To the Extreme: Living a Precarious Life On Purpose
I did a panel talk with my friend Philipp at an investors event back in 2024, where we were explaining how we thought about investing. The conclusion was don’t do what we do. We both have most of our net worth in super risky and super illiquid assets like startups and LP investing in Venture capital funds.
Yes, venture capital and startups are sexy. But as I said before, they are super illiquid and the likelihood or returns are 12-14 years out. That means our cash is stuck for a long time. The big problem with this portfolio allocation is that there will always be cash flow issues no matter how well you budget or what your cash reserves are. I have different income streams but payments are almost always delayed for whatever reason. Or you get unexpected issues like a bigger than planned tax bill, rental properties repairs or larger expenses than normal, common if you have a family. Thus, it can be a precarious living and you are always worrying about money, when in theory you shouldn’t really at all at my stage of career and life.
I’m sure this will work out in the long run but there are many days I wonder why the heck I structured my life this way. I think this is partially due to bad planning, lack of creativity or plain ignorance/ arrogance on my side.
But from a more positive perspective maybe I did this subconsciously. Due to an internal realization that I will become lazy, if I don’t need to worry about money. That I will become inactive and thus irrelevant. That I’ll stop pushing myself and will stop learning. I’ve seen this with many of my peers in VC as well as others who have done very well. They just literally check out and mentally rot. They stop growing.
This isn’t very different from many of the startups that I see who raise way too much money at whatever stage they are at. They start to get complacent and at the same time, feel compelled to spend money on people and new initiatives. Everything slows down, the clock speed decreases and the complexity and bloat sets in.
It takes me to Vincent Hanna, played by Al Pacino in classic movie “Heat” where he says you gotta hold onto angst, fear & pain so you can stay “sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be.” This seems to be clearer and clearer to me every day. The edge is where all the growth happens.
Implications of the Change from Nation States to Network States: Why You Need a Private Military Company on Call
You have to be blind not to see the slow grinding and painful collapse of competence in almost every Nation-State around us. China, Russia, USA, Canada and pretty much most of the Western world looks like a complete mess. It’s almost inevitable as it has been over 200 years of this concept.
The only places that seem to be thriving or stable are small nationstates, almost city states like UAE, Singapore, Uruguay, even El Salvador. Every other place just seems like a growing disaster zone.
Hence we see people looking for new sanctuaries as the world goes from a centralized one to a more decentralized one. From unipolar to more multipolar world.
For those unfamiliar with the term Network State, this comes straight out of the book by Balaji Srinavasan.
“A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.
When we think of a nation state, we immediately think of the lands, but when we think of a network state, we should instantly think of the minds. That is, if the nation state system starts with the map of the globe and assigns each patch of land to a single state, the network state system starts with the 7+ billion humans of the world and attracts each mind to one or more networks.
A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.”
We are kind of living in this Network State right now. I live in San Francisco, run a small VC fund investing in immigrant and European founders targeting the American market. I also have a Holding Co based in the MENA region with my Saudi business partner and invest all over the world. My business interests are global.
I have much of my family in Taiwan, other parts of the USA and Canada. My extended friendships and tech family is also very global as well. We are starting to see more people live a Digital Slow-mad, where we live in different cities or countries during the year for extended periods of time. Starlink/Broadband, smartphones and the nature of advanced white collar work have made the world even more flat.
Whatever happens though, in this new decentralized world, there will be a continuing need for self defense & projecting force and violence, something Nation-states used to hold monopoly over. Enforcing law and order, something we take for granted in most of the West growing up but now seems to be decaying dramatically over the last half decade. Reasons range from stupid Leftist decriminalization policies and Defund the police garbage, to rampant uncontrolled immigration at the borders. And as we learned throughout human history, things can get ugly on the streets very quickly.
The brilliant Radigan Carter wrote about this during a stint in Haiti:
“This is what a lot of Americans don't get about Wagner: Talking with a waitress after the firefight subsided this morning, she's telling us how she lives in the suburbs and a year ago gangs came into her son's school looking for someone's kid to kidnap.
Gangs ran rampant, people that stayed in their houses slept on the floor to minimize being hit by stray rounds, a lot of people left the nicer neighborhoods since that is where the gangs came to loot and steal and moved away. The government and their politicians did nothing to protect them.
She then says how some of the wealthy in the community finally had enough, and they pooled together $3 million USD and hired a six-man team from Wagner to secure the neighborhood. She is now talking with relief and gratitude in her voice as she tells us how in four weeks her neighborhood went from totally unsafe to completely safe.
That these six white men, with ski masks rolled down who didn't speak any english and wagner patches on started "cleaning up the neighborhood" She said it was obvious they when they started, saying where gang members would empty mags terrorizing people, the first day Wagner started cleaning up, you would hear rapid fire from a gang member, followed by 1-2 shots.
She laughs in relief, saying it went like this for four weeks. Only on the first day did anyone in the neighborhood see the result of the clean up, with fifteen gang members piled in the back of a hilux with bullet holes in all their heads. You live by the sword and terrorize people, no one cares when you die by the sword, they just want to live someplace that is safe.
After the first day, she said no one in the neighborhood saw the result of the clean up, she laughs and says they all went to the train station (A Yellowstone reference, it turns out her father, a retired colonel loves Yellowstone)
She says the first week, you could hear Wagner working day and night, the second week, it was less, the third week even less, and the fourth week only a few shots, and then after that, the neighborhood was safe.
In total these six men cleaned up between 1,500-2,000 gang members in a month, paid for by the wealthy in the neighborhood.
Reminded me of Noblesse Oblige, or nobility obliges, the unwritten obligation of people from a noble ancestry (substitute people of means today) to act honorably and generously towards others. Nobility extends beyond mere entitlement, requiring people who hold such status to fulfill social responsibilities.
How do you think this mother, who now doesn't worry about her son being shot by gangs entering his school feels about those Wagner mercenaries? People who live in the land of wolves don't care about US bureaucracy, sanctions, aid, NGOs, or whatever the fuck our elite thinks they are doing to improve the world.
They care about their son not getting shot at school and talk almost in reverence about the six Wagner fighters with masked faces who cleaned up their neighborhood in a month.”
Source: https://twitter.com/radigancarter/status/1761013582022545593
The whole point of this story is that as we move into a new decentralized world, we cannot take law and order for granted. Of course, you absolutely should have financial resources, food & water supplies in general. But to protect this, you need to be in good shape, well armed and trained and be part of a larger community. In a world of growing Nation-state decay and movement to a new Network State world, it’s probably a VERY good idea to have a private security and private military company on speed dial as it’s gonna get ugly before it gets better.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 4th, 2025
“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.”― Angela Duckworth
"Everyone intends to do what they say they’ll do. But as you progress towards your goals, you hit friction — you get tired, you get distracted, you re-prioritize — and then the whole thing unravels. The key to success is what you do after you realize it might not happen.
And here’s the rule I’ve learned:
There are two ways to do what you say you’re going to do:
1. Do it, or
2. Don’t say it."
https://newsletter.sanjaysays.co/p/you-dont-have-to-be-amazing
2. "As in private equity, we should start to expect secondaries to become a permanent and significant part of venture capital liquidity for both employees of companies and also investors.
With the target ARR required to achieve an IPO growing from $80m in 2008 to approximately $250m today, secondaries will become a permanent fixture in venture capital markets.
It’s not just a temporary anomaly, but a structural evolution in how venture capital will function and ultimately evolve to look a bit more like private equity."
https://tomtunguz.com/the-exit-path-of-2024/
3. "Today, the stakes are also critical. The global security environment is undergoing seismic shifts, with threats evolving at a speed and scale unseen since the Cold War. Yet, unlike the industrial mobilization of the past, the modern battlefield is defined not only by hardware but also by the ability to leverage software–systems capable of adapting at speed and precision, processing vast amounts of data and enabling real-time decision-making."
4. "The future of Haiti is bleak. The Haitian police and the roughly 1,000 Kenyan policemen assisting them don’t seem to have the numbers or equipment to make a huge difference. For anything to change, Haiti and the international community are going to have to start looking at this as a military problem, not a police problem.
Nowhere in Haiti is safe; the citizens live in perpetual terror. The police and Kenyans have not established any sort of fortified perimeter in the capital where citizens can feel safe. They seem to be interested only in conducting limited operations with varying levels of success and acting mostly as a reactive force. This conflict is not going to end anytime soon if something major doesn’t change."
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/haitis-cartel-and-american-fueled
5. "With billionaires biohacking themselves amid an insurgent wellness boom, growing interest around exercises for longevity proves more and more of us are paying attention to our health than ever before.
You may not be motivated entirely by a desire to improve your lifespan, but there’s no denying that exercise is the key to remaining mobile, disease free, and independent for longer."
https://www.gq.com/story/exercises-for-longevity
6. "One of the biggest unlocks in my life has been recognizing that being a man means adding surplus value: creating more tax revenue than I absorb, listening to more complaints than I make, noticing people’s lives, providing more (net) care and love. I have run firms my whole life, and I’ve always aimed to provide the minimum compensation required such that employees won’t leave. No more.
BTW, this is how nearly all companies work, optimizing for profits. This is a result of the incentive system in a capitalist society, as it increases the enterprise value (profits) of the firm — and the likelihood the business survives. Our entire society now prays at the altar of shareholder value, prioritizing them over every other stakeholder … dramatically. If you are blessed with a company that’s doing well, why wouldn’t you pay more than you need to? Do you love your kids, community, and country just enough that they don’t abandon you?
One of the most rewarding things about running a firm is it mimics some of the m/paternal feelings of reward you get from protecting and providing for your offspring. I’ve worked hard, I’m talented, and I made the genius decision to be born in America. The result is I’ve got a firm that’s exceptionally profitable. One of the (many) rewards of that is I get to pay people more than I need to. It feels great."
https://www.profgalloway.com/project-2028-wages/
7. "Affleck first became widely known with 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which he wrote and starred in alongside his friend Matt Damon. He is nearing his 30th uninterrupted year in the spotlight, which has given him a career and two Academy Awards, and also a level of tabloid scrutiny that in its consistency and vehemence is almost unmatched. “Some people like to follow the soap opera,” Affleck says. “And that soap opera is actually independent of a movie you might make or be in. They’re interested in just the general soap opera and you became a character in that soap opera. You don’t write it, you don’t direct it, you don’t even know you’re in it, but you are.”
To this day, he still meets people who assume he is his dim, rock-breaking character from Good Will Hunting, a movie that cast Damon in the genius role (“Matt’s math skills, I am pretty sure, are very far from genius level”), or the attention-plagued playboy that was his public role in the first decade of this century.
In reality, Affleck is 52, a twice-divorced father of three who commutes to an office most days. “I’m a middle-aged guy,” he says, not unhappily. Despite the comeback narrative that journalists still reference, week to week and year to year, he has long been ensconced in the very top levels of Hollywood as a leading man (in the lobby of Artists Equity there is, among other things, Affleck’s old Batman suit) and, more recently, an executive. Affleck founded Artists Equity, which he runs with Damon and Gerry Cardinale, a little over two years ago, with the idea of wresting some control back from the notoriously opaque and complex studio financing system."
https://www.gq.com/story/inside-ben-afflecks-plan-to-remake-hollywood
8. Inspiring and fun interview with Palmer Luckey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-iUvZ-8Q3k
9. Fun discussion on sales. Lots of interesting thoughts on sales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNfbomeXVtU&t=101s
10. Ian Bremmer is always direct & clear when discussing geopolitics. Important conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjquBYqYbcc
11. "Clausewitz’ exhortation to focus on the enemy’s destruction is therefore only half the formula for victory; the other is to exploit that destruction to prevent force regeneration. This cannot usually be done in a single battle as at Austerlitz, and there are rarely any shortcuts—more often, it entails the capture of political centers, occupation of territory, destruction of armaments, etc.
In Saladin’s case, it would have entailed reducing every port through which reinforcements arrived. The difference between attrition and other forms of warfare does not lie in total quantity of destruction, after all, but in the exploitation of those brief windows of opportunity."
https://dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/notes-on-annihilation
12. "The lesson of the Bellum Sociale is that successful peoples, companies, or individuals can reach a point where they transcend their original condition and become larger than themselves—at which point they must reinvent themselves to reach greater horizons or risk fading into irrelevance or persihing.
Since president Trump won his second term and talk of tariffs and the need for U.S. allies to take more responsibility for their own security began to get serious, the themes of the Bellum Sociale resonate with the present.
America now plays the role of Rome, exuding a sense of superiority, while its allies, while its vassals respond with contempt. Europeans and Canadians gesture and beat their chests, threatening to assert their sovereignty, while at the same time lamenting any barrier to access to the American market or any downgrading of protection under the American security umbrella.
In the end, the only durable solution was an unequal yet organic and mutually recognized hierarchy. Perhaps, someday, something similar will emerge between America and the rest of the West."
https://www.businessofpower.com/p/the-war-of-the-allies
13. Important life lessons for men. So very obvious. The world is cruel to poor, emotional and weak men + Location of where you live in your life matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WhCAK-y90
14. Some snapshots of business insight from billionaires. Curiosity and Philosophy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ-MuaD4txA
15. "Herein lies the crux of my argument.
It’s difficult to sell the idea to your people that they should become poorer and give up more of their autonomy and freedoms to create an army that has no purpose.
However, it’s much easier to get them to accept the creation of said army, if you make them live in fear of a threat you know will never come.
