Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Elemental: Family, Duty and Sacrifice

I was assigned to watch Disney Pixar’s “Elemental” animated movie by our family therapist as I was trying to salvage the trainwreck of my marriage and family life. I honestly was wondering why the heck? 

But I am glad I did watch it. Like all Pixar movies, it’s beautifully written and based on Director Peter Sohn’s experience growing up as a son of immigrants in New York City. In a city where fire, water, land, and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy discover something elemental: how much they actually have in common. It deals with ethnic xenophobia and the immigrant experience, cross generational conflict as well as cross ethnic relationships. It’s a wonderful story with some dark undertones. 

Ember the fire resident is set to inherit her fathers store but cannot control her temper (kind of like me). But she must, if she wants to take over the store, as this is her fathers dream. Like many immigrant parents, they sacrificed everything to start over and give their children better lives. And this weight of responsibility falls very heavily on the next generation. 

Ember says in a moment of weakness: “I don’t think I do want to run the shop. Okay? That’s what my temper has been trying to tell me. I’m trapped. Do you know what’s crazy? Even when I was a kid, I would pray to the blue flame to be good enough to fill my father’s shoes one day. 

But I never asked what I wanted to do. Deep down I knew it didn’t matter. Because the only way to repay a sacrifice so big is by sacrificing your life too.”

But in the end, she admits her true feelings to her dad, who responds rather surprisingly: “The shop was never the dream. You were the dream.”  

At the end of the day, that’s what most parents want is just the best for their kids. But they don’t really do a good job sharing warm or positive feelings with their kids. Unfortunately Asian immigrant parents use shame as their main tool. And any love or praise tends to be conditional on performance at school or for good behavior. It certainly works well to drive performance for most Asian immigrant kids. I should note my parents were fairly open minded compared to other Asian/ Taiwanese Immigrant parents, they told me I could do whatever I wanted, versus being pushed into medicine or engineering or the sciences. The only thing they demanded was that I had to be the best at it. 


I guess this is what my therapist wanted me to view through another lens and animated kids movies work well here. Gave me a lot to think about. 

I write a lot about intergenerational trauma and my issues with parents. Well, really more my mom, who pushed me as hard (harsh) as her mom pushed her. But i will say, now being a father myself, this Sh-t is damn hard and my parents did their best. I get that now. 

Like the character Ember’s parents, mine sacrificed everything to come to North America and have a better life for us here in Canada/USA. If I had grown up in the strict and conformist culture of Taiwan, I would probably have ended up as a school drop out and become a gangster (seriously). 

My petty rebellions in a much more tolerant and forgiving Canada led to a pretty damn interesting international business career so far. And for that, I will forever be grateful to my parents, to Canada as well as to my present home America.     

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Dying Slowly in America: The Heart Always Wins

Another flight and of course, another movie. I flipped in and out of the excellent Spielberg Movie called “the Fabelmans” and it definitely seemed like an autobiography. It’s a story about a young Jewish boy’s coming of age as he aspires to be a filmmaker. “But he soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.”

There is this scene where his mom is about to leave the family and she tells him: 

“You do what your heart says you have to, you don’t owe anyone your life. Not even me.”


So many of us take the career or life paths that our parents, our families or society says we have to. Or should. We give up our dreams to do what we think is expected of us. And this just leads us to a lifetime of wondering what could have been. 


How many people do we know that are dying inside? Married to someone they don’t love, working at jobs they hate with people they dislike. All for a paycheck to survive. Barely getting by. Dreading Monday mornings, feeling sick on Sunday night, and eager for Friday and the weekend. 


Yet that is most people’s lives in our modern day. Living without purpose. Living without a mission. Living without passion. Losing time which is the most precious and perishable asset on the Earth. 


Benjamin Franklin reportedly said “Some people die at 25 and aren’t  buried until 75”. It’s not too late. Don’t become one of these people! 

It’s incredibly sad especially in a time of great change, uncertainty and opportunities. It’s a time to be “risk on” in life. Better a 50% chance of success trying than no  chance by not attempting anything. DO SOMETHING! Do anything! Anything to get you closer to your dream life.

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Technology Without Culture Does Not Work: The Future is Better

I’ve recently discovered a new sci-fi series called “Moonhaven”. I had a hard time getting into it at first as it started slow but it grew on me. It takes place in the future  when the earth is an ecological mess plagued by resource wars and where the strong take from the weak. 

The only hope is the terraformed Moon Haven colony on the Moon which has the special IO technology and well-trained people & society whose sole purpose was to prepare it for mass colonization from Earth. The mooners think and act with an abundance mindset and are thus better able to leverage and build new technology. It’s why the Earthers turned the tech and all their best people over to the mooners, their scarcity mindset coming from a crowded and war-torn land.

But trouble ensues as after several generations the gap between the civilized Mooners and now frustrated war scarred Earthers is so wide that the planned colonization fleets from Earth are being denied. Extremists from both sides bring violence to this paradise. 

It’s interesting as it covers so many relevant topics for a technology driven society like ours. The role of technology and how it tends to outstrip human ability to process and understand let alone adopt. How technology is dual use, it can be used for both good and evil. 

And that even in paradise, devils exist. That the quest for power will never leave us humans and some will take any measure to get it and keep it. Humans haven’t really changed over the last thousands of years and doubt this will be the case in the next future thousands. 

But at the same time, we all have hope. Hope for a better world and life for our children and future generations. Better to think of technology and view technology through the lens of utopia, versus the dystopian perspective we find ourselves in the USA, Europe & the West at large. This is not the perspective of technology in Asia or India and that is why they are catching up to us. If you think life will be better through technology, then you usually will develop more of it. And probably be more optimistic about the outcomes from tech as well. 

Hope is a great driver for progress and cooperation, which is why I love the main mantra of the MoonHaven society: “The Future is Better.”  I am happy to write that the vibe shift happening in America now seems to be in this more positive direction after the last 8-10 years of malaise. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads December 15th, 2024

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new” – Socrates

  1. Incredible business story. Basically an angel round to massive exit many, many years later. Big lesson: be humble and be of service. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RjsF1ygNg

2. "At the end of the day, if you’ve backed great companies, ‘hold and wait’ is certainly a reasonable strategy but it’s not clear it’s still the optimal one."

https://hunterwalk.com/2024/11/10/winning-at-seed-investing-isnt-just-about-when-to-buy-but-increasingly-also-when-to-sell/

3. "The smaller players in the defense-tech ecosystem have been rooting for a Trump victory, seeing him as the kind of disruptor who could give them a bigger share of the Pentagon’s budget. For years, defense officials have said they have a strong appetite for cheaper, more nimble defense technologies — but new players have found it challenging to carve out a space under the Pentagon’s rules.

Many venture capitalists and defense tech entrepreneurs bet early on Trump’s campaign, convinced he could reform the Pentagon’s arcane budgeting system in ways that will push it to adopt their cutting-edge innovations faster.

“The single biggest thing that will make the difference is the amount of investment that the next administration puts into these advanced capabilities, and when I say investment, I mean procurement dollars to buy them at scale,” Chris Brose, Andruil’s chief strategy officer, told DFD.

Defense tech startups have long struggled to persuade the DOD to buy from them. 

Venture-backed defense tech companies took less than 1 percent of the $411 billion in federal defense contracts awarded last fiscal year. That’s even as the department increasingly seeks out AI-enabled systems, defense venture funding continues to pour in and new global conflicts have stoked calls to modernize military arsenals."

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2024/11/11/trump-palantir-anduril-defense-tech-startups-00188833

4. "The vibe shift this time is a story about progressive Millennials realizing that when they declared total victory for their politics in 2020—it was a Pyrrhic victory. They aren’t out of the running, yet. 

But they are going to have to think much more pragmatically about the trade-offs involved in their policy preferences, walk back activist overreach, and give up on the idea The New York Times or FBI or any other institution has a monopoly on truth. They have to get into the trenches and convince people that their interpretations of reality are correct."

https://www.8ball.report/p/vibe-shift-america

5. "Scott Bassett, the man most believe will be Trump’s pick to replace Bad Gurl Yellen as the US Treasury secretary, has given many speeches about how he would “fix” America. His speeches and op-eds provide details on how to execute Trump’s America First Plan, which bears a considerable resemblance to China’s development plan (which started with Deng in the 1980s and continues to this day).

The plan is to run nominal GDP hot by providing government tax credits and subsidies to re-shore critical industries (shipbuilding, semiconductor fabs, auto manufacturing, etc.). Companies that qualify will then receive cheap bank financing. The banks will again fall over themselves to lend to real companies because their profitability is ensured by the American government. As companies expand inside of America, they must hire American workers. Better paying jobs for ordinary Americans means more consumer spending.

The effects are amplified if Trump limits the number of Sombrero-wearing, cat and dog-eating, dark and dirty immigrants crossing the borders from “shithole countries”. These things juice economic activity, and the government takes its cut through corporate profit and wage income taxes. The government deficit must remain large to fund these programs, and the Treasury Department funds the government by selling bonds to banks. The banks can now re-lever their balance sheets because either the Fed or lawmakers suspended the supplemental leverage ratio. The winners are ordinary workers, companies that produced “approved” products and services, and the US government, which sees its debt-to-nominal GDP ratio fall. This is QE for poor people on steroids.

Wow, that sounds great. Who would be opposed to such a magical era of American prosperity?

The losers are those who hold long-term bonds or savings deposits. That is because the yield on such instruments will be intentionally kept below the nominal growth rate of the American economy. Folks also lose if their wages cannot keep up with the higher inflation levels. If you haven’t noticed, being in a union is cool again. 4 and 40 is the new mantra. That is, pay workers 40% more over the next 4 years, i.e. 10% per year wage hikes, to continue working.

For those readers who believe themselves to be rich, don’t worry. Here is a cheat sheet on what to buy. This is not financial advice; I’m simply sharing what I’m doing with my portfolio. Every time a bill passes and hands out money to approved industries, read it, and buy stocks in those verticals. Instead of saving in fiat bonds or bank deposits, purchase gold (the boomer financial repression hedge) or Bitcoin (the millennial financial repression hedge)."

https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/black-or-white

6. "You’re exiting the protocol application investing time period and will be entering into the application investing time period.

Will you make it? Who knows. Only time will tell. By 2025 the winners in applications will likely be clear. Just don’t miss it and ruin your bloodline."

https://bowtiedbull.io/p/2025-last-chance-for-easy-gains-in

7. Excellent and timely discussion on Anduril and the defense industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUV4s71apbA

8. "Sphere is part of a bigger story about the city: about how a place that was once a playground out on the fringe of the country feels as though it has moved, for better and for worse, to the very center of American life and America’s future.

Just ask Las Vegans, who are feeling it, let me tell you. Not for these guys the usual boomtown lament that things used to be better. In the desert—where the population of the Las Vegas metro area has nearly doubled since the start of the 21st century—things are only heading upward! At every turn, I seemed to run into an unofficial member of the Chamber of Commerce, all but finishing one another’s sentences in their enthusiasm to make the case: The dining scene is booming. Chinatown is blowing up.

The Vegas residency beckons the biggest stars in the world, an irresistible alternative to the ordeal and economics of touring. The outdoors scene has become recognized as world-class. A high-speed train to Los Angeles is on its way, supposedly in time for the 2028 Olympics. Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony have each floated the idea of building major studios, the latter in partnership with Mark Wahlberg.

Above all, the argument for Las Vegas’s new status is spoken in the language of sports. Professional leagues’ fear of the taint of gambling once made it all but unthinkable that the city would ever have a home team to root for beyond the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Runnin’ Rebels. Now, in a cultural loop de loop, that school’s Confederate mascot has been canceled, while sports betting has become the all-but-official national pastime.

Vegas got its first big-league franchise in 2017, when the Golden Knights arrived as an NHL expansion team. Today, it’s eyeing the Royal Flush, including the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, the NFL’s Raiders (most recently of Oakland), soon enough baseball’s Athletics (also ripped from poor Oakland), and an all but assured NBA expansion franchise. The city hosted its first Super Bowl earlier this year, and will welcome the second Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix this month. Nothing soothes an urban identity crisis like the sweet Xanax of professional sports. They are the fairy dust America sprinkles over a city to let it know that it is really real."

https://www.gq.com/story/how-las-vegas-became-the-weirdest-wildest-and-most-futuristic-city-in-america

9. An especially excellent episode of NIA today. Worth listening to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgb9x0Pt_pM

10. Valuable and sober conversation. Not a fan of Tucker but Colby is sharp. This is important to understand the future of geopolitical strategy for America in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtsGqGc-Iuw

11. A thoughtful discussion on the state and evolution of venture capital. Chris Paik is one of the smartest guys in the business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjTKo1kz3KI

12. "The creator/celebrity brands that endure do three things right: 1) They’re authentic to the creator, 2) They have a genuinely unique insight, and 3) They move beyond the figurehead. The two most successful examples, in my mind, are Rihanna’s Fenty and Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS.

I expect we’ll have a few large venture outcomes that also touch on all three—creation, distribution, and monetization. I’m particularly interested in a next-gen Roblox (it boggles my mind that you have to know Luau to build in Roblox) that uses AI to crowd in a longer tail of creators, and I’m also spending a lot of time in the fan-fiction world, looking at how AI allows fans to spin up their own stories and build with each other’s IP Lego blocks. 

The creator phenomenon—the concept of people having parasocial relationships online, making stuff and sharing it and earning income—isn’t going anywhere. It’s one of the biggest phenomena of the online age, and it will underpin another generation of large technology companies."

https://www.digitalnative.tech/p/the-evolution-of-the-creator


13. "Ownership percentage matters to VCs because of the explicit target return we discussed earlier. This is the most fundamental difference between VCs and angel investors.

Most angel investors aren’t too worried about ownership percentage because, unlike VCs, most angel investors don’t have specific return objectives. Whenever I’ve made angel investments, I wasn’t overly concerned about whether my investment had the potential to return 4x, 40x or 400x. My motivation was quite simply to invest in amazing founders who I thought were doing amazing things. At the end of the day, any positive return would generally be good for me (as part of a healthy, balanced portfolio 😉).

But VC funds are financial products that aim for a very specific target return (3x over 10 years). When you combine this objective with the power law nature of tech startups (that is, the notion that the majority will fail and a small percentage will drive most of a fund’s returns), the need to be explicit about ownership percentage starts to make sense."

https://chrisneumann.com/archives/why-do-vcs-care-about-ownership

14. "All these misunderstandings are a result of taking the Washington Myth at face value, and the US at its own evaluation; Things become much clearer if we recognise that the US is a powerful nation, but not an all-powerful one, that (without going full Andrei Martyanov) its military has quite serious structural and doctrinal problems that limit its effectiveness, and that its vast and conflictual government system makes it very hard to apply any kind of long-term strategy that takes account of reality on the ground. It’s also true that there is a tendency to confuse vague aspirations with actual plans.

This is what I call the Rain-Dance Fallacy: I want it to rain, I do a dance, it rains, therefore I have caused the rain. All over Washington there are stones where, if you turn them over, someone will crawl out with a long-lasting obsession about something or other which they will write and speak about incessantly, and for which they try to get support. Occasionally these correspond roughly to real things that happen in the world later, but there is seldom any kind of causal relationship.

And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Washington Myth is just that: a myth.

The domination of the elite European mind by US examples and ways of thinking over the last few generations was not obvious or automatic at the beginning, and was the product of some of the cultural, political and economic factors described above. But it was also the product of chance: no other well-articulated and large-scale system of thought was available to challenge it, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, still less in a language that everyone more-or-less spoke. It’s probably these contingent factors that have done the most to keep US intellectual dominance intact, in the absence of any obvious alternative. The problem is, it’s not clear what the alternative actually is now, or where it might come from."

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/a-wasting-asset

15. "This new off-price environment shows no signs of slowing down. At Equal Ventures, we believe the future of retail lies in these next-generation off-price platforms to create value for consumers and brands alike and we’re incredibly excited about companies that are seeking to redefine what off-price retail can be. Off-price is no longer taboo — it’s the future of premium retail."

https://newsletter.equal.vc/p/inflation-sparks-the-off-price-boom

16. "Glasnost unleashed a gang fight of epic proportions. As a result, Russia ended up in Perestroika, meaning restructuring. That will happen in the US too. The difference is that America is not the Soviet Union. Americans understand capitalism. They know how to create businesses or policies, restructure them, and adapt to change. Nobody does that better than the USA. But, any time you throw out the old to make way for the new, it’s more than painful. It’s a fight. 

The fight is increasingly visible. The raid on the CEO of Polymarket is a telling sign. This was probably not only because Polymarket visibly signaled to voters that Trump would win by a landslide, which obviously would not have been welcome by Democrats. He was not arrested or charged. There is speculation that the issue is about insider trading.

