Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 23rd, 2023
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” -Anne Frank
"Nation-states are killing machines, the alpha predators of governance. Over the last five hundred years, they have slain all other competitors through an iron grip on a combination of muscle (bureaucracy, from military to academic/scientific), energy (capitalism and industrialism), and killing intent (nationalism and ideology) and have warred among themselves for dominance until only one remained (the US).
That victory late in the last century created a problem. Nation-states, particularly their most significant, need conflict to legitimize and animate their existence. Without it, they and the society they rule decompensate — the functional deterioration of a structure or system that had been previously working."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/america-needs-enemies
2. "Net net, the chance of this cohort of VCs making substantial profit is low yet personal debt is high. VC is a tough job to get, and right now, quite a few VCs are thinking about their current careers. Vintage 2020 and 2021 venture funds are likely to perform poorly save for the occasional power law winners.
Venture is still an important part of our economy that has an outsized impact, and should be supported and encouraged, even if a couple years prove difficult."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/15/vcs-challenged-by-the-downturn/
3. "All the sizzle serves a simple service: Building a brand around a commodity product. Rane was inspired by a case study he read during a short course at Harvard Business School about Frank Perdue’s successful effort in the 1970s to brand chickens (tagline: “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken”). If possible, Rane had an even harder job than Perdue: forging a recognizable brand in one of the world’s most commodified industries, lumber treating—the process of applying preservatives to pre-cut, raw lumber to ensure it lasts a “lifetime,” as Great Southern’s YellaWood proudly proclaims.
Rane took over what became Great Southern in 1970, when the owners—his first wife’s parents—died in a car crash. It wasn’t much: a near-bankrupt backyard lumber treating plant with just $163,000 in sales (adjusted for inflation). But 53 years later, largely thanks to Rane’s marketing genius, Great Southern is a $2 billion (2022 revenue) company with some 1,900 employees and 15 treating facilities in 12 states. Forbes calculates that he’s worth $1.2 billion—all but $200 million of it attributable to his 100% stake in Great Southern—making him Alabama’s only living billionaire."
4. "Thus far, the Russians have demonstrated the ability to learn and to adapt at the tactical level. This adaptation has been uneven, not evident across the breadth of Russian military operations, and many of the ideas are hardly new ones. But, it is undeniable that some learning and evolution has taken place. It is a military capability that will be central to Russia’s ongoing ability to conduct operations in Ukraine, and one that should be studied for weaknesses that might be exploited by the Ukrainian forces as well as Western intelligence agencies.
Notwithstanding the Russian ability to learn and adapt in this war, it is also clear that the Ukrainians have also been quick studies in modern war. Indeed, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, they have demonstrated the ability to learn on the battlefield and adapt. They have also shown a knack for the rapid assimilation of new equipment such as HIMARS and western armoured vehicles, and then applying these systems with great tactical competence."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-russians-keep-evolving
5. "If you live your life acting in the same manner as someone: 1) better looking, 2) born into $10M+ and 3) genetically gifted anomalies… You’re doomed to fail. This goes against all of mainstream beliefs since we glorify the “prodigy’s”.
Instead you should look for people who are not as attractive, grew up with less and don’t have any particular trait that is *not replicable*. Now you’re looking in the right places because there is no “logical” reason why the person should be as successful as they are.
If you are an extreme person, people will always say “I DON’T AGREE WITH YOUR OPINION IT ISN’T TRUE”. This is the best possible complement you can get.
If people view your extreme stance as an opinion but you *know* it works, you’re far far far ahead of the game.
Being extreme is the only way to move the needle. How do you expect extreme results without doing something extreme?
It doesn’t make any sense at all. Does not compute. Never will.
How to Become More Extreme? Pretty simple. Take more risk. Risk is just another phrase for extreme and people will call you crazy or weird. Whatever they want to say. It doesn’t matter."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/how-to-get-ahead-in-life
6. Very interesting perspective on impact of AI for white collar work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXwF0UxUqNw
7. This was a fun interview with my friend Mukund. Hope you like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkvDO39hW2Y
8. "The unsettling reality is that America in the not-too-distant future is going to have a lot in common with partial-collapse societies of Eastern Europe and Latin America where gangs have more power and influence than the government; where politicians pass the laws but gangs enforce the rules.
This is the Gray Zone America you should be preparing for — not quite collapsed, but not quite standing."
https://grayzoneresearch.substack.com/p/the-disturbing-reality-of-americas
9. "It has been a rough year for white collar workers and that is effectively the topic of this post. If you’re studying something that can be turned into a single line of code, things are not going to look great in the future. If you don’t have a creative bone in your body, now is the time to up the dosage on those Super Mario sized mushrooms (joke but you get the idea).
