Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads August 20th, 2023
“Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.” —Anonymous
Justin Waller is the man. Lots of tips for living well and accomplishing your goals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmESj_9hqE4&t=4219s
2. "The more frequent the touch points, the less pressure there is on any conversation or check-in. Regular check-ins allow me to get to know the founders better and for them to get to know me better. I want to be a good advisor to the founders we back, and I learn a lot from regular touchpoints with them."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/an-investors-perspective-on-the-value
3. "Most things in your life are, at best, actively stable. Left alone they’ll follow the natural path of cyclicality. But if there’s constant intervention and management – managing your expectations, managing your reputation, managing how you advertise yourself and who you surround yourself with – you have at least a shot at keeping something good going for the longest period of time."
https://collabfund.com/blog/everything-is-cyclical/
4. Don't bet against America.
"Bear markets are for building. This is a phrase that has been repeated over and over again as the US economy teeters on the edge of a recession after the Fed increased interest rates at the fastest pace in history.
But are people actually building right now?
The short answer is “yes.” There were more than 5 million new business applications in 2021, followed by another 5 million applications in 2022. This milestone represents a significant increase in new business applications over the prior decade."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/americans-are-building-new-companies
5. "If you want to make money outside of your job, you need distribution and a product.
If you want to do it as one person without the restriction of physical location, you need code and content.
Code is the back end of the internet.
Content is the front end of the internet.
Code is how you host content.
Content is how you capture attention.
You don’t need to learn how to code, because technology has advanced to the point we are at now."
https://thedankoe.com/letters/i-had-to-learn-these-high-income-skills-if-i-wanted-to-make-money/
6. "When the next angel deal or private tech investment opportunity arises, find an expert and get them to invest alongside."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/08/05/tech-investing-alongside-an-expert/
7. One of history’s legendary warlords. Skanderberg of Albania.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtfdLJFJdw
8. "Venture capital has been busy focused on the king making capabilities of capital, but they've lost sight of something important—there aren't enough startups to justify all that capital. But why is that?
Because (1) there aren't enough people building things that people truly want, and (2) there is only so much attention (time, energy, disposable income, corporate spend) that people have to give.
There is a finite amount of "taste" in the world. A lot of brands have thrived because there are surprisingly big niche markets, like mushroom foraging, that can sustain a certain amount of value creation and capture. But the biggest misallocation of capital is the limited understanding of taste—what do people actually want?"
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/king-making-vs-taste-making
9. "Whereas even if my optimistic predictions come true, the peak of the 2010s unrest was only 2.5 or 3 years ago. The nation is still in a shaky, nervous, bitter, exhausted mood after the coup attempt, the riots, the street battles, “cancel culture”, and the surge in crime. Even under the best of circumstances, it’ll still probably be a few years before we can really begin to move on from that.
Reagan’s sunny optimism in 1984 might therefore have included an important subtext, not captured in the economic numbers his campaign cited in that famous ad. “Morning in America” might have been about the dawn of a new era of (relative) social peace, a new political equilibrium that, if not necessarily to everyone’s liking, at least meant that Americans were no longer burning down their cities and Presidents were no longer trying to assume dictatorial powers. If that’s the case, Biden will have an uphill battle convincing Americans to feel optimistic based on economic numbers alone."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/comparing-morning-in-america-with
10. "Luke points out a kind of blindness that afflicts many of us today. Those of us who work in tech and business see the world through the lens of the metaphorical city of "Silicon Valley." Its organizing principle is usefulness, and science and engineering are its aristocrats. "Athens" represents the humanities.
The dominance of Silicon Valley has made Athens a vassal state where only the computable are recognized. Luke gives the example of the utilitarian logic in the countless white papers that lay out rationalized motivations behind movements like cryptocurrency. The third city, "Jerusalem," represents religion. Today, Jerusalem feels distant from Silicon Valley."
https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/the-three-city-problem-of-meaningless
11. "Why look at headcount growth? It’s a proxy for financial success. Startups with more business than they can handle should be scaling their teams to satisfy market demand."
https://tomtunguz.com/headcount_growth_and_capital_raised/
12. This dude is super smart. There is so much to learn from this guy. Luke Belmar is a young king.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlfTdYWlqXw
13. "For years, the tech media had characterized John and Patrick, 34, as boyish business prodigies who monkishly shared an apartment, rode rented e-bikes to work, and preferred reading economic histories and science fiction to ostentatious displays of their growing wealth.
John, a student of capitalism who encourages employees to read biographies about moguls like Larry Ellison and John Malone, has lately come into his own as a brass-knuckled manager who has assumed critical leadership roles as his company hurtles toward its next iteration. At the same time, he has been adding a new chapter to his own billionaire’s journey, with a much-loved phrase serving as an epigraph: “The world is a museum of passion projects.”
Two years ago, just after Stripe’s valuation had rocketed to $95 billion, Collison bought a stake in a forlorn airport outside of Dublin, a facility mostly used for pilot training that he hopes will become a hub for short-hop electric planes over the next decade. Collison, a veteran pilot, has also purchased his own twin-engine airplanes, which he has used to ferry Stripe executives around the country. Recently, he flew himself to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay Area to interview 99-year-old investing icon Charlie Munger. Stripe’s own publishing arm plans to release a collection of Munger’s business yarns called “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” this November.