Either way, Polymarket’s algorithms were stronger than anybody else’s, and now they may be accessible and visible to the current enforcement authorities. But, it is perhaps not totally coincidental that Polymarket is a Peter Thiel-backed firm, and Thiel is certainly the invisible power behind Trump and Vance. The raid signals that more will come. The French are investigating polymarket, too. All the Tech Bros that have backed Trump will be vulnerable to such raids."

https://drpippa.substack.com/p/american-glasnost

17. One of the more original and interesting folks in Hollywood. I like Mr Matthew McConaughey. This is a good interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu1kHIztT24&t=2s

18. This is a great discussion on the latest in Silicon Valley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsJMJK97EyM

19. We have not understood the huge positive effects that the Shale Revolution has been for America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-qI-dFcKGA&t=1s

20. “Imperfect progress is progress. Perfect progress is unrealistic.” It’s simple, but it’s a truth worth repeating. It reminded me of a quote from a character called Jake the Dog on Adventure Time: “Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards sorta being good at something.”

It’s funny, but it’s spot on. Whether you’re a founder, an investor or a new podcaster like me, the early days can be rough. But it’s all part of the process."

https://agoldfisher.medium.com/imperfect-progress-how-learning-new-skills-can-lead-to-surprising-growth-8450ade027e7

21. "For any military strategist, geography is both the first and most unforgiving adversary and in the case of Taiwan, the island's natural defences present a labyrinth of complexities for China. The Taiwan Strait, a mere 90 miles of restless, churning waters, serves as more than just a separation between two lands; it is a formidable moat where, as conflict watchers put it, "distance is measured not in miles, but in minutes of vulnerability." What appears to be a narrow gap in geopolitical terms expands into a sea of operational headaches, with each wave and current posing a threat to the cohesion of an invading force.

The seasonal monsoons and tempestuous typhoons that regularly sweep across the strait are not mere inconveniences—they narrow the invasion window to brief moments of calm amidst nature's fury. An amphibious assault of this scale would require impeccable synchronisation of air, sea, and land forces, moving hundreds of thousands of troops and countless tons of equipment, all while exposed to Taiwan's formidable missile defence and the unblinking eye of US-backed satellite surveillance.

'In war, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics', and nowhere is this more evident than in the daunting task of launching an invasion across this hostile strait. China's amphibious fleet, though growing, still falls short of the capacity needed for such a monumental undertaking. In a desperate bid to close the gap, civilian vessels, slower and more vulnerable, would likely be pressed into service. These roll-on/roll-off ships, often described as lumbering giants of the seas, would be prime targets for Taiwan's anti-ship missile systems. Military experts often note that a fleet of that size is a gift-wrapped target waiting for a strike. Thus, the perilous voyage across the strait could quickly turn into a nightmare of logistical unravelling before the first boots even touched Taiwan's shores."

https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3825

22. Incredible connections & insights when you listen to this. Derek Sivers, Philosopher-entrepreneur.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGnDhd--BiM

23. "Entrepreneurs would do well to answer these questions not only before starting a business but to revisit them on a regular basis in the context of their current direction and initiatives. Products and business models are dynamic, just like most things, and it’s easy to get in a rut without zooming out and asking the big questions consistently. Every business must answer these seven questions both for today and tomorrow."

https://davidcummings.org/2024/11/16/thiels-seven-questions-every-business-must-answer/

24. "In other words, the USSR tried to build the edifice of industrial economy starting from foundation, and got stuck there. If you start from foundations, you will never ever get to the roof.

China, on the other hand, started from the roof, skipping the foundation part altogether. Unlike the Soviet way, Chinese way does work. The flip side, however, is that leaping to the front end, you leave many, and many, and many back end-related critical points behind. And that is because you never even bothered with developing them.

Still, it is important to remember that it doesn’t just materialise on the supermarket shelf out of nowhere. There is a long and complex manufacturing chain behind the shelf. And the production of a ready consumer good, such as a towel, a bicycle or a quadcopter is but the final, ultimate step of the chain."

https://kamilkazani.substack.com/p/why-the-ussr-failed

25. "Smaller models represent a significant innovation for enterprises where they can take advantage of similar performance at two orders of magnitude, less expense and half of the latency.

No wonder builders view them as small but mighty."

https://tomtunguz.com/small-but-mighty-ai/

26. "Whatever rules you pick, use common sense in picking them, and be respectful in applying them. The best time to discuss rules is while you’re still negotiating the terms sheet. Once a board gets in the habit of treating observers like directors, it can be hard to break. So from the outset, you should be ready to set norms for observers. Talk to new observers in advance so you know they understand the rules. And then respectfully enforce them if they get violated in the meeting."

https://kellblog.com/2024/11/14/the-proper-role-of-the-board-observer/

27. "Despite a 51-48 split in the popular vote, three-quarters of Americans agree on one thing: We’re on the wrong track. That’s been the political reality for most of this century — high levels of dissatisfaction, resulting in a series of “change” elections. The reason? Voters recognize that millennials and Zoomers aren’t as prosperous as their boomer and Gen X parents. One example: In 1981 the median age of a homebuyer was 38, today it’s 54. 

The epicenter of the 2024 political earthquake wasn’t immigration, bodily autonomy, or democracy. It was the social contract between America and its citizens. The contract is straightforward: Work hard and play by the rules, and your children will have a better life than you did. For the first time in 250 years, that contract has not held."

https://www.profgalloway.com/the-testosterone-election/

28. "If you believe in liberalism, this is what you’re now fighting against — a combination of the petty Lenins of social media, the panopticon of smartphones, and the long arm of the world’s most domineering governments.

You are the rebellion, and technology has stacked the deck against you. Your only hope, essentially, is to either A) innovate new technologies that take power out of the hands of the petty Lenins and domineering governments,3 or B) somehow use the cultural and media spaces not dominated by those illiberal forces to spread liberal ideas strong enough to overcome the innate disadvantages of modern technology.

It would still be an exaggeration to say that you now live under the thumb of a global authoritarian regime ruled from Beijing. China’s military might hasn’t been used yet, and other countries’ nuclear deterrents still give it pause. Its control over your speech is far from complete — there are still many outlets for bashing the CCP without suffering dire consequences. And its influence over Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and various European elites, while considerable, is not total. 

But the idea that the U.S. could engineer an industrial revival, take action against CCP domination of social media, and lead a coalition of liberal powers to balance China’s rise, now looks fanciful. With the election of Trump, China is now simply first-among-equals of a loose concert of illiberal great powers. 

Which leaves us, the people who still believe in liberalism, as the rebellion. If you believe in the primacy of individual human freedom and dignity, you are now fighting a desperate underground guerilla struggle to carve out any kind of a liberal space in a world that only 25 years ago upheld your values as paramount.

History has returned — indeed, it never ended — and there is no destiny or fate guaranteeing that you will end up on the favored side of it. 

But that is no reason to give up."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/liberalism-is-the-rebellion-now-38b

29. "And thus, the Unholy Trinity of Venture Capital was born.

Agglomerators who could run further and faster with bigger funds, more fees, and bigger platforms.

Allocators who were looking to take massive chunky checks and have a shot at a good yield.

Absorbers who have an endless supply of places they can shove their cash, from training and inference to marketing or lobbying. It's expensive to rule the world.

A match made in heaven. Maybe not the heaven, but certainly a heaven.

And this all comes back to the point about the loudest people with the most capital shaping the future of a thing. Today, the loudest people are agglomerators like a16z and GC, allocators like UAE and CPP, and absorbers like OpenAI and Anthropic. And whether you like it or not, they are intent on shaping the game in their image.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I am, by no means, saying that a16z or CPP or OpenAI are bad. But they are different. They are very different from the venture capital of yore. Granted, they may, literally, unlock artificial general intelligence in a way that will transform the world in ways unimaginable even in comparison to the renaissance, industrial revolution, or digital age. 

So maybe that's worth letting them dramatically reshape the face of how innovation gets funded.

But remember what a stupider game is—a stupider game is thinking you're playing the same game when your opponent is, in fact, playing a very different game."

https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/the-unholy-trinity-of-venture-capital

30. This clip is important for anyone who thinks we can still work with the CCP or China. It syncs with my experience there, you will always get cheated or ripped off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCnMz0Kx2f8

31. Important conversation on politics and tech. 2025 will be critical. American regulations under Biden have been disastrous for our future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4jWb-0nj44

32. Quite an educational and interesting conversation with the ultimate biohacker and man who won't die: Bryan Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAPaW5S_RbI

33. "The NIF, based in Amsterdam, is one vision of how the region might do that. The fund plans to jumpstart ailing European deeptech innovation in a way that may also benefit its members and their militaries—independent of US support.

The US, which already spends more on defense than any othernation, is among eight NATO members that have so far decided not to contribute to the fund.

“They obviously weighed up the pros and cons and just felt that this doesn’t make sense for the US, given their strong heritage in venture capital,” says Rob Murray, the former British army officer who was an early proponent of the NIF in Trump’s first term.

In theory, the NIF will become a funding model that’s self-sustaining for NATO innovation priorities, says Michael C. Horowitz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who worked on emerging capabilities in the US Department of Defense until earlier this year. He sees what the NIF is trying to do as part of a worldwide trend. “Governments around the world, including in the United States, have understood they need to change the way they’re interacting with the private sector if they want to be able to more effectively both harness and nurture technology development to achieve their national security goals.”

https://www.wired.com/story/natos-tech-scouts-are-fortifying-europe-for-a-world-after-donald-trump/

34. "It’s extraordinary how inculcated this weasel-speak has become in the business world (similar copy is on many large brand and agency websites) with the ad and media industry particularly guilty. To me this is striking as they should be the ones who know better. There’s an old saying that the people who make propaganda are frequently the most susceptible to it, perhaps they’re also susceptible to other things such as going along with rot. 

I would be extremely skeptical of working for organizations that suffer from this. It’s emblematic of how life under them will be (political, subversive, bureaucratic) vs a place focused on merit that champions creativity and rewards results. Note that a company being ‘inclusive’ as an independently chosen value could be great, but say it directly and in your own words, not mindlessly repeating rebranded Marxist slogans which in practice are illiberal and divisive.

It’s clear the ads and media sector needs its own ‘founder mode’ movement, or something like it, to cast off the decay and do great work once again. It’s past due, as everyone is fed up with our dystopian management consultant manufactured reality. We really need to do better here, because remember, these teams are the ones advising the rest of the world how to communicate."

https://www.hottakes.space/p/the-media-industry-badly-needs-to

35. "It initially all seems academic—numbers too big to make a difference to small startups. However, these dynamics change the incentives for companies making decisions even at the earliest stages. Where to locate, where to hire, which partnerships to accumulate, which customers to target and more are up for grabs. 

The dollar reserve disparity has set up US markets to gear towards uber-productive technology-driven companies. The monetary premium boosts those home assets by funneling trillions of future cash flow towards capital markets. And the result is that the M&A activity in the US, especially in the tech sector, greatly outpaces Europe. 

This is also why most European venture investors encourage their companies to target US markets. Even in the worst of times, it remains the land of liquidity."

https://www.eu.vc/p/the-land-of-liquidity-europe-and

36. Good geopolitical discussion with Ryan McBeth, found a new analyst and interesting influencer too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui5Co19nKKY

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

The Time Capsule: Lessons of Staying Young While Getting Old 

I watch the most random movies on flights. But there was this movie called “The Time Capsule” that was intriguing. 

The story is that in the near future, a politician named Jack escapes to his family’s summer lake house. His vacation and life is disrupted by the appearance of his first love Elise who has returned from a 20 year space journey and hasn’t aged a day having been in hibernation. What a premise. 

They end up at this lake party one night and they have a very deep conversation as they catch up after so long. 20 years actually. A strange situation, reliving his past again. 

Jack: “I mean if you want to get the job, you got to do the bull sh-t. And that goes for everything, not just politics.”

Elise: “You sound like a bitter old man.”

Jack: “There is a reason people get that way. I mean if I knew then what I know now.”


I remember a conversation: 

Jack: “What do you want to do? What do you want to do? Driving, talking, nothing to do. Sigh.  Now there is always something to do.”

Elise:I remember you said to me “try to be what other people want you to be but if you lie about who you are it won’t matter.

It’s weird as I’ve only been back for a little  while but I’ve managed to meet some of my old friends. And they all say the same things: ‘you’ll see.’ ‘You’ll learn’. It’s sad. Everyone looks tired, distracted like they had a dream and lost it. Even if they never had one to lose.” 

Jack responds: “but people have children and responsibilities.” 

Elise: “It’s not that. They just seem content to be disappointed.”

Jack: “well as you get older, disappointments add up, you start to expect more of it.”

Elise: “Don’t you wish you could have kept your excitement for life when you were younger?”

Jack: “It’s easier to be excited about life when it’s all in front of you.”

Elise: “you should be even more passionate about life cause there is less of it left. You are just like the rest of them, used to be cool but now you’re boring and jaded.”

It’s an excellent reminder. 

Sometimes you need a break in your life.  Nostalgia attached to people and places is powerful. Old friendships are important. The past can also sometimes help you figure out your future. Help you rediscover your old zest for life that we all used to have as young kids. 

But you just have to be yourself. You can’t lie to yourself. You can never hide. Hiding from your dreams is what makes you old. It’s what causes you deep regret. “Somewhere along the way it became about playing a part and getting to the next level.” 

By being yourself, having passion, taking risks and being willing to put yourself out there. That is how you get the most out of life. Have expectations and don’t settle. “So go out and live. Travel. Meet people. Discover yourself. You may think you already know who you are but sometimes it takes getting a little lost to know for sure.”

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Beckham: The Documentary

I’m not a football or sports fan in general. Definitely not a huge pop fan or fashionista either. But I am impressed by people who thrive in these environments. David Beckham is one of these people who seems to be one of these people, thriving in all of these realms.

The 4 part Netflix documentary shows his rise to football stardom, model, businessman/one man company, personal brand and then just general stardom overall. He is a major face of pop culture now. 

I learned a lot about him and really like him more than I did before as the documentary tracked his entire rise to the top. Joining Manchester United at age 15 and growing up with the team. Playing for team England for the World Cup, especially the Argentina-England 1998 game controversy (fans are stupid and flakey to say the least). Recovering from having all of the UK hate him due to the red card during that game. His romance and marriage with Posh Spice. Surviving the fame and the media frenzy since he was young. 

His perfectionism and his discipline. One of his team mates: 

“If you lose discipline, you don’t play at 100%.You play at 80% or 90% and then you go down very quickly. You Know? Very fast. In a few months….you’ve disappeared completely. And then you wake up in the morning and you say “Oh Sh-t”’

I don’t know how he did it. He’d just performed despite the madness of his life. Watching his goals throughout his career. Wow. Pure artistry.


But the way he got very good was because his football fanatic father pushed him extremely hard. At a level many people in this present weak-minded age would call abusive. Or as I call it Tiger mom or Asian immigrant parenting. Nothing was ever good enough. Doing corner kick after corner kick after corner kick to put it in the same spot that his dad wanted. “And if I didn’t he’d kill me.” I know how this feels. This seems to be the spur that leads to excellence though. And his dad told him: “It’s moments like corners at the end of the game that can create history.” His father was right and this was how Beckham helped his team win the treble that year.


Yet the higher you are, the harder the fall or better said: “The wind blows hardest at the top of the mountain.” It’s so extreme these kinds of pop star fandom. One minute everyone loves you, the next minute it turns to extreme hate. Unfairness and extreme inhumane behavior of the crowds he had to deal with at age 23 when the controversy happened. Madness of the crowds, especially brutish English ones. Beckham handled it well. I honestly probably would have lost it, probably fought or maybe even shot people in his position. But thankfully he had his soon to be wife, his family, his friends. 

And Alex Ferguson of Man United who helped him through it & told him “Go on your holiday. Come back here. We’ll look after you. Don’t read the papers. There is no point to it. What you can do is ignore it.” Goes to show you the importance of people in the key tough periods of your life who help you and who create an island and inner sanctum for you to recover in. 

He just kept grinding and kept everything inside, like a “working class, old school mentality, to like, roll your sleeves up, you get through this.”


He sucked in the negative attention and all the abuse he and his family got from fans and used it as fuel for his performance. He started playing incredibly well and scoring goals. All the way to Man United winning the FA Cup, Champions league & European Cup Final. A historic treble. A victorious turnaround through stubbornness, hard work and determination that he kept up throughout his entire football career. He even became Captain of the Team England for the 2002 World Cup. 