Frightened subjects are compliant subjects."
https://anticitizen.com/p/threats-lies-disinformation
16. Very clearly the USA does NOT have a strategy. The CCP definitely does and that is why they have an edge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4COv3rcvJg
17. “Taiwan’s proximity to China gives the PRC the ability to apply serious mass in terms of firepower from both ballistic and cruise missiles, in addition to the cheaper drone systems that [can] be used to strike or saturate air defenses,” he wrote to Tectonic.
“Some war games the Marines ran showed beach defenders taking 30% casualties if swarming munitions were used against them,” he added.
To Phillips-Levine, this makes it pretty clear where the US should invest its budget in the next few years: in cheap, attritable drones and c-UAS systems that can take out their Chinese counterparts. It’s expensive—and also silly—to shoot down a drone with a multi-million dollar cruise missile, he said."
https://www.tectonicdefense.com/how-scary-is-chinas-military-really/
18. Lots of tips on building a personal brand and doing sales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wllHVnBSG8M&t=1463s
19. "We cannot take for granted that America has the biggest economy, the strongest currency, the most robust alliances, and the best military in the world and will always be that way. It would be unwise to believe these achievements are now permanent or owed to us in perpetuity because we are the United States of America, and because of that, we deserve the best circumstances.
Our leaders cannot become complacent or reckless in the face of our many challenges in 2025.
Our alliances across continents are getting more complicated due to various factors. And yet, they must be maintained, because an America that goes at it alone cannot win in this world. After all, it’s better to have difficult friends than to have no friends at all. Our adversaries are relentlessly challenging our commitment to our allies, and they are constantly trying to position themselves as welcoming arms in the face of a scenario in which America employs retreat and isolationism.
Our country maintains itself as a unique economic power, one where innovation continues to thrive, but that competitive advantage can slip away if our leaders pursue destructive, hubris-fueled policies. Europe is witnessing a devastating brain drain because its leaders have pursued overregulation, restrictive economic policies, and plenty of additional catastrophic social policies. America needs to remain the country where anyone and everyone can carve out a successful life and business without the government making it impossible for citizens to thrive."
https://www.dossier.today/p/american-hegemony-if-you-can-keep
20. "Trump believes that by bringing these manufacturing jobs back to America, he can give good jobs to the roughly 65% of the population who have no University degree, become militarily stronger because weapons and such will be produced in the quantities needed to face off against a peer or near-peer rival, and grow the economy above trend, e.g. at 3% real GDP growth.
There are some apparent issues with this plan. Prices will fall if China and others do not have dollars to prop up the treasury and stock market. Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, needs buyers for the gargantuan amount of debt that must be rolled over and for the persistent federal deficits out into the future. His plan is to lower the deficit to 3% from roughly 7% by 2028. The second issue is that capital gains taxes from a rising stock market are the marginal revenue driver for the government. When rich folks aren’t making money slinging stonks, the deficit grows.
Trump didn’t campaign on a platform to cease military spending or cut entitlement benefits like healthcare and social security. He campaigned on a platform of growth and elimination of fraudulent spending. Therefore, he needs capital gains tax revenue, even though it's rich people who own all the stocks, and on average, they didn’t vote for him in 2024.
Even if US stocks continue falling in reaction to tariffs, a collapse in earnings expectations, and or foreigner demand waning, I am confident that the odds favor Bitcoin continuing to climb higher.
Cognizant of the good and bad, Maelstrom is deploying capital cautiously. We use no leverage, and we buy in small clips relative to the size of our total portfolio. When the market goes up, I want to wish my size was bigger, but I'm thankful it's not when the market trades lower. We have been buying Bitcoin and shitcoins at all levels between $90,000 to $76,500. The pace of capital deployment will quicken or slacken depending on the accuracy of my predictions.
I still believe Bitcoin can hit $250,000 by year-end because now that the BBC has put Powell in his place, the Fed will flood the market with dollars. That allows Xi Jinping to instruct the PBOC to stop tightening monetary conditions onshore to defend the dollar-yuan exchange rate, which increases the net quantity of yuan. And finally, Germany decided to build an army again paid for with printed euros and every other European nation must respond by building their own army with printed euros because they are afraid of a 1939 Remix to Ignition."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/the-bbc
21. "Job = exchange time for money with $/hour pay out. Career = performance based. Business = makes money in your sleep.
Now the majority here probably enter into a career. Based on the above you can see clearly that the best role is now Sales. Second best is Tech. Distant third is Wall St.
The only reason to choose Tech over Sales or Wall St over Sales is *if* you are certain you will be 100x better at that task. In that case you have to go to your talent/skillset.
Sales is Best: Sales is measurable. You will not have Robo calls for buying $100,000 items. No sales team in India is going to call up the CEO of F500 companies. Not happening. Not today, not any time soon in the future.
Also. Sales requires *less* hours. If you’re a handsome man or beautiful woman, sales will come easier and you’ll work 1/2 the hours of a banker. For the same pay and more time to build your own business (hilariously, you will need to learn online sales anyway so your job already partially prepares you for escaping the cube)"
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/ai-proofing-your-present-and-future
22. Fascinating conversation on China and its technological and economic rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnjnXPnbmkE&t=1423s
23. Live like a King in Ubud. Ubud was a magical experience for me back in 2019, look forward to going back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsac3eaUXhc&t=3s
24. "America can no longer afford to fake resilience. Infrastructure not designed to operate during conflict is ultimately a threat to our national security. The hour is late—but it’s not too late to transform America's vulnerabilities into genuine resilience, safeguarding our prosperity, security, and freedom."
https://steinman.substack.com/p/americas-industrial-systems-are-sitting
25. "We are living through a dangerous return of the asshole strongman.
Across the globe, disenfranchised people—failed by democratic systems that didn’t deliver care or opportunity—are handing power to egomaniacs and fakers.
And it’s not just governments.
We’re doing it in the private sector too.
Too many investors are back to chasing the high-ego, low-empathy founder.
We’re throwing around phrases like founder-mode.
I keep hearing leaders wrestle with this false choice:
“Lead with heart” or “be in founder mode.”
Some in Silicon Valley are once gain glamorizing high-ego micromanagement as if it’s real founder work.
It’s not."
https://www.mattmunson.me/founder-mode/
26. The Philosopher king of Silicon Valley. Lots of thought provoking ideas and thoughts here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfUysrNaco&t=5547s
27. The business of defense. This was an insight dense conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_NMYEvR6jI
28. BG2: Best show in tech. This week was great: Liberation Day, Tariffs, US v China Open Source, OpenAI, $CRWV, TikTok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0DO0tP06eQ&t=1385s
29. "While new tariffs primarily threaten startup revenue through market uncertainty rather than direct costs, the drive for efficiency in response may accelerate AI adoption, aligning with optimistic long-term growth forecasts for the tech sector."
https://tomtunguz.com/tariffs-startups/
30. "Like it or not, Americans largely hold the current administration responsible for current economic conditions, and the economy is often the single most important item on the priorities list for Americans. This carries its own set of less-than-ideal incentives, given that it limits the demand to fix long-term problems. Nonetheless, it’s the political reality we face.
Given that Congress seems determined to have a limited impact on policy, the midterms will reflect almost solely on the Trump Administration."
https://www.dossier.today/p/the-tariff-debate-will-be-decided
31. The latest on what's up in Silicon Valley. Tesla, AI & the Deel spy games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuRI7Uhtmk
32. "My recommendation for entrepreneurs is to sign at least 10—if not more—unaffiliated customers and spend a tremendous amount of time with them, either in person or over a Zoom call. Talk to the customers and learn every minute detail possible about why they bought the product, how they use it, and what value they derive from it. Choosing a market, a vertical, or even criteria for the ideal customer is a critical step in an entrepreneur’s journey and should not be taken lightly."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/04/05/market-a-or-b-for-a-startup/
33. I detest Tucker Carlson but this is a great interview with Treasury Secretary Bessent.
Bessent is pretty smart & diplomatic. Good to understand his perspective & plans for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLnX1SQfgJI&t=1897s
34. This is good fun and informative: David Senra. Great founders are in it forever and in the details. Hardcore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ypkGwQbTho
35. "Drones have made the air littorals too lethal to ignore and the mission to gain and maintain air littoral superiority demands localized command and decentralized control that is intrinsically linked to the ground commander and their fielded forces.
The Army has work to do because the adversary gets a vote, and technology nor time stands still—especially below that coordination altitude."
SOS: Slower, Older, Smarter
I saw a very funny story being shared around social media. Here it goes:
“An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet, when suddenly a Eurofighter with a Tempo Mach 2 appears.
The pilot of the fighter jet slows down, flies alongside the Airbus and greets the pilot of the passenger plane by radio: "Airbus, boring flight isn’t it? Now have a look here!"
He rolls his jet on its back, accelerates, breaks through the sound barrier, rises rapidly to a dizzying height, and then swoops down almost to sea level in a breathtaking dive. He loops back next to the Airbus and asks: "Well, how was that?"
The Airbus pilot answers: "Very impressive, but watch this!"
The jet pilot watches the Airbus, but nothing happens. It continues to fly straight, at the same speed. After 15 minutes, the Airbus pilot radios, "Well, how was that?
Confused, the jet pilot asks, "What did you do?"
The AirBus pilot laughs and says: "I got up, stretched my legs, walked to the back of the aircraft to use the washroom, then got a cup of coffee and a chocolate fudge pastry."
The moral of the story is: When you’re young, speed and adrenaline seems to be great. But as you get older and wiser, you learn that comfort and peace are more important.
This is called S.O.S.: Slower, Older and Smarter”
It’s both a funny and instructive story. However, my take is why not both? Comfort is death. Having a big goal and some adventure in life is important, even at an older age. Pushing yourself is what keeps you young. And if you can balance this with wisdom and perspective, maybe you will also have some peace of mind as well.
Chase Your Dreams: Mastering the Game to Leave the Game
I heard a story recently of a guy who was at the top of his game in the Finance & investing world. But he ended up leaving the industry after making his number. He ended up moving to Japan to learn baking and study the art of Matcha tea for 3 years. He returned to Taiwan, importing the best matcha tea from Japan and opening a top rated Matcha Cafe in Taipei. Living his dreams. I love these kinds of stories.
How many of us are living zombie lives? Going through the motions, chasing the buck and burying our dreams. It’s so easy to say following your dreams is impractical. I get it.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to take a bad job, service job, corporate job or finance job when you start off. In fact, all of those experiences are SUPER helpful. You can learn a lot of how the world works. You learn what you like and don’t like. And there is nothing wrong with earning money either. And if you happen to end up being great at it or fall in love with the work, that’s awesome. It’s really hard especially when you excel in an industry to then leave it behind. However, this will not be the experience for the majority of people. For most of them, like myself, this is just step one.
What you need to do is make sure you have a longer vision on where you want to go in life. I assume for most people it’s financial freedom, more time and having control of your life. And for this to happen, you must fight the hedonic treadmill and manage your cost structure carefully. Don’t let it get out of control like it did for me and pretty much 99.99% of people out there. Learn to differentiate between a need versus a want. Live with discipline or you will pay for it literally and figuratively. So you must learn to live a lean yet fulfilling life at least for a few years until your income streams and savings ramp up substantially. This is your margin of error.
Otherwise, this escalating cost structure becomes the number one trap keeping you from doing what you want to do. It forces you to stick with that crap job and crap boss you can’t stand but have to tolerate. Because you need the paycheck to survive. What a sad situation that’s really of your own making.
As the legendary Silicon Valley investor and philosopher Naval Ravikant has said: “The reason to win the game is so that you can leave the game.”
The Dog Who Catches the Car: The Cosmic Joke of Life
We have all seen this in life wherever we are. Driving down the street and we see a bunch of dogs chasing the cars down the road. We laugh. But then the question is what happens if the dog ends up catching the car. What would they do?
This is almost a parable of life. I spent so much of my life chasing money, career and reputation because that was what I thought you were supposed to do. Especially when you are raised in a poor but driven Taiwanese immigrant and tiger mom who has HUGE expectations of you. And I think I delivered albeit not at the levels I personally thought I would be. But what an incredible price that I paid for this. I put my career ahead of everything. My family, my hobbies, my health, my mental health. All made worse during the pandemic lockdowns.
Yet I came out financially strong at the end of 2020, despite everything. I literally am the dog that caught the car. And what happened at that point? Did I go and at least try to fix all of the issues?
NOPE. I hid from the problems and double downed on what I was good at and was comfortable with. I drove forward with my business. Investing, public speaking and plenty of business travel. Consequently, my family life unravelled in 2023, and 2024 turned into a massive train wreck. This was all raised during family therapy where my pride, anger and ego just made things worse. My life just felt like a massive sized joke. Empty. This is everything that I worked and sacrificed for?
I used to scoff at those who committed suicide and believe that’s a cowards way out. But I now understand the amount of pain and anguish these poor people feel. When things feel so awful that you just want it to end. You start to feel the world and your family will be better off without you. Especially late at night. These are dark places.
This is where you need to just go to sleep. Or call a friend. Or find some small pleasure or joy to look forward to. For me it was my books. And I keep the hope that I can reconcile and watch my kid grow up to become the amazing human being that she is.
For anyone going through this hell. You aren’t alone. Call a friend. Or Call 988 (in America). Hang in there. This will pass. Things will get better. Don’t deprive the world of your talent, impact and spark.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 27th, 2025
"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." —Abraham Lincoln
This is such a fun & wide discussion with marketing and ads genius Rory Sutherland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaYTvwe0Wo0
2. "Microsoft’s Security Business generates $20b per year in revenue, so the market is large. A similarly sized business for Google, which trades at about 6x forward would create $120b in market cap.
According to press, Wiz is between $500-1b in ARR. Assume revenue is 2/3 of ARR & it’s growing about 70%, which would imply about $850m in forward revenues.
