
11. "Nevertheless, with China spending perhaps upwards of 2 per cent of GDP annually on industrial policy – a large multiple of any other OECD country – we should be under no illusion that the government will be prepared to shift towards other domestic priority needs, or succeed in all its ventures.
Indeed, the echo of Japan in and since the 1980s resonates in this regard: here was a mercantilist nation, committed to and successful in industrial policy with a considerable inventory of household or brand names, large exports and foreign reserves. In the end, though, its much envied and prominent manufacturing, trading and banking firms were unable to hold back the tide of macroeconomic troubles and imbalances that had been allowed to accumulate over many years. It’s quite possible that China is the encore, but this time also a commercial rival and a geopolitical adversary.
In the meantime, China’s mercantilism has changed from being a slow-burning fuse to an accelerant, as many nations have come under political pressure to act against Chinese exports."
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/is-chinas-mercantilism-cracking-up/
12. Lots of good solid thoughts on Global macro and where things are going in America and the present world order & finance. The 100 year Reset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uumy5fx2Kpc
13. My favorite weekly conversation on B2B Investing and news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML1FtOy9JtM
14. "The question before us is whether America can adapt its defense innovation system to meet the pace of modern conflict—or whether we will be left behind by adversaries who move faster and integrate commercial technologies more aggressively. The answer will depend on whether the Pentagon is willing to break with tradition and build a parallel system, one designed not for incremental reform, but for speed, agility, and integration with the private sector.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) was never designed for innovation. It was built to acquire large, mature, well-defined systems—aircraft carriers, fighter jets, satellites. For that purpose, it has worked tolerably well. But when applied to software, AI, robotics, or other rapidly evolving technologies, it grinds innovation to a halt.
Rather than endlessly tinkering with the FAR, the Pentagon needs a new lane: a parallel acquisition system that leverages private capital and commercial innovation at scale. Steve Blank, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected thinkers, has proposed exactly this. He envisions a new defense ecosystem where commercial companies and private investment serve as force multipliers, complementing traditional prime contractors and federally funded labs. Under this model, prime contractors would integrate advanced technologies into complex systems, while the government reserves its in-house labs for areas where commercial markets simply don’t exist—hypersonics, nuclear, energetics."
https://uncommonleadership.substack.com/p/turning-defense-reform-into-battlefield
15. Friedman knows his stuff. He is a bit too optimistic in my view but he highlights the challenges & constraints of the RICS alliance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xa1iZGnLG0
16. This is a fun conversation on the future of business. AI, Personal Brands and IRL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAPyRx1BQrI
17. EB Tucker is one of my new favorite financial influencers. Some interesting financial thoughts but also life lessons as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbU5sUrLr4
18. "It is unavoidable that capital allocation strategies (whether VCs or LPs) are backward-looking in some ways: all investors aspire to identify the repeat patterns of success, even if they aptly recognize that strategies must evolve with the times. As discussed, however, alpha requires being right and contrarian. From our perspective, smaller funds today are mimicking brand-name funds more than ever—the dramatic increase in spin-out funds over the last 18 months is just one indicator that allocator appetite is contributing to this effect.
But it’s important to note that large platform funds are fundamentally playing a different game. The pursuit of "2% of the biggest number" is consuming venture capital, as the biggest brands in VC become asset managers. Their incentives—from LP profile to target returns—are categorically different, looking less like traditional venture capital and more like multi-product private equity. Our view is that imitating the tactics of a player in a different sport is not a strategy for success—in the case of the early-stage VC managers, it’s more likely a path to obsolescence.
It goes without saying that it becomes nearly impossible to own an island when replicating a brand-name fund’s thesis (or even strategy). Finding an island that you can own is key, as over time, a successful island becomes a durable brand. If the future of access is brand, one thing is clear to us: differentiated, defensible strategies for building mindshare with great founders at scale will define the next generation of early-stage manager success."
https://insights.euclid.vc/p/we-have-met-the-enemy-and-he-is-us
19. Incredible wisdom and life advice for young people and old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrzGs_PCoLs
20. A good view on Greenland & its strategic importance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6Cb9P59DQ
21. The Age of the Middle Powers, the 17 key players on the geopolitical stage right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBrbmH-FOKM
22. Know thy enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgw8mvIXRI
23. Karp is one of the funniest dudes in tech right now. He is also right a lot and can back up what he says. Pay attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRi22OS98NY
24. "The core philosophy around The Lethal Protocol is viewing your health as something you can spend.
Everyone has an appreciation for the value of $1MM US dollars. Why? Because they imagine all of the things they can do with money. Vacations, investments, paying off debts, there is an endless list of what they can do with that capital.
You should also view health as a currency. Warren Buffet who’s worth multi-billions would give that all back to be 10 years younger, what does that tell you?
Health is the ultimate currency that 99% of you are taking for granted.
It’s time to start viewing health as the accumulation of energy capital. I’m not talking about moving to Bali to do yoga everyday to try to reverse aging & to become a monk to avoid any stress.
We are building a huge reserve of energy which can be deployed however we choose.
In business: Not having energy crashes at 2PM, not having to rely on stimulants to function. The ability to pull long work days, travel & conduct business at a high level requires energy capital & a lethal physique.
Experiences: Building a large reserve of energy capital allows you to say yes to the last minute trek in Nepal, the martial arts camp in Bankok, the Kooyong tennis social event your business associate has invited you to. Having Lethal Physical Shape prevents you from ever having to say ‘no’ again."
https://www.lethalgentleman.com/p/how-to-train-like-bruce-wayne
25. "The FP-5 Flamingo remains a promising weapon system to propel Ukraine’s missile program forward. If the manufacturer indeed manages to achieve a reliable CEP of 14 meters or less, while also being able to produce the missile in more substantial numbers, it could prove deadly to Russia’s critical infrastructure, notably its oil refining capabilities.
Still, it’s important to keep in mind that these are no longer $50,000 long-range drones being launched. The strike package used against the targeted site in Crimea likely cost up to $3 million, which makes it all the more important to ensure that future volleys count. Foreign financing for Ukrainian missile systems will also become increasingly important.
Fire Point, meanwhile, appears to be maintaining its marketing momentum and seems intent on positioning itself as Ukraine’s primary missile manufacturer. At the International Defence Industry Exhibition in Kielce, Poland, it unveiled two new ballistic missile designs, one with a range of 200 kilometers and another with a range of up to 855 kilometers, both advertised as retaining relatively high accuracy (14 and 20 meters CEP, respectively).
As such, Fire Point is now directly challenging legacy land-attack cruise missile designs such as the Long Neptune and Korshun, as well as legacy ballistic missile systems like the Hrim-2, with its disruptive new programs. Whether Fire Point can deliver on these ambitions remains to be seen."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/flamingo-cruise-missile-sees-first
26. Probably agree with maybe 70-80% of his assessments. His take on energy is top notch. Lots of implications for geopolitics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s56vwCkrNQM
27. "I think about my sons — 15 and 18 — and the world we’re handing them. A world where human connection has been commoditized, where intimacy is artificial, where young people retreat into digital caves instead of stepping into the messy, and rewarding, complexity of real relationships. Being human is not a solo sport.
The loneliness epidemic isn’t just killing people at 100 deaths per hour. It’s killing our capacity for joy, for surprise, for the random encounters that make life worth living. Every swipe right, every OnlyFans subscription, every AI boyfriend is another step away from the fundamental truth: We not only need each other to survive, but to really live.
We can keep feeding, and ignoring, the machine that profits from our isolation, or we can remember what it means to be gloriously, beautifully human — together. The most subversive act in the 21st century may not be starting a unicorn … but showing up, approaching strangers, asking someone out, grasping for their hand. It’s not OnlyFans that will save us. It’s only us."
https://www.profgalloway.com/lonely-fans/
28. "Every frontier sector eventually finds a home base, a place where talent clusters, suppliers line the streets, and iteration loops compress. Put enough people in one place, and work accelerates. Frontier industries need frontier towns. We learned it a long time ago in manufacturing, and it’s still true now.
So if Detroit was cars, and El Segundo was aerospace, and Silicon Valley is software — where should we put Roboticsville, USA? And who will be our Ford, our Hughes, our Fairchild?"
https://www.alsoblogposts.com/p/every-industry-has-a-capital
29. "Brilliant technologies either arrive too early - solutions in search of a problem or urgent market needs go unmet because the science isn’t mature enough.
This is not a simple communication gap. It’s a systemic challenge, rooted in the very nature of deep tech - long and uncertain R&D cycles, high capital intensity, and profound technological and market uncertainty.
Navigating this foggy frontier requires more than intuition. It demands a better map.
Over the past decades, different organizations have built frameworks to bring clarity to innovation. Each step in this evolution removes a blind spot, yet none has captured the synchrony between technologies that can ship and markets that can pull."
https://droninghead.substack.com/p/deeptech-investment-and-the-right
30. An older one but it's worth watching. Some global macro trends and why 2030 will be a critical year. As many smarter people than me say, it's probably 36 months from now. So 36 months to make it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vr5k8A8C9M
31. "Democracies can export adaptability. Authoritarians can only export rigidity.
Skeptics will ask whether bureaucracies can ever embody Boyd’s ethos, or whether concepts built for fighter pilots can really scale to societies. These are fair questions. But the contest is not about perfection. It is about orientation under pressure and adaptability at all levels.
The future will not be won by the side with the most data or the fastest AI. It will be won by the side whose people and institutions can best execute the timeless human cycle of adaptation. Winning the war within our own minds is the prerequisite for winning the wars of the future."
32. This is one of the best series on history, geography and strategy via WW1 & WW2. You will get very much smarter watching this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdMgOXfSBQw
33. "These five characteristics—desire to improve, unique view on risk, chip on the shoulder, resourcefulness, and optimism—are some of my favorites when it comes to entrepreneurial success. There’s no guaranteed formula and no single path, but these traits consistently show up in entrepreneurs who make it.
If you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, or considering partnering with or investing in one, keep these characteristics in mind. Evaluate them against the entrepreneurs you’ve met in the past. You’ll likely see these traits reflected in those who have succeeded."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/09/06/what-to-look-for-in-an-entrepreneur/
34. How to become a super forecaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JamM7u3TixU
35. These are fun videos. Inspiration or just some good ideas from a young multimillionaire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_GPbXcxfLk
36. Alex Karp is the man!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGXVOM_TKSU
37. I always learn from Niall Fergusson. Lots of interesting takes on politics, history and geopolitics.
Burdens or Responsibilities: Noblesse Oblige
I remember seeing a motto written by some Japanese samurai: “Life is as heavy as a mountain. Death is as light as a feather.” I believe it was originally found in the Hagakure, a text on Samurai warrior ethics. And it seems to have been well quoted by many in the Japanese Imperial army from their beginning. It stuck with me for some reason. Life is heavy sometimes.
As I get older it starts to make more sense. Life is supposed to be heavy. You have more resources, you gain more responsibilities for others in your business and your family. Hopefully you are wiser too and make decisions. You get more challenges, and more complicated ones at that. God does not give you what you cannot handle.
In my younger years, I used to consider this a burden. But I was stupid and weak. AND wrong.
These are not burdens but responsibilities. You only become a man when you have true responsibilities. I’d take this even further. As Geoffrey de Charny’s Chivalric code states: “He who does more is of greater worth.” It shows you are growing as a human.
And it’s not one way, with more resources, you have more responsibilities to your family, your business, your community. Your country. As it was famously said in Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility.” Noblesse Oblige. We need to bring this back.
Grok defines it as: “a French phrase meaning "nobility obliges." It refers to the concept that those with privilege, wealth, or high social status have a moral duty to act honorably and generously toward others, particularly those less fortunate. The idea suggests that nobility or power comes with a responsibility to use it for the greater good, through acts of charity, leadership, or setting a virtuous example.”
You should want to have a busy life full of hard decisions and responsibilities. It means you are growing. It means you are making progress. It means you have an impact in this world. It means you are truly living. So accept these so-called burdens. Pray for them. Welcome them wholeheartedly. If you do this, your life won’t ever be the same again. You will finally be meeting your high potential and living the life you should actually be living.
Forest Bathing: Getting back to Nature
I’m a self proclaimed city boy. I love the excitement, busyness and activity of the big city. This is where you go for opportunities, meet awesome people and to build wealth. But it eventually wears on you.
This is why online guru Tai Lopez talks about getting into nature more frequently. That once you’ve made your first few million dollars you should buy a farm. A place you can go to on weekends to calm your nerves. I’ve noticed this with many wealthy families, they have a city pad for the weekdays but they are always out in their estate outside of the city. Usually close to nature whether mountains, a lake, a beach or forestland.
There are even studies from Japan that talk about the restorative nature of being in nature. They literally call the treatment “Forest Bathing”. Grok says this:
“Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is a Japanese practice of immersing oneself in nature, typically a forest, to promote physical and mental well-being. It involves mindfully engaging with the natural environment—observing trees, breathing fresh air, listening to natural sounds, and feeling the surroundings—without distractions like phones or goals like exercise. Studies show it can reduce stress, lower cortisol levels, boost immunity, and improve mood.”