Being surprise-traded from Man U. Joining the legendary Real Madrid football club playing with other football legends like Carlos, Figo, Ronaldo and Zidane. Beckham grew tremendously during these moments and the years after despite the turmoil in Spain. He helped turn things around in his last season in Madrid, even as he was injured the last game, but they won the championship. He took a big risk and eventually moved to LA to play for the Galaxy team for a $250M USD contract. Regardless of the crap first year, overall it paid off well and he helped put MLS on the map, winning the MLS Cup. He is now co-owner of MLS football team Inter Miami CF with one of the most lucrative business deals ever signed in the league. And he signed the best football player in the world Leo Messi to Miami. Legend.


He’s transcended football at this point. The man who has everything it seems. At the top of his game, good looking, married to a gorgeous pop star. He has good taste & style + all the toys and fixings of his wealth and fame. Yet he has a loving family and is a humble, good and normal guy with lower middle class upbringing. He did not seem to let the fame and wealth get to his head like it has for so many others. I find that incredibly impressive. An overall good dude and a documentary worth watching. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

All Your Problems Lie Within: Heal Thyself

I detest Tucker Carlson but you have to admire his skill as an interviewer and media personality. He is clearly a very smart and well educated person at the top of his game. Too bad his game is spreading hate and division in America. 

But he said something that was deeply insightful during his “All in Podcast” interview. He identified a deep seated self-loathing that we seem to have in America and especially among the elites and the well off. 

I can’t believe I’m quoting him but here is what he said: “I think the problem is prosperity and I’ve noticed this as a middle aged man, as I’ve gotten to know people who have become successful. In some cases very successful. I’ve noticed that when they succeed and they get everything they want, they destroy themselves. I’ve noticed this again and again and again. 

You are the dog that caught the car. I think it’s more than idle time, there is a metaphysical quality, there are factors that I don’t understand that are deeper actually. But I just noticed it. There is something about affluence that over time convinces people to kill themselves.” 


Something self destructive comes out when we are doing well. It’s like we are purposely shooting ourselves in our foot. Like we feel we don’t deserve our success as a country or even as individuals. This certainly describes many of the rich kids I have met. Or successful entrepreneurs, celebrities and business people. They completely self-destruct. Sometimes in their business life but almost always in their personal lives. A “self own" we would call it. 


It’s so strange, yet when I think back on my life either as a child or even adult, I’ve done this to myself. Every time I’m getting ahead, I seem to do something stupid. Any financial windfall I had I would squander. 

And when I didn’t mess things up financially, I did so on the personal side. Closing up, or worse, lashing out at family (not physically, but emotionally). No wonder my family life is such a disastrous mess. I’d been doing this unconsciously for decades. 


I wonder sometimes if this goes back to my upbringing of never feeling enough, being the disappointment in the family & community. Not feeling worthy. Something I’ve overcompensated by focusing so much energy and time in my career and financial success. Only to self sabotage when I start to really get somewhere. 


People are strange. The minute you start to think you know yourself, there are stranger depths you stumble upon. However, like all problems you need to attack it head on. Directly, which is the only way I know how to. You have to face these dark urges if you want to overcome them. Therapy helps. So does meditation and lots of reading & thinking. 


Ultimately, to paraphrase an old Cherokee tribe saying: “we all have two wolves inside us. One is good aka positive. One is evil aka negative. The one that wins is the one we feed.” I think about this often.

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads December 8th, 202

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.–Confucius

  1. This was an insightful conversation on the podcast election in 2024 and Vercel: personalized software enabler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zTjlcr1wdw

2. "All the moons have lined up, and podcasting is on an upward spiral. But as with most everything digital, podcasting is a winner-take-most/all proposition, because everyone has access to … everyone. A scant handful of pods, those with the biggest listenerships, capture nearly all the ad revenue. By some estimates, of the 600k podcasts that produce content each week, the top 10 get half the revenue. Put another way, to build a business in podcasting that pays people well and keeps the attention of a host with high opportunity cost(s), you likely need to be in the top 0.1% by listenership. 

The political power of podcasting is only beginning to be felt. This election was supposed to be a referendum on bodily autonomy: It wasn’t. Historically, the candidate who raises the most money wins: She didn’t. In each election the victor is likely to be whoever best weaponizes an emerging medium: He did. By far the most potent media weapon this time was podcasting."

https://www.profgalloway.com/the-podcast-election/


3. "Assuming that we have the mania and one last hurrah in 2025 like every 4 year cycle, it means a trigger is needed to end the mania. The pop is going to be one of two things: 1) enormous rise in interest rates similar to what happened in the 1970s - inflationary bust or 2) a massive wealth redistribution and deleveraging event that causes large deflation - deflationary bust.

This means you can safely de-risk by going into: 1) real estate, 2) utilities and 3) other consumer staples.

Real Estate: In either situation, buying up a bunch of low-end or high-end real estate will set you up for decades. If rates are cut to zero and we’re in a deflationary scenario, you can simply rent it out and borrow money at low interest rates. Waiting out the storm. If it’s a 1970s type inflation, you’ll keep pace with inflation. Don’t lever up here because they would raise rates to a point that it’s well above inflation. 

Utilities: Really doubt we do this but in a SHTF scenario we’d buy some time by holding them. In either situation (inflation/deflation), it’s just going to putter around and hold pace. It’s essentially the same as owning every commodity (excluding natural disaster risk). Not even the doomers who somehow didn’t get rich in the easiest 15 year period in history believe electricity and water will be shut off. 

Consumer Staples: Boring stuff like Costco and Walmart. All the scaled up wholesale/grocery brands would work. Even Amazon probably falls in this basket considering their insane scale. Similar concept here, people won’t be skipping on food and essentials in any scenario."

https://bowtiedbull.io/p/post-election-playbook-12-months

4. "To conclude, we are amist a massive redrawing of the map. Public facing wars can be seen on the ground in Ukraine and Gaza, and when Chinese ships surround Taiwan. They may be subsiding. The markets and the world economy will rejoice in the peace dividend. But a new, domestic war amongst various factions is replacing it. There won’t be front-page photos of this new warzone.

Instead, we’ll get glimpses of the battle through prosecutions, unexpected resignations, and announcements that government jobs will require moving remote locations far from Washington, DC. We are shifting from tanks as the primary weapon of global wars to transparency (or targetting if you are on the receiving end) as the main weapon of domestic uncivil wars. We don’t have a map that reliably shows us where anything really is right now. 

How is America handling the election? For some, the prisoners from the asylum have broken into the government, and an apocalypse is underway. For others, the people in power have turned the government into a madhouse and will now be carted off to asylum/prison, thus ending the apocalypse. Here’s what we can all agree on: The political information complex needs to sort itself out. We need new, more accurate maps of reality."

https://drpippa.substack.com/p/mapping-reality-trump-reigns-but

5. "And long before Trump, Beijing had been trying to convince the US and everyone else that the US and China were entering into “a new type of great power relations” where the two nations stood as comparable geopolitical forces if not outright peers.

Yet the reality is quite different. The US dominates nearly every lever of real power: the world’s largest market, the world’s financial hub, the world’s reserve currency, the world’s most powerful military, and control over many of the most technologically advanced sectors of the global economy, to name just a few. In facing off with the US, China ironically finds itself in the position that many other countries have occupied in dealing with a much more powerful and obstinate China.

The actual experience of US-China competition since the start of the trade war has made this fundamental power imbalance strikingly apparent. In trying to retaliate against each new round of Trump tariffs, China could only muster a fraction of the economic response due its far greater dependency on the US market versus the other way around."

https://www.high-capacity.com/p/beijing-braces-for-impact-what-trump

6. "If you’re bearish on today, but bullish on tomorrow, you might want to shift some of your capital out into this future set of opportunities or outcomes. You might also want to consider the cost of holding onto your capital today, and the purchasing power erosion you might experience if your money is not growing with the economy. In other words, you might want to allocate into venture capital, because this is a bet on the future, and a time shift of smaller returns today for bigger returns tomorrow.

What’s not an exaggeration is the blunting of the term venture capital to be far too inclusive of non-risk taking activities. In Spanish venture capital is synonymous with “risk capital,” and is known as “capital de riesgo.” In English somehow we’ve lost that notion, with a parade of sheep all claiming to do venture capital, but only seeking software as a service businesses, typically with “$1-2 million in ARR.” Venture capital is by definition the few percentage points of frontier capital that finances opportunities that cannot be supported elsewhere in the economy. Venture capital as mainstream is, I believe, an oxymoron."

https://ideas.scotthartley.com/p/time-dislocations-in-venture-capital

7. "Trump boasted on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast that the U.S. government used to be fully funded by tariffs. This is true, before income taxes, the government was largely funded through tariffs. But that was in the 19th century, when the U.S. government was still very small. Unfortunately, in 2024, the U.S. government is large and in charge. The U.S. is a global empire, plus there's healthcare, Social Security, and other social services.

A tariff is a tax that a government charges on goods coming into their country from other countries. In 2023, U.S. goods imports from around the world totaled $3.8 trillion. Let's say, theoretically, Trump puts a 10% tariff on all imports and we ignore all consequences; that's only $380 billion in revenue. When annual government spending is almost $7 trillion and the national debt is nearly $36 trillion, that's not even a dent. The U.S. government collected $4.92 trillion in taxes in 2024, meaning you could put 100% tariffs on imports, and it still wouldn't replace regular tax revenue.

Another thing about across-the-board tariffs: they don't make sense for the U.S. or Trump. If you want to bring all levels of manufacturing back to the U.S., you're going to need more people to work in those factories. Trump supports mass deportation, closed borders, and his base is anti-immigrant. Unemployment in the U.S. is currently at 4.1% there aren't enough workers. You can't be for all-around tariffs and against mass immigration; it doesn't make sense."

https://www.globalhitman.com/p/how-to-survive-the-trump-presidency

8. Another really good discussion between two key individuals at the center of the renaissance at Silicon Valley. We are entering an age of abundance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXCBz_8hM9w

9. Incredible amount of insights here for the entrepreneur. So much to learn here from Luke Belmar. Distribution and attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN4upb7AnZE&t=4058s

10. "We could keep iterating through the list. But if a founder wanted a list of jobs to automate, the BLS’ white collar jobs boards is a wonderful place to start. AI will change these workflows & capture a meaningful fraction of the labor spend.

It’s a roadmap for the White Collar Revolution."

https://tomtunguz.com/the-white-collar-revolution/

11. "But the chips are now valuable for longer than they were (again from AWS). “We made the change in 2024 to extend the useful life of our servers. This added about 200 basis points of margin year-over-year.”

The most important metric for these businesses will be profit dollars per GPU dollar cost."

https://tomtunguz.com/cloud-earnings-q3-24/

12. "Nature and nature’s God select for those who take to the frontier. Who choose not to remain stagnate. Those who want to win, to find a way against all odds. It’s why man has gone from being a simple caveman to deploying nuclear warheads. The frontier is energy, vitalism, and the man who can harness more energy than his enemies will win.

The frontier is the dividing line between what you are and what you can become. It’s where you enter the contest to prove what you are before God. Men are the R&D arm of mankind and the frontier is where they test their unique idea against God’s law, nature.

When our ancestors gained a foothold in the New World, they were changed by the land. Made distinct from their European cousins. The land always leaves its mark upon man. And the moment they gained a foothold and understood the lesson taught to them by God, they spread like an unquenchable fire across the country. Nothing could stop them but the Pacific Ocean."

https://resavager.com/p/take-to-the-frontier

13. "The media landscape is post-scarcity, and we need to retire the Big Bang Launch as the strategy. Always Be Launching, and launch a little each week. Go directly to your customers, your investors, and your supporters. Build over time, not in one go. And learn to tell the truth."

https://andrewchen.substack.com/p/always-be-launching

14. Guide for all young and old men.

"You need brains & brawn. 

The sad reality is, a majority of fighters live pay check to pay check. Conor McGregor’s stardom is 1 of 1, the rest struggle to make ends meet. If you are objectively broke, this by definition does not make your capable. If you can’t feed your family, if you’re couch surfing & if you don’t have skills to make money in modern society, throwing a nasty 1-2 means very little. 

On the other hand, being a multimillionaire who is balding, overweight & works 100 hours a week & does not have time for their family or experiences, is also not a flex. 

The ideal sits somewhere in between these two extremes. 

But it’s the rarest breed of man. The one that can do it all. 

Imagine having the communication skills to disarm a potentially violent situation, but simultaneously know you could maul anyone in the same room as you if necessary?

It’s the ultimate juxtaposition. The definition of a Lethal Gentleman. It’s the reason Bruce Wayne & James Bond are such revered & idiolised figures by young men. 

It’s incredibly rare, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible."

https://www.krucial.co/p/the-lethal-gentleman-manifesto

15. A Silicon Valley legend, OG investor and operator: Elad Gil. Well worth a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XYqFu0fKn0

16. This man is a hero. I'm a big fan & supporter of Stronghold: which provides humanitarian help in war zones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audzAD0f3JI

17. "The 20th century was one of careful symmetry. The 21st century is fundamentally asymmetric. And we have failed to see it.

I teach a lot of courses about whatever we want to call Russian hybrid warfare, and in it I use these 8 words to try to get my students to understand how Russians understand power. Asymmetry. Chaos. Informality. Deniability. Risk. Cynicism. Capture. Guerrilla (the use of irregular forces).

These are Russian strengths because of Russian weakness. They have to do these things. And these are areas where democracies are extremely uncomfortable operating.

For 30 years we’ve gotten Russia wrong. And during this time, they have sculpted our threat perception of them. They have sculpted how we viewed this region and how we viewed its possibilities — and thankfully the Baltic states ignored all the advice to wait and be patient and instead to push for first NATO and then EU membership, otherwise they too would still be waiting in a line. Russia has sculpted Ukraine’s perception of itself, and how we see Ukraine, too.

We are still trapped in this narrative box. And now it affects how we see ourselves."

https://www.greatpower.us/p/why-do-democracies-pretend-to-be

18. "A couple of decades later, technology has made this task—and many others—not only fully automated but also simpler and more insightful. My first introduction to spreadsheets was through printouts at an oil change business, and now, I sit here appreciating the power we have at our fingertips. I’m a techno-optimist and believe we have an exciting future ahead. Sometimes, it’s worthwhile to pause and reflect on what has been, what is, and what will be."

https://davidcummings.org/2024/11/09/in-appreciation-of-technological-progress/

19. So much wisdom from Tai Lopez. Lots of good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=VMNdWHoJcVk

20. Overview of Luke Belmar's Capital Club, looks like a top tier event.

Masterminds and expensive conferences are really important to level up your game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e21jdQZuoHU

21. "Looking back at the returns of solid investing, everyone feels like they want to replicate them. But only a small percentage of those willing replicators actually do the required work.

Formulas for success seldom exist but if I had to provide one it would be this:

GOOD INVESTOR = good business analyst + independent thinker + high pain tolerance + discipline + patience."

https://www.philoinvestor.com/p/so-you-wanna-be-an-investor

22. "The nuanced messy middle is that you can like Hillbilly Elegy and Demon Copperhead. You can believe that hard work can get people out of even the most hopeless situations. But you can also believe that it won't always work. You can believe in individual accountability AND the need for institution support of those whose individual capabilities won't be enough.

All of us could get more comfortable in that messy middle of nuance because, in my opinion, that's where the majority of truth resides."

https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/embrace-the-nuance

23. "No matter your views on the outcome of this election, I hope you can appreciate some of the messaging lessons that can be learned from it."

https://kellblog.com/2024/11/09/messaging-lessons-from-the-2024-election/

24. "A network effect is the effect by which the value a user receives from said good or service is dependent on the number of users in the network at the time. The more the users, the higher the value and vice versa. But what happens when critical mass has not yet been achieved?

Many projects get stuck in the early stage and fail, it’s a catch 22. In the early stages, network utility is at its lowest so there is not much incentive for a user to migrate to the network."

https://www.philoinvestor.com/p/jumpstarting-network-effects

25. Disagree with much of what this guy says on geopolitics, this guy teaches neutrality studies which is not realistic.

But good to listen to other folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGGcr87oU8k&t=943s

26. A masterclass on making money online by a master: Luke Belmar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL2G3fEs-g0&t=166s

27. I dislike Cyrus Janssen as he is a CCP paid shill but he raises lots of good points.

America through arrogance has squandered our lead, alienated potential allies and screwed up by overusing sanctions.

Worth listening to and hopefully we wake up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPH-3-8Zf08

28. Audio quality is not so good but this was an instructive discussion on building massive businesses. Hiring great talent and what Product market fit looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIr95huOdrE

29. "The irony is that if we abandon the journey too soon, we’ll never know what could have awaited us. In life, staying on the train—staying disciplined—holds the promise of unseen rewards, richer than the fleeting temptations of the early stops. Only by staying the course do we get to experience everything the journey truly has to offer.