A premium 30x forward revenue multiple would suggest an acquisition price of about $25.5b.1 Google is paying a 25% premium for an extremely fast growing business in a core strategic cloud segment."
https://tomtunguz.com/wiz-acquisition/
3. Important discussion: how are the big countries repositioning in the new era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtxH5-jI5dQ
4. "Awareness of technical trade winds. This is a new one for me, but I think the fact that we are now in the early innings of the AI era demands it. Just as with previous seismic shifts (client-server, the internet era, the SaaS era, the cloud-native era), it’s absolutely essential that founders have a thesis on how the prevailing technical trade winds will impact them.
“Not having a thesis on AI” in 2025 is as insane as “not having a thesis on the internet” in 2005.
Even more so — customers appear to be demanding this in an unprecedented way. Founders who are not deep in the details, leveraging all the modern tools, building with a modern stack, and aware of the technical zeitgeist will find themselves adrift."
https://medium.com/angularventures/seven-signals-ce8454b23661
5. Incredible lecture and then Q&A. To understand why Japan lost War War 2. Lots of interesting cultural insights too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znk5QINe01A
6. Equal Ventures is one of the few firms that are thinking about venture in a differentiated approach. This was an instructive conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGqJCGEL_Es
7. "Actually the risks therein are not just moral but business related. In deciding to go back to business as usual with Russia these Western investors will have to make a call as to whether the direction of travel in terms of Russia - Western relations are improving, or not. If they decide to invest but we see an unravelling of the Trump peace effort, are they then risking again a situation where their assets in Russia will be stranded and subject to freezes and confiscation?
Are these Western investors good at predicting the state of geopolitical relations and risks? I would argue not given the number of Western businesses who continued investing in Russia right up to full scale invasion. Even more remarkable therein is that many of these same investors remained invested or continued to invest in Russia through 2021 and early 2022 when their own governments were warning of an imminent invasion and the threat of aggressive sanctions being rolled out.
Why would these same investors be better now at qualifying the risks of investing in Russia when frankly they completely cocked up with their decision in 2021-2022, and indeed long before then? Imagine the egg (blood actually) on their faces if they rush to put money back to work in Russia, against a long track record of bad behaviour by Russia, and end up on the wrong side of the trade again. Titans of finance and industry - not."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/russia-blood-money
8. This is a super fun AMA episode. Good fun business and creator stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeoQ06FEkSc&list=PLIBc05HkMJHFpVxxZTD-_MbTAYtwAOEg_
9. This video explains the reason for the bizarre support of the MAGA wing for Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRyXhfu_ZUE
10. Not a fan of JD Vance (who is geopolitical naif) but I can get behind what he says here for America.
"So, deindustrialization poses risks both to our national security and our workforce. It’s important because it affects both. And the net result is dispossession, for many in this country, of any part of the productive process. And when our factories disappear and the jobs in those factories go overseas, American workers are faced not only with financial insecurity, they’re also faced with a profound loss of personal and communal identity.
And that’s what I really want to talk about today: why innovation is key to winning the worldwide manufacturing competition, to giving our workers a fair deal, and to reclaiming our heritage via America’s great industrial comeback. And I believe that’s what we’re on the cusp of, a great American industrial comeback. Because innovation is what increases wages. It’s what protects our homeland. It’s what saves troops’ lives on the battlefield."
https://commonplace.org/2025/03/20/our-great-american-industrial-comeback/
11. Really important interview and discussion on AI from one of the investing and operating maestros of Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBxCrH_DCDA
12. Incredible and timely discussion this week. SO much good stuff.
"NVDA GTC, M&A Wiz / Goog $32 B Deal, April 2 Tariff Uncertainty; Huawei Belt & Road; ChatGPT"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymEtsnDif5M
13. Josh Wolfe at the Upfront Summit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATz-qVlmaj8
14. Very interesting & timely company. Albedo satellites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_VhcmAWGU
15. Solid discussion from OG of Seed Investing. Chad Byers of Susa Ventures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xRpVl7t3s0&t=25s
16. Turkey is a key player in the Mediterranean region and the future at large. Helpful conversation to understand their role.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8Gn1HIGKE
17. Top notch show for commentary on Silicon Valley news. Good episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dPNKZOyke4
18. "It’s also the hottest trend in software development. Vibe coding : dictating what you want to code with speech into an AI.
If even the most technical of us prefer voice, the next step is obvious : a laptop without a keyboard.
Soon that collection of QWERTY squares will look as archaic as Hemingway’s Underwood typewriter - a relic of a bygone era."
https://tomtunguz.com/no-keyboard-ui/
19. Quite a wide ranging conversation on politics, global macro and Silicon Valley ie. Wiz-Alphabet Deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1MAA8y4CgU
20. "Humans came off the savanna hard-wired for addiction. The dopamine rush a hunter felt when taking down a mammoth is neurologically the same feeling a gambler gets when betting. Our instinct to gorge whenever we see food was honed during millenia of scarcity, and it’s that same instinct the food industrial complex leverages to keep people eating long past the point of being satiated.
Ours is an addiction economy: The most valuable companies arbitrage the disparity between our instincts and industrial production."
https://www.profgalloway.com/porn/
21. "The same is true for the Ukraine war. Each side wants to pay the lowest political price for anything more than it won. Russia wanted to regain Ukraine as a buffer against the West. The U.S. didn’t want Russia to border NATO. The war has been fought, and it looks as though Russia gained a buffer in east Ukraine, albeit a smaller one than it wanted. The U.S. wants to end the war and has to be satisfied with the outcome. Ukraine is now in the same position during the negotiations with Russia as the South Vietnamese were in the Vietnam War.
The end of the war is inevitable, and articles are now appearing in the media about the postwar reality. Some observers talk about how hedge funds are eager to invest in Russia. Others say Russia will have a high price to pay as it moves away from a wartime economy. Others still speculate about the geopolitical effect of the war on Europe and China."
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/engineering-an-end-to-the-ukraine-war/
22. "Entrepreneurs should always provide regular updates. The alternative—not doing any updates—is strongly discouraged. Rather, the big idea is that updates are one of the best ways to connect with all constituents, from employees to partners to mentors to investors. For some entrepreneurs, this can be a calling card that helps differentiate them from others in the market."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/03/22/entrepreneur-updates-as-leading-indicator-of-success/
23. Trying to understand who the players are in this new administration. Also want to hear from people first before you judge them. This was very interesting. The head of Commerce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=182ckTL2KBA&t=1839s
24. Bessent is really sharp. Listening to our Head of Treasury to understand where America is going and the impact for the economy in America and globally (and our own personal investing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSma9suyp24&t=10s
25. There is so much gold here. I appreciate every interview with Tai Lopez. So many insights & framework for making money. Worth listening to a few times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8LE9en8k6c
26. Interesting take from Taiwanese military expert. Hope he is right that CCP will not be able to take Taiwan but much of this is cope. No good can come out of underestimating an adversary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBpNbgXNcYE
27. I always learn from Tai Lopez. Wise beyond his years. How to be a Renaissance man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUwYQxjCNfs
28. "One group will say that the world was designed around humans and thus if we can build humanoid robots, they are easier to deploy in the world. Then we don’t have to adapt factories or homes or other systems to the limitations of robots. Humanoids can climb stairs and play the piano and hold coffee mugs and all the things humans can do.
But there are problems. Battery life is limited. AI processing at the edge is still nascent.
The other group of roboticist I know will say that humanoid robots will be the worst at everything and lose the advantages of robotic specialization. Specialized robots will always be stronger, faster, and more economically efficient for a given task than a humanoid robot.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. My guess is there are markets for both, depending on the economics of the deployment opportunity."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/investment-opportunities-humanoid
29. "Oil is a key driver of Arctic interests. Trump reversed President Biden’s ban on Arctic drilling with an Executive Order in January. Both the we and Saudi are now squeezing Russia. Russia has oil, but it can’t get it to market as cheaply as the US and Saudi countries can. They understand that Trump meant it when he pledged during the campaign to lower consumers’ energy costs by 50% within a year. Secretary of Energy Wright recently said that this “is still doable.” That is music to those Americans who are concerned about costs, but it is a real threat to Russia, especially now that Saudi has confirmed its intention to invest more than $600b in the US during Trump’s time in office. Arctic oil is expensive to bring to market. If Russia wants to survive the pressure from falling oil prices, it needs to play more nicely with the US and Saudi alike. So, some of the “that’s mine” approach to the Arctic is about divvying up territory.
The whole world map is in play, often in remote places that we are usually not thinking about. But the locals are thinking about it. Sweden is preparing for war and recruiting for its Arctic brigades. Finland and the Baltics are also preparing. But, in a welcome turn of events, the Europeans are now exploring what role they’ll play in Ukraine if the deal between the superpowers succeeds and peace breaks out. As the WSJ reports, “Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark and Australia have said they are considering putting boots on the ground” in the event of war continuing in Ukraine. The question is how many boots will be needed if there is peace. Europe will face having a North Korea in its midst, and there’s no plan for that."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/valkyries-vallhala-and-vectoring
30. I recommend listening to Tai Lopez. So many useful tips and ideas for making your life richer, healthier and happier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjU6ppsfpIo
31. "Ukraine’s independent long-range strike capability: Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian targets at operational and strategic depth gives it the capacity to impose significant costs on Russia for as long as the war continues. This capability operates outside the constraints of frontline dynamics and largely independently of its allies.
As we know, U.S. support either appears to be gone or, at best, highly uncertain for the coming years. Europe is attempting to step up, but cannot do so quickly enough—especially while also scrambling to rebuild its own defense posture. Meanwhile, Ukraine seems to have largely lost its positions in the Kursk region, even as it tries to hold ground there and push into other areas.
This suggests that Ukraine’s only remaining source of significant coercive leverage—one it maintains regardless of shifts among its allies or developments on the ground—is its ability to impose sustained costs on Russia for as long as the war continues."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/drones-missiles-and-leverage-why
32. Tai Lopez wisdom. SO very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMNdWHoJcVk&t=151s
33. Super insightful episode today, lots of good stuff on personal growth & parenting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTX8JajsBxc
34. Tai Lopez is a wise man. Worth listening to this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS4ZcZo2bwo
35. The world belongs to the risk takers. Tai Lopez.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEJdcXai_7w
36. "In fact, I’ve found myself using ideology as my explanation for much of what the Trump administration has done in the two months since it came to power. I explained Trump’s tariffs as an ideologically driven attempt to isolate America from foreign dependency and ape the country’s “glory days” of the pre-WW2 period. And I explained Elon Musk’s DOGE as an attempt to purge “woke” progressivism from the U.S. government and other institutions.
These aren’t all quite the same ideology. Vance, Trump, and Musk have worldviews that differ in important and consequential ways. Yet they’re all recognizably affiliated — subsets of one category that we might broadly call the New Right.
Understanding the New Right is sort of a gestalt exercise — you’re basically acting like an LLM. Listen to leaders like Vance, and mainstream media figures like Joe Rogan who have drifted to the right in recent years. Then read a bunch of people on the right and pattern-match to figure out which thought leaders folks like Vance and Rogan sound like. You’ll probably end up with influencers like Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiecand Tucker Carlson and Auron MacIntyre, and blogs like Aporia and The Upheaval. Then try to isolate some common themes and big ideas, and see if you can use those to parsimoniously explain the attitudes and actions of leaders like Vance.
Once this basic understanding is in place, I think a lot of the Trump administration’s seemingly boneheaded, overly risky, or counterproductive actions become less mysterious. That doesn’t mean the Trump administration isn’t incompetent, or that everything is proceeding according to some grand plan. But I think it helps clarify some of the goals the MAGA folks are trying to accomplish with things like tariffs, abandoning Europe, embracing Russia, purging the government, amassing executive power, kicking out immigrants, and so on."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/understanding-americas-new-right
Nurture Over Nature: Increasing Clock Speed to Win
We all know the traffic advertising “Speed kills”. But in startups “Slowness kills.” Speed is key. Speed in making mistakes, speed in launching your product, speed to market.
Investor & podcaster Sriram Krishnan wrote about Clock Speed:
“The biggest determinant for success in a technology company is the speed at which it operates and learns – the “clock speed” to use a CPU analogy. The easiest external measure for this is how fast you ship product. However, I’ve come to realize that is often hard to measure or hard to accomplish. You can’t ship hardware every week or make research breakthroughs every day.”
Environment and culture matters. If people around you move slower, you will naturally regress to that pace. Or from a positive perspective, if you are in a faster environment you will increase your speed and operating tempo.
Watch and record (discreetly) the speed of how fast a barista in New York City or Tokyo makes a coffee versus say San Francisco (slower) versus anywhere in Canada or Europe (much much slower). There is a significant difference.
Add the crazy crazy-quilt regulatory framework in Europe, plus the anti-business and innovation mentality. This adds much friction to the already difficult business of building startups and driving performance, whether from a personal and organizations perspective. This is peer pressure at an environmental level and it’s pernicious. Yet smart people know how to make this effect work for you.
This is why I believe there will be great entrepreneurs from Europe and Canada but most will not stay there. Most will eventually migrate to the most competitive & presently biggest market in the world: the USA. They need to if they want to scale up dramatically. Even despite the crazy in America right now.
Steel sharpens steel and the best founders want to be around other great founders. This is where Tai Lopez’s 33% rule comes into play. If you really want to get good at something, you have to spend at least 33% around people better than you. He uses the example of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. You don’t get good fighting other white belts, you get good fighting practice with blue belts.
Regional clusters have crazy strong network effects. This is why dystopian, badly run hellholes like New York, Los Angeles San Francisco at large will continue to have staying and drawing power. A place that will continue to be centers for the best and most ambitious founders around the world.