I get this. And I experience this personally every time I go to Hawaii or more recently to Banff in Alberta, Canada. Hiking and experiencing nature when visiting beautiful Lake Louise or walking the various mountain trails. It was incredibly calming.
So here is a great call to action by Vittorio: (Source:https://x.com/VittorioVitt0ri/status/1937198600238584000):
LET NATURE RESTORE YOU. Step outside. Breathe deep. Feel the wind, the sun, the ground beneath your feet. You don’t have to say a word, just be still. The trees don’t rush. The rivers don’t worry. They just are. Let nature remind you how to live simply, fully, and free.
So good. This is why I will be scheduling more regular nature retreats going forward. More trips to Canada and more hiking in Japan. Getting my nature-fix more frequently. Better to prepare for the immense amount of crazy coming in the world.
The Accountant 2: Blood, Brotherly Loyalty & What Really Matters
This was the buddy action movie you thought you wouldn’t need. Boy, it's so entertaining. Starring Ben Affleck & Jon Bernthal. Elite Military-trained brothers, one Christian Wolff (Affleck) an autistic forensic accountant involved with bad criminal families around the world, the other kid brother (Bernthal), globetrotting private military contractor, Braxton get together after 8 years to track down mysterious assassins. Full of action yet some warm moments between the brothers that bring light moments to the movie.
One scene is when the brothers go to a country bar for drinks and get in a fight over a girl after some local rowdies start pushing Christian around. Braxton comes running and beats them up. They drive away: “Goddamn, Is there anything better in the world than punching a Muthaf–cker in the face that has it coming to them?” It becomes even more of a moment when he realizes Christian got the girl's number.
They are brothers right? Braxton travels straight from a mission with bodies all over the floor in Berlin to help his brother with less than 24 hours notice. That’s what brothers do right? Blood is thicker than water.
There is one scene where the brothers are sitting on top of the Christian’s trailer home talking:
Christian: "Are you happy Braxton?"
Braxton: “Are you happy? Of course, I'm happy, why wouldn't I be happy."
Christian: "You're transient. You have no significant other. You're completely alone. No friends. Nothing."
Braxton: "I'm alone, because I wanna be alone. I choose to be alone. I don't have anyone I have to answer to. Check in with. I travel the world. I stay at 5 Star hotels. I do what I want. When I want it. Have gun, will travel, Motherf---er. I mean yeah, Sh-t Yah, I'm happy. F--king happy. Bet your ass I'm happy."
Christian: "I'd like to have someone check in on me."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9uFgQxZIQw
There is something to this.
I once thought the life of Braxton was the one I wanted. I actually had it for a very long time. I still live parts of it. But nothing is better than coming home to family. The mission is and should always be family and relationships.
The adventures, the luxury and travels are the side quests, not the main quest. I wish I had figured this out earlier. But better late than never. Many people never figure it out at all.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 26th, 2025
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand
"The USA is the land of competition and money. This is why it is the “land of opportunity”. The 1980s and 1990s are long gone. Once again, do not bother with any plans/prayers that involve moving back to the past."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/health-trend-for-the-next-5-10-years
2. Lots of interesting takes on global macro. Investing globally will
become more important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFjfQanCxp0
3. "Most significantly, after watching Ukrainians destroy Russian tanks and strategic aircraft with armed drones, Hegseth said drones should now be treated like munitions — cheap, expendable and mass produceable — and not like a new, expensive aircraft, development of which can take years longer to get through Pentagon red tape. The DoD’s new drone policy also seeks to expedite drone use by giving lower-level commanders — basically colonels in the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Air Force, and captains in the U.S. Navy — authority to purchase and deploy so-called Group 1 and 2 drones, or smaller vehicles like tiny FPV (for “first person view”) quadcopters that can be used at the unit level and have been so effective on the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
All of that amounts to a good start, critics say. But that is also the problem: The Defense Department is just getting started, as even Mingus has admitted. By the accounts of many experts, the U.S. military is not close to developing, much less deploying, the dizzying array of sophisticated drones mastered by the Ukrainians and Russians — including “kamikaze” drones used to destroy enemy tanks and vehicles; ground drones that can lay mines and deliver ammunition and medicine; larger drones that can ferry smaller ones behind enemy lines, among others.
Why is the U.S. military — long considered the global gold standard in defense innovation — so far behind in this new and dangerous trend? According to a former senior adviser to Hegseth, Marine Corps veteran Dan Caldwell, the main reason harks back to an age-old problem: Generals and commanders are always fighting the last war."
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/08/27/pentagon-drone-technology-deficiency-00525058
4. "If China has allegedly overbuilt, then America has under built. Whether housing, infrastructure, or business capital expenditure: development of the built environment too often feels stagnant. One big piece of evidence: investment in equipment and structures as a share of American GNP is down 3 percentage points from where it was in the 1970s.
The “engineering state” label captures something real. It almost evokes Karl Wittfogel’s “hydraulic empire.” And the term speaks not only to China’s deep history as a nation obsessed with transforming the material world, as embodied in legends such as those surrounding Yu the Engineer, but also to the realities and fixations of the current rulers: a Party-state that dreams big engineering dreams, and which sometimes turns them into social engineering nightmares."
https://www.cogitations.co/p/litigation-nation-engineering-empire
5. The edge of the internet. Crazy stuff in Crypto and tech. It's nuts out there. And Soho House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a0r6lwxZQ0&list=PLIBc05HkMJHFpVxxZTD-_MbTAYtwAOEg_
6. "All this is to say, that rear-area security is yet another wrinkle in planning for offensive operations. Even if commanders in future wars figure out how to break through prepared defensive lines, sustaining that momentum will be a separate problem in itself.
The next major ground conflict could well see new technologies that partly offset these difficulties. Passive measures might even ease the burden on limited high-end systems—especially if militaries take seriously the task of creating fortified corridors throughout their own operational depth. But no matter what, these sorts of considerations will occupy considerable planning efforts."
https://dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/pulsing-from-the-depths-the-problem
7. Learning from China. Yes, they are not our friends but they are incredibly innovative and fearsome competitors. We need to up our game in America and the rest of the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJz55AsUz4
8. "In general, I would encourage people to use history as a form of leverage because — while events don’t repeat exactly — human behavior does. In the end, business is ultimately about people, right? The quality of the “alpha” in a company or corporation, its competitive edge, comes largely from the people they work with."
https://bigthink.com/business/the-david-senra-interview-use-history-as-a-form-of-leverage/
9. "What began as limited exposure to Russia’s war in Ukraine has grown into a conduit for technology transfer, operational experience, and doctrinal adaptation. The evidence now ranges from loitering munitions and mobile ATGMs to air-defense systems, electronic warfare capabilities, and ballistic missile technologies. For the Korean Peninsula, this trajectory points to the emergence of a more capable, modernized North Korean force, one no longer confined to the outdated playbooks of the mid-20th century.
Globally, the risk extends further: Pyongyang has long been a supplier to sanctioned states and non-state actors, and the spread of these tools could amplify instability well beyond Northeast Asia. While it remains uncertain how far North Korea can scale and replicate these lessons across its armed forces, given its severe financial constraints, it is clear that this experience will not be buried."
https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/what-north-korea-learned-from-the
10. A very honest and direct conversation from a big endowment LP for VC funds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMuoR8hhupg
11. "People often ask me if there’s a formula for success. I always say luck plays a role, but dedication matters just as much. Especially in investing. It’s not like walking into a casino and taking blind guesses, there are simply no shortcuts. To be a good investor, you have to do your homework. You need to study the companies, dig into the details, and fully understand the businesses you’re investing in.
To outsiders like myself, sumo wrestling can sometimes look like two big guys just ramming into each other. But if you have a better understanding of the sport, you’d know the wrestlers actually spend hours preparing, observing and studying their opponents. It’s a highly technical sport that requires patiently waiting for the perfect moment to make their move.
It reminded me a lot about investing. In active management, you can’t simply follow the crowd or react to every news headline. It takes a lot of preparation and research in order to make good judgement about an investment so when the right opportunity comes, you act decisively. That’s what I believe gives active investors an edge."
https://www.markmobius.com/news-events/life-lessons-in-japan
12. "Venture is a contact sport." Lots of great nuggets in this conversation with one of my favorite people in VC. OG Tony Conrad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYcSvqM9pL8
13. A masterclass in investing. This was so good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWntNpgDCZk
14. "When competitors raise large rounds, entrepreneurs should take the time to do some soul-searching about their own level of ambition. Do you want to “go big or go home,” or are you comfortable being the number two or three player in the market? Many markets are not true winner-take-all environments. More often, they resemble oligopolies or are divided into valuable niches where multiple players can thrive.
Just because a competitor raises a massive round doesn’t mean you need to. But it is prudent to carefully weigh the pros and cons instead of reacting impulsively. There are many paths to building a successful business, and not all of them require raising huge sums of money."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/08/30/when-competitors-raise-large-rounds/
15. Random but good wilderness survival tips.
16. Appeals to my prepper heart. But this is a fascinating conversation on the life of spy's life. Last 30 min particularly was alarming but insightful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu6bYPTp_kE&t=5519s
17. "Constraint is usually framed as limitation, but in the last year, I’ve also come to see it as liberation. It funnels attention to the things you said you’d do. Boredom is the pop-up blocker for ambition.
And, because the city doesn’t hand you a plot, narrative matters even more. It has to be made, not found. Almost everyone I’ve met is working on something long, hard, or both. Willpower alone doesn’t last. The survival tool is story: a why strong enough to return to when funding wobbles or energy dips. You see it everywhere. Founders use story to align teams they can’t yet pay. Investors sell LPs on decade-long bets. Employees take pay cuts for equity because they buy the mission. Narrative is the currency that buys undercapitalized projects time.
San Francisco’s secret isn’t that it’s exciting. It’s that it’s boring enough for you to make something exciting."
https://forrealai.substack.com/p/sf-is-boring-thats-the-point
18. "For Taiwan, this is part of a broader effort, which has been referred to in the past as “Hellscape,” that envisions the Taiwanese military flooding the air and waters around the island with relatively uncrewed platforms in the event of a military invasion from the Chinese mainland.
Especially if it is a relatively low-cost design, Chien Feng IV, as well as other longer-range kamikaze drones, could also offer a way to extend the Hellscape plan to attacks on targets on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. As noted, Airwolf’s stated maximum range is 400 nautical miles. The Taiwan Strait, at its widest, is some 97 nautical miles across. Massed Chien Feng IV attacks would also force Chinese forces on the mainland to expend commensurate amounts of interceptors. Higher-flying jet-powered drones would, in turn, require higher-end interceptors to be employed, as well."
https://www.twz.com/air/taiwan-teams-up-with-kratos-on-jet-powered-kamikaze-drone
19. "The current vibe-coding era won’t last forever. Eventually, brilliant practitioners in each domain will distill optimal workflows from this experimentation, commercialize them, & establish new industry standards.
The companies that recognize these emerging patterns earliest & build robust, scalable versions before the market standardizes will define the next generation of software development tools.
The glee of solving problems with $20-per-month AI tools represents more than convenience; it signals a fundamental restructuring of how software gets built & who gets to build it."
https://tomtunguz.com/vibe-coding-ubiquitous/
20. "There exist a number of ways in which one can maximize their ideological influence. In the remainder of this piece I’ll specifically focus on the intellectualpathway. Other pathways include maximizing one’s disposable capital (getting rich), maximizing one’s political stature, marrying a person who has already maximized or will subsequently maximize one or more of these, and so on.
Most people whom I consider exemplar power-maxxers have either combined the intellectual and political pathways (e.g. Henry Kissinger), or the intellectual and disposable capital pathways (e.g. Peter Thiel, George Soros). The reason I chose to focus on the intellectual pathway here is that it’s the pathway that needs to be maximized in public, through domains such as this one. It’s obvious why — you can’t intellectually influence people unless they’re hearing what you have to say. Capital doesn’t work like that."
https://katechon99.substack.com/p/what-are-we-trying-to-do
21. "The U.S. military should formally embrace and invest in advanced digital gaming as a core training tool, leveraging its ability to build critical cognitive, coordination, and technical skills for modern warfare. Doing so will maintain America’s training edge against rivals who are already integrating gaming into their military preparation."
https://warontherocks.com/2025/08/military-gaming-to-stay-ahead-but-not-the-kind-you-think/
22. "From both a military and political perspective, it would make little sense for Ukraine to accept Russia’s territorial demands and voluntarily surrender the northern Donetsk region as part of a peace deal. As long as Kyiv continues to control the Donbas fortress belt, there is a good chance that the Ukrainian military can turn the entire region into a graveyard for Putin’s invading army. Meanwhile, a withdrawal would leave large parts of Ukraine dangerously undefended and dramatically undermine faith in the country’s leadership.
Even if Putin concentrates his best military units in a bid to complete the conquest of the Donbas region, he would almost certainly be forced to pay a very high price for any significant advances. Indeed, the Russian army may become bogged down for years in bitter fighting that would dwarf earlier battles of attrition and could conceivably change the entire course of the war. This is exactly why Putin is pushing for Ukraine to surrender the region without a fight, and helps explain why Ukraine is reluctant to do so."