Get back on the train." 

https://jaymartin.substack.com/p/be-careful-when-you-look-out-the

30. "The book, which is called Genesis, starts by talking at some length about polymaths. Many of the people who we study when we're in high school were the polymaths of the time, such as Leonardo da Vinci. They are unique and very rare, and they move science, art, culture, society, forward. There are polymaths in every society, in every religion. What happens when you have a polymath of that level in your pocket, available to you as an individual? This is a major change in human experience. It really changes the definition of what it is to be human.

It's good in the sense that it enables humans to operate at their highest level. If you use Google, you get more information, and you're smarter than if you didn't have Google. But then let's assume that you and I are negotiating against each other, and you're very good and I'm very good, but each of us has our own data sources.

Now imagine that there are AI systems that know how to do optimal game theory, and they have infinite information. Is there a scenario in which the system, recognizing that you are a powerful opponent with a similar system, will decide that the only solution to the problem is to attack you? How then do you do your strategy when every single person, in theory, can have that agent with them?"

https://samf.substack.com/p/war-in-the-ai-age

31. "BONUS: Tribes that pass the marshmallow test will wipe out tribes that don't."

https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/10-laws-of-social-behavior

32. "So although Biden did beat inflation, crime did go down, and Biden did eventually crack down on the border, I can understand why the traumas that working-class Americans had to suffer in 2020-2022 couldn’t be expunged just by some encouraging charts. And the fact that educated professionals were much more insulated from the disruptions of the pandemic and from Biden’s missteps in 2021 mean that they didn’t necessarily even see the need to acknowledge how hard these had been on everyone else. 

This disconnect probably ended up alienating people without college degrees. Not only did it cause many progressives to support deeply unpopular things like “defund the police” on social media, but Democratic politicians who became used to talking to their educated progressive base probably got a distorted idea of what was troubling the rest of America.

America, fundamentally, is an incredibly rich country with a sick society. We have higher consumption by far than people in any other country on the planet, and yet by and large, except for the few people who were lucky enough to receive the blessings of community and health from our one remaining functional institution, we’re a bunch of unhealthy socially isolated drug addicts."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-educated-professional-class-is

33. "As universities roll out AI programs for associate, undergraduate, and graduate degrees, including the first Ivy League AI degree this fall, none of them are attacking the supply-demand gap for AI workers like the University of Texas.

Its AI master’s degree is completely online, open to as many students as the university believes are qualified, and costs $10k, a fraction of the price for in-person master’s computer science degrees at comparable universities. Adam Klivans, a computer science and AI professor who helped develop the AI master’s program, calls it “the best deal in higher ed.”  

https://thehustle.co/originals/the-university-trying-to-bring-ai-to-every-industry


34. "Skip the Vacation Home: This keeps coming up in the comments but please don’t bother. If you were planning on buying a second vacation home we would say *please for the love of everything do not do it*. The only “exception to the rule” is if you can buy in a low tax state and claim 183 days to move your tax rate down. Then the math works. Reasoning…

Second homes require: 1) insurance, 2) tax, 3) maintenance and 4) management fees to rent it out for break even purposes

Second headache with this, maybe you and your family don’t want to go to the same location for a decade. A lot can change in a decade. Perhaps going to France, Japan, New Zealand will be more appealing for next winter/summer season

You’ll have the overhead costs locked in and once you pay all the fees to sell it, breaking even will be significantly harder

Instead? We’d do the following: 1) upgrade your cars if you need one kicking off the deferred maintenance, 2) add an ADU to your house, 3) buy a small wifi biz - you did build skills the past 4 years didn’t you anon? and 4) hire a good divorce attorney."

https://bowtiedbull.io/p/the-golden-bull-of-2025-and-other

35. This is a good discussion ranging from politics, media and business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r3zt2HY2vk

36. Good discussion to decipher the political system and what it might look like under Trump 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr2Zz4aUvAA

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

The Line I thought I’d Never Write: What I learned From Tai Lopez

I try to learn from everyone! Tai Lopez has a reputation of being a big online scammer and his scammy ads. But I don’t know if that’s actually the case anymore. I’ve listened to several podcasts recently and he is really smart. 

This show is worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qn07rX79pU. He is clearly well read and full of interesting facts. And he has clearly done well in business. 

I’ve learned a bunch of concepts from him.There are 5 big Habits to get health, wealth and happiness: Reading, Building, Networking, Breathing, Fasting.

  1. Reading: Have 5 mentors: 2-3 from reading & virtual and 2-3 live. 

Invest in yourself: take some seminars or conferences on online marketing. As Tai said: “You are one person away from a million bucks!”

Buy books and courses. Learn how you learn: by audio, by reading or by doing and apprenticeships through mentors. Educate yourself. Learn how to sell. “Sales will make you money. Sales will make you rich.” 

2. Building Wealth. Be willing to trade time for money in the beginning and once you have money, put it into the 5 Assets.

The 5 Assets are: Software (Tech), Land (Real estate which could be farmland, commercial or residential), Brand (Personal brand or even branded companies like LVMH or other luxury brand businesses), Cash (Cash is King & liquid) & Crypto (Basically weird stuff: crypto, gold, bullets & guns). 

Most of this is self explanatory. You need to have rural farmland that is a minimum of a solid hour away from the city. And you need guns and ammo to protect your family and gold.


3. Networking: Understand people and human psychology. Figure out how you can be helpful to people and build win-win friendships. True friends make money together. 

4. Breathing: which i liken to exercise and physical fitness

5. Fasting: eating clean and well and also equates to having discipline in your life. I fast 13 hours every day and a long

24-48 hour one every other month. It cleans out your system which is good for your body. 

I also learned the concept of “Thick” and “Thin” Markets from him. Let’s use dating as an example. If you like Latina’s then the American midwest and Europe probably are not so great for you as there are probably not very many Latina’s living or working there. And hence hard to meet anyone you find attractive. It’s a “thin” market. You are probably better off in Southern California or Florida or any place in Latin America which are “thick” markets full of Latina’s.

From a startup perspective, if you are looking for tech angels and VCs, Silicon Valley is hard to beat and would be considered a “thick” market. Kansas City would probably not be so great, so it’s a “thin” market. I think you get the point. If you are looking for tech companies as customers either go to Silicon Valley or go to tech specific conferences. This is where they congregate. If you are targeting doctors, go to a doctor’s convention. Go fish where the fish are. 

The most interesting framework he shared when looking at the world is that of Princes, Kings and Warlords. Princes are young up and comers on the rise, rich but not wealthy. Maybe $5M in net worth. Every type A individual aims to be Kings, rich, powerful and top of the game. But he wisely notes that you want to be a king who people think are princes. If you are a king, everyone wants to take you down. Other kings and those below. Then there is another level of wealth and power which are Warlords. Almost always billionaires who play another game: one that is tough and even more brutal. There are always levels to levels.  


Tai is an interesting character and has lots of insight on people and how to thrive in a capitalistic society. I recommend watching some of his interviews. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Passport Bro Wisdom: Traveling for a Better Lifestyle

New York is an amazing city. What a grand city, full of life, beautiful people, entertainment, shopping and energy. I love it. Always enjoy coming to the city for business and pleasure. But boy does that place drain your wallet. It is the epitome of America, you can have whatever you want but you gotta pay for it. Even for a guy who lives in San Francisco, New York feels damn expensive. For the well heeled individual it’s very easy to feel poor here. 


It reminds me of something Tai Lopez said in an interview. That happiness in your life is determined by where you live. You don’t always need to have billions. If you are a billionaire, even a place like New York can make you feel poor, because you are surrounded by deca-billionaires and everything is excessively expensive. In fact, you might be better off being a multimillionaire in a small town. It’s all personal preference and knowing yourself. 


But location really does drive lifestyle. In fact, someone making $30,000 a month could live like a kind in Thailand, Taiwan, Albania, Georgia, Brazil, Bali or the Philippines for example. The lower cost structure allows you to live a way better lifestyle than you would back home in a place like SF or New York. Geo-arbitrage. 


Which leads me to “Passport bros” which are a derogatory term for the young males who end up going to live in other, usually poorer countries to meet women. Not my favorite type of people but I think the passport bros might be onto something in their search for a better and more cost effective lifestyle. 


Every time I come to New York, I get a reminder of this. I think why not both? Be able to afford to live in the expensive & awesome cities of San Francisco & New York but offset this with time in my favorite places that happen to also have lower costs like Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Albania, Georgia & Ukraine. That sounds like a great life plan to me. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Media as A Signal Two: Reflections on America in the 2020s

It’s always interesting watching films, I think a movie or movies reflect the sentiment of a country. Reflect and sometimes lead too. I wrote before about the aggressive and more bellicose nature of Chinese movies in the last decade. The depressing and grim nature of Japanese movies during the early 2000s. 

There was a recent insight raised by the brilliant crypto entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinavasan about popular blockbuster American movies in recent years, Oppenheimer, Barbie, Top Gun 2. They reflect nostalgia. A time when America was great, powerful and when the future was bright. When America was the bright shining city on the hill, prosperity was wide and we had immense economic and military power. 

The disillusionment that started in 2000s with the Iraq War 2, the GFC aka Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the quagmire of Iraq & Afghanistan, the hollowing out of our industrial base and middle class, the 2020 pandemic and brutal lockdowns, the chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, inflation and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine showed how ineffective our elites have turned out to be. Disgusting, corrupt, grifting, incompetent elites who have led us to this. No wonder most Americans pine for a perceived better time. 


But I think we are on the cusp of a big turnaround. Manufacturing is slowly but steadily coming back to America, thanks to the CHIPs Act and IRA under Biden. I expect this to accelerate under Trump.. We still have the US Dollar as the reservoir currency, we have tremendous amounts of natural resources, energy and food. America continues to suck in young smart talent from around the world.

More importantly, morale among many of the top young people is back. The AI boom is real and this will transform the economy. People are Inspired by Elon Musk and SpaceX’s recent accomplishments of reusable rockets. Anduril’s success in challenging the defense primes and beating them. We see an outgrowth of young smart entrepreneurs turning their back on SaaS and focusing on deeptech and hardtech all over America. But particularly in Southern California mainly El Segundo, Costa Mesa, Torrance, San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hawthorne, among other places. 

I love watching this new breed of founder. Mission driven workaholics. Patriotic, athletic, many religious, representing a more muscular Christian, outspoken and Based. Working on startups ranging from Nuclear power, space satellites, robots, weather control, drones, hydrogen airships. 

And with a new Worlds Fair coming on America’s 250th anniversary I expect many of these breakthrough technologies will be shown here. It’s hard not to be optimistic about the future. What was science fiction is now becoming science fact as Lux Capital founder Josh Wolfe often says. 


What an amazing time to be alive. America is back!! 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads December 1st, 2024

"I never dreamt of success. I worked for it." —Estée Lauder

  1. Good overview on global geopolitics and economics from Zeihan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksbEkjAXgNc&t=2753s

2. A must listen conversation on geopolitics, America and the rotting of American primacy due to our own stupidity & lack of courage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHoxK2CPzDs

3. Climate change, Zeihan does a great job talking about its implications for various countries and cities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOLqXxe8Cfs

4. "Eva Longoria stepped in at the last minute with a $6 million investment that saved "John Wick."

Since then, she's invested in two soccer clubs, a tequila, and a food brand, and she has her own production company.

"I want to be making money while I'm sleeping," Longoria said of her investment philosophy.

But something that I've learned, looking back, I love investing in people. You can tell me you're opening a chicken farm, but if you're fucking passionate about it and you've done the work and know the market, I mean, Chad and David did their work. They put in their 10,000 hours as stunt guys and second-unit directors; they had seen all the bad movies and knew how to make a good one. It was that. They were undeniably passionate, and I knew they were going to make an undeniable product.

They have that hunger and scrappiness that I have. I'm very scrappy in my life. I'm like, "Why can't we just do this like this?"

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/funding-john-wick-kick-started-120801144.html

5. "The phrase “temporary hardship” has quickly become notorious. It bears similarity to Xi Jinping’s admonishment to the Chinese people to “eat bitterness”. Americans are not used to their leaders promising economic pain. 

But is Musk’s austerity proposal a good one? And would it in fact cause the kind of pain he’s forecasting? Here there’s quite a bit of uncertainty.

But the general contours are probably right — big cuts in corporate and personal income tax, tariff hikes, and deep cuts in government spending on health care would absolutely have this general effect. And unlike the macroeconomic pain, this distributional impact would likely be long-term, rather than temporary. 

So on one hand, I think it’s refreshing that Musk is talking about fiscal austerity, and about the hardships that will be necessary to get the government’s finances back on a sustainable footing. On the other hand, I don’t like the way he plans to go about it — giving massive awards to himself and his own lofty social stratum, while inflicting pain on the masses. There are better ways to do austerity."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/thinking-about-temporary-hardship

6. "Throughout the second half of the 20th century, higher education was the key that allowed remarkably unremarkable kids (e.g., me) to unlock America’s promise of upward mobility. Today higher ed is a bouncer at the entrance to an exclusive club, where wealthy kids and a cadre of freakishly remarkable 18-year-olds build lasting relationships and lucrative networks with elite peers, while obtaining certification that gives them access to the greatest wealth-generating vehicles in history: S&P 500 companies."

https://www.profgalloway.com/high-anxiety

7. "From a supply chain point of view, commanders will have to consider the number of UAVs they have on hand and how long it will take to be resupplied. The more advanced the weapon, the fewer are stockpiled—the era of precision-guided munitions raises the real possibility of running out of ammo in the opening phases of a conflict. This will force commanders to reserve drones for deliberate offensives, where they can achieve combined effects in conjunction with other forces. The old rules of warfare will still prevail, in other words.

Finally, there are major tactical vulnerabilities in the current crop of drones. Most of their recent success has come from their ability to loiter as they seek out targets or wait to be fed targeting data. The skies will not always be uncontested, however, and the longer that drones loiter the more easily they can be targeted by ground fires or counter-drone swarms.

In 1513, awed by the cannons which had recently brought down castle walls across Italy, Machiavelli argued that fortresses were obsolete. Just seven years later, in The Art of War, he detailed the kind of fortifications a prince should build—fortress design had caught up to the offensive power of cannons. So it always is in war: new weapons do indeed alter the battlefield, but the change is far more gradual than early encounters suggest.

Drone maximalists tend to imagine buzzing drones filling the sky and vaporizing any ground forces, but don’t think through what that would entail. Just as artillery in the First World War and bombers in the Second failed to simply wipe out the enemy from afar, UAVs will take their place in modern armies as one piece of a complex, slowly-evolving system."

https://dispatch.bazaarofwar.com/p/a-look-back-at-the-nagorno-karabakh

8. This was a fun conversation on the business of venture capital and the unconventional path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRvFnYBP7_I

9. The writer really hates the West but this is an important perspective to understand.

"It has been an extraordinary experience to follow throughout the year how Russian diplomacy managed to successfully bring together delegations from 36 nations – 22 of them represented by heads of state – plus six international organizations, including the United Nations, for the summit in Kazan.

These delegations came from nations representing nearly half of the global GDP. The implication is that a tsunami of thousands of sanctions imposed since 2022, plus relentless yelling about Russia’s “isolation,” simply disappeared in the vortex of irrelevance. That contributed to the immense irritation displayed by the collective west over this remarkable gathering. Key subtext: there was not a single official presence of the Five Eyes set-up in Kazan.

The various devils, of course, remain in the various details: how BRICS – and the BRICS Outreach mechanism, housing 13 new partners – will move from the extremely polite and quite detailed Kazan Declaration – with more than 130 operational paragraphs – and several other white papers to implement a Global Majority-oriented platform ranging from collective security to widespread connectivity, non-weaponized trade settlements, and geopolitical primacy. It will be a long, winding, and thorny road.

The collective west’s incomprehension of what transpired in three historic days in Kazan only highlighted their astonishing arrogance, stupidity, and brutality. That’s precisely the reason why the BRICS matrix is working so hard to come up with the lineaments of a new, fair international order, and despite an array of challenges, will continue to flourish."

https://thecradle.co/articles/brics-post-kazan-a-laboratory-of-the-future

10. "BRICS is not seeking to overturn the world financial order, nor replace it with another one. Their objectives are more modest: to provide alternatives for those who wish to escape, in whole or in part, from the current US and western-dominated financial system, and to progressively modify the way the system works from within, by organised cooperation. The Partner Country system is likely to mean less the formation of a new BRICS-based “bloc” in the Cold War sense, and more an increasing ability for countries in and around the BRICS area to play the West and BRICS off against each other.