Places that have high clock speed and provide an environment for the best people to compete and thrive.
Letters from the Past: Sacrifice and Appreciating What You Have
Another international flight and then another movie. I enjoy the opportunity to watch non mainstream and foreign films on the plane. I was missing Japan so much and found this movie called “Till We Meet Again on Lily Hill”, a sad and historical fantasy drama that takes place in both modern day and 1945 Japan.
Yuri is an angry, moody 18 year old girl who feels down because her impoverished and hard working single mother is raising her after her father loses his life when he heroically saves a child. Yuri, feeling sad, angry and abandoned, hides in an old bunker and ends up in 1945 during the last days of World War 2. She ends up working in an army bistro & meets a group of young men called the “hungry bunch”, training to be special kamikaze pilots about to leave on their final mission to fly into enemy ships. A suicide mission.
She gets to know the pilots, especially Akira who is around her own age. And as a modern person, she does not understand war, honor or the sacrifice these men are embarking on. The pilots, knowing it’s their last days, enjoy every moment of their time. Each meal they have. Eating sweet ice dessert. Or playing baseball together at the base. Sharing their dreams with each other. Sitting in a field full of lilies. Drinking sake and singing together on their last night.
Yet they are eager to do what they think is their duty even if it’s their end. “To acquire a new life of eternal righteousness.” The immense waste and tragedy of it all especially when we know the outcome of the war (for non-history people, Japan loses very badly).
Even when they talk about their colleagues, using euphemisms like there is “room for more new soldiers”, meaning pilots who have left on their kamikaze missions.. How the pilots talk about “protecting my wife and child with my own life.” Yuri is horrified and cannot fathom why they would do this when she hears this.
The veneration of the villagers toward the special pilots is touching though. The kindness they show to the pilots. Especially as they believe they will become spirits. And the immense loss of family members of every person from the war. The horror of American firebombing attacks on the village.
That deep sadness of knowing it is a few days till the pilots set off on their last mission, especially as Yuri knows the war is almost over. Saying goodbye forever on their last dinner at the bistro before their mission the next morning. That was a solemn and heart wrenching scene.
There was also one where the Japanese civilian crowds were sending them off waving flags at the airfield as the pilots flew off. (Something sadly my Israeli, American and Ukrainian friends are still experiencing).
But this experience wakes her up to how horribly she treated her mom, she also discovers how sacrifice is heroism, finally appreciating what her father did. And she learns to be happy with what she has. Living in the present, finding joy and appreciation in small things. We can all learn from this hopefully without experiencing war. To go live a good life and make the most of your time. “All I want is your happiness. Live your life with all your heart. That is my only wish.”
Tulsa King: A Gangster in a MidWest Paradise
Sly Stallone plays an old school Brooklyn gangster, Dwight Manfredi aka The General. He is exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma by his family after serving 25 years in prison for his mob family. He quickly builds a crew and starts earning but makes enemies of the local law and local biker gang the MacAdams.
In the run up to the big battle with the biker gang, he rallies his troops and gives them advice.
“I always thought that life was this one way street. And you head down it as you do and it sort of disappears behind you. So you can only go one direction. Forward. And you look way down there and you see a city on fire. And it’s red hot. And as I said before, You can only go forward.
So you only got 2 choices. One you get scared, you give up and then you burn up. The second one, you say F— it, F—-k it, F—k fear. And you barrel through it. And when you come out on the other side, I guarantee you, you will be stronger than you ever thought possible.”
Seems like good life advice. You can only go forward. Acknowledge mistakes and learn from them. Make amends if you can.
Know what you stand for. Know what red lines are for you, that if someone crosses it you have to act. Take care of business. Take care of your family and take care of your people. This is why people respect you.
A simple clear code. Even if you are an aging gangster. What a fun series to watch.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 20th, 2025
“Whether we know it or not, our lives are acts of imagination and the world is continually re-imagined through us.” — Michael Meade
Lessons for the Defense Industrial base from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MqmUJ-eYVg
2. Alt-Geopolitics. I don't agree nor do I like these people. But you can learn from anyone. It helps to question popular narratives out there in media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDQxzULLTgg
3. Justin Mares is crushing it by building businesses in the MAHA movement. Very interesting discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DwJGdsuQ8
4. This was an instructive discussion on the art and science of venture capital. Yes, they are focused on B2B software but it's still very useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdbMuq1SS8c
5. "I’m a believer in the ‘ software eats the world’ thesis, although I often change it to ‘software enables the world,’ which is not nearly as evocative but also not as consumptive. One byproduct of this movement, especially during the blitzscaling era, were new startups in areas such as finance, healthcare, housing, education, using venture capital to acquire customers at accelerated rates. And when these startups failed, the customers might find themselves confronting situations where a product they relied upon ceased to exist with very little notice.
For the investors it’s of course a disappointing outcome, but the failure is built into their model and they knew going in that ‘taking a zero’ was a potential ending — that’s why they’re ‘ accredited investors.’ For the human being who is your using your service, quite often they don’t have the same visibility or understanding of the risks — there’s no such hurdle to make sure someone is an ‘accredited consumer.’"
6. This guy Warwick Powell is in the school of "America Bad" which shows up in his perspective. Very clear he is pro-China. But it is good to understand our enemies' view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wELAe9yTOL0
7. Anduril & Founder Fund's Trae Stephens. Valuable discussion on defense and good quests in life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMVl3hXvTQ
8. Shawn Puri is the man. What a fun and insight-dense conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMfvLnui-aU
9. When it comes to war, the military and geopolitics Erik Prince knows what he is talking about. This is an important presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsKtfLRSo2c&t=272s
10. Important topic: the American military is behind and not set up well for the future of mass war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0biBnbsAPE
11. Reindustrialization & the MidWest for the win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07qpzLeVGKc
12. "Vice is also a malleable concept. What we consider as “vices” are purely socially constructed, meaning that they can morph and shift alongside changing social norms. Throughout history, activities once condemned as morally reprehensible — from gambling to alcohol consumption to certain forms of entertainment — have been reframed as acceptable, even celebrated. Meanwhile, behaviors that were once mundane, like smoking in offices or excessive social media use, can become widely frowned upon.
Lately, shifts in consumer sentiment, regulatory pressures, and advancements in technology — particularly artificial intelligence — are reshaping the vice economy. The age-old struggle of personal freedom versus societal acceptance is playing out in new ways, as younger generations redefine what constitutes indulgence and personal responsibility.
Specifically, the legalization of sports betting, once hailed as a major economic driver, is now facing backlash due to its financial and social consequences. Meanwhile, a cultural shift among younger generations has led to a decline in alcohol consumption, forcing the beverage industry to reconsider its strategies. Moreover, the continued deployment of AI is seeping through the vice economy, unlocking new opportunities while raising ethical concerns. Together, these trends indicate that the boundaries of vice are evolving, prompting stakeholders to adapt to an uncertain future."
https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/the-shifting-norms-of-the-vice-economy-1baa5f544f23
13. Lots of good nuggets & learnings for B2B Sales leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n32QNJWNrlE&t=2s
14. "Each of these magical winter refuges has its own particular flavor. The shy celebs go for the fortresslike log homes of Montana’s Yellowstone Club, which is in the midst of a major expansion. The Westchester moms point their upfit Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans and Cybertrucks toward the Hermitage Club of Vermont, which was taken private by the mountain’s homeowners during the pandemic. And the LA and San Francisco tech crowd can have one of Powder Haven’s Rivian courtesy cars meet them at the Ogden FBO.
To join these clubs often costs millions of dollars in real estate, plus initiation fees, plus tens of thousands in annual dues—not to mention, sometimes, multigenerational personality vetting. In this way, skiing in America is becoming more like America’s most elite golf and racquet clubs, as well as the private social clubs proliferating across New York City, and less like skiing in Europe, where lift-ticket costs at public mountains remain so reasonable that they’re drawing cost-conscious American skiers.
But private ski resorts are a peephole into another strata entirely—one that’s not only flush but teeming. There are enough ultra-high-net-worth people in America to fill Aspen, Telluride, Deer Valley, and Jackson Hole, among a dozen tony mountain towns. Baby boomers are holding between $84 trillion and $146 trillion in assets, much of which will be inherited by millennials in what economists refer to as the Great Wealth Transfer. Add to that the spoils of the tech boom, American energy independence, the AI trade, crypto, and a fire hose of pandemic-era government spending, and you can start to see how millions of Americans may soon need a fancier place to ski."
https://www.gq.com/story/inside-the-new-private-mountain-clubs-where-billionaires-ski
15. "Canada and the European NATO nations, together or separately, face challenges in replacing or even replicating much of the sophisticated intelligence support the United States provides. While European countries are enhancing their defense efforts, they lack the comprehensive and massive intelligence infrastructure the U.S. possesses.
While NATO nations have all agreed to a substantial increase in defense spending, the development and integration of advanced intelligence systems within Europe are still in progress and will not compensate for the immediate loss of U.S. intelligence. This is one reason why alliances are so important: The combined force is always greater than the sum of the individual members.
The ramifications of Trump’s decision extend beyond the battlefield. Given Putin’s well-documented war crimes and Russia’s continued attacks on civilians, restricting Ukraine’s access to intelligence raises serious ethical concerns about American complicity. In limiting Ukraine’s access to intelligence, the United States risks not just strategic miscalculation but moral failure—becoming an enabler of the very war crimes it once sought to prevent."
16. This was so good and came at right time. So many things to learn here on building businesses, building wealth and a great life. Only things that matter will be personal brand or AI-based businesses.
Learned the 60/30/10 rule and real world numbers/formulas for marketing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ERpvvaEUZY
17. "The experience of an entrepreneur selling to the U.S. military is not unlike that of a video game player. The Defense Department and its acquisition system exist in their own universe, with its own language, characters, unforeseen obstacles and progressively complicated levels that players must surmount. (In fact, “The Pentagon” itself sounds like a game world.)
Entrepreneurs new to the universe may find themselves lost, confused, or facing setbacks as they navigate the Pentagon’s acquisition bureaucracy. They must contend with a daunting number of people, an unfamiliar social ranking system and a new language – from acronyms like SBIR, JCIDS, and OTA to military phrases like “force multiplier” and “situational awareness.” They must find their way through over 4,000 pages of acquisitions guidance, develop a network of allies who can help them get to the next level, the Technology Readiness Level to be exact, where higher levels unlock additional contracts and new customers."
https://stanfordh4d.substack.com/p/the-quest-for-defense
18. "The same is true when working with the DoD. Understanding the landscape and having knowledge of milestones to be completed and people to know is necessary to move forward in the defense sales process. As entrepreneurs advance, they will have epiphanies about the problem their products solves, the value it adds, and for whom that cannot be precomputed. Entrepreneurs will then be awarded contracts by learning and applying all of this knowledge to delivering value to multiple stakeholders in the bureaucracy.
Let’s start with the first task: learning the universe. The Pentagon is unlike any other market most entrepreneurs have encountered. Entering this labyrinth means working with seasoned bureaucrats with years of contracting experience, learning a bevy of new terms and timelines, and competing with other players, like prime defense contractors, who have more knowledge, resources, and connections than an entrepreneurial newcomer."
https://stanfordh4d.substack.com/p/selling-to-defense-the-quest-for
19. Always enlightening view on geopolitics with Peter Zeihan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e0IZv31820
20. "Our entire Pentagon acquisition system is not oriented to buy from, learn from, or deal with this new class of external vendors. We built a great system to work with existing prime contractors: The top 10 or 20 get about 80% of all the defense contracts. It’s not that [people in the primes] are dumb, it’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that they can’t hire the best and the brightest because startups are paying baseball star salaries to AI engineers and drone folks. And [the primes] business model is not designed to do iterative and incremental innovation. It’s designed for change orders, long lead times, and waterfall engineering.
We can benchmark our progress against our potential adversaries. Look at the speed that China puts destroyers on the water, the innovation in drones that happens literally on a weekly basis, or the battlefield in Ukraine. There is no prime that is keeping up with that quantity.
Private capital, however, is pretty good at that. We just haven’t built a DoD acquisition system at scale that allows us to leverage its speed and energy.
So far, the DoD has been a terrible customer. Its acquisition cycles don’t match the cash flow needs of startups. And who’s going to be an acquisition partner for these guys? Lockheed? They don’t pay 10x or 50x revenue. You might get bought for, like, revenue."
https://www.tectonicdefense.com/the-godfather-of-defense-innovation-a-qa-with-steve-blank/
21. "Despite these negative remarks, any observer of geopolitics knows that innovative defense technology is not an abstraction—it is an essential pillar of global stability. The modern international order, in which human rights and democratic governance can flourish, did not emerge by accident. It was won on the battlefield, secured by superior military capabilities, and is maintained through vigilant deterrence.
Critics of defense technology fail to engage with the realities of the world we live in. Europe, long complacent about its security, is now rearming at a pace unseen since the Cold War in response to Russian aggression. China’s military ambitions continue to grow, with an expanding nuclear arsenal and aggressive posturing over Taiwan. These are not problems that can be solved with wishful thinking or moral posturing. They require technological superiority to deter escalation."
https://stanfordreview-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/stanfordreview.org/in-defense-of-defense-tech
22. Alt-Geopolitics and Geonomics. I disagree with these perspectives, these a--holes are definitely pro-Russia and pro-China, hiding in the West.
But trying to understand the opposing view here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPYoT24B2uc&t=2s
23. "One of the most elite Ukrainian units accepting foreign volunteers received “a massive spike” of applications, according to an international serviceman involved in recruiting. The source, who spoke anonymously due to his unit’s regulations, said that a few thousand applications came in after the Oval Office meeting, with “a significant amount of guys expressing outrage and shock over what has been happening with the shift in American policy.”