23. "It feels like we are close to solving these world model problems and making the technology viable. Doing so will enable the next wave of applications in AI, and so, seems to me like that will be the beginning of the next wave of AI. Now that even Sam Altman is starting to say we may not be on the cusp of AGI, it feels like the current approaches are stagnating, and world models could be the breakthrough for AI 2.0."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/what-will-be-ai-20
24. "At bottom, Americans and Chinese are alike. The likeness stands out when you compare Chinese to Japanese or Koreans, and Americans to Canadians or Europeans. Both peoples are restless, eager for shortcuts, and drive much of the world’s change. Both mix crass materialism with admiration for entrepreneurs. Both tolerate tastelessness. Both love competition. Both are pragmatic—“get it done”—and often rush work. Both cultures teem with hustlers selling quick paths to health and wealth. Both admire the technological sublime—grand projects that push limits. Elites and masses in both nations share a creed of National Greatness: John Winthrop and Ronald Reagan’s “City upon a Hill” in America, and the “Central Country” inscriptions on Zhou‑dynasty bronze ritual wine bowls in China.
Both countries are tangles of imperfection, often their own worst enemies. Old labels—“socialist,” “democratic,” “neoliberal”—do not fit.
China delivers rapid, visible progress, but at a cost to rights and with risks of overreach. It goes off track with social engineering, becoming a Leninist technocracy with grand‑opera traits—practical until it turns preposterous.
America goes off track by spending too much time specifying and vindicating rights, becoming a super‑litigious veto‑ocracy. Safeguards restrain excess, but also buy stagnation and lost ambition.
China would benefit from about 40% more legal respect for rights and process. Yet China’s elite sees little appeal in any system that can elevate a Donald Trump instead of a Xi Jinping.
The U.S. once built ambitiously—the late 19th century and the post‑WWII decades. It should reclaim roughly 20% more building and engineering spirit. American failure shows even at the frontier of the global economy. Silicon Valley prizes invention, then builds oligopoly moats from network effects and legal maneuvering. China, by contrast, prizes scale and production, embracing the Andy Grove ethic.
If either Silicon Valley or the Pearl River Delta could balance engineering scale and ambition with strong legal rights and safeguards, it would be unstoppable."
https://braddelong.substack.com/p/the-sledgehammer-and-the-gavel-dan
25. "Patrick McGee's masterful Apple in China provides essential insight into how this transformation unfolded. Through meticulous reporting from factory floors and boardrooms, Patrick reveals how Apple mastered what seemed impossible: outsourcing production whilst maintaining absolute control over its value chain. The book shows how Apple kept design, knowledge, and brand—the parts that appreciate—whilst leaving factories and workers to others.
More importantly, Patrick's work illuminates why that model is now unraveling. Not because Apple failed, but because the conditions that made it possible—China's unique manufacturing ecosystem, unfettered global trade, and Apple's relentless design innovation—are disappearing simultaneously. As software becomes commoditised and hardware determines competitive advantage, understanding how China built its manufacturing dominance becomes crucial for grasping what comes next."
https://www.driftsignal.com/p/apples-dependence-on-china-is-hard
26. "In other words, it may simply be every rich country’s destiny — whether it’s ruled by lawyers or by engineers — to transition from a “just build it” engineering-type culture to a fussy rules-and-procedures culture dominated by lawyers and economists.
This shift can be managed in better and worse ways, and it’s likely that America’s litigious behavior is a highly suboptimal approach. Dan Wang is very right about the woes of our “just sue them” culture. Yes, Chinese companies aren’t profitable, but at the end of the day, China will have houses and plentiful power plants and trains, and America…will simply not."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/book-review-breakneck
27. "Sadly, however, Ukraine was deprived of the ability to strike Russia at range consistently and effectively—that is possibly until now. War tends to find a way, and while Ukraine’s partners tried to limit Ukraine’s ability to strike Russia strategically at range, the Ukrainians were determined to build up that capacity for themselves. In just the last few weeks, even before the arrival of the much discussed Flamingo FP-5 cruise missiles, the Ukrainians have stepped up their strategic air campaign in such a way that it seems that they have understood the lessons of World War II—and are trying to bring those lessons home to Russia today."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/a-strategic-air-campaign-for-ukraine-0d1
28. Doug Casey. Always fun to listen to. One of the most global and interesting individuals in the world. An investor & Renaissance Man. Bit too libertarian to me but it's a good interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OggV3UvYug
29. "There are many things that are or were unique to America that did make us great. But it’s not and if:then statement. There are equally as many things unique to America now that are making us weaker, more insecure, and destined for manipulation and domination by nations that will not give one-eighth of a sh*t about what happens to any of us.
In the same way Trump can spin all the stories together into one grand narrative of grievance, America is allowing its strengths — the things that protect all of us Americans in reality, not fairy tales — to be subsumed by its ravenous weaknesses. The surest litmus test I have of our clarity, or lack thereof, of this necessary separation and survival, remains how we imagine the task to save Ukraine, and the American toolbox we bring to bear in this task.
I don’t know why we want to keep hearing this story of our weakness being greater than our strength. It’s as much a myth as the world Putin describes as his own. There is no world where a vibrant, free America prospers after the subsumption of a vibrant, free Ukraine. None.
Anyone telling you this century is going to be easy if only we can take a thing from someone else is lying to you. Stop ooohing and aahing the flames, and put them out. Stop clapping for the show, and pick up a tool, and get to work."
https://www.greatpower.us/p/half-baked-alaska
30. WW3 is here, it's just not like what everyone thinks it looks like. BRICs vs the American-led order. The USD vs Gold/BTC & Natural Resources. A sober assessment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btGKj4Fet4k
31. This is a great thesis for understanding globalization and deglobalization. Focussing on Themes not narrative. Solid global macro discussion here on the end of American supremacy through the lens of military, economic & myth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESO9AlnV6-g&t=2s
32. I'm on Team America but it's important to understand the other side. Professor Jiang is obviously pro-China and BRICS but this is worth listening to.
#Realpolitik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFuwNjHaYq8
33. An interesting view on China and America from someone who has lived in both places. A best selling economist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0tMBMLl32o
34. "Back in the 2000s, manga cafes were known for all night survivors who missed the last train. They offered cheap internet, comics, and a spot to crash, but the image was noisy and smoky. Today, Kaikatsu CLUB has rebranded the experience with lockable private rooms, free showers, and 24 hour service.
With hotel prices surging past 10,000 yen ($67), manga cafes look like a bargain. For around 3,000 yen ($20), visitors get a clean room, air conditioning, and access to amenities. Capsule hotels once owned this niche, but many guests now find manga cafes more comfortable and better equipped.
Kaikatsu CLUB is owned by AOKI Holdings, a company better known for business suits. As of mid 2025 it operates nearly 500 locations across Japan, giving it a near monopoly. The days when manga cafes were small independent shops are over. Today one company dominates the market."
https://www.tokyoscope.blog/p/manga-cafes-in-japan-are-becoming
35. Important discussion on consensus versus non-consensus investing for VCs.
Starship Troopers
I find myself going back to some of the strangest movies. Starship Troopers was an sci-fi action movie based on Robert Heinlein’s Sc-ifi classic book. It came out back in 1997 and I remember not liking it that time as I found it campy and silly. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate how iconic that movie was. So many of the famous actors we know of started in that movie like Jake Busey, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside.
And while the movie was satire in some ways, it had so many good lines taken beyond what the director meant. Taking on cultural significance, unintended I am sure. Just like how Gordon Gecko in the Wall Street movie was supposed to be a villain but audiences ended up venerating his character. Wikipedia says: “Since its release, Starship Troopers has been critically re-evaluated and is now considered a cult classic and a prescient satire of fascism and authoritarian governance that has grown in relevance.”
For those unfamiliar it revolves around several young men and women who join the Federal services as an alien bug race attacks earth & destroys Buenos Aires. Their adventures and war in space begins and it’s gruesome with many of them not surviving. But it is full of really good action and drama.
There is the scene when they meet the processing officer and he says: “Mobile infantry made me the man I am today”, as the young enlistee sees he is missing all his limbs. It’s a stark warning and reminder of the price of freedom and the costs of violence. You inflict it but it can get inflicted back on you.
The concept itself is interesting. They live in a society that is free but where only citizens have the right to vote. And you can’t be a citizen without federal military service. Otherwise you are just a civilian.
“Naked force has resolved more issues throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion that violence has never solved anything, is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay.”
There is another moment when the main characters are re-introduced to their new unit commander, Lt. Rasczak who also turns out to be their old teacher from school. He says: “This is for you new people. I only have one rule. Everyone fights. No one quits. You don’t do your job, I’ll shoot you. Do you get me?” He is tough but respected and why the unit has such high esprit de corps. What a scene. But it’s also a wake up call for us. We are in big trouble in the West and if we aren’t willing to fight we will lose. As commander Raznak memorably says before battle: “Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever??
I also learned basic leadership from him. After victory in battle, he says to his unit: “I expect the best. And I give the best. Here’s the beer. Here’s the entertainment. Have fun. That’s an order.”
And there is even good life advice, he gives his student Rico who keeps overlooking the beautiful fellow trooper Isabelle who is infatuated with him. “You once asked me for advice. You want some now? Never pass up a good thing.” He wisely takes this advice.
It’s a fun, silly at times, entertaining and yet serious movie at heart. I think people drew the wrong lessons from this movie. There is much to appreciate and in the long years of relative peace since 1997, we have forgotten what true evil is and that mindless violence can come at any time from threats within our society and from outside our western civilization. Vigilance is necessary now more than ever.
Anger Management 201: My Constant Internal Battle
I had landed in Vancouver at the end of May 2025, and my dad picked me up. As my father was turning the corner on the road, some car behind us honked at us. I rolled down the window and gave the driver a middle finger. As we drove on, the guy sped up beside and glared at me, about to say something. I rolled down the window and yelled at him in rage: “WTF you going to do A–hole?, I will F–k you up” like a madman. I scared him and honestly scared my dad as well. Not my best moment. I’m lucky I did not have a weapon with me, I see nothing but red in these moments.
Thankfully this was a wake up call, I was much more conscious throughout the rest of the trip. Something about Vancouver just triggers me. Something about being disrespected triggers me.
I’ve long had anger management issues throughout my entire life. And it has cost me dearly.
As Horace wrote: “Anger is a short madness.”
If I am honest, I am angry most of the time. Angry at the world, angry at myself for not doing better, at the idiot corrupt elites and politicians, old colleagues & business partners who treated me badly, rude people, idiots on X/aka Twitter. Most of the time, I bottle it up or transmute it into more positive things like an insane work ethic. It’s dirty and negative fuel and it works so damn well. But as I’ve gotten older, this only gets you so far.
I’ve learned that anger is a loss of control. And as a man, if you lose control, you lose. Period. It’s about remaining calm, cold and collected in these moments. That is how you win.
So I exercise & train hard, I meditate, I sleep well, I breathe and count to 10. I try to de-personalize. Then I see the situation more clearly and then act accordingly.
Ford Frick once said: “Keep your temper. A decision made in anger is never sound.”
Or better said for Godfather fans, be Michael Corleone who was always calm & controlled, not Sonny Corleone whose raging temper got him killed. Note to self here.
Ramen Girl: Finding Your Path by Finding Your Heart
I had forgotten about this movie. I watched it on a plane in 2008 during my Yahoo! International years. I must have watched this movie a dozen times.. Starring the young and beautiful Britney Murphy, may she rest in peace. It takes place in Japan, where a young American girl named Abby is dumped by her boyfriend, sad, lost and alone in Tokyo, she stumbles upon a small ramen shop. And her life changes as she experiences ramen for the first time. The full description and synopsis can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ramen_Girl.
She starts off as a server helping out but expresses her desire to become a ramen chef . She undergoes a brutal apprenticeship under the ramen master, but she slowly learns despite the language barrier. Along the way she meets a handsome Japanese man, who, like Abby, feels trapped by family and social expectations, sacrificing their dreams by following the career of a salaryman when he just wants to explore the world and write music.
Abby seems to be able to get the technical aspects correct but for some reason the ramen still feels off. So the chef brings her to meet his mother. This is where the insight happens and why I think Japanese food is so good. The mother says the reason the ramen does not taste perfect is that she cooks from her head which is full of noise. “You must learn to cook from a quieter place deep inside of you.”
Because there is no soul. No feeling. You put and infuse your feelings into the food you cook: “Each bowl of ramen you prepare is a gift to your customer. The food that you serve your customer becomes a part of them. It contains your spirit. That’s why your ramen must be an expression of pure love. A gift from your heart.” When Abby says she has never felt love, only sadness & pain, the mother says, “put your tears in your ramen”. And it works.
I won’t go into the rest of this movie which was lovely and touching. But It reminded me of why I love Japan. It reminded me of what is missing in most of the world. It reminded me of what excellence is. It reminded me of craftsmanship.
It’s about putting all your heart and soul into something. Whether it’s your business, your food, your family. People can tell. People can tell whether you have put effort into something. This is why I hate eating buffets, it’s just one big industrial line of food. How can it be good? You can tell when a chef puts their heart and spirit into the food.