To this extent, BRICS is not an alternative to the current international system, but rather the creation of a powerful bloc of countries who have a common interest in substantially changing the way it works. This is hard for westerners to understand and accept, since we are brought up to think in Manichaean terms, and of unbridgeable differences between groups and ideologies. But BRICS and its partner system represent a different model: it is hardly “new” since it is how most of the world has always worked. It relies on “sufficient” commonality of interest for nations to cooperate with each other in particular areas.

It recognises that on other issues the countries may have different views, or even be totally at odds with each other. It acknowledges that international politics is a massive series of Venn diagrams, not an assembly of strictly regulated geometric shapes separate from each other. BRICS is an example of an institution that flows naturally from such an recognition, and may well inspire others. For that reason, together with the suppleness of the concept itself, BRICS is likely to survive and develop, and to continue to be a puzzle to western pundits."

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/unlike-for-like

11. "From population growth to college students to recent developments and a major airport, Atlanta has everything needed for startups to thrive. Startup investors should invest both their time and money in Atlanta."

https://davidcummings.org/2024/11/02/why-atlanta-for-startup-investing/

12. "The elite and expert class comprises a uniquely integral caste system within the Western hegemonic model of civilization. This protected upper echelon is molded then harbored by an intricate network of institutions whose sole purpose is to maintain the unassailable cachet of honors they manufacture: various awards, certificates, degrees, scholarships, fellowships, chairs, residencies, et cetera. These institutions act as a credibility shield to perpetually encase the ‘system’ in a tempered glass dome of unquestionability. 

But due to how intrinsically oppressive the system has had to become in order to root out free-thinking opposition, it has dealt itself a mortal wound by perpetuating a positive feedback loop which only drives it into further and further ideological isolation, such that the system begins to appear as a corrupt tower of Babel ready to topple to anyone watching from the outside. 

The uselessness of our leaders plays into it because the system requires good, public-facing PR people to act merely as the shepherds or crowd-control maestros in keeping the public woozy, and from asking too many inconvenient questions. In our globalized, increasingly centralized world the CEO is now hired less for his innate leadership or talent to inspire, and more for the connections to foreign governments, banks, regulators, or other beneficial special interests they bring along. 

It all comes back down to basic human nature and systems theory. We are programmed by these structures to believe that we rely on them for survival; that the structures are essential to our civilization and progression.

The blob grows and grows, and it knows only how to feed, like a runaway malignant cell.

The feedback loop requires the state to continue increasing in size in order to constantly expand the fat tissue buffer between the ruled citizenry and the elite caste."

https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/belfries

13. "Here’s what to watch for;

If the election is close and Trump is ahead in a drawn-out and contested counting effort, the potential for a swarm developing is high. 

As we have seen in previous swarms, there aren’t any protections against a swarm rapidly mobilizing. Once it is mobilized, it will quickly seek to shut down all dissent at every level (including extrajudicial means to suppress X). 

Additionally, decentralized elements of the swarm (devoid of any worry over long-term damage to the country’s stability, the rule of law, or cohesion) will simultaneously seek to overwhelm the opposition to overturn the election. 

If this does happen, networked totalitarianism and a long night of AI-fueled controlled speech and behavior won’t be far behind. Let’s hope it doesn’t."

https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/an-american-swarm

14. History is fascinating.

"But who were the Zanj and how did they manage to resist the powerful Abbasids for over a decade?

After the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia, a military camp was established in the marshlands of southern Iraq. This camp soon grew into the wealthy port city of Basra, the link between Baghdad & the rich lands that lay on the Arabian Sea & beyond.

Southern Iraq was once a fertile region, the cradle of the first cities & Sumerian civilization, but flooding & poor upkeep reverted the land to marshes. The wealthy residents of Basra were given ownership of these marshlands on the condition they brought them under cultivation.

For this task, many thousands of Bantu-speaking slaves were imported from the Swahili Coast, the Zanj. Clearing the marshes & working the salt flats was a miserable existence, compounded by the cruelty of the overseers. These unimaginable conditions made the slaves restive."

https://varangianchronicler.substack.com/p/revenge-of-the-zanj

15. “The way that liberal Western democracies prevail over a centrally commanded nation is by doubling down on what made our countries strong, which is the free flow of talent and capital,” he said. “And so we don’t win by the civil-military fusion, by forcing companies to do things, but rather by investing, supporting and allowing free enterprise to succeed.”

It sounds good in theory, but in practice the idea has hit hurdles in both the U.S. and in Europe — in part because the private sector moves quickly and takes big risks, while the military is a lumbering bureaucracy that makes it challenging for all but the biggest defense contractors to break through.

“You have this great pipeline and most of it falls on the floor,” said Steve Blank, co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University. “While we have all these legacy acquisition processes, our adversaries don’t.”

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2024/10/31/tk-daniella-top-00186582

16. Fearsome and impressive weapon system from Anduril. Barracuda-M series of Cruise missiles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw7kF4vomA4

17. An educational discussion with one of the best operators and investors in Silicon Valley: Elad Gil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzjIfkNAp8U

18. This is always a fun conversation. Not sure I agree with everything here but it's a good centrist view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSyxm_AQfeE

19. "Victory in modern war is about winning the peace as well as winning the war. The initial American military successes in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and in Afghanistan in 2001, followed by subsequent long-term instability, testify that military successes do not always ensure a favourable and enduring political solution. Russian interventions in Afghanistan and its first war in Chechnya are further examples.

The concept of victory, or the word itself, is one Western politicians and academics like to avoid. In 2009, US President Barack Obama said he was “always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” As Heuser has written: “for most Western liberals in the early 21st century, victory seems of little value as a thing in itself, as the price at which it might come seems disproportionate to the gains.”

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/victory-21st-century-conflict-0

20. Always lots of nuggets of insights for what's happening in SaaS. Must listen for founders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0L_l4pc4rU&t=1081s

21. The man at the center of Silicon Valley and AI. Plenty to take in here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peg-aX1oii4

22. Well a somewhat grim assessment. Well, America, run by empty suits which leads to brainless foreign policy. Check.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdGXMaYKRik

23. Interesting new future alliance: Saudi, Turkey and Israel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiBWgUdGaIo

24. The Podcast election and Betting markets. Fascinating time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOOvOQbzw1M

25. Global norms eroding and we are entering a more anarchic world order, where the strong act with impunity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyS_euuncKk

26. Masterclass on building a long lasting venture firm. The guys responsible for the turnaround of the legendary Kleiner Perkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BekWZv3CCA

27. "We should pay Trump the compliment of believing what he says when he speaks about NATO and Ukraine—and indeed what those who worked closely with him say about that. There is a very good chance that the North Atlantic Alliance, which has dominated much of the globe since 1949, will become dysfunctional in fewer than 3 months. 

Trump doesn’t have to withdraw from the alliance to do that—all he has to do is remove the US from the military command (which is what De Gaulle did with French forces in 1966). As commander in chief, US forces will only fight if Trump orders them to do so—NATO cannot order US forces into action if the President doesnt want that. So, no US forces will fight to protect Europe if Trump doesnt want them to.

Btw—this also needs to be faced by the USA’s allies in the Indo-Pacific, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even Australia, who can no longer look for the USA to be a reliable partner in defense."

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-usa-is-trumps-now-europe-must

28. "All of this inevitably produces bad faith and terminal embarrassment. It is an unchallengeable article of belief in Liberalism that the world is advancing steadily and ineluctably towards a morally better future. Never, it appears, have we known such tolerance, diversity and inclusion. Unfortunately, though, nothing works, and the political, media, business and intellectual elites of our society are more incapable, and more morally dubious, than they have ever been. At some deep level, everybody knows this, no matter how firmly they are convinced that we live in a shining present and are moving to a shininger future.

0ur elites are thus conscious that they cannot match their predecessors, either practically or morally, and that makes them embarrassed, which in turn makes them angry. So the result is logical enough: if the past offends us, let us destroy it. If we cannot measure up to great figures of the past, let us undermine them and bring them down to our level, so we never need to feel inferior again. Having no heroes today, we must destroy the heroes our predecessors had.

But, surrounded by sleaze, incompetence and corruption, it’s increasing hard for us to look back on the past with an attitude of moral superiority.

Except, of course, that we do actually need heroes. All societies do. And so the most fervent anti-militarists seek out, as they have always done, surrogates from abroad to admire and respect: what George Orwell famously called the “patriotism of the deracinated.” From the Viet Cong to the Afghan Mujahideen, to today’s examples of Hezbollah and the Houthis, we admire and find heroism in people outside our own societies, because we are too embarrassed to seek it within them."

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/no-more-heroes

29. "The reality is on much of foreign policy the U.S. has been leaderless - and the West because of the US under Biden was AWOL."

https://timothyash.substack.com/p/history-will-likely-judge-biden-poorly

30. Geography as destiny and how it affects geopolitics. Fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgEopGPkL_M&t=567s

31. "All this may be part of an even larger story: the fight in the US Presidential race is not between the left and the right. It is between the Establishment and the Anti-Establishment. Or, more accurately, between the Old Establishment and the New Anti-Establishment. This helps explain the Cheney-Harris alignment. This is the Old Establishment, which likes the way things have been done. They like a world where the government knows best and external commentary is not welcome. Putting it bluntly, they believe in the old adage, “after the war begins, to reason is to treason”. This side says any commentary that opposes the government’s position is misinformation, disinformation and its ok to use the state apparatus and the media to maintain the government as it exists.

The Old Establishment is not opposed to reform, but the basic apparatus and core narratives must be kept intact. They might hire Tech Bros to make government more efficient but have not grasped that the Tech Bros can already anticipate their every move because they already have a clear picture of everyone in the Old Establishment because their digital twin gives away their actual position. The Old Estabishment group wants to know everybody else digital twin secrets but does not want the government’s digital twin available to external parties, including voters. But, its too late. 

The New Establishment is comprised of Tech Bros who have more insight than any existing government apparatus. They increasingly align with each other because they see that the government (whether left or right) is failing to meet the needs of the public. The nation’s finances are blowing out.

The bigger possibility is that this becomes the moment that the New Anti-Establishment reveals that it already controls public opinion more than the Old Establishment. While the two parties argue and fight, the New Establishment may commence what might be called a “reverse coup” in the future. I’m watching for Thiel, Zuckerberg, Elon, and various others who are usually fighting amongst themselves for turf to start to align and offer public stability. They will also turn on their Tech Bro opponents."

https://drpippa.substack.com/p/and-the-winner-is-kennedy

32. "While we know what candidate Trump and those around him have said about Ukraine, it remains to be seen exactly what President Trump 2.0 will do about the conflict. In his victory speech, Trump states that “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars but this is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.”

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/president-trump-20-and-ukraine

33. Incredible discussion on global macro investing with one of the best in the business. Stan Druckenmiller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Weeox0Xus

34. An instructive discussion on vertical Saas investing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEsuJPMDFok

35. "This follows a campaign of arson and sabotage across Europe that intelligence officials say demonstrates an increasing recklessness on the part of the Kremlin. As the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 put it, “Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly.”

In recent months, Russian agents have been accused of plotting sabotage attacks against US and German military targets, arson attacks in the UK and Lithuania, and the attempted assassination of a major German defense contractor, among other plots."

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/383330/russia-georgia-bomb-threats-gray-zone

36. A varied discussion on our geopolitical & deglobalizing future. Lots of work to do as we reindustrialize America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBtPd9a5TwE

37. This is a great conversation re: going down the PE exit track versus the VC one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQv1-ZFv-5s

38. I always learn from Tai Lopez. Always be Networking and Masterminds are awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlzbbW4hrSw

39. "But either way, don’t get lazy and say “business outcomes” because you don’t want to enumerate them or, worse yet, because you don’t know them. Check yourself each time you write the words. Ask yourself: Can I climb the stack higher? Can I enumerate actual benefits? Am I truly in a situation where “business outcomes” is the best I can do?

If yes, say it. And then start thinking about the next piece you need to write so you can change the rules."

https://kellblog.com/2024/11/07/should-marketers-say-business-outcomes/

40. New guy to learn from. Interesting story and rise to the top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh33mpINrxc

41. "So the more you think about it, it was the First, not the Second, World War that is at the origin of most of the world’s problems today. By destroying high-level supranational and multi-ethnic structures overnight, it created massive problems.

By selecting “self-determination” as the solution, without really thinking through what it meant, it ensured that those problems would be insoluble without brute force, and perhaps not even then. In fact, if you consider where crises and political instability have arisen in the last thirty years, from the Balkans through the Levant to Libya, Algeria and Tunisia, these are all territories of Arab/Ottoman conquest: even Yemen was added to the Empire in 1517.

This is not because the Empire of the Ottomans was especially bad—though there is a tendency to romanticise it— but because of its organisation of the population into religious groups, and the speed and nature of its collapse and the vacuum left behind.

In a very real sense, we are still dealing with the consequences of the fall of three Empires in 1918."

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/people-states-and-borders

42. "Trump might not realise it but he goes into potential talks with Putin from a position of overwhelming strength. Trump needs a Ukraine peace deal much less than Putin. If Trump fails to agree any such deal, so what? What are the consequences for the US? Not much. Ukraine has shown it is willing to fight, and even if the US pulls financing Europe has to continue writing the cheques as the best way of defending itself against inevitable future Russian aggression.

And if the cash is short Europe can dip into the $330 billion in immobilised Russian assets to continue to fund Ukraine. Ukraine and Europe will inevitably continue to put big orders for US defence equipement - in almost any scenario, and which US President is going to say no to defence orders for literally hundreds of billions of dollars from Europe. That represents millions of US jobs for Trump to secure. Putin literally has no leverage now over Trump, and Trump should play very hardball.

I would argue that Trump is being presented with the mother of all opportunities for the greatest peace deal ever. Why he would not use all his leverage to extract maximum concessions from Putin.

Does Trump really have the Art of the Deal or is he just Putin’s tool and full of crap? We will now soon find out. Putin is weak, Trump has all the cards. Let’s see if he can actually play a great hand to clean up the table. If not - what a loser Trump would be in that he was gifted a scenario of a deal of the century in Ukraine and bottled it. That would be sad for Ukraine as selling them out now would see the likely collapse of Ukraine and devastating consequences then for Europe as an emboldened Russia would be better armed with the addition of Ukraine’s huge and tech impressive military industrial complex, and seeing a green light from Trump for further conquest in Europe by Russia."

https://timothyash.substack.com/p/putin-no-longer-has-the-trump-card

43. "I actually suspect that there are other reasons why inflation bothers voters even more than unemployment. Inflation is something that’s obviously beyond an individual’s control — if the price of eggs goes up, you can choose not to buy eggs, but otherwise there’s not much you can do. But unemployment is something that individuals do exercise some degree of control over — if you work a bunch of extra hours during a recession and establish a good relationship with your boss, maybe you can avoid getting laid off. 

In general, I think people are less worried about risks they have some control over, even if the overall level of danger is higher. Look at how people are more afraid to fly than to take long road trips, despite road trips being much deadlier per mile. The leading theory is that in a car you have some control over your safety, while in a plane you have basically zero control. Similarly, I suspect that inflation makes people feel powerless, like being stuck in a crashing airplane."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-hate-inflation-more-than

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

‘Past Lives’: What Could Have Been

There was a recent movie that came out about how two close childhood friends Hae Sung & Na Young aka Nora in Seoul, are reunited after 20+ years in North America. Nora’s family emigrated to Canada when she was young and ended up in New York City as a young adult, while the boy Hae Sung grew up in Korea.

They end up reconnecting on Facebook 8 years later as adults, corresponding virtually for years. They end up fighting and get disconnected. But after another 12 years they finally reconnect and then arrange a meeting in New York. Now as true adults.

The wrinkle this time is Nora is now married to a nice American man, yet she still has deep feelings for Hae Sung. And the conundrum she faces as Hae represents her first love and past. But the joy and tenderness when they meet again at that park is remarkable. It’s a really beautiful scene. 

It’s a reminder of the weird twists and turns in our lives. The random meetings with people that turn into lifelong friendships or romantic relationships. Or the ones that you missed. 


I still remember this beautiful Australian girl I met on the train to Krakow in 1996. We were supposed to meet up at the end of the train ride after I got upgraded to first class. Little did we know that 2nd class train cabins would be disconnected and arrive hours later. Never did meet her again. 

Or the gorgeous Ukrainian American girl I met in New York, who gave me her number. But I ended up losing it because my phone ran out of power. What could have been. 

But then I would not have moved to Taiwan, met a girl there and ended up with a beloved and beautiful little daughter Amber. Fate. 