24. "After the Soviets found out about all this, they created a Doomsday Machine of their own. So, now we have two, each with vastly more than double the firepower. That’s what’s being revved up today – to back Ukraine. Or, is the goal something more mundane? Like ass-covering or generation of cash flows to hungry corporates? Ego? We must study this desire for a wargasm before the world is screwed.
To be clear, I am not saying President Putin is right or should be let off scot-free. Nor am I saying that the US Military Industrial Complex should either. But, diplomacy, as distasteful as it may be, can address these aggressions better than a nuclear conflict."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/kumbh-mela-ominicide-and-wargasm
25. "The message is simple: If adversity is an opportunity for growth, how lucky are we to grow into something harder and badder today?
The next time you're facing something hard, welcome it. These moments forge us if we let them.
Work through the process.
Learn the lessons.
Reap the FULL BENEFIT."
https://jaymartin.substack.com/p/bring-me-goliath
26. "We already know our leaders can’t be trusted.
Not with the management of our tax revenue, not to do what’s best for the people, and sure as hell to not abuse their positions of power for personal gain.
We can’t trust them with the economic prosperity of our nations. Despite this, these same people will soon wield the powers of financial gods, allowing them to manipulate and abuse our monetary system at will.
Powers that will allow them to punish you if you step out of line.
These are powers that even Kublai Khan, in his position as overlord of one of the largest empires in history, couldn’t have begun to imagine.
I’ve been talking about CBDCs in one way or another since 2020—nearly five years now. And all that time, it’s been one of those things that’s always been at arms length, never close enough for us to get too worried about its impact on our lives.
Well, not anymore.
For Europeans, it’s here this year.
For everyone else? Likely, very soon.
It’s time to ensure all your assets, income, or earning ability isn’t tied to just a single nation. To have access to some payment options outside the fiat system, like gold, silver, or Bitcoin. And ideally, to have at least one additional residency permit or citizenship outside your country of nationality.
In other words, to have a solid backup plan."
https://anticitizen.com/p/obey-or-perish
27. This was a surprisingly fascinating & wide ranging conversation. Lots of interesting takes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvpw4_O25eU
28. How Shawn Ryan built his media empire. Very instructive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MogxOvTa9Bg
29. One of the best conversations on the state of VC right now. Lots of zombie Unicorns right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wHzNOqRbDQ
30. Venture capital in the world of AI. Exciting times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEE5sfroDcw
31. Good view on the state of China and US relations right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzncmG-Tgj8
32. Solid overview of what is happening in Ukraine right now & where US support is critical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtjDh4uI1jw
33. If anyone believes China's rise will be benign or good for America and the West, this interview should make it very clear this is not the case.
The CCP is looking to make a Chinese-run world order, they write and talk about this publicly. Read "The Long Game."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5VXqruTt5M
34. "This hypothetical Chagas scenario was presented to me by Jake Adler, the 20-year-old founder of Pilgrim, a company working to leverage nanotechnology, bioelectronics, autonomous sensors, and AI systems to usher in a new era of supersoldiers and anti-threat biosurveillance. The company recently raised a $3.25 million round led by Thiel Capital, Cantos, and Refactor to pursue this vision.
Pilgrim aims to navigate the minefield of government absurdity, leveraging its quirks and failures in order to rapidly deploy usable biotech that will act as a force multiplier on our troops and revamp systems that are meant to protect us against biological warfare. In other words? Pilgrim wants to make supersoldiers, produce futuristic dual-use medical technology, and catch the next pandemic before it even begins.
Jake, a previous recipient of the Thiel Fellowship, has been experimenting with biotech since his early teens. He originally founded a sleep-tech company called Neusleep, iterating on a sleep mask that was designed to “shock you to sleep,” out of his grandmother’s old folks home, raising $275k from various sources in the process. Starting a biotech company at a place where, by his recollection, there was a sign explicitly prohibiting the presence of adult diapers in the pool, is a wonderful brand of irony. He has since graduated to the resourceful oddities of purchasing “tummy tuck” skin for the ex vivo testing of rapid wound-repair solutions, sneaking into (and getting kicked out of) defense conferences, and (subsequently) pitching government officials on bioweapons protections from a makeshift booth of upside-down trash bins behind said conference center.
All of this to say, Pilgrim will do more than pay lip service to the archetypal “where there’s a will, there’s a way” methodology of getting things done as an undersized, roguelike startup."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/creating-supersoldiers-and-curbing-biothreats
35. These guys are in the "America Bad" camp but they are cold realists. This helps me think through the mainstream narratives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n9w5S9LZkY
36. The great VC AI debate. I'm in the Lessin school of AI, only folks who benefit are the big incumbents and super small startups. The middle will be sub-scale and not deliver VC returns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcObLyRM15U
37. Fascinating conversation on VC and state of the venture market. It's pretty Bubbly at the later stage (ie. beyond Series C).
Synchs with what I am seeing too.
There Is Always an Exit Tax: The Price of Freedom and the Future
I am a big fan of Codie Sanchez who I had the privilege to meet once at my friend Eric Siu’s Leveling up Mastermind. An accomplished investor, business woman, one person media company, she is also a great teacher. She buys and manages an empire of small unsexy offline and online businesses like laundromats, car washes and other traditional service businesses.
Well known for sharing her knowledge online and teaching people how to get financial independence via buying profitable small businesses to build mini-Berkshire Hathaway's (for those who don’t know, Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffet's immensely massive and successful holding company of big businesses).
But she is also an amazingly wise lady about life. In a podcast she talks about her divorce from her previous husband and the key lesson from her father. Her words here:
“Two words my dad said to me which was “Exit Tax”. When I left it was expensive. Both physically and emotionally. And I told my dad about it, he said there is always an exit tax to freedom. And it stuck with me, this is just a toll. A Payment. Once it gets paid, what’s on the other side? That word freedom.”
It made me think. A LOT. Everything that we do comes to an end. Our life is full of relationships, work, business, personal and family. But we sometimes stay in them longer than is healthy for us because we are scared or weak. Or too proud or care too much about what people around us think.
Or more likely we suffer from sunk costs fallacy: where we are worried that everything we have put in before will be lost or wasted, whether these are emotional or monetary investments.
But we have to get past it mentally. Being sentimental and stuck in the past does not serve us well. We have to treat these as lost forever and take the hard lesson. It’s like taking a loss in stock investing, so you can deploy what’s left to a better, more profitable investment in the future.
That is the exit tax we need to pay so we can move on and hopefully get to a better place. Life is too short to stay in unhappy jobs, unhappy relationships or bad businesses & situations.
Equalizer 3: An Assassin’s Italian Holiday
I was a fan of the original tv series The Equalizer during the 80s. About an elite gentleman CIA assassin who tries to atone for all the terrible things he did in the service, by helping people get out of trouble. He uses his skills and experience serving justice to those in need, especially the poor and helpless. A literal equalizer for those who cannot get help from normal means. A new age Robin Hood or even more violent Batman. Something we all wish existed in real life.
Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington have a modern remake that is updated and way more violent. True revenge flicks. The first movie was about the Russian Mafia, the 2nd one he takes down some of his former CIA colleagues turned renegade. But the 3rd edition is him taking on the Camora, one of the most vicious mafia groups in Italy.
He ends up injured from a mission and winds up in a small town Altamonte in Sicily. While healing there, he befriends many of the locals and becomes one of the community. He eventually becomes their protector from the powerful mafia lord terrorizing the town.
What I loved about it was the beautiful landscapes of this historical town. The Mediterranean seascapes, the old churches, the plazas full of people, the winding hillside staircases, the reflection of the closed but kind local community. Italian living really is attractive. Lots of sun, delicious food, even better coffee and plenty of warm, kind people. Oh and again, the amazing food. (As an aside Italian cuisine is in my pantheon of top food, up there with Japanese and Chinese food).
A welcoming environment that is slow paced and sometimes disorganized. But it’s such a lovely way of living. No wonder people from all over the world are drawn to the country. And if it can domesticate a busy former CIA assassin, it can do the same for you.
We can all do with more Italy in our lives. I realized this in 2023 when I went to Puglia for my friend Stefan’s wedding. It was such a great respite from my normal modern busy life. Or those of us who are lucky enough to jet set across the world for a career. A slower pace of life and the simple joys provide the reset we can all sometimes use.
Shortcomings: What you Hate Shows You Who You Are
I found an interesting new Asian-American romantic comedy, Shortcomings, which was based on a popular graphic novel. It was pretty damn funny as it acts as critique and observation of American and Asian-American culture that takes place in Northern California. It was also a bit dark and maybe hit too close to home but I saw it at the right time in my life.
I really disliked the main character Ben, who is this snarky, negative, arrogant, elitist & judgemental Asian-American guy who just pisses on everything and everyone. He is a snob and thinks he is better than everyone. Yet he is just a low level manager at a local movie theater. He cannot be happy for his loved ones and can only see the bad side of things.
There is this insightful comment when his long term girlfriend breaks up with him:
“you want to know what is f—ing embarrassing, trying to hold on to something just because you are pathologically afraid of change. That’s what you do and it felt like death to me. I also think you have problems with anger, depression, your weird self-hatred issues and just the relentless negativity. Your resistance to grow, to change….”
Then I realized that damn it, that’s actually a pretty good description of me. All of it. All spot on. I’m so negative (thank you Canada), angry and just awful sometimes. This is what gets me into fights with my family. Every single one of them. It is also probably why I hate doing anything with Asian-American culture (god, I detest that obnoxious Gold House and that group of people. A bunch of arrogant hosers).
But what I did enjoy was how Asian culture has become more mainstream. Showed a shift in the culture that reflects. An Asian American guy with a white girl on screen, which I have never seen until the last 3 years. Talking about the Korean wave hitting as well. But it’s also how people try to find themselves now and who can start to identify with people on screen. In the popular culture that doesn’t fit old stereotypes. When to be yourself and when to pretend to fit in. But also how people self-sabotage.
There is this scene when Ben’s new girlfriend breaks up with him and he is of course a total dick, she says to him: “I know you are going to want to blame society, or my sexuality or on your race or whatever. But one day you are going to understand that this really is just about you.”
So many of us don’t take responsibility for our failures. Or recognize our own flaws. The sooner you do that, the sooner you can fix it. But we usually do that only after we hit rock bottom. Sometimes you have to hear the hard painful truth from someone you love (or used to love you). Guess there is a big lesson there. That’s when you actually grow.
This should also be freeing: we are truly the architect of our own fate for better or worse. Let’s make it for the better.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 13th, 2025
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.'' -- Christian Lous Lange
"Essentially, the history of warfare can be divided into two distinct epochs. The first epoch, which lasted from the Battle of Kadesh to the Siege of Vicksburg (3,137 years), was an epoch of armies that stood up straight in formation. The second epoch, our current epoch, is the epoch of the empty battlefield in which soldiers spend most of their time trying to conceal themselves from the enemy.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the era of the empty battlefield is intensifying. The most powerful coefficient on the battlefield today is the nexus of modern ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and precision strike systems. This power is brought to bear through drones of all types – spotter drones surveilling the battlefield and strike drones which include First Person View (FPV) units. The ability of both Ukrainian and Russian forces to survey and strike the battlefield is so precise that they can find and hit enemy vehicles and positions at particular points of vulnerability: footage of FPV drones flying through doorways and windows of enemy strongpoints is now everywhere.
On modern battlefields, hiding is now a critical skill. Anything (or anyone) that can be seen can be hit and destroyed. Blanketing electronic warfare, which can deny airspace to enemy drones, remains far away, and until it arrives, the ability to win decisive victories has become very difficult. Armies are forced to disperse and conceal themselves to avoid enemy surveillance and strike systems and, therefore, find it difficult to gain momentum.
This reality was witnessed early in the war through Ukraine’s successes in using American rocket systems to strike Russian ammunition dumps – in response, Russia dispersed and concealed its supply depots. Dispersion has also now taken place with manpower and vehicles – despite the large numbers of personnel mobilized on both sides, assault actions are regularly conducted by relatively small groups (often company-sized or smaller) as these are the only forces that can be safely organized to attack."
https://im1776.com/lessons-from-ukraine/
2. "Zelensky is in a vise. Washington is no longer reliable – or even predictable – Europe is scrambling but under-gunned, and Putin’s dream of parading through Kyiv’s Maidan (Independence Square) is costing both Russia and Ukraine a generation of men.
Kyiv Post’s sources say Zelensky’s team is “regrouping,” but the vibe on the ground is grim. Ukraine’s leader can wait for Europe’s rhetoric to become reality, roll the dice on a settlement that stinks of surrender, or fight on with whatever’s left in the tank. None of it’s pretty, and none of it’s guaranteed. But if I’ve learned anything from war, it’s this: when the chips are down, you don’t fold – you bluff, you brawl, or you bleed. Zelensky’s still standing. For now."
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/48156
3. "Entrepreneurs would do well to think through the “magic moment” in their products—what wows people, what makes someone excitedly share their experience with a friend, and how they can reduce the time and effort it takes for a new user to encounter that magic moment. Magic moments, just as they sound, are incredible experiences. Even to this day, I vividly remember the magic moment from decades ago when I believed a driver could control the stereo in his car with his voice."
https://davidcummings.org/2025/03/08/unforgettable-tech-magic-moments/
4. "Now, imagine you — yes, you — created this entire universe for yourself. Like entering a maze in an amusement park, you’ve imposed these constraints for the fun of it, to create a challenge, an adventure. Why else would you do it?