We can all do with a bit more heart and soul in everything we do. This movie was a great reminder.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 19th, 2025
“October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.” —Hal Borland
Another great discussion this week. Good takes on Silicon Valley topical subjects. Peak everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgPKPAqTi0w&list=PLI0_clHshGZctchZkfCXmz7SPyuBSOoq1
2. "The other main problem is the fantasy world in which many American policy-makers live: a natural product many would say of the New Age Californian belief that it you want something hard enough, you can have it. A generation ago, an anonymous and possible apocryphal official in the administration of Little Bush is supposed to have said “we’re an Empire now, we make our own reality.” This was an extraordinary statement to have made at any time, but was typical of the unthinking triumphalism of those days, and if it’s not literally true, it does reflect an attitude that many of us noticed then.
And if you think about it, who’s going to object to following in the footsteps of the Assyrians, the Persians, the Romans and the Ottomans, and having half the world bow down before them in worship? After all, few countries have populations that actively hate themselves (even if contempt for one’s country tends to be an affectation of western liberal intellectuals) nor populations which actively consider their country to be of no importance. Thus, praising one’s country and its importance is always good politics.
But here, it’s taken to psychopathic extremes. The Empire Delusion, or the Empire Syndrome, becomes dangerous when it leads to a serious overestimation of the actual strength and resources of the country, and its actual ability to influence events in the world. After all, reality itself often demands a look-in as well: the last twenty-five years have seen an unbroken series of defeats, disappointments and political and economic crises for this alleged Empire, most recently the scuttle from Afghanistan, and the failure in Ukraine. But then as with all large-scale delusions, apparent defeats are rapidly assimilated into assumed even-more-subtle master-plans that one day will put everything right."
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-war-was-the-easy-bit
3. The case for working in defensetech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA_16MW6Rfw&t=2s
4. The future of drone swarms and counter UAS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge1rYfuvEwg&t=6s
5. "Whether that’s upskilling in business, fitness, whatever it is… One of the best ways to fast track getting into circles with world class practitioners, is paying them for their expertise.
I don’t give a fuck about a rolex or supercar, most of the money I spend is going to be learning from the best in the world to accelerate my progress and stack skills.
Skills compound & stay with you for life.
At the very least, I hope this piece gave you a different perspective to the ones where people say you need to relentlessly chase what you want.
Build an ecosystem so that what you want… Comes directly to you organically."
https://www.lethalgentleman.com/p/how-to-design-a-lifestyle-where-opportunities
6. "The winning hire today isn’t the one who has done it before but, instead, the person who can figure it out first and fast. We are seeing a dramatic shift in what the best founders are looking for when we talk through key hires. Instead of prioritizing experience, the focus is on horsepower, hunger, and speed: the tinkerers who dive into new tools before the documentation is written, the marketers who sense a cultural shift and ride it, the builders who will ship fast and furiously."
https://paragraph.com/@rebeccakaden/hire-the-experimenters
7. This conversation came at the right time for me. Tai Lopez, not just a successful entrepreneur but also life coach. Lots of wisdom here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgn-EZLE6kc
8. "Customer value financing works like this: an investment company provides capital for sales and marketing efforts to acquire new customers. In exchange, the company receives a percentage of that new revenue until they are paid back, plus an equivalent of an interest rate.
It is a form of non-dilutive financing that is not debt. Instead, it is essentially buying the right to a percentage of new revenue generated until a formula representing the desired return on investment is reached. Unlike traditional revenue financing, it is not a loan against the entire business and it does not claim existing revenue."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/08/23/customer-value-financing-part-2/
9. "Sir Geoffroi de Charny’s life, his service, his death with the Oriflamme, and his words on chivalry secured his place as one of the greatest knights of France and Medieval history as a whole."
https://medievalscholar.substack.com/p/sir-geoffroi-de-charny-frances-knight
10. "Let me restate my hypothesis: Ukraine’s long-range strike operations reinforce that Russia cannot win this war.
Russia can only be handed a victory through a political process, which is why Putin is so desperate to convince the Trump administration about land transfers, to deny the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine and to influence Ukrainian foreign policy.
Nothing demonstrates this more than the increasingly dangerous (for Russia) long-range strike campaign being executed with precision, focus and discipline by Ukraine.
It is precise because the Ukrainian long-range attack systems employ a mix of indigenous and foreign intelligence and targeting assistance that ensures drones and missiles have the best chance of reaching and hitting their targets. It is focused because the Ukrainians are keeping a tight focus on just a few strategic classes of targets. And it is disciplined because despite the Russian focus on hitting civilian targets, Ukraine continues to avoid this practice as it has done throughout the war."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/ukraine-is-striking-russia-harder
11. "If Ukraine were to possess a large arsenal of heavy missiles, perhaps 2,000 to 4,000 cruise and ballistic missiles, which could be launched within 24 to 48 hours of a Russian reinvasion to comprehensively disrupt and destroy Russia’s economic potential from the outset, it may independently convince Moscow that any future aggression is not worth the cost.
Of course, fielding a robust conventional countervalue deterrent is no easy task. Acquiring and maintaining a missile arsenal of that size costs money. Ukraine would also have to be able to safely store these missiles in peacetime while arranging for procedures to launch them on short notice. That’s operationally and logistically challenging. Still, Ukraine appears to have made the first step toward such a capability.
Russia is, of course, well aware of this and understands that a robust Ukrainian deep strike capability could create major problems for both ongoing and future plans. It can therefore be expected that Russian officials will soon insist that any peace agreement include Ukrainian disarmament and range restrictions in the missile domain.
Ukraine, however, would be ill-advised to accept such terms and should continue on its path toward becoming the most capable missile power in Europe."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/the-flamingos-have-arrived-what-ukraines
12. Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Always wanted to visit it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e0KVt8Dl6w
13. An interesting non-Western view on geopolitics & the future by a Singaporean business man and establishment elite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tP7QksbJVQ
14. Fascinating discussion on mining-tech. Learned a bunch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q1EN7GXqzI
15. A disturbing discussion around the end of Pax Americana and decline of all of the powers, even China. Basically it's gonna be a chaotic mess over the next decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWsDHd143FM
16. Learning from Lovable, one of the fastest growing companies ever. Growing a business on hard mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkAWWgrr8aI
17. "I wanted to shift into a lighter, more hopeful subject – fashion. I’ve long believed that the fashion sector is a great source of signals about where the world economy is heading. That’s because fashion designers are artists and artists are, as the great poet Ezra Pound put it, “the antennae of the (human) race.” They show us the way into the future.
Maybe that’s what’s happening now. As Pound said in his award-winning Cantos, history is a cycle of cultural flourishing followed by decay and corruption, followed by cultural flourishing. He blamed interest rates (usury) for cultural and moral decay and searched for a new ethical economic order. Pound started his ode to the future by harkening back to the ancient past, through Homer’s Odyssey. Christopher Nolan’s new film of The Odyssey is imminent. Artists like Nolan are epic at foreseeing the future. Was Pound a fascist? A Nazi? A traitor? Yes. He also told us something about the future we are now in, where everybody seems to be accusing everybody else of being a Brown Shirt and a Nazi and a traitor. Pound went mad. The world is going mad today. He wrote, “I cannot make it cohere.” Many of us cannot make it cohere today either. We are in the midst of a philosophical brownout shi*storm.
It’s time to read some poetry and remember that brown shi* is fertilizer. I wonder what will grow out of these times. I don’t think we are toast or cooked. We are renewing our ideas. Our priorities. Our true beliefs. Here are some political poems to help us navigate our way to new ideas about how the world should look. That is the job of the artist – to turn imagination into reality, to turn shi*ty circumstances into art. We are all artists now. Maybe mad artists, but artists, nonetheless. Grab a drink. Squirrel yourself away. Snuggle up to Bowie’s beats. Read The Wasteland and The Cantos. Embrace the brown. Maybe art can help us avoid ending up in a madhouse."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/brownout-signals-art-in-a-world-gone
18. Important to understand the enemy's strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jmlix2NZ3M
19. "But something fundamental has changed.
Many of these processes can be automated, improved, & reimagined. It’s hard for anyone who has been trained for years to work one way & then be asked to do it differently.
Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset has never been more relevant than it is today. Growth mindset developing a mastery through effort, new strategies & collaboration."
https://tomtunguz.com/what-will-you-reinvent-today/
20. "By contrast, digital sectors, like e-commerce and media, rapidly compounded, iterating in code, scaling on cloud and mobile, and sidestepping the frictions of steel, concrete, and regulation. For physical sectors to match that trajectory, we first need a bridge that truly connects bits to atoms.
That bridge is the electro‑industrial stack — the technologies that enable machines to behave like software: minerals and metals processed into advanced components, energy stored in batteries, electrons channeled by power electronics, force delivered by motors and actuators, all orchestrated by software running on high-performance compute.
This is the shift from software that merely summons a taxi to software that takes the wheel. Software ate the world. Now it will move it.
Critically, winning will require treating the stack as a single, integrated system, not a set of disconnected parts. Siloed thinking only shifts bottlenecks. And while it’s not the focus here, powering these technologies will also demand far more generation capacity. Meeting this challenge will take world-class talent, deep operational expertise, and coordinated policy across the value chain — anchored in the United States, and aligned with trusted allies."
https://ryanomics.com/p/the-electro-industrial-stack-will
21. "The point is that, as with other wars the U.S. has fought, it must not underestimate the risks or overestimate its interests. The U.S. has an interest in weakening Russia, but an effective intervention would be massive and vulnerable in several ways. This is why I say the U.S. must calibrate its national interest with the risks it incurs. From my point of view, the Biden-Trump strategy of supplying intelligence and weapons for Ukraine to bleed the Russians and wait for a negotiated end is the only viable strategy and the best way to pursue America’s national interest."
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/calibrating-capability-and-interest-in-ukraine/
22. "In Scheinfeld’s worldview, we live in a holographic simulation that was created by our higher selves as a life story to be experienced. The whole illusion, the whole Story, is powered by the infinite energy of the Author.
The coolest part of Busting Loose is that Scheinfeld says you can manipulate and use the infinite energy that your higher self used to create the simulation.
The book teaches a process that feels like emotional judo: when something in your life triggers you: an invoice, a stomach ache, a passive-aggressive email from a business partner, you focus on the emotion it causes. Not the problem. Not the story. Just the raw emotional texture of it.
Then you amplify the emotion. Kind of like wallowing in a pure swamp of feeling. Then imagine yourself drawing energy out of the illusion around you, like sipping juice from the Matrix through a crazy straw. The emotional energy eventually fades. Your shoulders drop. You’re a metaphysical ghostbuster!"
https://sanjaysays.substack.com/p/i-didnt-want-to-break-free-but-it
23. If you want to understand how the banking and global financial system actually works. This was illuminating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9nSmSvV0K4
24. "[Countries outside the West are] very fertile territory intellectually, culturally, and ideologically [because of their] residual anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-imperial sentiments," says Stephen Hutchings, a professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester.
Russian propaganda, he argues, is also spread smartly: its content is calibrated to cater to specific audiences, even if it means adopting different ideological stances in different regions.
Ultimately, Prof Hutchings believes we should all be concerned about Russian state activities - particularly in the context of the future of the global world order and democracy.
He believes the West is taking its "eye off the ball" by cutting media funding and "leaving the field open to the likes of Russia Today."
"There's a lot to play for and a lot to lose… And Russia is winning ground - but the battle is not lost."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2vr37yd4no
25. "Ukraine has the most advanced drone operations program today, followed by Russia, with the US and China far behind. Experts believe warfare has changed irrevocably, with the drone in the forefront of tactical battlefield changes. That is why Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on June 10th called for "Unleashing America's Drone Dominance." He foresaw a three point program. These were, First, to bolster US drone manufacturing. Second, Hegseth looked for a technological leapfrog" to arm US combat units with a variety of low cost drones and, Third, to improve training for the US military "as we expect to fight in future."
Hegseth's overall proposal, however, did not reform any sector sufficiently to obtain the end result he hoped to achieve. To do that, the US would need to adopt either the Ukrainian or Russian approach to supporting drone operations from the factory to the battlefield.
Both the Ukrainian model and the Russian one share some noteworthy similarities. Both aim at an efficient logistics system to deliver weapons to the battlefield where they are needed, both set up administrative systems to provide tactical information and set up feedback loops to continually adjust both tactics and product performance; and both offer specialized training focused on different drone types, such as FPV drones, unique drones like the Russian Lancet, and methods of intercepting drones. Both experiment aggressively with new tools to move forward literally anything that works, as rapidly as possible."
https://weapons.substack.com/p/the-us-needs-to-take-ukrainian-and
26. "Perhaps the greatest mistake we make when it comes to travel is that we only think of it as fun and relaxed; that it should be an escape. Emil Cioran’s favorite leisure activity was to travel by bicycle around France, exploring the countryside—always making sure to stop by the cemeteries he came across to meditate on death and the meaning of life. Nietzsche spent long stretches traveling through the Swiss Alps and northern Italy. His stays in Sils-Maria weren’t vacation but pilgrimage: he would walk the mountains to wrestle with his thoughts, shaping Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Theodore Roosevelt lost his wife and mother on the same day, and he went to the Dakota Badlands where the harsh frontier rebuilt his toughness; later his River of Doubt expedition in the Amazon nearly killed him but served as a test of will. Herman Melville shipped out as a sailor not to see the world but to confront it, and his voyages through the Pacific islands became existential schooling that fueled Moby-Dick.