The movie is also a reminder to me of all that is sacrificed by people who immigrate and leave everything they know in their home. Some people are running away from something. Some are running towards something. Just like my parents did when they left Taiwan. For me, I realize now clearly that I was running away. First to Asia and then to America. 

Maybe this is the curse of us immigrants and immigrant kids. We belong nowhere and multiple places at the same time. Torn between two cultures or more.  We get confused. We’re all still hurt or scared little children inside even as adults.

But it reminds me of a scene in the movie. 

When Nora’s mom is asked by Hae Sung’s mom, why leave all this behind when immigrating. She responds: “If you leave something behind, you gain something too.”

I’ve lost a lot. But for that price I’ve gained a lot too. I’ve crafted a life for myself through it all. One that I’ve dreamed about when I was a child. And as Sinatra said “I did it my way”, since the story does take place in New York. 


There is a scene during his visit when Hae Sung tells Nora: “it’s a good thing that you emigrated. Korea is too small of a country for you. It’s not enough to satisfy your ambition.” I feel the same way about Canada. 

But as in the end of the movie as the two childhood  friends say goodbye, there is a feeling of acceptance of who they are now. The lives they have now. And they finally have some closure of the past & what could have been. I feel like after many decades I finally have that now too. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

The New Entrepreneurship: Personal Holding Companies & Multipreneurship

I have a good friend who has been a very successful entrepreneur. He started and sold a few companies in his past but in the last decade or so changed his mode of operations. He would start companies but then turn them over to sharp, hungry 20-30 somethings to run. 


He would become a minority shareholder, act as coach, and leverage his experience in the background, while the younger entrepreneur would manage the day to day. While some of these are software businesses, most tend to be service agency type businesses focusing on specific niches, leveraging overseas talent while servicing 1st world country clients  but drive massive cash flow. He has accumulated an estimated 9-10 of these kinds of businesses. And built a crazy good lifestyle to boot. 


I’ve noticed a phenomenon of a new style of entrepreneurship. Andrew Wilkinson, Nick Huber, Sahil Bloom, Greg Isenberg. It’s actually Greg Isenberg who coined the phrase “Personal Holding Co” aka PHC which is a thesis-driven holding company not necessarily designed to sell businesses but to cash flow them. Or in his own words: “A PHC is basically one registered entity, building multiple products, multiple revenue streams, multiple investments versus the classic 1 startup = 1 product.”


You basically productize yourself and make a bunch of bets against a thesis you are interested in, some will be minority shareholdings, some will be a majority shareholder. And you can leverage the cash flows from this to invest into new businesses. I’d also add that Nick, Sahil and Greg really leveraged their personal brands and built huge online distribution power on social media and X aka Twitter. 


You can build or buy companies under this PHC. Sahil Bloom builds, he thinks of problems like Amazon Web Services. How do you change a cost structure to a profit center? He realized he needed good video creation service as well as good animated graphics. Other creators soon reached out to him and he partnered with an experienced agency friend to build out businesses around these. 


Nick Huber actually talks about this in an interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6ErC0O9g0&t=819s. He says: 

“The same way I will be buying businesses is how I will start them. Looking at my cost centers, my profit and loss statement and where I am spending money. The interesting part is if you look at the 10 businesses I started, 8 of them were businesses I was spending money on at Bolt storage. Property and casualty insurance, Debt brokerage, Cost Segs, SEO link building, performance marketing, website development, recruiting. All these things were things I needed as a business owner.

And it turns out that a lot of other business owners who follow me on Twitter for the management advice and trust me because they listen to my words, they read my newsletter, they listen to my podcast, whatever it might be, they will need the same things I would need.” 

It’s really smart because you get different streams of income and diversification, while getting economies of scale and turning costs into profits via a new business. 


It will be more prevalent in the creator economy and these PCH will be made up  of service agencies, niche software to DTC (Direct to Consumer)/ ecommerce businesses & media content businesses like YouTube or Newsletters. All usually built around a personal brand or niche audience. It just makes sense and empires will be built this way. 

I really think an important vehicle of entrepreneurship will be these Personal Holding Companies. It’s a good structure to unify and run different lines of business.  

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Damocles Sword: The Psychic Costs of Wealth and Power

I think most people know the term “Damocles Sword” but don’t know the origin story. There used to be a king named Dionysius in ancient times, who built a massive empire in Sicily. 

In his court he sat under a golden throne, surrounded by beautiful women and art, served delicious foods and fruits, living the apex of a luxurious lifestyle. 

He had a servant/courtier named Damocles who joined him recently and was enamored by this incredible life. Damocles told king Dionysius how fortunate and lucky he was. Dionysius offered to switch places with him for one day and Damocles readily accepted. 

Quoting Wikipedia: “But Dionysius, who had made many enemies during his reign, arranged that a sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail to evoke the sense of what it is like to be king: though having much fortune, always having to watch in fear and anxiety against dangers that might try to overtake him.

Damocles finally begged the king to be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that while he had everything he could ever want at his feet, it could not affect what was above his crown.”


It’s a parable. “Heavy lies the crown” as the old saying goes. The higher you are, the harder the fall. You have more to lose. Think about the constant fear someone with power and wealth has. Everyone wants to take down the King. Well, not everyone, but enough people to make being a King hard. 

It’s easy to see all the glamor and glory of someone who has made it. We don’t see the pain and suffering they had to get there. We also don’t see the pain and suffering needed to maintain it. 


What an interesting lesson. Keep that in mind next time you meet someone who has scaled heights you have not and whom you envy. But also do appreciate and respect what they have accomplished and how they got there. It’s very rarely as easy as their PR makes it out to be.

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads November 24th, 2024

"Talent is nothing without persistence." —Dean Crawford

  1. We could be seeing nuclear weapons proliferation in Europe soon (and probably Japan & South Korea too).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=577hMdf-740

2. "Roll-ups consolidate the players of an industry into one bigger player. The idea is that the resulting company will achieve greater efficiency through economies of scale, synergies, or the implementation of better management.

For a company to deserve being called a roll-up, there has to be sufficient acquisition activity. Buying one or the other competitor doesn't count. To qualify as a roll-up, a company should get > 50% of its EBITDA growth inorganically through acquisitions in a similar vertical (= industry). The acquired companies individually should be < 50% of consolidated EBITDA.

The concept is similar to that of serial acquirers, i.e. financial outsiders that try to exploit a valuation difference between acquisition targets and the stock market. While serial acquirers are closer to valuation arbitrage, the difference between rollups and serial acquirers is not always clear-cut."

https://www.undervalued-shares.com/weekly-dispatches/roll-ups-how-to-invest-in-industry-consolidators-and-serial-acquirers/

3. "We each met with several dozen founders over the course of the day, then got together afterwards to compare notes. Both of us had the same observation: more than half of the founders we spoke with knew virtually nothing about their competition.

Sure, they could all list one or two big-name incumbents. Several name-dropped similar-ish startups that had recently raised well-publicized rounds. But very few actually understood the competitive dynamics at play in the markets they were targeting. It’s a worrisome trend I’ve seen increasingly as of late."

https://chrisneumann.com/archives/know-your-competition

4. "So there you have it: an update on how climate is affecting Japan, a year after my last report. On the positive side, perhaps the ongoing efforts of these holy spots are working, because the forecast predicts temperatures are set to decline, grudgingly (?), over the next few days. But I can now officially say that the answer to those who ask me what to pack for autumn visits to Japan is a resounding “I don’t know.”

https://blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/baby-its-hot-outside

5. "The notion of a Zero-Billion Dollar Market is that it’s something that you can see as an entrepreneur, but no one else believes. As we’ve talked about before, being consensus and correct is wonderful in many parts of life, but not in entrepreneurship. If you’re trying to create something new and valuable then it’s generally down the less traveled path, against the grain, and certainly not wildly obvious to others. Value is located when you’re both non-consensus, or contrarian, and also correct.

My friend Tommy Dyer recently alerted me to the fact that Don Quixote has been taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), with particular focus on his “Lessons for Leadership.” Among other lessons, Quixote creates his own reality through action. Though often considered mad, particularly as he begins to see the windmills around himself as monsters, it’s perhaps all only in his imagination, and as Tommy delves into in his recent writings, perhaps it’s even him living in his own “reality distortion field,” to use the Steve Jobs turn of phrase. Indeed entrepreneurs must be Quixotic, or exceedingly idealistic, even impractical or “crazy” to invent new categories. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The Rebels...” This is the edge between vision and reality where contrarianism dwells."

https://ideas.everywhere.vc/p/scott-hartley-zero-billion-dollar-markets

6. "Some skeptics believe that the AI boom is reminiscent of hype cycles of the past, often drawing parallels with the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. Rather than defending AI as fundamentally different from previous waves of technology, Taylor pointed to the dot-com boom as validation. That period, despite its excesses, produced companies like Amazon and Google that dominate the industry to his day.

Taylor is confident that large language models are also transforming our lives. “It’s important not to be cynical—there will be a lot of snake oil, lots of people will lose money, lots of people will make money, and that’s the game of Silicon Valley,” he said. His belief in AI’s continued progress is grounded in its reliance on three factors—algorithms, data, and compute—each benefiting from the brightest minds in tech driving them forward. The three, crucially, can be developed independent of one another, creating multiple pathways for continued progress."

https://every.to/p/inside-silicon-valley-s-most-important-conversations

7. A very insightful conversation with VC vet Mark Goldberg of new Chemistry VC. 3 VCs from various top tier funds coming together. Really interesting new fund.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=9RvVAZE4H8Y&list=PLnJFlI3aINuUNaznonoFEgMUGLBiLmB-w&index=1

8. One of the best & quietest investors in Silicon Valley. One of the folks responsible for turning around Kleiner Perkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51R322RSwU8

9. “We face in the 21st century a Cold War equivalent — you can call it whatever you like, a ‘great struggle’ or something else – but that’s what we have,” he said. “Until we recognize the massiveness of this problem, I think countries are going to struggle with trying to muster up the ability to communicate the danger to their populations and be able to get organized for success.” Studeman named Iran, North Korea and Russia, but focused on China, which he said is actively growing into a colonial power that wants to seize formerly held territories like Taiwan and force other nations to be more economically dependent on it."

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2024-10-25/china-taiwan-cold-war-15621497.html

10. Great episode on what's up in Silicon Valley: More or Less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmdqEG2Shtk

11. "The most important link in this network was the waterways of Eastern Europe. The Norsemen who conquered it became known as the Rus.

The Rus were a great commercial power; linking Northern Europe’s wealth in raw materials to the luxuries & refined goods of the Byzantine Empire, Caliphate, & beyond. The scale of this trade is grossly underestimated & it was one of the busiest trade routes in the world.

The Rus controlled “The Route from the Varangians to the Greeks,” which served as the easiest route for trade between Christendom & the Orient, mainly through the Dnieper and Volga Rivers. By navigating several portages and obstacles, like the famous cataracts on the Dnieper, intrepid Norsemen could access the immensely wealthy markets of Byzantium and the Caliphate.

Adding the natural resource richness of Eastern Europe to this mix offered huge opportunities. The intrepid Norse merchant-raiders brought furs, timber, walrus ivory, metals, wax, honey, & slaves South & returned with silks, spices, jewelry, fine weapons, wine, religious artifacts, and, most importantly, silver."

https://varangianchronicler.substack.com/p/the-silver-volga

12. "For years, Solana played a supporting role in the tech world, serving as the chief marketing officer for Founders Fund, Peter Thiel’s venture-capital firm. Solana calls Thiel his mentor, and says he owes his career to him.

Solana started Pirate Wires during the pandemic and has built it into a small media company covering tech, politics, and culture. After raising money from Thiel and Founders Fund, among others, in 2023, he hired a handful of staff. The Pirate Wires free daily newsletter now has 100,000 subscribers, mostly young men, according to Solana. (He would not disclose how many readers have signed up for paid subscriptions, which provide expanded access to the site.)

It has become a must-read among Silicon Valley’s anti-woke crowd, including some of tech’s most influential figures, and a grudging should-read for journalists and some on the left trying to glimpse the thinking of the masters of the Thiel-verse."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/mike-solana-pirate-wires/680355/

13. As a history guy this movie looks amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B_YB3caN80

14. Saas Go to Market, it's changing fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjM4gFA2AYY&t=5s

15. "Entrepreneurs should consider the example of event attendance yields when comparing free versus paid events. Paid events, as expected, have a higher yield, which implies a greater level of commitment—even if the amount paid is minimal.

Similarly, when entrepreneurs charge for a product, the customer’s seriousness is much greater, resulting in higher-quality feedback. Feedback is the lifeblood of products, and the most valuable feedback comes from customers who are invested, even if minimally."

https://davidcummings.org/2024/10/26/event-attendance-yields-and-quality-product-feedback/

16. "That clear contrast is what struck me most about the announcements from General Catalyst and Chemistry this week. They are exactly built to pursue each of those separate strategies.

Now, I've always been quick to say that I'm not staunchly for or against any particular strategy. I'm more focused on recognizing that these types of firms are, in fact, playing different games. And the only stupid game is failing to recognize that the games are different.

The clearest indicator that someone is failing to appreciate those differences is when they immediately dismiss anyone but the large, established funds. "Nobody can compete with Sequoia, etc." In an industry defined by disruption and competitive upset, nothing could be further from the truth. And don’t point out halo effects or capital retention. I never said its easy. But the reality is that anyone is capable of defeat. Anyone. The question isn't if, but how."

https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/different-strokes-for-different-folks

17. "Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see that the German Minister of Defense is at least interested in acquiring these critical missile capabilities and maintaining a cruise missile manufacturing capacity in Germany. The next step will require 350 million euros in the 2025 defense budget to kick off the procurement project."

https://missilematters.substack.com/p/germany-may-get-a-new-cruise-missile

18. "What happens when the core desires of the industry move from diffusion and individual agency to concentration of power and a view of hands of god that steer the market?

Perhaps this is actually the correct approach and the failure and massive inefficiencies of many of our closed-system institutions ranging from healthcare to aerospace and defense necessitate a more heavy-handed intervention from those willing to think from first principles on how to solve problems with novel ideas and large amounts of capital at risk.

With all of this said, the questions feel urgent or at a minimum worth pondering as we watch tech position ourselves as the architects of society rather than its organic enablers. The industry that once prided itself on letting a thousand flowers bloom now seems a bit too obsessed with carefully cultivating a specific garden."

https://mhdempsey.substack.com/p/power-and-technology

19. "The question is not if one is subject to mental biases in decision making—it’s which mental biases. When I’m trying to help a new investor understand this dynamic, I ask them to remember their first love—how certain they were that it was going to be a perfect relationship that would last forever, and how wrong they have likely ended up. This failure means they are capable of having 100 percent conviction in something while also being 100 percent wrong.

Inward-facing study can bring up uncomfortable truths that should prompt us to debug ourselves, rather than dismiss them to protect our egos. If we debug well enough, we can study ourselves at a distance, like an anthropologist, and come to valuable conclusions and workarounds for our internal obstacles. After all, an oracle that’s always wrong is just as useful as an oracle that’s always right.

There is a constant cat-and-mouse game between our rational self and meta-analysis, each vying for superposition. But it’s also where the most alpha as investors comes from and is wholly unique to each individual. The expansive, information-rich canvas of exploration is not built by studying the outside world—it comes from studying yourself."

https://every.to/p/to-beat-the-market-you-have-to-outsmart-yourself

20. "Because taxation isn’t about doing the right thing for our nations and their people.

Our system isn’t designed with the people's best interests in mind. Like the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, our modern overlords believe themselves to be untouchable gods who can keep the wealth for themselves.

History’s biggest lie is that we need taxation to fund the running of our nations. Instead, taxation is about politicians and the world’s elite hoarding the fat of the land, while stripping the value of our labour from our pockets through taxation."

https://anticitizen.com/p/history-s-biggest-lie

21. "There are no absolutes. But there haven’t been as many defendable first mover advantages as I expected, and I think I leaned into that too much in my early AI investing. 

Thankfully, early stage investing is one of the few markets where you can be wrong 80% of the time and still do well if your winner go big enough.

What does this mean for my theses going forward? I’m looking much more at fast follower companies. I’m spending more time evaluating whether supposedly defensible data sets really are defensible. I’m factoring into my probabilities that new model architectures and other innovations could weaken the value of proprietary data.

It’s not about being first to do it. It’s about being the first to do it when the market is ready. It turns out AI isn’t so different than the technologies that came before it."

https://investinginai.substack.com/p/my-biggest-failed-ai-investment-thesis

22. "Elon might not fly around in a robot suit and blast his rivals with energy beams, but his ability to out-manufacture and out-innovate almost all of his rivals is right out of a comic book movie trope. 