Now, let’s take it further. Imagine a brilliant sun — your higher self — shining above a layer of clouds. The sun is always there, always radiating, but you can’t see it because of the cloud cover. The trick is learning how to poke holes in the clouds, letting more light through, until one day the clouds dissolve entirely and you merge with that higher self.
This is a profound shift — where you step through the illusion and start playing life instead of suffering through it."
https://newsletter.sanjaysays.co/p/feeling-tired-and-run-down-9179ee5c5ef9d381
5. Net net: it's just going to be more volatile in Ukraine and the world in general with Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDf8YBuRIvU
6. Pragmatism matters. Europe's naivety has been deadly to their populace and their own interests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh1zmDi0qN0
7. These guys are a--holes but I try to understand the opposing narratives in the Russia-Ukraine war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuxMZmMOt3M
8. You have to break out of your own narrative bubble. Factually though China is kicking our a-s. I wouldn't invest in China personally but it seems to be an undervalued market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwHnJn0ubYs
9. Understanding the economic revolution in China right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbpMPzCJetU
10. Understanding Thrive Capital, one of the top multi stage VC firms around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIIQR_FlKnw&t=45s
11. "As an investor, there is a play here - be open to things that violate the tenets of the hardware lottery. If we fund new ideas, even if they take a bit longer to generate economics, we could create the really breakthrough technologies that will get us to AGI. Of course, given the current assumption by many that AGI is just around the corner, maybe that is a difficult bet to take."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-hardware-lottery-and-the-future
12. "The most successful AI M&A strategies combine small, mid-sized, and large-scale acquisitions to create a diversified approach to AI adoption.
✅ Small acquisitions ($5M-$50M) provide technical talent and niche AI capabilitiesat a relatively low cost.
✅ Mid-sized acquisitions ($50M-$500M) offer fully developed AI solutions that can be integrated into existing operations.
✅ Large-scale acquisitions ($500M+) allow companies to establish themselves as market leaders in AI-driven transformation.
The AI race is already underway, and the winners will be those that make decisive moves now. Companies that integrate AI early—whether through acquisition, strategic investment, or partnerships—will be best positioned to lead in an increasingly AI-driven economy."
https://startupstechvc.beehiiv.com/p/buy-now-build-later-the-smartest-ai-play-for-fortune-500s
13. "Claude Code re-anchors what I expect to pay for software and the delivery time of that software, perhaps unrealistically. If it’s just a few minutes to build an Android app, how long could a fully functioning software product take to build? It might not be accurate to linearly extrapolate simple apps, build time to complex enterprise apps. But it makes me wonder.
Imagine applying this strategy across half to three quarters of a white-collar workforce & using another AI to label each action an employee takes with AI and aggregating that across an organization."
https://tomtunguz.com/cost-of-this/
14. Super fun episode this week with the boys at NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWZiyLU_G4
15. "Increased demand caused by the prospect of European rearmament has sent shares in German defence companies surging as they ramp up production.
Against this backdrop, some car factories in Germany are being repurposed to make weapons as European manufacturers battle a market that has failed to recover to its pre-Covid levels."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-open-building-military-equipment-160011493.html
16. "Current estimates put the entire force necessary to replace the US contingent in Europe at 330,000 troops or 55 brigades. That will be a stretch. At present Germany can barely muster a single combat-ready division. But getting to a place in which large European states are able to competently defend themselves does not require unleashing the demons of World War II. It requires returning to something more like the normality of Europe in the age of NATO deterrence in the 1970s and 1980s."
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-360-war-economies-disentangling
17. "However, Moore and Pasarell couldn’t stomach seeing their event move to a different location, so they brought the deal to an unlikely source: Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Ellison started playing tennis in the early 2000s after pickup basketball became too hard on his body. The billionaire received private lessons at his residence five days a week, and his instructor just so happened to be a mutual friend of Raymond Moore.
This is how Larry Ellison ended up buying the Indian Wells tournament for $100 million. He obviously has a lot of money and could afford it, but this wasn’t just a passion project. Ellison had been attending the tournament for several years and wanted to run it like a legitimate business, reinvesting profits back into the fan and player experience to build something truly special — and that’s precisely what he did."
https://huddleup.substack.com/p/how-a-billionaire-built-the-worlds
18. "Canada faces an urgent choice: continue relying on unpredictable partners and risk strategic irrelevance, or build genuine capability for autonomous action. The path forward demands recalibration of Canadian security thinking and expansion of capabilities in three domains: special operations forces, offensive cyber operations, and intelligence collection.
We must undertake a generational project to build these capabilities—not to repudiate alliances but as insurance against their uncertainty. For a middle power with limited resources, the most efficient path to strategic autonomy lies in asymmetric capabilities that provide disproportionate strategic effects relative to their cost. Special forces, cyber operations, and intelligence align with Canada's comparative advantages: a highly educated population, advanced technological base, diverse society, and reputation as a constructive international actor."
https://suthakamal.substack.com/p/canadas-moment-building-strategic
19. "All the pushups in the world haven’t prevented the vaunted Russian military from turning in a decidedly lackluster performance in Ukraine. But to the American right, perceptions and posturing and vibes are often more important than numbers and statistics. Russia gives off strength, so it must be strong.
And to the American right, strength is everything in international affairs. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and concepts like the rules-based international order or international law are laughable. If Russia and Europe are to fight, Trump and company want to bet on the side with the shirtless pushups.
Of all the reasons why Trump has abandoned Europe, this is the only one that the region can do anything about. Europeans are not going to give up their fundamental values, and they won’t be able to disabuse Trump of his dreams of partnering with Russia and pretending it’s the 19th century. But what Europe can do is to look strong. It can beef up its defenses by a huge amount, implement universal military training, build up its nuclear arsenal, and boost heavy industry and defense manufacturing. Poland is already doing all of this, and the UK, France, and Germany are already moving in the direction of rearmament. That’s good.
Europe can’t make Trump or his party embrace their values. But what they can do is to become strong enough where Trump respects them instinctively. That strength will push Trump toward a posture of neutrality, instead of friendliness toward Russia. And maybe, after the weird rightist minority that has taken over the country no longer holds power, America and Europe can reestablish their storied alliance — on a more equal footing this time."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-america-betrayed-europe
20. "Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has attacked the United States and Europe on a near-daily basis using what are often referred to as “hybrid” operations, meant to hide the hand of the Russian government and to remain below the threshold of war so as not to trigger a response."
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-courts-putin-russians-trying-kill-americans-gray-zone-hybrid-war
21. A truly unique and interesting person. Cyan Banister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1eoWu8QVIU
22. "Putin wants a weak, failed Ukrainian state. Obviously Ukraine wants the opposite.
And this war, and negatiation now is not about NATO enlargement or Ukraine’s NATO membership. It never was. Simply put it is about Ukraine’s sovereignty, independent of Russia, or not.
Ukraine will not accept any deal that undermines/fails to secure its fundamental sovereignty. For Ukriane it is about the survival of the state, and it’s people. For Putin it is about the opposite. So while Trump might see this simply as a case of war or peace, for the two main protagonists in this war and negotiations is is about something different, and war has been the result of the underlining problem/dispute about Ukrainian sovereignty.
Not sure Trump et al get all this."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/a-game-of-chicken-kyiv-or-kiev
23. Always strong sober analysis by George Friedman. Founder of Geopolitical Futures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6XttbqpM_M
24. This was a fun interview.
https://agoldfisher.medium.com/ai-robotics-the-future-of-work-328baca898fc
25. I think both of these people are CCP shills. But I try to listen to everyone to try to understand the situation on the ground. China is a major threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFV7kHgctJ8
26. Lots of good nuggets on geopolitics measurements right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLhhVDo4xGo
27. One of the more interesting characters in Silicon Valley. Alex Karp of Palantir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUK-VYCh5go
28. Lots of fun stuff this week in Silicon Valley news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6myq5J5PjI
29. One of the more original and interesting investors: Sam Lessin. A Fun conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDjDzWCdlx0
30. "Achieving peace, security, and stability will require tough decisions and sacrifices. The kind of sacrifices that win wars. Is the EU willing to make them? As Trump advances with his America First agenda, it’s easy for proponents of liberty and democracy to despair. But there’s nothing like the threat of a brutal autocrat in Russia and an unpredictable president in the White House to bring unity to the continent. The bad news is the EU can no longer count on the U.S. The good news: They may not need us."
https://www.profgalloway.com/europe-becomes-a-union/
31. "For startups, working with the Department of Defense (DoD) can feel like stepping into a fortress of bureaucracy — procurement is slow, compliance is daunting, and knowing who actually makes buying decisions is like navigating a maze in the dark. Yet, for those who learn to successfully navigate these hurdles, the rewards can be enormous.
The DoD is one of the world’s largest and most stable customers, spending hundreds of billions on modern defense systems and technology annually. Unlike volatile consumer markets, defense contracts offer not just funding, but also long-term sustainment. Small wins can lead to multi-million-dollar deals, resulting in high-margin, predictable revenue streams. And beyond financial incentives, building technology that strengthens national security carries undeniable appeal in supporting our country and our interests as Americans.
But this market is not for the impatient. Sales cycles take years, compliance is non-negotiable, and understanding who buys what, and through which funding mechanisms, is as important as having a strong product. Startups must approach the DoD with a strategic, long-term mindset — because while the opportunities are vast, so are the barriers to entry.
While we hope for DoD procurement reform, the following is a high-level primer intended to arm you with a rough framework of how to approach selling to the DoD today."
https://a16z.com/dod-contracting-for-startups-101/
32. I don't agree with this perspective but it is Alt-Geopolitics with Alex Krainer. Always an interesting take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjSuUOa9TYI
33. Damn, this was a deep and valuable interview with Silicon Valley VC legend: Doug Leone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCWz0OxE16s
34. "While innovation and new production often steal the headlines, the future of U.S. manufacturing hinges on an often-overlooked component: maintenance and overhaul — what’s commonly known as the “aftermarket.” This vast ecosystem of maintenance, repair, logistics, and related jobs is essential to ensure these innovations operate seamlessly over time. Without addressing the aging infrastructure that underpins the country’s economic engine, even the most advanced progress in hardware and technology will fall short of its full potential.
Until we inspire a new generation of young people to enter these critical sectors, the momentum behind reshoring and revitalizing manufacturing may fall short. In the meantime, the key lies in leveraging technology to bridge the labor gap while simultaneously encouraging the next generation to see the potential and excitement in these massive, essential industries."
Departures: Passings & Comfort in Ceremony
Another flight and another set of movies. I’ve been wanting to watch this Japanese movie called “Departures” for a long time but never got around to it. It’s a movie that covers the depressing topic of death but it also turned out to be about life too. Life affirming actually. Seeing death makes you appreciate life and the art of living well. Beautiful natural scenery, the Onsen hot spring, lovely music and delicious food.
Daigo is a professional cellist in Tokyo who returns to his home town Yamagata after his orchestra is shut down. He takes a job as an assistant to a local undertaker who performs the passing ceremony for families of the dead.
After a rough start, Daigo starts to learn the way and begins to understand the comfort their ceremony provides for the family of the dead and the living. It’s a grim but important job. He starts to find meaning in this work. His wife and friends slowly come around to the immense value of his work.
There is a scene during a ceremony where they are met with an angry father whose wife had passed. But the caretaker lovingly and meticulously as only the Japanese do, restores the dead wife’s look, touching the mourning family deeply.
Daigo says:
“One grown cold, restored to beauty for eternity. This was done calmly and precisely….with a gentler affection than anything else. At the final parting to send them on their way. Everything is done peacefully and beautifully.”
This is also a restart for him, finding a new path to fulfillment. There is a scene of him watching the salmon swim upstream. He says: “Sad, coming all this way to die. it doesn’t seem worth it.” He is told by a wiser old man: “They want to go home, back to where they were born.”
I truly believe people go somewhere after death. Humans are energy and as the laws of physics show energy doesn’t just disappear. It just takes a new form.
There is a quote from the movie that stayed with me: “I’ve often thought that maybe death is like a gateway. Dying doesn’t mean the end. You go through it and onto the next thing. It’s a gate.”
Japanese death ceremonies are a beautiful way to send this new form on its way. And more importantly are a form of solace and closure for the living.
Weakness Invites Aggression: Peace is Achieved Through Strength
I know I write a lot about geopolitics. These things are important to understand. What’s going on? Who are our allies and who are our enemies. It affects where we do business and how. Which industries, sectors, companies and countries to invest or work in. Which countries or regions to live in.
I used to be Libertarian in the way of the “Sovereign Individual” book, which is a classic book worth reading and one ahead of its time in detailing important technology trends. It discusses the concept of escaping high tax and unfree places to lower tax and business friendlier climates.
However the great flaw in this is what happens when the places that are totally free are crime ridden anarchic hellholes like Somalia or dystopian sci-fi dictatorships like China under the CCP who have exported their surveillance state to their allies.
As @noahpinion writes libertarians eventually understand the importance of having a strong military and defense to enforce their borders against enemies coming over the hills and raping, killing and pillaging their populace as per the “Tamerlane effect” like Russia invading UKraine in 2022. Or the Hamas terror attacks in Israel on October 7th. The list goes on.
Unfortunately it seems the West and its complacent & brain dead populace has still not woken up to this. All these governments talk about doing stuff, but the only countries who seem to have stepped up is Poland who have increased their defense spending to a whopping 4-5% of GDP. Japan has truly doubled their defense spending and some of the countries like Finland, Sweden have always punched above their weight. The Baltics and many Eastern European countries who directly face the Russian threat are ramping up.