These examples showcase how travel can be therapeutic only if it serves a clear and noble purpose; these adventures wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t founded on a mission, project, or spiritual healing process. Mircea Eliade wrote that “reflections make you great, not experiences per se.”
https://vizi.substack.com/p/on-the-decline-of-travel
27. Fascinating conversation here from one of the most original thinkers in VC. Some different views on AI, Crypto, Biotech and Robotics. It's really good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzSbG6DL8CM&t=5480s
28. "If my thesis is correct and stablecoins are part and parcel of Pax Americana’s monetary policy to expand the use of the dollar, the empire will protect US tech giants from local regulator reprisals as they provide dollar banking services to the plebes. And there is nothing any of these governments can do about it. Assuming I got this right, what is the TAM of potential stablecoin deposits from the Global South? The most advanced bloc of countries in the Global South are the BRICS nations.[4] Let’s exclude China because it banned Western social media companies.
The question is what’s the best estimate of local currency bank deposits. I asked Perplexity, and it spat out $4 trillion. I know this might be controversial, but let’s add the Euro-poor-eans to this group that use the euro. I believe the euro is a dead garcon walking as Germany-first then France-first economic policies will splinter the currency union. With the coming capital controls, by the end of the decade the only thing a euro will be useful for is paying the cover charge at Berghain and the table minimum at Shellona. When we add Euro bank deposits of $16.74 trillion, the total comes close to ~$34 trillion up for grabs."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/buffalo-bill
29. The rise of Crypto from one of the biggest winners in the space the last 5 years. Fascinating conversation. Big massive global macro impact here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSToBYLSSew
30. "AI is providing a new tailwind not just to the major infrastructure players but to vendors who supply software that are components of AI. Hyperscalers’ growth rates suggest the effect on some of these adjacent businesses could be dramatic."
https://tomtunguz.com/mdb-earnings-2025-08-27/
31. "From a behavioral science perspective, treats function as classical conditioning mechanisms. Like Pavlov's dogs associating bells with food, we've learned to pair neutral stimuli (difficult tasks, stressful appointments, mundane Mondays) with conditioned responses (lattes, lipsticks, luxury goods).
This learned behavior often begins in childhood. My immigrant parents rewarded academic achievements with small luxuries rather than verbal affirmation, creating a neural pathway between accomplishment and consumption that has shaped my adult reward system. I was neurochemically designed to do hard things followed by material rewards, thus, making me an effective economic instrument and corporate athlete.
But today's Treats Economy operates differently than traditional reward structures. We're witnessing what I call "compensatory consumption"—purchasing small luxuries to offset larger systemic failures. When homeownership feels impossible, we dress our Labubu dolls in designer outfits, living out aspirational fantasies through collectibles. When vacations become unaffordable, we reach for Louis Vuitton's $160 lipstick, echoing Leonard Lauder's famous "Lipstick Index" that correlates cosmetic sales with economic downturns."
https://bosefina.substack.com/p/the-treats-economy
32. The importance of energy in the race for AI & AGI. The critical & overlooked components in industrialization and civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cDHx2_QbPE&t=4s
33. "At home, by every metric, Moscow’s economy is imploding. Though buoyed up by monthly gas and oil sales to India, China and Turkey, shipped by the ‘shadow fleet’ of around 1,400 tankers, whose murky ownership and inclination to turn off their transponders are essential in evading EU sanctions, most Russians are aware their economy is in dire straits.
According to Rosstat, Russia’s own Federal State Statistics Service, GDP has been hovering at one per cent for much of the year due to the deepening wartime mobilisation of industry. In
non-defence sectors, domestic output has slumped: throughout the first half of 2025, production of televisions and washing machines fell by 30 per cent, footwear by 29 per cent and refrigerators by 12 per cent. Huge imports of white goods from China have not reached the Russian public, as the microchips that operate them have been stripped out and repurposed for drones that would be otherwise inoperable due to sanctions. Car production has plunged by 28 per cent, while truck output plummeted by 40 per cent. The building materials sector, particularly of cement, is also in freefall. Russia’s coal industry has just recorded a $3 billion loss as it struggles to cope with the effects of sanctions on exports during three years of war.
In the same period, inflation has been running at ten per cent, with interest rates at a punishing high of 20 and only recently reduced to 18 per cent. To paper over these cracks, Russia is dipping into its National Wealth Fund reserves, but since the start of the 2022 war, roughly half has been spent. Continued drawing at current rates will exhaust the fund in less than two years, when Moscow will have little choice but to raise taxes and increase state borrowing.
Fearing another 1917 moment, more of Russia’s armed service personnel are engaged in monitoring and policing internal dissent than are supporting the war against Ukraine. It has just been revealed that Russian cyber-officials are now systematically restricting access of their citizens to the world wide web, social media abroad and international phone calls. Even though he has no plans to scale back military spending, budgeted at 40 per cent of all federal expense for 2025, this is obviously a war Putin cannot continue to fight forever."
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/russias-reckoning-is-coming/
34. "If the hundreds of companies currently selling “cheap mass” are really selling software-as-a-service, this leads to a conundrum: they cannot all win this race. The military does not need dozens of competing command-and-control systems, nor can they all efficiently be knit together, even through modular open systems. The future is not going to be five primes replaced by 100 contractors or 1000 medium-sized businesses. It will probably just be six or seven primes.
It may be true that neo-defense technology companies are selling important products, but they are also selling a narrative. It is only fair to question a narrative written by those who stand to profit from it. One question is whether the weapons used in Ukraine today are really as useful to the United States as these newer companies say. More important, however, is whether buying those weapons locks the United States into a particular way of fighting. Being skeptical does not make one a Luddite. It makes one prudent, and prudence is no less a war-winning virtue than innovation."
35. Understanding the meta, to understand the global macro and micro. Helpful to decipher what is happening in the world right now.
Your Ego & Startup Reporting for Founders: Fight Your Instincts
As most readers know, I have invested in a lot of early stage startups. The hardest challenge is knowing what is going on with the business you invested in. You are supposed to get a quarterly report even as a minority investor. However, this tends to be pretty haphazard. Most of the time the founder is just way too busy. An interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed for startup reporting, when things are good, you get the report. But when things are going wrong, which is most of the time, the reports start to fall off. And then you don’t hear from them until things get back on track or the company shuts down.
From my conversation, this seems to be what every VC and angel investor faces. This is why so many investors push for board seats so they can understand what is happening and have some sense of control, whether this is reality or not.
Why does this happen? Fear of being judged. I might add, this also tends to be more the case for male founders than female founders. Female founders are much more willing to open up and ask for help. Guy founders just hide and isolate themselves. The ego is our enemy.
And I totally get it. I act this way myself. When things are going wrong, I just hide. I HATE asking for help. But this is so silly & self destructive. Swallow your stupid pride. Everyone needs help at some point in their life. The sooner you realize this, the better.
So you have to fight your own stupid instincts. Don’t hide. The sometimes wise Tai Lopez said it very well:
“When you aren’t making enough money, do not make the mistake of becoming an isolated hermit. Do the opposite – get more extroverted - make more phone calls, post more to social media, set more in-person meetings to close deals.”
You have to act positive and take action, and then surprising things happen. Motion creates emotion. Things start to turn around. So when things are bad, get out there. Start reaching out to people and meet them. Go to events. Do something. Action ALWAYS beats passiveness.
The Rowing Machine Exercise: a Parable for Life
As part of regular workouts, one of my personal trainers has assigned me circuits using the rowing machine. 3-5x sets of 500 meters. Pure cardio and pure physical hell. Cardio is brutal.
So my first approach is to look at the meter and track my progress as I exercise. It’s exhausting and tough, as your brain focuses on how far you are from the goal and how behind you are. After trying this approach and getting demoralized I realized I needed a new approach.
So I figured out it took me about 70 rows to get to 500 meters. So all I did was close my eyes and focus on getting my form right. And surprisingly I got through it pretty fast and enjoyably. Basically when I focused on the process and not the end goal, things became way more smooth and fun.
This is why it’s a good parable of life. Goals are good but put too much focus on it and it feels harder or further away. Focusing and enjoying the inputs and the process helps you get there faster. And this way, it’s more enjoyable.
The Magic of Air Travel
It’s so easy to complain and criticize the airlines, the packed seats, regular flight delays, poor service. But I still find wonder in the entire process.
What other time and experience exists in modern day life like air travel. We literally travel continents in a few hours. One moment you are in America, the next day you are on the other side of the planet in a completely different culture, pace and environment like Japan, Saudi Arabia, Georgia. Seeing new things, meeting new people, eating new foods. Variety is the spice of life.
It’s jarring and invigorating. The regular context switching changes your brain. You get new ideas and you get the look at the world in a completely different light. Think about how amazing and magical this is. Perhaps this is why I still find myself excited about life. Lots of travel tied to interesting work.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 12th, 2025
"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower"-- Albert Camus
One of the most important new companies around. Sophisticated manufacturing for rare earths magnets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2K-g3UpaOE
2. "Cradled between the Tien Shan and Alay mountain ranges, the Fergana Valley stretches across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. It is one of Central Asia's most fertile regions; this lush intermountain basin, irrigated by the Naryn and Kara Darya rivers, has nurtured both crops and culture for centuries. It is also the birthplace of Uzbekistan's celebrated silk, ceramic and fruit production – a veritable holy trinity that forms the backbone of Uzbek culture.
Like much of modern-day Uzbekistan, the Fergana Valley lay along the fabled Silk Road, serving as a conduit for trade, ideas and artistry between China, Persia and the Mediterranean for centuries. In recent years, Uzbekistan has been leaning into its Silk Road roots with an ambitious new tourism drive that is seeing its historical trading hubs of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva developing at breakneck speeds."
3. "For years we incorrectly framed some of these categories as “ESG” or “climate risk.” That was wrong. Instead of investing in Environmental, Social, and Governance, we should be investing in Global Competition and Innovation (GCI). Meeting those other goals is a pyrrhic victory if we don’t maintain our ability to operate in a contested and unstable world where rivals like China are outpacing us in critical domains.
A recent CGCI (Council on Global Competition and Innovation) report makes the stakes crystal clear. While the United States led in 60 of 64 critical technologies in the early 2000s, we now lead in just seven. China leads in 57. From AI and biotech to critical minerals and advanced manufacturing, Beijing has surged ahead — not just in R&D, but in the ability to commercialize, scale, and control global supply chains. The United States, meanwhile, remains dangerously dependent on adversaries for essential goods and technologies."
https://a16z.com/investing-capital-to-defend-the-nation/
4. Continually one of the best conversations to understand what's happening in the B2B Software space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTaf9sBqZwM
5. “The vehicle-mounted missile system is designed for asymmetric warfare,” a member of the 209th Arsenal, identified only as Colonel Su, says in the video, according to a machine translation. “In wartime, we may face enemy air threats in anti-armor missions. We’ve integrated the air-based Hellfire missile into a land-based Hellfire system.”
For Taiwan, the truck-based Hellfire system reflects a larger ongoing debate about the correct mix of traditional high-end military capabilities and more asymmetric ones to challenge the much larger and increasingly advanced PLA. For some time now, U.S. officials have been pressuring Taiwanese authorities to focus more on things like kamikaze drones, which can be acquired in large quantities relatively quickly and cost-effectively, rather than more exquisite assets like main battle tanks and attack helicopters. This has most recently taken the form of a concept commonly referred to as Hellscape, which envisions filling the airspace and waters around the island with huge numbers of uncrewed systems to try to overwhelm invading Chinese forces."
6. Military tech sectors that sound very promising for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3arzsorCc
7. Another good episode if you want to learn about the latest Silicon Valley news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKMFlUaICXs
8. "Most people associate crypto with speculative gamblers who are trading internet money for drugs.
In reality, major publicly traded financial companies are embracing crypto and crushing their earnings reports."
https://codyshirk.com/banking-with-miss-piggy/
9. What a great conversation. Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss' Random Show. Biohacking, tech venture investing, home and self defense, so many timely topics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lxGXwqZTEA&t=3884s
10. "Anton Verkhovodov, a partner at the Dare to Defend Democracy (D3) fund, noted that Ukraine has product know-how: what is created in our country works dozens of times better in real combat conditions than Western developments. Moreover, Ukrainian solutions cost less, and getting feedback and releasing an improved version is much easier and faster.
Developers in Ukraine, Verkhovodov said, often create new doctrines for the use of defense technologies. This all applies to "applied" technologies—drones in various fields of application, electronic warfare (EW), electronic reconnaissance (ER), communications, demining, drone autonomy (swarms, navigation, targeting), software, and combat systems. However, Ukraine lags in more fundamental developments—radars, lasers, new communication tools, and architectures for drones."
11. "Aspirational Ignorance" is the energy policy of most Western countries. Doomberg is always illuminating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxNgK4vNV1g
12. "Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued
an executive order that encourages employer retirement funds to invest a portion of employee contributions in alternative assets like hedge funds, real estate, crypto, and, notably, private equity.