How does he do it? The exact specifics are probably impossible to pin down, but the general contours are nothing mysterious. Elon isn’t hyperintelligent or hyper-creative. Most of the engineers at SpaceX or Tesla are probably better at their jobs than he could be. His superpower — according to a bunch of people I’ve talked to in the tech industry — is gathering, motivating, coordinating, and setting goals for human talent. 

This is the same superpower possessed by Genghis Khan, or Henry Ford, or Vladimir Lenin, or Matsushita Kōnosuke, or any number of other people who built big organizations from scratch. Humanity is a collective organism — directed toward a common goal, we can accomplish incredible things. But our talents are not equal, our motivations are not consistent, and our goals are not naturally aligned. An organization-builder is someone who takes the purposefulness of a single individual and applies it to a group of people. 

This, by the way, is why almost everyone in the tech industry — even people who disagree with him politically — hold Musk in such awe. It’s not that he has a lot of money — most tech people couldn’t care less about Warren Buffett, and they don’t even know the names of hedge fund managers. It’s that Musk is superhumanly good at the thing they’re pretty good at. He has built world-beating organizations, and moreover, he did it in the super-tough area of high-tech manufacturing — a field so difficult that most tech entrepreneurs shy away from it and stick to the safer waters of software.

A comic-book world of superheroes and supervillains isn’t necessarily the one we’d choose to live in. But in some ways, it’s the world in which we find ourselves living, and we have to deal with that."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-americas-future-could-hinge-on

23. Solid conversation with Vinod Khosla.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VfNXLvPJ8w

24. Luke Belmar is a wise man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0VPurjNKls

25. "The damage is therefore not only measured in strict military terms, but also in psychological terms and a clear message was delivered: “when we come back it will be easier for us to hit you even harder”. Tehran’s rulers were humiliated. And it cleverly stayed within, whatever one might think of them, the boundaries that the Biden administration had laid out while avoiding civilian casualties or collateral damage. Perfect and precise."

https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/precision-and-perfection

26. Lots of insights on building a sales machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEKd2MP67DM

27. I’m down with this Ukrainian Viking vendetta. Hunt down these Russian war criminals.

"On Oct. 10, Russian marines from the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade overran a team of Ukrainian drone operators in Zelenyi Shlyakh, a tiny hamlet on the western edge of a Ukrainian-held salient in Kursk. The Russians stripped the Ukrainians, ordered them to lie face-down on the ground and then shot them, killing all nine.

In the days that followed, a powerful Ukrainian force began deliberately hunting down and ambushing groups of 155th Naval Infantry Brigade marines—and taking no prisoners. On Oct. 18, 95th Air Assault Brigade paratroopers cornered a clutch of 155th Naval Infantry Brigade armored personnel carriers—and dismantled it with drones, tanks, missiles and mines, reportedly destroying three APCs and killing 30 Russians. “The teleportation of the enemy to Hell took place in a complex way,” the Ukrainian air assault branch boasted."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/10/25/ukrainian-marines-and-paratroopers-backed-by-m-1-tanks-have-turned-the-site-of-a-war-crime-into-a-road-of-death-for-russian-troops/

28. Spacetech is here, thanks to SpaceX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuL4tfc10AA

29. "Keep the windows closed so you’re not getting all the outside pollution in your house.

You’d think everyone would be using air purifiers in third world countries because of the insane pollution here but the vast majority of third world people are cheap as hell and do not care about their health.

Even if they can easily afford it, they’d rather keep an extra $150 in the bank than buy an air purifier and pay for electricity even if it means smoking an equivalent of 10+ cigarettes per day.

Of course we have a brain so we aren’t one of them. We have an air purifier for every room and hall of the house. Health is wealth and breathing in pollution just to save money is dumb as hell."

https://lifemathmoney.com/life-advice-buy-an-air-purifier/

30. "If you’re not building a WiFi business and are not invested heavily for long periods of time, there is not much you can do in terms of catching up. You’ll be eaten slowly by inflation (lately? eaten quickly). 

Use 10-years: This is probably a better proxy for the real inflation numbers. It does capture the crazy printing in 2021 but it doesn’t include the 0% rate environment and mark everything at the near bottom (2009). 

This would mean that Shelter costs are up 35%, Energy up 22%, Food up 45% and CPI is up about 28%.

If you’re building equity in a company, you are destroying inflation if net income goes up. Unlike a job that pays $100,000 a year, you can sell a company.

$100,000 net income goes to $200,000 and that’s all you get

$100,000 net income goes to $200,000 that you can sell for 4x earnings means that you’ve hit $800,000

Once this is drilled into your brain you’ll never take those 3-5% annual wage increases seriously ever again. 

You’re beating inflation with your effort (forced equity appreciation), you’re beating inflation with your investing (largely tech/crypto and some stocks/bonds to dampen volaitlity). 

Then you’re off to one large race to $4,000,000-$5,000,000 in today’s prices and a paid off house. Then. Poof. Disappear."

https://bowtiedbull.io/p/are-you-beating-inflation

31. "China’s economy, like every other victim, subsequently entered into a liquidity trap or balance sheet recession. Private firms and households hunkered down, decreased economic activity, and saved money in order to repair their balance sheets. When credit demand falls amongst households and businesses, the standard-issue Keynesian economic medicine – i.e., running a modest fiscal deficit and lowering the price of money via central bank policy rate cuts – is ineffective. What is needed to forestall the dreaded deflation is a monetary and fiscal bazooka. 

The time it takes to switch into panic mode depends on a country’s culture. But make no mistake – regardless of the economic “-ism” supposedly practiced, every country always comes around to injecting monetary chemotherapy.

I refer to this palliative treatment as chemotherapy because while it might cure the deflationary cancer, it ultimately kills the host. The host is the middle and lower classes, who are ravaged by asset price inflation with no discernible improvement in the real economy. And like modern oncology, this ultimately ineffective monetary chemotherapy is extremely profitable for a small cabal of financial witch doctors whose head offices are in New York, London/Paris/Frankfurt, Tokyo, and now possibly Beijing/Shanghai.

Chinese people are some of the most resourceful people on this planet. They will not allow their precious yuan savings to sit idle as Beijing encourages asset price inflation. Bitcoin is not a foreign concept to middle and high income coastal urban dwellers. While the exchanges were barred from offering a visible Bitcoin/CNY trading pair, Bitcoin and crypto still flourishes in China."

https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/lets-go-bitcoin

32. Crisis in Cuba, maybe opportunity for detente with USA?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amikw54-R4Q&t=339s

33. This is an excellent discussion on AI & life of a startup founder in the post ZIRP world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGU78Q5tJgA&t=1369s

34. A terrifying overview of the state of AI & Hardware in US and China. US leading in AI, China leading in hardware and drones. We have a lot of work to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZB7O_9hlQ

35. "In other words, failed entrepreneurs in Canada risked jail time and stigmatization for decades after America had widely embraced business risk and its long-term economic benefits. And it wasn’t just Canada. Commonwealth countries around the world have similar endemic risk-aversion due to their common historical experiences (thanks Britain 🤦‍♂️).

Today, risk-taking founders in the United States are broadly encouraged and supported by their communities as they pursue the American Dream. In contrast, most Commonwealth cultures have some form of “tall poppy syndrome,” where successful, ambitious individuals are frequently cut down by their community instead of celebrated."

https://chrisneumann.com/archives/lets-celebrate-risk-taking

36. Eye-opening discussion on the importance of drones & AI in the new world of war. Firestorm Labs is critical to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFv3WaN23S8

37. "Energy is one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Humans need energy to create a more abundant, prosperous future for our children. In fact, there is no high-income country that consumes a low amount of energy.

This trend is not going to reverse. As technology accelerates, so will energy consumption. Because of this relationship, a key investment theme of the future will be selling energy to the businesses willing to pay the highest price. 

As a capitalist, I want to be an energy dealer.

It will be very valuable to own energy infrastructure that can service modern society. These energy infrastructure companies will sell their energy to people using GPUs for artificial intelligence, ASICs for bitcoin mining, and many other use cases. The new energy consumption use cases need a new energy infrastructure partner."

https://pomp.substack.com/p/my-plan-to-become-an-energy-dealer

38. Very informative view on what’s happening with AI infrastructure space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y5aDmKbEj8

39. "Today - the equation is changing. Fund sizes have ballooned significantly. There are different pools of LP capital available with a lower cost of capital (ie lower return expectations). So much so, that the 2% part of the equation is very meaningful given the size of funds! In the past, to “get rich” as in investor it was all about maximizing the 20%. Today, with fund sizes where they are, many are instead looking to optimize for the 2%. This means raising as much as possible, and deploying as much as possible (as quickly as possible). Remember, the management fee is “guaranteed.” The 20% (the carried interest) is variable. It’s economically rational to look to optimize and maximize the guaranteed portion…

It’s important to call this out because this is where the incentives start to diverge between GPs and Founders. In the past, the only path to “get rich” for GPs ALSO resulted in a “get rich” path for founders. Today there is a “get rich” path for GPs where the outcome of the founders is irrelevant. Doesn’t matter how the underlying companies in a fund perform, you collect the annual management fees regardless.

In summary - the venture ecosystem has evolved significantly in the last 5 years. For founders - ask yourself this question when deciding on who to work with. “Am I working with a 2% or a 20% venture firm?” The 2% firms are optimizing for deployment. The 20% are optimizing for large company outcomes. There’s one path where the incentives are aligned. I’m not meaning to imply big funds = bad. But there is a culture and mindset that starts to creep in the larger and larger funds get, and it’s up to founders to determine which investor falls into which bucket."

https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-102524-misaligned

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Greed is a Tool: Leveraging Your Own and Others

The Wall Street movie speech by Gordon Gekko is world famous. I know many young kids growing up who knew it by heart. It’s short, simple and powerful. 

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk


This is why capitalism works. It taps into natural human behavior. The need for more. 


Any system, whether governmental like communism or a religious one like Christianity that try to control or limit this element of human nature is usually ineffective in doing so. But trying to crush and restrain it like they have tried in the Soviet Union, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba among other places leads to massive poverty and human despair. 

The counter point is this is why America is a capitalist’s dream. As messed up as the place is, I love it. It’s a society that channels ambition and drive. And rewards it tremendously in many cases. That is why there is so much wealth inequality here. 


It’s not for everyone. But for the ambitious, driven and those willing to do the required hard work, this is the best place for you. Environments matter. I never would have gotten where I am without being here. Surrounded by plenty of greed and plenty of fear too. It’s a tremendous platform for impact.


Greed leads to drive. Greed leads to clear interests. No relationship lasts long without clear mutual interests. The search for more and better. This is hard wired into all of us from our caveman days. And there is no point fighting it. 


In fact, we should understand this evolutionary drive for more, control and channel it. Direct it to good things. Accumulating for the right things & reasons. Make more money and more resources for your freedom, for your family, for your ability to help others. To donate to charity and support causes that are society positive. Treat it like the tool that it is and channel your greed for good. 

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Variable Costs Versus Fixed Costs: Lessin’s Lesson

I was introduced to this concept of Variable costs versus Fixed costs in this wonderfully insightful book called Lessin’s Lessons, written by the father of iconoclastic VC Sam Lessin. His father Bob was a brilliant investment banker and Angel investor during the first dotcom boom in the 90s. Because he had several life threatening illnesses through his early years he wanted to write down lessons for his kids. It’s really great. 


One of the concepts he discusses is the idea of variable costs versus fixed costs in life. It sounds very personal finance which it is but it has good relevance to how one lives their lives. So stick with me here for a bit. 


Fixed costs are things you have to pay for every month. Your mortgage payment, tuition or car payments, utilities, taxes, your phone bill. It’s the bare minimum you have to cover every month no matter what. 


Variable costs are those that you pay sometimes and the amount also varies. This could be a book, food, a trip somewhere or even a phone or computer. 

He talks about how his son Sam treats most of his costs as variable. Instead of leasing or buying a place, he pays by the night at a friend's apartment so the costs become variable. He has a policy of having bare bones costs structure and disdain for flashy expensive things showing klout. 


It’s an interesting philosophy. Think about our own lives, we start with variable costs but as we get older and have a family as well as lifestyle creep, variable costs become very high fixed costs. 


I can tell you all about how expensive supporting a family is. Especially as you want them to have a good lifestyle and also due to some guilt from not being around much. But for most of us we also get trapped in the hedonistic treadmill that I wrote about before. 

The trip that used to be variable now becomes normal and a need not a want.  Luxury goods become expected. The $500 dollar bottle of wine eventually becomes a thousand dollar bottle of wine. Business class is always better than economy. 5 or 6 star hotels like Mandarin Oriental are hard to beat. 


It’s hard to downshift or downgrade your lifestyle. But the irony is that we eventually do as we wise up and start to understand what we truly like and don’t like. When we truly understand what is a need versus what is a must. This definitely helps you get maximum ROI on your spending and not waste money on non essential or things that give you no joy. Damn I wish I learned this earlier. 


There is deep relevance to the startup world here too. Think about the bloated growth stage startups who gorged themselves on cheap VC capital and spent it on buying tech that was not useful and hiring people they didn’t need. Variable costs became fixed costs and as the VC money train disappeared and the expected revenue did not show up, they are in for some major pain. Which usually means ugly layoffs and cost cutting to get to break even or profitability, scramble for a working business model if there is no product market fit or worse they just linger like zombies until the business dies. 


So the lesson from Lessin, keep your cost structure low by thinking variable costs not fixed costs. And this will give you the freedom and flexibility to survive and take advantage of the opportunities that inevitably show up on the down cycle.

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Be the Heel or Be the Face: Why World Wrestling is a good school for Personal Branding and Investors

I grew up watching professional wrestling aka WWF now WWE when I was a kid. I swore it was real but like most things on tv it turned out to be fake, basically it was a soap opera with fighting. But it was damn addictive. 

I learned some new terms about the wrestling industry from my new favorite podcast called “More or Less” starring some top tier tech investors, operators, power couples, the Morins & Lessins, who discuss the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley. It’s entertaining, educational and fun. 

Of course in an episode it got around to the conversation on Elon Musk and his ownership of X formerly known as Twitter. How he has just gotten unhinged online in the last year. But Dave Morin used the terms “Heel” and “Face”. 

Elon Musk started off as a Face, a positive, the good guy and hero in the show. But as more information came up on how he treats people, as well as his more right leaning political views, he gets more engagement from being the “heel”. Otherwise known as the bad guy of the show, the person trying to elicit negative feedback from the crowds. These are actual characters being played. 

We all play this character and some of these we lean into. Most VCs want to be the “face”, being founder friendly and supportive. This is a good thing. But as I’ve said before, your job as an investor and ally is to also give bad news, to push  and question founders on their plans, cost structure so they can perform better. 


If all you are doing is “Face” work, then you are abrogating your duty to the founders. Yes,  it’s hard to be direct and question founders especially if you think they are going in the wrong direction and putting their business at risk. If you truly want what is best for your founders and for them to get better you have to be a heel sometime. This is how you earn your way to be their trusted advisor. Cheerleading when times are tough or good is fine but your job is also to help them look past corners and avoid potholes. 

This is why most venture investors suck at their job and will have no place in this industry. And I mean the venture industry globally. This is endemic in Silicon Valley. But being the Heel all the time is also bad, which is what I see in most of the emerging ecosystems. You need both. 

For better or worse, at least in the startup ecosystem I’ve fallen into the “Heel” role as investor. I try to be the face and act positive for my founders. But I also have to make sure I counterbalance too much unrealistic optimism and naivety when it potentially will kill or hurt the company. So venture investors, DO YOUR JOB! Be a heel and a face.

Read More
Marvin Liao Marvin Liao

Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads November 17th, 2024

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later." —Og Mandino

  1. "I started off this post by stating, “if you’ve ever been in sales, then you know that the deal isn’t done until the money’s in the bank.” Whatever you do, don’t take your foot off the gas during closing.

Term sheets are generally non-binding, which means that investors in most countries can legally pull out up until the moment that the shareholder agreements are signed. Absent something materially negative being discovered during diligence, this is morally reprehensible, but it does happen.

The best thing you can do to preempt “buyers remorse” with your new investors is to continue making progress and closing sales, onboarding new users or releasing new features during the 3-5 week closing process. At a minimum, send weekly updates to show them the progress you’re making and keep them excited about their new investment.

And have a backup plan. It sucks to think about, but what will you do if the investment falls through?