For most countries in the West, it is “performative theater as foreign policy” as American geopolitical strategist Eldridge Colby calls it. Weakly-led countries like Canada, Germany, the UK and most of the EU talk a big game but at the same time have let their militaries shrink and their industrial bases get run down. It took 3 years of war in Ukraine and Trump & his admin openly talking about leaving NATO has caused the UK, France and Germany to finally do something.
Truly unserious people there although this is also the case in America where our so-called leadership from Bush Jr to Obama to Trump and Biden have squandered all of our advantages coming out of the Cold War.
Unfortunately, we are not in a posturing world anymore but the real world now. I don’t like this at all but reality is a hard teacher. Bullies and criminals only attack the weak. This has always been the case throughout human history in every society. I hope we wake up soon and prepare our countries as the old and much repeated axiom goes: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
In the end, countries get whatever they deserve based on the good or bad choices they made decades ago. While the West is behind, maybe the new sense of urgency and action will help us catch up and get strong. You can’t be sovereign if you are not strong. This is the hard truth of human history, now reasserting itself harshly after the unwinding of the Unipolar world of Pax Americana.
Fixing Yourself and Building Momentum in Life: The Aggregation of Small Things
Q1, Winter is always brutal. You are almost always extra busy as business usually ramps up.
Additionally the weather sucks badly, at least in SF in my neighborhood, it’s wet and dark. Not as bad as in Canada and Europe but the lack of sun really affects me. All probably not helped by my mess of a home life. I honestly was feeling a bit suicidal at that time in 2024, something I’ve only felt a few times in my life (2001 and 2020 specifically).
As I wrote in an earlier post, that’s where Thailand came in. I booked a full week of fight training at the excellent Stay Wellness Resort with its own world class on site gym & Muay Thai kickboxing facilities with amazing personal trainers. There was also a top notch health and wellness clinic as well as an excellent spa.
Nothing better than 1 on 1 Muay Thai boxing intensive training. Sweating and burning out all the rage. Followed by yoga, sports massage treatments or cryotherapy or IV energy treatments. That and a sauna with a soak in Onsen Hot Spring. I also had 1 on a Personal training to help finetune my training regime. I got plenty of sun and slept very well every night.
It was amazing and all these small things together completely changed my mood and turned around my outlook. You sometimes need to get out of your normal everyday environment and rut. In fact, I would argue this may be the only way to get a breakthrough.
My point is that sometimes it’s doing a whole bunch of small things together that can help change your momentum in your life.
I felt so much better after the trip. Better about myself because I worked out hard and felt proud of doing hard things. The workouts also gave me the physical and mental strength to tackle all the challenges I’m facing in my life at home. Sometimes that is all it takes. A turnaround, bit by bit, piece by piece.
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 6th, 2025
“April is a reminder that something better is always around the corner.”—Unknown
This looks great. Timely too as America becomes a gangster state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKGgw7Ob5f4
2. Good discussion this week on NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jioOgPYRevc
3. "Where in the 21st Century could Letters of Marque and Reprisal come in handy?
Cartels and terrorists have bank accounts and cryptocurrency accounts? Huh. I am sure we can weaponize some autists to go after those. Take it to a Prize Court, and they can decide how to make it legally theirs. 38% for the government that gave them a letter of marque and they keep the rest?
A fleet of boats smuggling weapons to the Houthis in the Gulf of Aden?
A cartel head travels by private jet on a regular basis and some enterprising people find a way to divert it to a US jurisdiction? What reward is there for that?
Those are just the first three things that come to mind. There are more.
If privateering was good enough for the Father of our Country, it’s good enough for me.
At sea, in the air, in space, in cyberspace…yes. Let’s make privateering great again."
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/privateers-now-more-than-ever
4. "You may not expect the President of the United States to crash the US economy on purpose, but that is what appears to happen. Hopefully this is a healthy correction that allows us to rebuild on a stronger base, but either way — put your seatbelt on.
We are in for a bumpy ride."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-age-of-economic-chaos
5. "The enthusiasm to create a multinational military comes on the heels of von der Leyen’s ambitious plans to reindustrialize the EU and establish a place of prominence in the AI arms race. Among the many problems with this vision, one is determinative: physics.
That Europe is a drone attack away from yet another energy emergency is scandalous enough, but it is also testimony to the impossibility of converting platitudes into bombs. Brussels might refuse to acknowledge this fundamental truth, let alone confront it, but it is the sort of problem that cannot be wished away. The numbers are truly shocking, so let’s break them down.
This brings us back to the EU’s fantastical plan to build a military capable of slogging it out with the Russians without US support. There is talk of investing hundreds of billions of Euros to “rearm Europe,” presumably through the issuance of Eurobonds. Even if the requisite political approvals are secured from member nations, the plan is doomed to fail from the start. The very industries essential to executing such a strategy are the ones being driven out of business by exorbitant energy costs. One wonders of what Brussels thinks bombs, bullets, tanks, planes, trucks, and ships are made."
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/project-porcupine
6. "We’re naturally optimistic about the USA coming out ahead in any sort of financial/economic warfare. That said, there is a dystopian version where this drags on for years. In that case you already know what we think: all this leads to more robots/automation.
Cost of production in the USA is just not going to work when compared to pennies on the dollar wages in places like SE Asia and South of the Border.
In the corporate world, you put in extra hours but if the company needs to restructure, you’re gone and forgotten within weeks.
The company survives, the execs cash their bonuses and you’re out scrambling.
The lesson? You are an expendable line item. A cog in a wheel. The second you forget that, you lose. The only way to win is to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an owner. Build skills, leverage, and multiple income streams so you’re treading water if you get hit vs. scrambling to make it on a month to month basis.
Your employer isn’t your family. The government isn’t family. Your boss isn’t your friend. You are on your own."
https://bowtiedbull.io/p/no-one-is-coming-to-save-you-not
7. View from Taiwan of the Ukraine & USA rupture. Studeman knows what he is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AO978OsfXo
8. "If you’ve been in the online business space you’ve probably heard of funnels. They are not a well understood concept by most people (who are just winging their business relying largely on traffic)… to their own detriment.
EVERY business is essentially a funnel whether the business owner realizes this or not.
A funnel is essentially how a customer goes from “I don’t know you” to making a purchase from you."
https://lifemathmoney.com/what-the-fuck-is-a-funnel-breaking-down-a-business/
9. "But clearly, the uses of the minerals Ukraine has go far beyond the energy transition. And Ukraine has tried hard to interest the new administration in its mineral wealth.
Also, China controls much of the world's supply of these materials. Opening access to Ukraine’s supply could reduce U.S. dependence elsewhere.
"To the credit of the first Trump administration, they have always put critical minerals as a very important policy priority because they knew they were so heavily reliant on China," Moerenhout said. “That priority for the Trump administration doesn’t change at all because they are less, let’s say, less aggressive about clean energy deployment targets in the future.”
https://time.com/7262115/trump-ukraine-minerals/
10. "Actually the four point peace plan suggested by the U.K., and the BIFs, Britain, Italy and France, as leading the way, seemed sensible. Arm Ukraine, give it the tools to defend itself, try a one month truce (covering air and seas, which is more easily verifiable) with Russia first, before a full scale ceasefire. Europe made clear that Ukraine need security guarantees, and arms to defend itself.
Third, events in the WH must have been the final wake up call to Europe, that NATO is dead, the US security guarantee for Europe is over, and that they have to step up if they care about their own security. And I think we saw that over the weekend. There is zero excuse now for Europe not to massively step up its defence spending, and build back its hard power. Zero excuses.
European defence spending will step up, but as we all know it faces capacity constraints in military industries, hence a short term reliance on the US is inevitable.
But Europe has leverage, if it ever realised it.
It will increase defence spending but will need to buy off the U.S. in the short term. If it were clever it would try and get ahead of the curve by committing to a long term arms procurement programme from the US. Say $1 trillion over ten years, a deal that even Trump could not say no to. Call it the Trump Defence of Democracy Programme, whatever you need to play to Trump’s enormous ego. Likely Trump could not say not to the jobs, jobs, jobs created in the US. But this would enable Europe to get over the short term gap in defence production, giving it time to reorient its economies and industry."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/ukraine-silver-lining-to-ambush-in
11. "Every convention, every rule, every norm must be tossed aside to understand and deal with him.
He is a different kind of Statesman, (some would say not one at all); one who will press the advantage when he knows he holds the winning hand, grace isn’t apart of Trump’s winning rhetoric. If he can win and take 80% he will do so. If he can push and get 100% and some of your winnings, he will do so.
Because he expects everyone else to do the same.
Trump grew up during the time where sales and negotiation was hardball. Every inch won, is hard-won and Trump has taken that to heart. If he asks for the moon, a rocket doesn’t seem so bad. Many in the institutional class won’t know this, but this is what every poor man knows now as: the Facebook Marketplace Negotiation. Or what everyone in the 80’s just referred to as sales.
Everything is a bargaining tool for Trump, nothing is off the table. The polite society Neo-Liberal “tit for tat”, arguing over “table-stakes” percentages is over. Tariffs are a bargaining tool. Retaliatory and Reciprocal Tarriffs are the same reasoning. (Trump also knows and views Subsidies as “Reverse Tariffs”)"
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/understanding-trump
12. "These folks probably don’t own a lot of Ripple, Solana, or Cardano — not many people do, after all. And so if Trump’s crypto fund goes through, these folks will be on the hook for higher taxes (or higher inflation) to pay out whoever does own a lot of Ripple, Solana, and Cardano. Trump softened the blow a bit by belatedly adding that he would have the fund buy Bitcoin and Ether, which a lot more people own. But it seems clear that if Trump’s idea goes through, a relatively small number of people are going to get enormous taxpayer-funded payouts.
Who stands to gain? Well, that’s the first reason crypto is such an ingenious tool for regimes to send money to favored individuals. Crypto holdings are anonymous — the public doesn’t even know who has a bunch of XRP, SOL, and ADA. But if you have a bunch of one or more of these coins, you can go whisper in Trump’s ear: “Hey man, I own a ton of Cardano.” And if you’re someone Trump wants to pay out, he can then just include Cardano in his list of cryptocurrencies that he wants the U.S. government to buy. Everyone knows that someone got a big payday, but no one knows who, except for the parties involved. Regime crypto payouts are inherently secret, even when done in plain sight."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-sovereign-crypto-fund-is-a-new
13. "In the US alone, the Fed and Treasury created approximately $4 trillion of credit between 2020 and 2022 in response to the Flu-19 pandemic.
The DOGE-inspired money printing could be 70% to 80% of COVID levels.
Bitcoin rose approximately 24x from its lows in 2020 to its highs in 2021 due to $4 trillion of money printing in the US alone. Given that the Bitcoin market cap is much larger now than then, let’s be conservative and call it a 10x rise for $3.24 trillion of money printing in the US alone. For those who ask how we get to $1 million in Bitcoin during the Trump presidency, this is how.
What Must Be True
I’m painting a very rosy future picture for Bitcoin even though the markets are currently in the shitter. Let’s go through my assumptions so readers can decide for themselves whether they are reasonable or not.
Trump will debt-finance America First.
Trump is using DOGE as a way to cull political opponents addicted to fraudulent income streams, curtail government spending, and increase the likelihood of a US government spending slowdown-led recession.
The Fed will respond pre or post-recession with a raft of policies that will increase the quantity and reduce the price of money.
Given your worldview, it’s up to you to determine if this makes sense."
https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/kiss-of-death
14. "The good news here is that a country doesn’t actually have to produce a bunch of standout inventions and Nobel-winning scientific discoveries in order to get rich. Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan all have higher per capita GDP than Japan does. So the question of “Where are all the Chinese breakthroughs?” might ultimately not matter to China’s leaders. Being “giant Korea” or “giant Taiwan” doesn’t sound like a particularly bad fate.
Still, I do wonder why China, with its vast talent pool, its avalanche of research funding, and its huge consumer markets, hasn’t produced more game-changing inventions and discoveries yet. I really doubt it’s a function of autocracy — the CCP would surely reward a Chinese researcher for inventing mRNA vaccines or the transformer model or Crispr. And Frank Wang wasn’t punished for inventing the modern quadcopter drone — in fact, he’s a billionaire, and seems to be escaping the negative attention that peers like Jack Ma have received.
One possibility is that China’s economic institutions reward fast-following and intense competition over breakthrough innovation. The lack of strong intellectual property protection might make it economically pointless to invent something really new — it’ll just get copied by someone else who takes all the money. That seems like it would encourage more incremental advances. In science, incentives for quantity of papers over quality might be the culprit. These incentives, along with various industrial policies, might produce intensive overcompetition, which I believe Chinese people call “neijuan”.
Whether China can tweak its system to produce more breakthrough discoveries and inventions is an open question. Whether it should even care about doing so, given the success of countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, is another open question. The country certainly does tons of innovation, and maybe the incremental kind is all you really need.
But if the scarcity of breakthroughs persists, I think there’s the possibility that, between that and China’s censorship of art and culture, 21st century great powers might simply turn out to be a bit more boring than their 20th century predecessors."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/is-china-inventing-big-important
15. Fascinated with this city. Megacity of Chengdu in China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqmPUsnWg14
16. A Hopeful view. Lesson from history for Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-QXz9wotrU
17. Super interesting company.
"Sequoia-backed Mach Industries, the defense tech founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, landed a contract with the U.S. Army and has plans for its first factory, Thornton told TechCrunch.
The factory will be 115,000 square feet in Huntington Beach, California, where Mach’s headquarters is located, CEO Thornton said. While that sounds like an expensive zip code for a weapons factory, Southern California — in the shadow of SpaceX — has become a hotspot for America’s burgeoning defense tech industry.