How to Prepare
Okay probably a bit worried. That is all good and fine. We have some pretty clear guidelines on how to approach this:
1) you can get a government position,
2) you can work in sales/healthcare,
3) you can become a creative/creator since being unique is not replicable by definition and
4) you want to avoid anything that can be automated
Think of this as a bit of a gradient. The worst position? You would be highly paid with no performance contribution."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/ai-comes-for-the-overpaid-human-processors
10. I support Japan's defense force ramp up. It's a good overview on why this makes sense. Japan is a critical ally to the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx5CckLSjLM
11. One of the best investors in the Valley. Lots of solid insights on investing and helping startup founders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCeRpHPm6o
12. Be more like Genghis Khan.
https://twitter.com/KnowledgeArchiv/status/1649842731697700864
13. Excellent discussion overall. This week’s All in Podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvTTDxMuAis&t=206s
14. "This phenomenon of when value is created makes startups especially hard. Tremendous amounts of work in the early years, and not knowing if or when things will take off, is a hard risk/reward equation for most people. When it works out, it’s an incredible accomplishment. Entrepreneurs would do well to know that most startup value accrues in the later years."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/04/22/startup-value-accrues-in-the-later-years/
15. "Most open-source-based startups today are focused on a single product. These companies generate higher rake by adopting an open core model: making some of the codebase proprietary but source-available. Many companies have started with a similar updates and services model, but the open source companies that have shown exponential growth ultimately went public with an open core model.
The Red Hat model won’t be repeated. In reality, open core is the most economically viable model for commercializing open source software. It’s poised to replace proprietary software as the default and is the path for open source projects to develop into sustainable businesses."
https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-04-red-hat-model-only-worked-red-hat/
16. "Since 1971, investing in dollar assets has become such a no-brainer trade that many investors have forgotten how to actually do financial analysis. Moving forward, gold and crypto will be in focus. They are not tied to a particular country. They cannot be debased at will by a central bank desperate to prop up their financial system with printed fiat money.
And finally, as countries start looking out for their own best interests rather than serving as slaves to the Western financial system, central banks of the global South will diversify how they save their international trade income. The first choice will be to increase gold allocations, which is already underway. And as Bitcoin continues to prove it is the hardest money ever created, I expect that more and more countries will at least start to consider whether it is a suitable savings vehicle alongside gold.
Do not let the financial media present this as an either/or decision between the dollar and the yuan. Do not let the lap dogs of the empire convince you that due to certain “deficiencies” in the Chinese economy, there is no currency ready to dethrone the mighty dollar.
They are playing at misdirection — in the coming years, the world will conduct trade in a multitude of currencies, and then save when needed in gold, and maybe sometime in the near future, Bitcoin."
https://medium.com/@cryptohayes/exit-liquidity-3052309e6bfa
17. I'm down with this trend. Pop up bakeries.
"Though some reports have suggested that pastry chefs are going extinct at NYC restaurants, in truth they are just evolving. Fandom has outlasted the onset of the pandemic, she says: “Pastry places are becoming the destination, not the afterthought, or just end of the meal.” Moultrie says that for Back Alley, the secret to its success was staying nimble, and not just pigeonholing its goodies into one niche — selling angel donuts, Frito pie, and Jamaican patties all under the same roof."
https://ny.eater.com/2023/4/14/23658605/bakery-lines-trend-from-lucie-lappartement-4f
18. "Lawmakers also learned that long range missiles will be critical to any conflict. The United States quickly ran out of long-range stealth anti-ship cruise missiles during the simulation, weapons that were integral to sinking CCP warships.
America also moved to sanction China following an invasion, but many allies were hesitant to join the effort. Global supply chains broke down as a result of the turmoil, highlighting the need for companies to prepare for such a scenario.
Resupplying Taiwan once war breaks out also "is not an option," according to the source briefed on the game. The United States will have to ensure that Taiwan is fully stocked prior to any invasion."
19. Turkey playing the Great Geopolitical game surprisingly well.
“Erdogan and Putin are enemies, but they’re enemies who deal with each other and are happier and more comfortable dealing with each other than with anyone else,” James F. Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, told Yahoo News.
Turkey’s effort to maintain diplomatic, commercial and military ties to Russia while doing the same with Ukraine, a country at war with Russia for almost a decade, has been one of the most precarious balancing acts of statecraft in recent memory. More surprisingly, it has been largely successful.
Alone among world leaders, Erdogan arms Putin’s adversary with impunity while managing to offer himself as a seemingly neutral interlocutor between Kyiv and Moscow, orchestrating prisoner swaps, grain deals and preliminary — albeit quixotic — proposals to end the war."
https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-supports-ukraine-without-alienating-russia-100046689.html