Remember: you’re selling up until the moment investors wire the money. Never lose sight of that."

https://chrisneumann.com/archives/what-happens-after-you-sign-a-term-sheet

2. "The internal contradiction (a fatal flaw) of tribal governance is that tribal cohesion requires hyping the threat posed by the opposing tribe. 

Ever escalating threat. This dynamic dictates that to maintain cohesion (due to inevitable desensitization) or increase it; networked tribes will increasingly hype the degree of threat posed by opposing tribes and everyone connected to them. Opposed people rapidly transition from being wrong to bad and finally to (absolute, horrific) evil. Minor threats become existential or genocidal. 

Swarms (see the GG Report; “How Swarms Work” for more). Networked tribes don’t have formal leadership — they are open source (anybody can grab the baton and lead if they successfully advance the war against the opposite tribe) — and trained (constant network reinforcement) to hate the opposition. This makes them prone to self-mobilize as swarms that seek to overwhelm the enemy. We’ve seen this with the cancellation of people (bans, lost jobs, etc.) and recently at the level of global war (swarms seek to maximize escalation until complete victory over the target is achieved). 

Total tribal war and national suicide. A nationally dominant networked tribe, locked in by a tribal network that shuts down all opposition, will seek to remain dominant by continuously amplifying threats. Threats posed by tribally antagonistic domestic populations and countries (a pre-network variant of this was the secret sauce of 20th-century fascist governance, but it proved fatal).

Domestically, an escalating perception of existential threat will eventually justify (tribal networks and traditional tribes don’t see enemies as human beings) authoritarian suppression, internment, and (potentially) genocide. Internationally, this will set the nation on a path of war with an ever-growing number of enemies (eventually, all simultaneously). In short, it is a path to national suicide and a global proscription of the nation, the people, and the tribe’s way of thinking when it is inevitably defeated." 

https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/the-tribal-election

3. "Karp’s lab operates on the principle of diversity—bringing together experts from different fields, backgrounds, and countries. This diversity fuels creative problem-solving and opens up new possibilities for innovation. As he explained it to me:

"My lab in some ways is like a playground where there's no specific disease focus, no specific technology focus... We populate the lab with people from different disciplines. So minimal overlap of expertise...We've had engineers, biologists, immunologists, a gastrointestinal surgeon, a cardiac surgeon, a dentist... maximizing diversity of thought, diversity of expertise, diversity of tools."

https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/igniting-your-startup-potential

4. "A false signal I see a lot with early stage AI-first companies is excitement around AI is misinterpreted as likelihood to buy your product. 

As companies of all sizes are figuring out their AI strategy, many are signing up for new products, taking meetings with founders, and collecting as much information as possible with no intent on buying your product. 

While many of these conversations can be a helpful way to learn more about the challenges companies are currently facing, founders must be especially protective of their time and know when to cut off time wasters. 

BANT, an acronym for Budget, Authority, Needs, and Time is a classic framework for evaluating if someone is likely to buy your product."

https://brianne.substack.com/p/a-lesson-for-ai-first-companies-excitement

5. An excellent rundown on latest news on SpaceX, Elon, Tesla and Nvidia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdK8OFA903I

6. This is the wake up call that every B2B SaaS founder needs to have. Mr Lemkin gives very valuable guidance for how to thrive in this present environment. It is a must watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sPLOkAZPE&t=172s

7. There is some great career advice here: never rest on your laurels, how to take risks and think long term. How to be a steward & leave things better than when you found it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQAZ3iV3gSg&t=4s

8. Another great episode of More or Less, what's up Silicon Valley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjcf7O9rerQ

9. "For entrepreneurs, I recommend incorporating a failure segment into your regular all-hands meetings. This way, employees consistently hear the message that thoughtful risk-taking is encouraged. Celebrate the fact that the more you experiment and learn, the faster you grow, both as an individual and as a business."

https://davidcummings.org/2024/10/19/highlight-an-employee-failure-at-the-town-hall/

10. "Whenever an empire is crumbles, one of its final acts is almost always the desperate attempt to cling to the remaining vestiges of its wealth.

It happened in the 1920s during the German Weimar Republic, when the government implemented controls to prevent capital from haemorrhaging out of the nation.

It occurred again at the end of the Vietnam War as Vietnam’s communist government seized assets to prevent citizens from fleeing with them.

Again, capital seizures were implemented by Iran’s Islamic government after the Shah was overthrown in 1979.

And it happened during the final days of ancient Rome, before the empire collapsed completely.

Unfortunately, this is also taking place all over the West in the present day."

https://anticitizen.com/p/it-s-theft

11. "Lesson: You can learn anything. Choose speed not credentials."

https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/self-taught

12. "You aren’t going to pay someone $30k to clean your house if the market rate is $10-15k. It just isn’t going to happen.

The same is true with businesses. They don’t hate you, but in the end it comes down to money.

You were hired to do a job, and if someone can do the same job for a much cheaper price – they’re going to make the switch just like you would replace the old cleaner.

This is just how the world works.

Of course, from the cleaner/employee’s perspective, this is “unfair”.

https://lifemathmoney.com/do-employers-care-about-you/

13. "Rather than relying on a bloated board or long-term advisors, focus on building a lean, agile team with short-term expert input when necessary. Keep the focus on what drives value for your company—not pleasing outsiders or chasing prestige."

https://pierregaubil.substack.com/p/cut-the-fat-why-your-startup-doesnt

14. "I want to index my beliefs and unpack a bibliography of the sources behind them so that I understand why I believe what I believe. Understanding what I believe will, truly, be arriving somewhere I’ve been before and knowing it “for the first time.” 

And I think, despite the flood of information we're exposed to every day, we would be better suited if we took the time index our beliefs. Whether it's the beliefs that determine how we live our lives, the religions we subscribe to, the investments we make, the companies we build, or the relationships we prioritize. Beliefs are made better through scrutinization."

https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/my-cup-runneth-over

15. "If you’re in a room that never echoes back your own views to you, you’re not just in the wrong room, you’re actually on enemy territory.

How often should an echo chamber echo back your ideas to you is a technical question, and therefore a boring one, and therefore outside the scope of the current essay. The balance-worshippers will say it should be 50% agreement, 50% disagreement.

I would set up the ratio differently. But over and above the technicalities lies the fact that echo chambers are good, actually. Echo chambers make you sane and effective. Echo chambers are the birthplace of shared anthems, shared goals, and shared warcries. And where we are headed, you will need those things."

https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-echo-chambers

16. "Lately I have had many days where I feel likeI am living through the elder millennial equivalent of the venture capital business. I am close enough to the emerging manager phase of our fund to still identify with that experience and feel very close to what those managers are going through. But I’m no longer fully in that world.

I also don't feel like our firm has graduated to being “established” as I have no idea what that means or what it takes to get there. I also have not gotten to the “get off my lawn” phased of being a really experienced VC who has seen and done it all."

https://chudson.substack.com/p/no-longer-emerging-not-yet-established

17. Future of AI and Sales in SaaS. This is an info-dense discussion. Must watch for B2B CEOs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIQLx_Zi9E

18. "There are always multiple ways to win – In our second session, you can see the diversity of different approaches to winning. Dave Yuan from Tidemark and Adam Bain have VERY different styles to growth investing and Matt Auxier from University of Chicago has invested across the landscape of growth and early stage. This serves as a reminder that there is no single way to win and the importance of owning your own playbook, rather than following those of others."

https://newsletter.equal.vc/p/reflections-of-an-emerging-manager

19. "What has been getting worse over the past decade, and then particularly bad over the last few years during the pandemic, is that middle-income households are increasingly squeezed,” she says.

These households that could once afford a typical home in a variety of locations in their metro area now have fewer and often less desirable options. And, if nothing is done, exclusivity may spread farther."

https://thehustle.co/originals/the-rise-of-exclusive-communities-in-america

20. "Let’s talk about the elephant in the server room: Transformers — the core technology behind large language models like GPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Unlike older models that processed data sequentially, transformers handle massive datasets in parallel, simultaneously juggling billions (sometimes trillions) of parameters. This exponentially increases the amount of number-crunching required for training these models, demanding significantly more GPUs and specialized chips, exponentially increasing their electricity use over previous models like recurrent neural networks (which struggle with larger datasets). 

The power hogging doesn’t stop at training, though; these models use power every time they are prompted — a single ChatGPT prompt can use up to 10x the power of a conventional Google search query. 

We have made an incredible leap in AI technology at the cost of increased power demand. But in the larger scope of humanity, I believe the trade-off is worth it — these new AI models are already helping us diagnose cancer, find clean geothermal energy sources, and boost our overall productivity. And we’re still in the first inning — we’ve barely scratched the surface of what AI can do for our society"

https://www.benparr.com/p/ai-nuclear-power-smr-microsoft-google-amazon

21. "Whether or not the tech industry answers the “AI’s $600B question” or Nvidia stays dominant, the die has been cast and there are many more important challenges to address. 

When the Telecom Bubble burst, we were left with $1 trillion of telecom equipment that set the stage for the next wave of internet, mobile and cloud computing. 

After this rush of AI infrastructure spend and research, we will be left with the ability to manufacture intelligence at scale. Even if it feels a bit bubbly and overhyped right now, the ground truth is that the current wave of AI will change every aspect of society"

https://www.readtrung.com/p/jensen-huang-dario-amodei-and-manufacturing

22. "A possible alternative, deploying a non-nuclear strategic deterrent to implement a conventional countervalue posture is also challenging, but arguably much more feasible. Simply by advancing its long-range strike capabilities, Ukraine will naturally move in its direction. 

The key question is how targeted the Ukrainian effort will be to employ its long-range strike arsenal as a strategic deterrent, rather than as a simple warfighting tool, and how much money Kyiv is willing to allocate to this end over other competing priorities."

https://missilematters.substack.com/p/nuclear-and-non-nuclear-deterrents

23. "If the U.S. abandons resistance to China and Russia, it will go very badly for America’s allies. Europe will probably fracture again, with some states (probably including Germany) falling all over themselves to appease the Russians. Russia will then become a sort of de facto hegemon in Europe. In Asia, China would probably conquer Taiwan, cutting off U.S. semiconductor supplies and establishing Chinese hegemony in East Asia. Japan and South Korea would then be forced to choose between either becoming nuclear powers or becoming de facto satrapies of the new Chinese empire. Essentially, America’s major allies would fall to America’s enemies.

Americans — or, at least, Trump supporters — might yawn at these developments. But if Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and America’s other allies fall, it will dramatically weaken America’s ability to defend itself. Remember that China is four times the size of America, and manufactures well over twice as much. Without its coalition of allies, the U.S. just doesn’t have the size to stand up to China. 

And even if they de facto conquered Asia and Europe, China and Russia would not simply ignore America and let it go on its merry way. The specter of a U.S. revival would haunt them. They would therefore do everything they could to weaken America. Obvious steps would include 1) economically strangling America by cutting it off from trading routes and natural resources, and 2) sowing continued internal dissent in America in the hopes of causing it to collapse into a civil war. 

Bereft of its coalition of allies, America would be far less able to resist those efforts. Americans would suffer economically even as China and Russia stoked their hatreds and divisions. The worst ideologies of Trump’s first term — alt-right fascism, leftism, radical identitarianism, and so on — would all come back with a vengeance, encouraged by diligent Chinese and Russian online propagandists. Only now they’d also have a bad economy to fuel their anger."

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-free-world-teeters-on-the-edge

24. Some good insights on how to invest, manage and grow a startup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqg4aTq1zM

25. "Just how bad is Taiwan’s energy situation and how did it put itself in such a vulnerable position? How might China exploit this situation if hostilities break out? The numbers might come as a bit of a shock. Let’s take a look.

According to data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, Taiwan relied on fossil fuels for 91% of last year’s primary energy needs, and virtually all of the oil, natural gas, and coal it consumed was imported. It has become particularly dependent on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), averaging 2.65 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2023, a fourfold increase since 2000. Natural gas and coal alone fuel 82% of Taiwan’s electricity production, and any prolonged disruption in supply would swiftly result in a crisis.

Recognizing this strategic weakness, China has regularly practiced military drills that simulate how it could blockade the island, signaling to the US in particular that it need not undertake a full invasion to bring Taiwan to its knees."

https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/indefensible

26. "Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller. Pro tip: No startup makes sense. We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (a story) that captures the imagination and attracts capital to pull the future forward and turn rhyme into reason. No business I have started, at the moment of inception, made any sense … until it did. Or didn’t. The only way to predict the future is to make it.

This is not the same as lying. There’s a real distinction between an entrepreneur and a liar: Entrepreneurs believe their story will come true, as they are laser-focused on making it true. A liar, well, they know they’re misleading people with false data. Usually for money (i.e., fraud). This is where Tesla turns gray."

https://www.profgalloway.com/tesla-wtf

27. "What I’m saying is that either candidate has the potential, like all of us, to rise to the occasion. But we can't lie to ourselves, neither of these candidates, in their current form, could hold a candle to a figure like Otto von Bismarck.

The Biden administration currently has the head of the CIA handling Middle East negotiations a spy chief is not typically seen as the most trustworthy figure in a government.

Trump had his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, managing Middle East matters. Trump proposed an Israel-Palestine peace plan without giving the Palestinians a say in the matter, and a few years later, we have a war between Hamas and Israel. Not the most effective approach to diplomacy.

Still, we hope for the best."

https://www.globalhitman.com/p/a-pivotal-point-in-history

28. "Whereas if you are trying to be a “creator,” or more simply an artist, people are spending a lot of energy focused on trying to turn the path into something that maps to the stories about work they grow up with (a career, stable, provides growing income, etc…)

So if you are curious about exploring this whole new creator world, I think the best strategy is to try to find a job inside one of these teams. There are a lot of these gigs if you know where to look. If this world existed in 2015, that likely would have been my path. But I just had no idea what I was doing.

Bottom line: work is definitely changing. Almost everyone I talk to in any kind of work says that things feel weird. They don’t know the best strategy for a career anymore. They have mixed feelings about remote or in-person work. And that means its going to feel weird. 

But like always, we will learn and adapt."

https://newsletter.pathlesspath.com/p/laptop-man-and-new-remote-realities

29. "One of the statistics that raised eyebrows in Nvidia’s most recent quarterly earnings was its customer concentration - 46% of revenues came from just four customers.

It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out who those four companies are.

MSFT, AMZN, META and GOOGL are ramping up capex to the hundreds of billions because they’re locked in a capital arms race - the stakes are so high that investment from one hyperscaler elicits a response from the other."

https://akashbajwa.substack.com/p/concentration-in-the-ai-value-chain


30. 996. Hard core mode. This is what it takes to go big, trillion dollar big. Something many folks forgot during the ZIRP era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaH_hz8XUoI

31. Good and alternative state of Venture capital. I lean more toward Bryce and Indie.vc's view. This is the future. The other end of factory farm industrial VC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INJPNaB_Rmk

32. "Our defense industrial base more closely resembles European sclerosis than America’s dynamic capital markets. It’s really hard to build a successful defense business, but not for any technical reasons or lack of capital. In America, 10x engineers are in the water. If you talk to any recruiter hiring for defense companies, the most challenging position to fill is the Head of Business Development.

There just aren’t that many individuals that know how to scale a business in an industry defined by regulatory capture (e.g., does your company have the right clearances, do you personally know the PEO, did you lobby the right legislators, etc.) Banning the revolving door doesn’t change this reality and would only further hamstring new entrants trying to break in.

But revolving door executives are not magic beans that companies can plant to Jack-and-the-beanstalk their growth (if only it were that easy). According to Senator Warren’s 2023 report attacking the revolving door, Boeing had more revolving door hires than any of the other Top 20 defense contractor—they clearly didn’t hire enough. And the rent-a-general taking a sinecure on a company board is an all too common meme."

https://kinetic.reviews/p/the-virtue-of-the-revolving-door

33. This is excellent and lots of good insights for living a better life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAwmS-vkV4

34. Mr. Lemkin dropping some knowledge. Must listen to for those raising VC money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIpqviEWBE

35. "Life advice: People who ask 10,000 questions never take any action at all. If you have any sales experience whatsoever, you know this already. The guy who wants to learn about every feature and has tons of little queries never makes the purchase. He only wastes your time."

https://lifemathmoney.com/how-to-know-if-someone-is-ngmi/

36. "In Europe, showing off like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, or the Fords would be looked down on. Across European languages, the word for ambition has a negative conotation. As a result, ambition is not celebrated as often with public works and is not as visible or tangible. 

It trickles down to all levels. American children probably spend a dangerous amount of time comparing themselves to others, trying to one-up each other. It boggles my mind, but my children’s German friends spend the same amount of time and effort to make any differences with their friends unapparent." 

https://www.eu.vc/p/culture-europe-and-us-divergence

Read More