Mach is also announcing it was selected by the Army Applications Laboratoryto develop a vertical takeoff precision cruise missile it calls “Strategic Strike.” This was a developmental contract that was awarded in the third quarter of 2024."
18. "For LPs, the implications are clear: backing specialists is a performance-driven necessity.
Generalist funds have been the go-to model for a long time, and it makes sense. The risk is spread across various industries, so if one area takes a hit, the whole portfolio doesn’t suffer. Diversification can help smooth out returns over time and give the flexibility to chase new opportunities—crypto yesterday, AI today, and ‘let’s see’ tomorrow. They can move where the action is, which can be an advantage in a fast-changing market.
In a world where technology is evolving at the fastest speed we have ever seen, the ‘jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none’ approach is becoming increasingly fragile.
Specialist firms have one big advantage: depth. When your thesis is laser-focused, you’re more likely to spot the real outliers early—before the noise kicks in and the price tags skyrocket. And if you’re right? The upside is exactly what LPs should be chasing—a 47% higher chance of landing in the top quartile. Of course, specialisation has its risks—if the sector struggles, so does the fund. But that’s the game. Instead of relying on generalists to cover everything, LPs should manage risk by spreading allocations across multiple specialists."
https://jamesheathvc.substack.com/p/why-specialists-will-win-the-next
19. "So Ukraine seems to have agreed to sign the minerals deal, and go along with Trump’s peacemaking plans, but they are not going to accept anything the Russia and the U.S. try and impose on them. Important there that if Ukraine is going to be pushed to de facto accept the loss of any territory to Russia, there is zero chance that this would be accepted without cast iron assurances that the territory remainng under control by Kyiv is secure. At the minimum I would think that will require a cast iron commitment that the U.S., West will continue to supply arms to Ukraine so it is able to defend itself.
NATO membership and bilateral security guarantees are nice (but unlikely) to haves but in the end the best assurance of Ukraine’s security is its own armed forces having the tools to defend the country. Russia, of course, will demand demilitarisation of Ukraine - specific limits in Ukraine’s military capability, not that Ukraine is a threat to Russia but obviously as Russia wants to invade Ukraine again in the future. I think there is zero chance that Ukraine will accept any deal where limits are imposed on its future military capability - unless that is others, like NATO, provide the direct security guarantee."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/zelensky-bowed-but-but-beaten
20. The Danger Zone right now in Asia. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfbv2eHEdbY
21. "Venture investors are moving away from things without AI, not realizing there will still be some great businesses that just never need AI. Or, there will be some businesses where one possible market differentiator will be to be the one non-AI player with a higher human touch.
Venture and PE groups are probably both undervaluing companies that sell tech to the government, in light of recent cuts (and perceived coming cuts). Government has to be modernized and stay competitive and I expect these startups and growth companies will do better than people expect - particularly those that have both government and commercial customer segments.
And finally, agent deployments, which will definitely happen long term, are probably a little too aggressive. At my venture fund, we have a thesis that in 2026 you will start to see a lot of AI deployments break because they were put in to replace a human workflow that was only partially understood. Investing in the companies that benefit when that happens will be profitable.
In general, this is an easy strategy to execute.
Pick an area that was a good investment area that people now think is suffering from changes (DOGE, AI, etc).
Think through the catalysts that will cause the problems of the aggressive change to be realized by the powers that be.
Invest against that."
https://investinginai.substack.com/p/the-chestertons-fence-ai-investing
22. "An interesting trend I’m seeing in AI startup business models is paying per outcome instead of per month or year, which is the traditional with SaaS companies. My guess is that it would be unappealing for incumbents—who are used to guaranteed per user revenue—to shift to a performance-based model. Mike agrees, saying that counter-positioning—taking advantage of an incumbent’s reluctance to adopt a new model that undermines their existing revenue streams—is a powerful way for startups to compete.
It’s also a tale as old as time. Back in the 1990s, when Microsoft decided to compete with a startup, it was effectively a death sentence; it just had to bundle the competing product into Windows. But Google countered this by monetizing through ads instead of per-seat licensing. Microsoft couldn’t undermine Google’s business model by bundling anything into its operating system. (In case you were wondering, the sea change in this case was the web.)"
https://every.to/podcast/how-ai-startups-can-win-with-better-strategy
23. “Different & Excellent “ equates to something that doesn’t exactly look like other VCs. Could be pinning their thesis on a category of technology or type of founder that isn’t yet understood by the investment community. Or contrarian in the number of companies and/or dollars invested per company compared to their peers. Maybe even a strong POV on what value they can add that isn’t typically available to early stage founders. These firms aren’t carbon copies of anything else out there. In fact, they probably aren’t generally replicable.
But they take advantage of their unique founding partners, very often the type of people who would reject — or not get hired by — ‘traditional VCs.’ Here we have to torture the models to really understand the quantitative sensitivities around expected performance. And how quickly the firm can process new information and adjust if portions of their hypothesis need tuning once in market. But we’re interested in taking this risk when the person and opportunity warrants it."
24. Good debate on USA-CCP relations in Trump 2.0. I fall in the Beckley camp not Rein camp (who has business interests in China so very biased) but I guess we will see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcM6e__1wm0&t=10s
25. Important to understand China, where most countries have the most critical trade relations in the world + Relations between US & China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPggTcQQa8s
26. An alternative take on the recent geopolitical events. USA's master plan?
I do think George Friedman has been right more than wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksfn_7H92tc
27. A good what's up in Techland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAJmfNHvWI0
28. Ryan has been a great observer of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGnqfihVPH0
29. "Similar to Germany's gas dependency, US allies became heavily reliant on American leadership and security. Trump's recent words and actions has shattered their perception of American reliability. They are now questioning whether the US would genuinely defend them if push came to shove. Asking themselves: is the US working with Russia? With Tulsi Gabbard in her current position, can sensitive intelligence be safely shared without leaks?
Instead of increasing NATO contributions in cooperation with the US, allies now look to increase military spending to operate independently of the US. This small distinction is important, it means the US is losing influence, not gaining it. Before the new Trump administration, this outcome was not what anyone in the US intended."
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/the-ghost-of-charles-de-gaulle
30. Very insightful interview with one of the next gen of Sequoia Capital. Good discussion on Spacetech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o93vbkkYm1I
31. "Despite these challenges, Rosander noted that Sweden has been proactively embracing drone technology, with law enforcement and the military rapidly developing and procuring unmanned aircraft systems.
The Swedish government has partnered with the defense industry to develop a drone-swarm technology platform at record speed — a clear sign that lessons from Ukraine are shaping future strategies.
For Nordic Air Defence, the goal remains clear: scalable, effective, and affordable counter-drone solutions for the modern battlefield."
https://nextgendefense.com/defense-disruptors-nordic-air-defence/
32. "If the U.S. is truly stepping back, Europe faces a new paradigm. The days of 2% of GDP as a NATO benchmark are obsolete. If left to defend itself, Europe will likely need to spend far beyond the 3% number being floated now, with ~ 5% being the base rate for a reasonable starting point to match Cold War-era defence efforts. The only question is whether political leaders and the industry will move fast enough to make up for lost decades before it’s too late."
https://substack.com/@joshuasamuel88/p-157372636
33. "Defence procurement isn’t just about buying the most advanced tech—it’s about logistics, training, and interoperability. Countries overwhelmingly prefer to stick with proven systems they already operate rather than introduce new “SKUs” of tanks, aircraft, or missile systems, which add complexity and cost.
This dynamic creates a powerful incumbency advantage for existing suppliers. Once a system is embedded into a military’s operations, switching isn’t just expensive—it’s operationally risky. Seperately, margins tend to be higher on mature products versus new systems that carry development and execution risk."
https://substack.com/@joshuasamuel88/p-158432828
34. "Crises typically concentrate minds in Europe - the EU only tends to function effectively when it has a bullet (this time literally) close to its head. And I think the biggest existential security crisis that Europe has faced, perhaps since the Berlin airlift, or before, finally forced Europe into action, and this week we have seen activity across a number of fronts, including the U.K. leading efforts to come up with a European/Ukrainian peace plan to end the war in Ukraine - to help alleviate the risk of a bad peace imposed by Russia and the USA.
We have also seen Europe finally pull its finger out and announce huge new financing programmes for arms production, to the tune of many hundreds of billions of euros. The obvious question is why Europe has done nothing for the past three years, over the duration of the war in Ukraine, when surely the threat from Russia was already crystallised and existential? Misreading Russia - even appeasement by some - in the run up to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was bad enough, but Europe sitting on its hands and doing nothing to assure its own security for the past three years is surely criminal.
But we are where we are, Europe is finally stepping into gear.
The problem for Europe though is that while the financing pillars of Europe’s rearmament are now in place, it will take time to build factories and build out actual defence capability in the field. This is time that Europe does not have - the threat from Russia is now, not in five years down the line, albeit in five years time the threat from Russia might be even more extreme.
The outlook is grim for Europe - which raises the question why Europe has not got the obvious for so long, sitting on its hands on issues like seizing immobilised Russian assets for Ukraine.
European inaction might well be the cause of its own downfall."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/europe-faces-existential-risks
35. "Despite the conventional wisdom, people lose money in real estate. Homes are illiquid capital-intensive assets that come with “phantom” costs: Insurance premiums, maintenance bills, and property taxes — all of which are expected to rise due to climate change. Owning also limits diversification, as homes are close to workplaces, meaning a local economic downturn or a natural disaster could wipe out your equity at the same time you lose a job.
Historically, the S&P averages a 10% annual return, outpacing housing at 4% to 8%. Moreover, real estate brokers typically charge around a 6% commission — 60x the transaction cost you’d pay for a low-fee ETF that tracks the S&P. The advantage of homeownership is forced savings, as people don’t want to risk the hassle and shame of eviction. Another advantage: Owning can stabilize monthly housing costs relative to rents.
If economic security is the nutrition of a capitalist society, then maybe we need to stop thinking of housing as an investment, but a consumable (e.g., food, energy, education). The construction of millions of low-cost units for young people, coupled with tax-advantaged incentives to invest in the market would result in a better path to wealth. In addition, we need to remove housing from the growing list of sources of anxiety for young people. It’s housing, not an investment strategy or the arbiter of whether you’re worthy enough to mate, start a family, or earn status. Economic security and deep and meaningful relationships are the American Dream, not a mortgage payment. The call sign for the next administration should morph from “Drill Baby Drill” to “Build Baby Build.”
https://www.profgalloway.com/project-2028-housing/
36. "When it comes to AI, I believe that prioritizing adaptability over resistance will serve us better in the long run. We didn’t abandon writing after the printing press, and we won’t stop thinking because of AI. Our skills will settle around overseeing and evaluating, instead of raw creation. This shift will be uncomfortable—we’ll likely lose some depth in areas AI handles well—but the trade-offs enable new capabilities we are only just beginning to imagine. The only way to discover them is to lean into using the new technology."
https://every.to/learning-curve/how-knowledge-work-will-evolve-in-the-ai-era
Noble Obligations & Skin in the Game: The Harsh Reality of War in Medieval Times
I was thinking of how important history is and how damaging ideologies take hold in society. The first thing dictators and ideologues do is to go to the history books & rewrite it to remove context and justify their views. This happens everywhere and every country.
I happened to chance upon a fascinating and really eye-opening tweet thread by @rfhirst on warfare in the Dark ages/ Middle ages. How it’s been so cleaned up and glamorized by Hollywood. The reality is that it was ugly and brutal. Just follow this X thread: https://twitter.com/rfhirst/status/1762973688570520056
He examines the archaeology of the man of Kent, a 20-25 year old Anglo Saxon male who died due to combat. He died horrifically, with over 30 wounds across his body. Remember that back then, warriors fought with blades, swords and axes, and fought face to face and in mass numbers of men.
@rfhirst goes on to write:
“The reality of death in medieval combat ought to be widely known, not for sadism but as an antidote to certain modern attitudes which conceive of the Middle Ages as that time when Lord Knobhead grew fat on cheese and wine whilst the peasants broke their sorry backs for a carrot.
A cynical attitude which sees past warrior-aristocrats as undeserving of what luxuries they enjoyed is easy to hold when one's concept of their raison d'être is informed by the simplified & sterilized depictions of modern media; almost nonchalant, unskilled, open and accessible.
Plentiful food and fine clothes, lands and titles of honor were bought at the price of abandoning all hope for a long life, so few lived to see 30 winters, and having to time and again witness horrors which lay beyond our comprehension - horrors which no cynic today could endure.
In speaking so of the horrors of war it ought not be thought that this detracts from past heroism. If anything it bolsters it, magnifies it, and commands from the modern reader with true knowledge a solemn respect for each and every man who mustered on through the heat of battle.”
The first lesson I take from this, is that we are super lucky to be living in present times. The second important lesson is that most of the super successful did not cheat someone to get to where they are at (some do but I find this is a tiny minority who usually end up going to jail). They literally live and die by the metaphorical sword. It’s high risk and high gain. Yes, if the business they start ends up succeeding they do well. But they go through a lot to get the business up and running. If the business fails, they suffer the consequences.
We should be venerating successful entrepreneurs & bosses. We don’t actually know what they go through or hide employees from. And they usually do it right. They support families through the jobs they create and the value they provide to customers. Business owners carry the load and the stress of the business. They don’t get to have time off or have weekends off unlike employees.
The brain damaged anti-capitalist and socialist movement taking off in America is dangerous and risks ruining the prosperity that has made America so amazing. Remember how well socialism worked in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Cuba or Argentina. We need to remember this. And we need to treat our entrepreneurs better. Not every founder, like the noblemen of old, is an oppressor. We miss many aspects and context of what they do for us. In fact, they may be doing the most honorable thing possible.