What is private equity, exactly? It’s basically when finance firms swoop in and buy companies or assets — from nursing homes to soccer clubs — and allow others to invest for a piece of the action. The industry is often criticized for extracting profit while running companies into the ground and creating an opaque, less-regulated alternative to public markets.
Nonetheless, it’s grown into a $5.3T behemoth."
https://thehustle.co/originals/how-private-equity-may-affect-your-401k
13. "As always, history provides crucial context to understand where this is going. During electrification from 1880 to 1930, industrial output rose significantly only after grids, generators, and industrial wiring were widely deployed. The invention of the dynamo alone delivered limited economic benefit. AI may follow the same pattern: infrastructure determines value capture, not algorithms or models.
My view is that few people understand this. Today's AI leaders behave like software evangelists when they should study infrastructure masters. As I'll discuss later in this essay, the real models for AI dominance are not Silicon Valley's startup wizards, but the infrastructure builders who created the monopolies and networks that defined earlier technological eras. These masters—from telecommunications to utilities to cable to e-commerce—understood what today's AI leaders miss: in capital-intensive networked businesses, infrastructure dominance beats technical superiority.
History offers a warning. When Google began building its own data centres in 2005, it assumed software excellence would automatically translate into infrastructure mastery. It didn’t. Cooling systems, power distribution, and physical security posed entirely different challenges. Google had to hire experts from traditional industries—power generation, real estate, industrial cooling—to make the centres work. Today’s AI race faces a similar discovery: excellence in one layer does not guarantee control over the stack."
https://www.driftsignal.com/p/ai-depends-on-more-than-software
14. A top episode on some very important recent topics, AI, Nvidia & Bitcoin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Vc-NabSb8&t=2382s
15. "Taiwan is on everyone's lips and always at the center of global conflicts. A handful of factories in Hsinchu, Tainan, and Taichung decide whether data centers roll out new AI models, whether defense electronics work, and whether the global hunger for data can still be satisfied. In these clean rooms, the world's most advanced logic chips are manufactured, packaged, and installed in servers—a nervous system that thrives on designs from American companies, depends on Dutch tools, and ultimately converges in Taiwan. Without this chain, there would be no “Blackwell” era at Nvidia, no mass inference, no next wave of generative industrial software.
The political-economic punchline: both major powers—the US and China—are simultaneously dependent on Taiwan and eager to reduce that dependence. The question that arises is: will the battle for semiconductors, packaging capacity, and standards escalate into a heated conflict, or will it remain—for now—a war of tariffs, embargoes, and naval exercises?"
https://getsuperintel.com/p/ai-geopolitics-36c076f3d9dd7887
16. "I see neither a collapse of Ukrainian forces nor a loss of Russian offensive capability before year-end. Ukraine's best case is maintaining current defensive lines while building up reserves. The supply lines now function mainly through air and ground drones. The question is who will win this struggle for dominance in drone warfare in the low altitudes of airspace. Whoever wins this contest could have a major advantage in the war's further course. I wouldn't recommend counterattacks or offensives—Ukraine should focus on inflicting maximum losses on Russia while minimizing their own."
https://thehundred.substack.com/p/interview-why-ukraine-is-struggling
17. This is one of the best personal finance and personal development interviews I've listened to in a while. Recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz35xiX0SYE&t=2430s
18. "Once you accept that this is the future, you need to be careful about who you associated with. Over the long-term the world gets divided into life’s winners and life’s losers. Sounds harsh because it is.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a nerd, a jock, a combo of the two, a real estate developer, a software developer etc. The world eventually just gets shaken down into two people: 1) improving over time and 2) falling further behind. The nuances are hard to spot but we’ll try to do exactly that in this post.
Once you’ve trained your 6th sense of finding winners/losers in life? It’s time to ruthlessly cut the fat and aggressively hang out more with the winners. The cliche saying is true. You are the average of the 5 people you speak to most."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/winners-vs-losers-the-only-filter
19. "Afterall after 3.5 years Ukrainians have proven able to fight to a standstill a much superior military power, Russia, that on paper at least is multiples more powerful in terms of manpower and kit. And the fact has been that Ukraine has survived this long after being only drip fed only 3rd and fourth generation Western military kit. So the idea is if Ukraine, like Israel, was assured of the top of the range Western military kit - think of F35s et al - it would be more than able to deter Russia from future attack. It also adds the advantage of providing a front line defence for the rest of Europe.
Now combining the State of Israel defence with support from the COW (Coalition of the Willing), the idea I think is that the COW provides a backstop in terms of training and support services, but not front line boots on the ground, in the event of attack by Russia. COW provides training, intelligence and equipment for Ukraine, but Ukraine would do the fighting. The COW in effect provides a multiplier effect for Ukraine’s own arms forces. And particularly for European members of the COW the big advantage in that in investing in making the Ukrainian armed forces more effective, i.e. and more able to stand up and against Russia, they actually are investing in their own defence as obviously Ukraine is the front line for them against Russia."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/a-state-of-israel-type-security-guarantee
20. Great book recommendation for B2B Marketers.
21. I don't always agree or like the assessments here but reality is reality. Good to have your narratives challenged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOM68g0f3_M
22. The battle for Global Domination. Geopolitics and world building.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWdDFglK20g
23. This is a smart guy. Neros: Building America's military drone industry for the warfighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OcRUMxAiY
24. "The United States faces a shortage of high-IQ workers, yet instead of treating international talent as resource, every immigrant is cast as a threat. Today, it can take months to years just to get an interview to visit the US. At the same time, we are deporting international students, making them feel unwelcome, cutting research funding, and, as a result, losing ground in the competition for academic talent.
Attracting global talent is not China’s strength—the world’s best would rather join the United States. But if America abandons the openness that has long underpinned its exceptionalism, it will squander one of its biggest advantages and decline into a second-rate power."
25. An insightful discussion on China and its economy and innovation. This is an important interview. Every American should listen to this. We are behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3yAVZk3tyA
26. The clock is ticking. 36 months to make it. Time to get locked in.
This is a must watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve1L21l1GW4
27. The art of doing preseed and seed deals as a small fund. It's really an art. Learned a bunch. Recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM_HiQavFdA&t=8s
28. Some recent topics: SChamath's SPAC is back, Intel & South Park Billionaires. This was good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykx4yBevzdk
29. "On February 3, just a few days into his second term, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the creation of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund. The usual rationale for a sovereign wealth fund—investing foreign currency surpluses generated from exports—does not apply in a country with large, chronic trade deficits and more than $30 trillion of debt. But if used to finance scale production across a broad portfolio of strategic sectors, the fund could be an essential vehicle for promoting reindustrialization and economic growth.
As I wrote in the Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook, private sector investment hurdle rates (the minimum returns sought in an investment) are often well in excess of both firms’ cost of capital and the expected returns in capital-intensive strategic sectors—particularly those sectors subsidized by other countries’ industrial policies. Government interventions are therefore necessary to “crowd in” private capital, either through providing extra leverage for private investments or de-risking projects to make lower returns attractive to investors."
https://www.commonplace.org/p/how-a-sovereign-wealth-fund-could
30. The best weekly show on B2B VC and business topics. Catches the zeitgeist very well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5AZ6bt_r8
31. "T.X. Hammes, an autonomous weapons expert and Atlantic Council fellow, said the Navy is in uncharted waters, trying to overhaul decades of tradition at high speed.
"You’ve got a system that’s used to building big things, taking years to make a decision, and now suddenly you’re asking them to move fast," he said."
32. One of the most important new companies to be established in America. General Matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2y5Lem4tI
33. A major supporter of Ukraine but Dark Star is one of the first purely defense focused VC fund in Europe.
He is right, are you truly a defense tech investor if you aren't in Ukraine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HZzuo8acE&t=6s
34. A must watch to understand what is happening on global macro side. Basically stocks, Bitcoin and gold will be what save your portfolio. Makes sense to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOPc2itEXbQ&t=1115s
35. Learning from history. Implications of the end of this debt cycle. Global macro at its finest.A flight to hard assets.
You Can Just Do Things: Being High Agency
Most people probably don’t know I spent a stint as Chairman of North Macedonia Fund of Innovation and Technology Development in 2021 to 2024. I got to spend a bunch of time there and it was an interesting experience. I met lots of young smart kids. Most of them talked about just following academic paths, doing Master, PhD etc. I was like, “Hey you have the whole world. You can go to the EU. You can start a company. Move to a new job.”
But what was weird was despite their smartness, they all seemed like they were trapped or resigned to the limited opportunities in the region. This is exactly the problem with my experience with folks in Canada and UK/EU at large, everyone just seems to accept the situation. Actually worse than that, they accept it and also whine and complain about it.
This is why it’s so important to watch this great interview with George Mack on “High Agency” people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVl5FLRuGXI. People who think for themselves, who don’t wait for others and take action. People who happen to life, life does not happen to them. These literally are the people who move the world forward. The most accomplished and usually happiest too. This should be ALL of us. “You can just do things” as they say. Love this saying.
And to further dig into this, I went to Grok to see where “You can Just do Things” meant and came from.
“The phrase "you can just do things" has emerged as a motivational mantra, particularly in Silicon Valley and tech/entrepreneurial circles, gaining traction around 2023-2024. It encapsulates a mindset of taking action without overthinking barriers, often likened to Nike’s “Just Do It” but tailored to a tech-savvy, startup-driven audience.
Its exact origin is murky, but it’s closely associated with indie hacker Pieter Levels, who embodies this philosophy through his prolific solo software projects and public posts on X about building and launching ventures with minimal hesitation.”
Grok goes on to elaborate:
“The phrase "you can just do things" is a motivational call to action, emphasizing that you don’t need permission, extensive resources, or perfect conditions to start pursuing your goals. It encourages a mindset of initiative, experimentation, and resilience, particularly in creative, entrepreneurial, or personal endeavors.
Rooted in tech and startup culture, it suggests that barriers like fear of failure, lack of expertise, or societal norms are often less restrictive than they seem. Instead of overplanning or waiting for ideal circumstances, you can take immediate, practical steps toward your objectives.
Key ideas behind the phrase:
Action over hesitation: Start now, even with small or imperfect steps.
Empowerment: You have more agency than you might think to create, build, or change things.
Iterative progress: Doing something—anything—gets you closer to your goal through learning and refining.
Defying constraints: Many limitations (bureaucracy, credentials, funding) are navigable with creativity and persistence.
This is a good way to think about life. Do things with “minimal hesitation.” Overthinking is a curse for many smart and educated people. It’s also why they accomplish nothing. Grok does give some great tactical suggestions which I highlight below.
“To apply this mindset, follow these steps tailored to your goals, whether they’re entrepreneurial, creative, personal, or otherwise:
Identify a Goal or Idea:
Pinpoint something you want to achieve, like starting a side hustle, learning a skill, launching a project, or even making a lifestyle change.
Example: You want to create a simple mobile app or start a blog.
Break It Down to a First Action:
Find the smallest, most immediate step you can take without needing special resources or approval.
Example: For an app, sketch a basic idea or watch a free YouTube tutorial on coding. For a blog, write a single post or set up a free website on a platform like WordPress.
Start Immediately:
Take that first step today, even if it’s rough or small. The goal is momentum, not perfection.
Example: Spend 30 minutes researching or creating a rough draft. Pieter Levels often emphasizes starting with “day one” actions, like coding a basic feature.
Embrace Imperfection:
Accept that your first attempt might be flawed. The phrase encourages “shipping” (releasing or sharing) early to learn from real-world feedback.
Example: Publish your blog post even if it’s not polished, or share a prototype with a few friends for input.
Iterate Based on Feedback:
Use what you learn from your initial action to improve. Adjust, build, or pivot as needed.
Example: If your app gets user complaints about a feature, tweak it. If your blog post doesn’t resonate, try a different topic or style.
Overcome Mental Barriers:
When you feel stuck or doubt yourself, repeat “you can just do things” to counter excuses like “I’m not qualified” or “I need more time/money.”
Example: If you think you need a degree to start a business, research successful founders who didn’t have one, or test your idea with a low-cost experiment.
Leverage Available Tools:
Use free or low-cost resources to keep moving forward. Today’s tech landscape (e.g., no-code platforms, social media, AI tools) makes starting easier than ever.
Example: Use Bubble or Glide for app development without coding, or post about your project on X to find collaborators or feedback.
Build a Habit of Action:
Make “just doing things” a daily practice. Set small, achievable tasks to maintain momentum.
Example: Commit to one hour a day on your project, or post weekly updates on X to stay accountable.
Practical Examples
Entrepreneurial: Want to sell a product? Create a basic landing page with Carrd, list it on Gumroad, and share it on X to gauge interest—all in a day.
Creative: Dream of writing a novel? Write 200 words today, even if they’re messy, and share a snippet with a friend for feedback.
Personal: Want to get fit? Do a 10-minute YouTube workout now, no gym required, and schedule another for tomorrow.
Career: Interested in a new field? Take a free Coursera course or email someone in that industry for a quick chat, rather than waiting for a “perfect” entry point.
Tips for Success
Stay Curious: Treat failures as learning opportunities. Each step teaches you something.
Connect with Others: Share your progress on platforms like X to find support, advice, or collaborators. The phrase gained traction partly through such communities.
Set Micro-Goals: Big goals feel daunting, so focus on what you can do in the next hour or day.
Reflect Regularly: Periodically assess what’s working or not, as the 2024 Medium writer did when tying the phrase to their year-end project review.
Cautions
Balance Action with Planning: While the phrase pushes action, reckless moves (e.g., quitting a job without a plan) can backfire. Take calculated risks.
Avoid Burnout: Constant action without rest can lead to exhaustion. Pace yourself.
Context Matters: As seen in the 2025 Current Affairs article, the phrase can be co-opted for questionable causes (e.g., political extremism). Ensure your actions align with your values.
By internalizing “you can just do things,” you shift from waiting for permission to creating your own opportunities.”
Living is about being active, not passive. So Be ACTIVE. You literally can just do things.
The Path to Happiness is Being material Asset-Lite
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take the family up to Whistler Blackcomb mountain for a family trip. Part of reconciliation. It was beautiful up there. My family had a fun time skiing while I worked at the hotel.
We packed light and rented everything. Took the shuttle bus up there from the airport, and pretty much worried about nothing. Didn’t have to carry heavy ski equipment around. It was great.
Ski trips with equipment, ski passes and everything are damn expensive. Monetarily and for your piece of mind. For your soul even. It always was in some ways but more so now. I never could have afforded this 15 years ago. How grateful I am to be here.
But the main insight, besides the fact that having money really matters, was that most of the things we were told we needed to own aka assets turned out to be liabilities. Your house. Your car. Ski equipment. Most of the material things you own. Most of these things can be rented as needed. Ownership is a trap.
And I think many young people grok this already. Rent and own as little as you need. A bare amount of clothes, a laptop, phone, gear, guns, weapons and bullets as an exception. Everything else should be put in real assets like investments in real estate, stocks, crypto, bonds, gold and even cash. The real ownership you should focus on is ownership ie. Equity in businesses. Cash flowing businesses or Silicon Valley growth ones. The more the better. Net net: Stack real assets, not fake ones.
Then use these assets to fund the lifestyle you and your family truly want. This is the way. Be material asset-lite but investment asset heavy. Seems obvious but this is clearly not how most people actually live.
The Brutal American: Custom Made for the Chaotic and Rough Times We are In
“Donald Trump and J. D. Vance have created a brand new stereotype for America: Not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American,” @anneapplebaum wrote in the Atlantic (Source: https://x.com/TheAtlantic/status/1903722178463273263).
I believe she meant this as an insult. The irony is that this is being held up as a good thing by many Americans. I saw many follow on tweets with many frankly iconic American images of soldiers, tough movie stars or professional fighters with the comment: “Stop making us sound cool.” Very funny. But there is something to this.
Our enemies are on the rise. The CCP, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, are ruthless and brutal. To beat them, we need to be ruthless and brutal too. Soft power is fine but it’s worthless without being backed up by hard power.
Quoting @chilvaryguild: “you can count on your enemies to be cunning, committed, opportunistic, and brutal. You need to be preparing in every way possible. Half-heartedness stands no chance against these guys.”
(Source: https://x.com/ChivalryGuild/status/1904260609148866628)
Just look at most of the countries of European Union and Canada. No one takes them seriously despite their wealth. Having a limited military has not done them well at all. They cannot be counted on. I’ve said this before, the world is very cruel to the weak.
So here we are: “The Brutal American”. This is unfortunately what is needed to win in this new ugly competitive multipolar world. Losing is not an option.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Oct 5th, 2025
"Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance." —Epicurus
The K-shaped economy. Another great interview on the art of investing. This time from a distressed asset perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7E9euLwWtE
2. A timely discussion on China's military threat to Taiwan, real or not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cY9UeyxStQ
3. Battery wars, electric tech stack is critical for the future. China is kicking our ass right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B9bh29wAb4
4. Know thy enemy. The CCP's PLA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz7zEaz4Olg
5. "The fact that the Russians probably have no territorial designs on Western Europe actually makes things more difficult, not less. If a conventional military confrontation were likely, then states like Poland and Rumania could build up their forces a little, and have limited contingents from other countries on their soil. But even then, it’s clear from the Ukraine experience that the Russians would simply use their superiority in missiles and drones to destroy western forces, together with their headquarters, logistic and repair depots, transport systems and government structures, without any risk of reprisal.
But that’s not the problem: a weak and divided collection of countries with very different strategic situations and priorities, sitting at varying distances from a major military power, is going to have to find some way of preserving as much of their freedom of political manoeuvre as possible. Yet this is almost certainly going to be on a national, or at least multilateral, basis, simply because the situations are so different. In this context, we’re not talking about war, but the use of military forces as cards on the table in any political bargaining, and every state will have a different collection of cards. Some may have none.
So for countries bordering Russia, or near it, building up ground forces somewhat, and preparing defensive fortifications could make sense as a gesture supporting political independence. It’s hard to see, though, why Belgium or Portugal should do the same. Countries further away will want to invest in assets to patrol their air and maritime borders: again, not to fight, but to provide visible indications of sovereignty. The British and French nuclear systems—perhaps the only genuinely powerful political factors in European defence—are going to have to play a rather different kind of role in the future, but at the moment we can’t say what that will be.
It’s hard to see any of this being centrally organised, or indeed organised at all. Some small countries will drift towards an accommodation with Russia because they see it as in their best interests. Others will try to preserve more independence, perhaps through ad hoc alliances. NATO, and to an extent the EU, will become ghost organisations, increasingly cut off from the real security questions that will be increasingly re-nationalised.
Such a transition will be enormously difficult and dangerous, and there will be furious resistance to it by those unwilling to leave fantasy land. The conviction that if you only make the money available everything can be bought will take a long time to disappear, as will parallel fantasies of re-industrialisation and rearmament. The fact that the US and European armaments industries simply can’t produce what might be needed, though obvious enough, will still come as a terrible shock."
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/it-gets-worse
6. "If you’ve been struggling to raise for a CapEx-heavy startup — you’re not crazy. The structure is broken, not your vision (most of the time).
There’s over $100B in non-dilutive capital sitting on the sidelines — ready to fund the next generation of industrial startups.
But most of it never reaches the builders who need it most.
Why?
Because we’re still asking capital-intensive startups to fund infrastructure, equipment, and factory buildouts with high-cost venture equity — even when they have real, financeable assets."
https://adastracapital.substack.com/p/stop-using-equity-to-buy-steel-unlocking
7. "Bryan urged the DoD to shift its mindset from being an industrial provider that designs, builds, and operates major systems to acting as a customer leveraging services from multiple sources. This transition would enable the DoD to operate its enterprise more effectively by integrating diverse, industry-provided capabilities."
https://defenseacquisition.substack.com/p/military-capabilities-as-a-service
8. A fun and really interesting episode of NIA this week. Lots of topical subjects discussed in cultural & creative businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk8wExXONWw
9. Lots of topical subjects this week in Silicon Valley. Excellent takes and educational views here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chulY4futpI
10. 100 Year Pivot. Geopolitics, the end of trust & the rise of Gold and BRICs. Direction of travel is moving away from the USD system in the long run by most central banks in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGgk1Je7bI
11. "On the front line things have stabilised. Ukraine’s manpower shortages are being fillled to an extent by the use of drones. But both sides are now engaged in a longer term battle for military industrial/tech domination. Who can outproduce the other in drones and long range missiles - tanks, and men count less.
Russia is using longer range missile and drone attacks to degrade Ukraine’s military industrial complex. Both sides are awaiting the invent of a war defining technology that can deliver the knock out blow to the other. Neither has this yet, but one could, and we are seeing really rapid technological advance.
Europe could step up and outgun/out-tech Russia, but it is still making progress at a glacial pace. Given the long term threat from Russia they should be working overtime to dovetail their military industrial production and military tech innovation with Ukraine, but they are not doing enough. That’s a lack of leadership and strategic perspective.
The two sides are miles apart in terms of their perspectives: Putin wants the end of
Ukraine as an independent entity, and that’s obviously existential for Zelensky and Ukraine. Hard to see where the compromise is."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-dont-hold-your-breath-on
12. "As technology erodes the value of human labor, whole industries have begun treating us more like livestock. We are fattened on processed calories, churned through the parasitic healthcare system, and our attention is stripmined by addictive dopamine loops that sell us to advertisers. Financial desperation funnels us into the digital casinos of stocks, options, crypto, and sports books, while the epidemic of loneliness is monetized by algorithmic brothels flooding us with onlyfans and pornography.
Like the surplus horses after the rise of the automobile, today’s surplus humans are being recycled by the capitalist system in a form of livestock economics. We are metaphorically being ground into meat, boiled into glue, and canned into dog food.
Yarvin is right in that the calculus of power is shifting from that of egalitarianism to that of hierarchy. As technocapital sidelines human labor, the incentive to give ordinary people political power disappears. The open question now is how a system handles a growing class of humans it no longer needs. Rising surveillance, algorithmic bread and circuses, and universal basic income all point to a likely strategy of pacification, not empowerment. When liberty aligned with increased labor, freedom made economic sense. Now that human labor is increasingly redundant, system may begin to seek cheaper tools for controlling a surplus class whose labor and, by extension, political voice, is no longer necessary for the technocapital machine. And so a power struggle looms on the horizon…"
https://www.scimitar.capital/p/state-of-the-machine
13. Catching up on NIA but this is always good. Wide ranging view from the edge of the internet and the creative world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDDHoS-MNQ0
14. Crazy times on the edge of the internet. Crypto news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvUkHcB6jF0&t=485s
15. "To achieve that standard, supply and demand must be precisely balanced—too much electricity can be just as problematic as too little. A baseload power source is one that operates 24/7 at a steady, predictable output. A dispatchable source, by contrast, can be ramped up or down quickly to match fluctuations in demand.
Coal and nuclear are classic examples of baseload power, but they are not ideal for dispatchable use due to their slow ramp rates. Natural gas and impoundment hydroelectric plants, however, are typically both baseload and highly dispatchable, capable of adjusting output within minutes. Battery backup systems are dispatchable but not baseload, as they can respond quickly but cannot sustain output for extended periods without recharging. Intermittent renewables like wind and solar, both dependent on weather conditions rather than demand, are neither baseload nor reliably dispatchable.
Once these fundamental truths are understood, two things become clear. First, the ideal grid is built on a solid foundation of cheap baseload power, supplemented by highly dispatchable sources to manage fluctuations in demand. Second, a grid composed solely of solar, wind, and batteries is preposterous on its face—the volume of batteries required to provide baseload power for days or weeks at a time borders on the absurd. This is why no such system has ever been piloted at a reasonable scale: the moment it is, the flaws would become immediately and fatally obvious.
Which brings us to Australia. Over the past two decades, the country has systematically been replacing its baseload capacity with intermittent solar and wind, without meaningfully increasing its dispatchable capacity. Indeed, natural gas-based generation has been steadily declining in share. When intermittency overwhelms dispatchability, things begin to break. Armed with just this chart, an analyst with no more training than what’s been presented in this article can clearly see that a dangerous threshold has been crossed."
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/the-exception-that-proves-the-rule-7fb
16. "The modern breach is compounded by pervasive and cheap ISR techniques from roadside cameras connected to Wi-Fi for early warning to overhead satellite constellations. And while these systems can be spoofed, degraded, and deceived, it’s a constant battle to poke out the enemy’s eyes while protecting yours. So you have to add even more planning and additional enabling elements to your breach. More subtasks in your operation means more things that can go wrong or threaten the operation by giving away the target.
Let’s not forget about the proliferation of precision fires from one-way attack drones armed with collection mechanisms and warheads so they can pass back intelligence to the second and third waves of strikes before they identify and strike their priority targets. This all makes breaching that much more costly and the breach site even more deadly, demanding more and more resources from the attacking force.
This is why both Ukraine and NATO nations (including the US) are researching and testing autonomous systems specifically for the combined arms breach. If we can perfect the equation for cost x mass x efficiency for autonomous systems in the breach then we can successfully restore the attacking force advantage. And as an expeditionary force, the US Army favors the attack and maneuver, rather than planning for heavy, slow attrition in the offense (defense is a different story and for another article.)"
https://www.breakingbeijing.com/p/into-the-breach
17. "If you have a world in which everyone is encouraged to be a total individualist, they tend to get trapped in that mindset. It’s wonderful when things are going well, because you, your own desires and thoughts are the centre of the world. But the moment things go wrong, you retreat into yourself. And the only thing you can trust is your own ideas. You come to believe in them intensely, because that’s the only thing that makes you feel safe. And I think that’s where we are now."
18. “European companies bring strengths in manufacturing and scaling; Ukrainian companies bring battlefield innovation and speed,” says Fedorov. “Together, we can deliver game-changing capabilities.”
For Kyiv, the program is a strategic breakthrough—a bridge between Ukraine’s frontline ingenuity and Europe’s defense procurement systems. Ukrainian tech will be integrated into the European market, co-developed, co-funded, and co-owned.
“Ukraine is definitely the new Silicon Valley for defense tech,” says Romaniukov. “We have a truly unique experience, and it would be a crime not to use this advantage and develop it.
Whether Ukraine becomes the “next Silicon Valley” for defence technology is still an open question, but the pieces are falling into place. The war has forged an ecosystem where necessity drives invention, investors are engaged, and the output is tested in the most demanding environment on Earth. Given the trajectory, it may be less a question of if than when.”
https://united24media.com/business/is-ukraine-becoming-the-silicon-valley-of-defense-tech-10494
19. "This is something we have written about before on our Substack, when we looked at the consumer market size in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. For this letter, we wanted to take a top-down perspective on some of the sectors in Central Asia that we believe have the capacity to support multiple venture scale startups.
In a region where the majority of the economy is still early in its digitalisation and inefficiencies continue to plague the day-to-day lives of businesses and consumers, we hope that this letter will serve both to demonstrate the scale of the opportunities for prospective investors as well as to serve as a call for founders who are building or plan to build in these sectors to speak with Sturgeon.
Specifically, we are going to look at the following sectors: financial services; natural resources; logistics; agriculture; and SMEs. Others we considered were auto, real estate, healthcare and education."
https://sturgeoncapital.substack.com/p/key-sectors-on-the-silk-road
20. "In any realm of endeavor where you think short term and focus on immediate returns at the cost of long term returns, you will end up being mediocre. To get ahead you have to think about the future now and steer your ship with that in mind."
https://lifemathmoney.com/always-think-5-10-years-ahead/
21. "These conditions create a situation that resembles Nassim Taleb’s Barbell Strategy.
We increasingly have a world split between young people 1) forgoing college to pursue the trades or 2) gambling everything on digital moon shots.
Taleb writes that the barbell strategy is a “method that consists of taking both a defensive attitude and an excessively aggressive one at the same time.” Here, we see people doing maybe one or the other. The barbell economy creates its own culture:
Safety seekers: Those skipping college debt to pursue trades, finding identity in stability amid chaos. The toolbelt generation is choosing steady work over uncertain professional paths.
Digital gamblers: Those embracing the creator economy, crypto speculation, and AI startup moon shots. Finding identity in potential rather than stability.
Young people aren’t broken. They’re adapting to a world that’s fundamentally different from the one their parents knew. But their parents aren’t wrong either for feeling like the ground has shifted beneath their feet. The attention economy has created new forms of value and new pathways to wealth. The old ways of understanding ourselves and one another are straining to keep up.
The attention economy isn’t going anywhere. It’s too powerful, too integrated into how value gets created now. It’s a system, though, and systems can be changed."
https://www.profgalloway.com/the-attention-economy-and-young-people/
22. A fun discussion here. Wide ranging takes on Silicon Valley news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y-WZqsAlE
23. If you want to understand how banks work, how the economy works and thus why the world is the way it is. I hate Tucker but this was a great interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StTKHskg5Tg
24. "It was a stark warning from a man whose journey from besuited grain trader to bearded talisman of Ukraine’s defense is a powerful symbol of the way Kyiv has harnessed ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit to hold off a relentless onslaught from one of the biggest armies in the world. NATO is woefully unprepared for similar attacks, he said.
“We’ve already crossed the threshold of 400 drones [attacking Ukraine] per day,” he told the LANDEURO conference. “I don’t know of a single NATO country capable of defending its cities if faced with 200-300 Shaheds every day, seven days a week. Your national security urgently requires a strategic reassessment.”
Brovdi, who started as a conscript, was appointed as commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces in June, capping a remarkable rise. Swashbuckling, plain-spoken and with a controversial past, he is emblematic of a new generation of social media-savvy, nonconformist commanders rising to senior positions as Ukraine’s military attempts to rid itself of the stultifying habits of the Soviet era.
Ukraine’s drone units make up 2% of personnel but account for one-third of enemy casualties, Brovdi told his audience at the conference in Wiesbaden. His units now focus on hitting the drone operators who have made life so hard for Ukrainians on the frontline.
More broadly, he says drones must aim to kill or wound as many Russian troops as are deployed in Ukraine each month — a number estimated at 35,000. This can be achieved by creating a deep “kill zone” between the frontline and traditionally safer rear areas."
https://cepa.org/article/ukraines-new-drone-boss-and-the-kill-zone/
25. Always frank, I disagree with his take on Ukraine but agree with everything he says about America, about the useless oil sanctions, braindead European energy policy, Western arrogance and China's dominance in key industries seems spot on.
Recognizing reality is needed for smart geopolitical moves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YncOunP4GSQ&t=29s
26. "Andy Grove, the first employee at Intel and its third CEO, disagreed with this belief. In 2010, Grove explained in hindsight the damage this type of offshoring did: “We broke the chain of experience that is so important in technological evolution… Abandoning today’s ‘commodity’ manufacturing can lock [us] out of tomorrow’s emerging industry.”
For the first two decades of the 21st century, most American companies didn’t see dependence on TSMC for the majority of semiconductor fabrication as a problem. But chip shortages from COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions in 2021 and the frenzy for AI chips after 2022 have changed the prevailing opinion. Suddenly, everyone realized it was a problem important enough to be considered a national priority.
The history of the semiconductor is the history of the United States. From inventor, to manufacturer, to consumer, to hostage. The US has had a complex relationship with the semiconductor industry historically. Going forward, it will remain the single most important building block upon which American technological independence will live or die. The only solution to dig ourselves out of our current vulnerabilities is by building an American Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ASMC) from the existing Intel Foundry business."
https://research.contrary.com/deep-dive/building-an-american-tsmc
27. "Riding the flows of the frontiers requires being flow with the leading researchers and practitioners. Getting flow from as many legit people as possible is the grind it takes to distill your own perspective on what is real and what is not. Getting flow from other VCs (particularly the bottom 75%) is akin to the childhood telephone game where any signal is quickly muddied by incoherent noise of people badly regurgitating what they heard and pumping their own bag.
Being ubiquitous across the correct information flow is a 24/7 game. Those who get a bit too rich and a bit too lazy are very quickly left behind. I won’t name names, but many of the top GPs who gained notoriety 5-10 years ago are out; they can't keep up on the technicals, are no longer relevant, and just aren't tapped in. I’ll give you a hint: today’s best are tapped into the AI research community.
So your job is to ride with the right people pursuing the right trends at the right time. And knowing who the right people, right trends, and right time is all about how smart you are, how fast you can learn, and developing intellectual taste. The best VCs will help put you on trend (but you as a founder should already be there).
If we aggregate the five variable attributes as defined above, the formula for vc goodness can be defined as follows:
VC goodness == game x insight x speed x vibe x aura
Founders: measure your VC against my formula. VCs: work on your stats against my five attributes."
https://www.geoffreywoo.com/what-is-a-good-vc/
28. The world through data and the cold eyes of energy and industry. Doomberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmnQleZgnzc&t=306s
29. This seems like a holdover from Soviet military times. I hope AFU command is learning from this, hence the drone wall initiative.
"Ukrainian defenders will hold on to a location as Russian forces flank them like a pincer. You'd expect the pincer to close, or for the Ukraininan defenders to retreat before that can happen. But something more curious happens. The Russians forces appear to have no great appetite for taking the territory. Instead, the pincers extend, leaving the Ukrainian defenders in what is now called an "impossible salient." But as Defense Politics Asia says..."Impossible salient is impossible." At some point, you realize the guys in there are dead. Or as good as dead.
This happened again and again. Bakhmut. Adiivka. Chasiv Yar. I think Pokrovsk soon. It takes the Russians absolutely AGES to take each town. Ukrainians boast "yeah, we've turned them into killboxes...meatgrinders for the Russians." Excuse me. If you are the ones INSIDE the impossible salient, you are the one that's being killboxed. If you're the one who don't get the command to retreat before retreat becomes impossible, you are the meat inside the meatgrinder."
https://taipology.substack.com/p/war-in-our-time
30. “It has become high status to invest in manufacturing,” Christian Garrett, a partner on the investment team at 137 Ventures, noted at a fried-chicken-filled after-party downtown. Mr. Garrett said the factories that deals coming out of the conference would build would also create high-tech, “high status” jobs for blue-collar workers.
Speaker after speaker emphasized that military power flows from industrial power, which they said had been eroded by the offshoring of factories and an overemphasis on software, apps and financial products.
From the welcome by Chris Power, chief executive of Hadrian, a defense manufacturing start-up, to remarks by senior administration officials, the speeches drove home a single theme: Maintaining the country’s superpower status requires regaining the ability to produce physical goods at scale."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/manufacturing-tech-trump-reindustrialize.html?smid=li-share#
31. The critical importance of rare earths and the dangerous dependence on China for these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qlz4ITakkM
32. Glad to see the US military is finally learning from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is job one. Big doctrine change is needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clvzFWa9VSE
33. "Now we operate exclusively with one gun from hidden positions. This happened for two reasons.
The first is thanks to our reconnaissance drones, which allow pinpoint targeting.
The second is that enemy FPVs and Lancet drones are constantly on the hunt for our equipment and responding to clusters of forces.
Who's winning artillery duels these days?
I'd say we are, because our counter-battery operations rely on high-precision weapons, like American HIMARS. It's also about good intelligence, especially satellite-based. On top of that, we've got lots of other tools, like various types of surveillance cameras, acoustic sensors and American counter-battery radars.
Often it's enough to detect a muzzle flash, then you can roughly locate the enemy's firing position, gather more intelligence and strike it with precision-guided weapons.
In contrast, the backbone of Russian counter-battery efforts is the Lancet drone. But a Lancet hit doesn't necessarily mean the artillery system is destroyed. Many howitzers are repaired and eventually return to the battlefield."
34. "There's something annoying about the obstinate that's not simply due to being mistaken. They won't listen. And that's not true of all determined people. I can't think of anyone more determined than the Collison brothers, and when you point out a problem to them, they not only listen, but listen with an almost predatory intensity. Is there a hole in the bottom of their boat? Probably not, but if there is, they want to know about it.
It's the same with most successful people. They're never more engaged than when you disagree with them. Whereas the obstinate don't want to hear you. When you point out problems, their eyes glaze over, and their replies sound like ideologues talking about matters of doctrine.
The persistent are attached to the goal. The obstinate are attached to their ideas about how to reach it."
https://paulgraham.com/persistence.html
35. "All of this made me wonder about competition in AI and where exception handling comes into play. If AI automates more and more tasks, most of that capability should be available to everyone in the industry. A thesis of mine for a long time has been that AI will commoditize all sorts of things as it makes expertise, automation, and assistance more widely available. What if the differentiator becomes - how do you handle the exceptions to AI?"
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/can-ai-exception-handling-be-the
36. "If you are storing the majority of your wealth in Fiat, you will lose long-term. While everyone needs money to spend, the goal is to be an asset accumulator. This means: stocks, real estate, crypto, wifi businesses, etc. Anything that goes up in value of the long-term. Assets, assets, assets!
The second step is the *most* important and the hardest to get through mentally. You must become a business owner or at least an equity builder. If you try to make it with a W-2… those days are long-gone. $400,000 for a doctor in 2000 was real money, in 2025… it is not real money in major cities with a family. Times have changed. Things don’t go back to the past.
The winners front-run money printing by owning scarce assets before the next wave of liquidity hits. This is why ultra-wealthy families don’t keep cash for the long-term. They keep productive assets (businesses, real estate, commodities, equities). They also teach their kids to do the same. Build or die."
Customs Frontline: Hong Kong Cinema Action
I think International Cinema fans have long known that Hong Kong has a thriving movie scene. I grew up watching HK action movie classics like “Running Out of Time”, “Breaking News”, “Infernal Affairs”, “The Killer”, “In the Mood for Love”,“The Young and Dangerous” series. So many fond memories.
You always get nuggets and gems of wisdom from the strangest places. I watched this Hong Kong action film, Customs Frontline on a whim: “pits customs officers against weapons dealers as they tackle a case of arms smuggling” that ranges through Africa but takes place mainly in Hong Kong. Lots of action, drama and twists. And like most HK movies the main characters usually get killed off so you are always on edge.
But plenty of great quotes & lessons.
After the elite customs team suffers several fatal losses the main character starts to act up and tries to drink on the job. His mentor and commander slaps him and says:
“You are on duty. Respect the uniform. And Respect yourself.”
Basically you have to do the right thing and act properly even when you don’t feel like it. Don’t do something that will make you feel bad about yourself later.
His commander also gives some good advice about life.
“Once in a while I daydream about buying an island, building a house by the sea…and live in isolation. But before that becomes reality…I have to be realistic.”
“The truth can be painful sometimes but we have to accept it.”
“A million things are out of our control. But we can at least control our emotions.”
Maybe this is so very Asian but we tend to be pragmatic. It’s not an optimistic culture. It is a driven culture though.
But as I’ve learned the hard way, your goals & drive sometimes take you to the outcome you least expect. You overlook what’s most important in your life. And most times it’s too late to get back.
“The things I once coveted seem meaningless now. What I didn’t treasure before is what I yearn for most.”
Something to this. Don’t take anything in life for granted.