Both Collison brothers help underwrite a private summit of techno-optimists in remote Sea Ranch, Calif., called “frontier camp.” Every summer the conversations focuses on futurist topics like supersonic aviation, nuclear energy, charter cities and boosting birth rates, according to three people who have been invited. Attendees at this month's camp include “Snow Crash” author Neal Stephenson, former Tesla and OpenAI executive Andrej Karpathy, and Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Romer, according to one invitee.
John Collison has been able to finance some of these endeavors by cashing in small parts of his 12% ownership stake in Stripe over the years. (His older brother has a roughly similar stake.) The privately held company has allowed regular sales of shares for employees and outside investors, which the founders could also utilize, people familiar with the matter said. Collison’s stake in the company now sits at about $6 billion at the firm’s most recent $50 billion valuation. That sets him up for decades of discovering new passions.
“Everything I’ve seen him do has had a very long-term focus to it,” said Kinsella, who runs a computer science program at University of Limerick that Collison helps fund and organize. “He’s not a creature of a passing whim.”
14. "This opportunity lies with Tanzania. With more neighboring countries and a larger population than any other African nation along the Indian Ocean, Tanzania is well-positioned to extend its influence even further.
Presently, Tanzania's largest trading partners in terms of import value are already China, the UAE, India, and Saudi Arabia. Projections indicate Tanzania’s population will increase by over double to 135 million people by 2050.
While rapid population growth can pose significant challenges, Tanzania's impressive GDP per capita growth of over 40 percent in the past decade suggests it is managing to grow overall worker productivity."
https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/oped/how-tanzania-can-become-the-powerhouse-of-africa-4323136
15. "There are some compelling reasons to entertain the preemptive round on occasion. You get to learn why people you like and respect will say No. This is a gift when you decide to run a real process so you can get ahead of the curve.
Letting an inside investor (someone who is already on your cap table) that you like and already knows the status of the business is a great reason to consider it. Especially if the Partner is someone you deeply trust. This is the ideal scenario – it saves you time and you know you’re not working with a wildcard.
Same could be said for a new investor that you have a long-standing, deep, and trusting relationship with. If these things are true, then it’s worth considering. Otherwise, in this market, be wary of someone trying to preempt your round."
https://jaredhecht.com/2023/07/09/preempting-the-round/
16. Lots of implications for the Russian ports & ships being hit by drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydv_3n5__2I
17. "Putting all this together, there is concern that the Ukrainian strikes in the Black Sea against shipping mark a new period of heightened insecurity for shipping - perhaps making the Black Sea a complete no go area. I would be careful about drawing such conclusions. Ukraine’s attack on the two vessels over the weekend appeared carefully calibrated.
The first hit was on a Russian naval vessel, the Olenegorsky Gorynak, so a fair target. The second on an oil supply vessel, the Sig, which has also been contracted to support the Russian navy and is sanctioned by the West for oil running to Syria. Kyiv has warned herein that Russian ports on the Black Sea are now fair game, and I think this is something of a quid pro quo for Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and particularly grain infrastructure.
But I think Ukraine would be wary of launching all out attacks on Russian oil vessels in the Black Sea for fear of playing into Russian hands by driving international oil prices higher and then weakening support in both the West and the Global South for its defence against Russia.
Rather this was a proverbial shot across Russia’s bow that Ukraine has lots more options. It is a push to get Russia to back off from attacking Ukrainian Black Sea ports, and also those along the Danube and return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative."
https://timothyash.substack.com/p/black-sea-in-focus
18. Really great interview on personal development when you are young. Get your head right, get your body right and learn to fight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYfl-6J4nh4
19. Recommend this episode of NIA: lots of good thoughts on crypto and Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPtTAbaQwPI
20. This is not a good sign for China's economic future or future period.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-wfHgjTB8&t=370s
21. Solid episode and they absolutely shine when they talk tech, startups and investing (versus say Geopolitics).
There is no one better on the planet than these folks as tech operators and investors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAfDQx8DDQ
22. "Before I could truly understand happiness, I had to pass through grief.
There is a finality to death that contradicts everything we’ve ever been told, undermines everything we’ve relied upon. It triggers our fear, it triggers our helplessness, it triggers our insecurity. Suddenly, we can no longer trust life. We miss the person we love who left us. We are scared for them and where they are, and scared for ourselves without them. We have lots of uncertainties. It’s an overwhelming trauma.
The first step through it is to grieve, fully grieve. If you are angry, be angry. If you are unsure, be unsure. If you want to take a break, take a break."
https://www.profgalloway.com/grief-and-happiness/
23. The past and future of YC: Garry Tan. This is a great interview. Garry is a great guy and makes me bullish on YC's future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VDZRR07Eqw
24. "When our journalists and billionaires ask whether Britain or America is “declining like Rome”, they are really thinking about the grim realities of the early Middle Ages — a time of deprivation rather than plenty. And perhaps they are right to do so.
However terrible life was in the post-Roman West, it was nothing like as bad as a similar rupture would be today. Most of us lack both the land and the knowledge to grow our own food. The support structures provided by extended family networks and stable local communities — the mortar of the pre-industrial world — have been fatally weakened.
Many people rely upon regular medical intervention simply to stay alive. Our most basic goods are imported from the other side of the planet, as is the fuel required to power the machines that make contemporary life possible.
Above all, centuries of peace have left us ill-equipped for the return of a society in which war is commonplace and might makes right. A fourth-century Roman would regard modern Britons as laughably weak, ignorant and dependent."
https://unherd.com/2023/08/stop-comparing-the-west-to-rome/
25. Strength through humility. Be a warrior poet. This was a very enlightening discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCodxQiL35M
26. "This gets to the crux of the Hopin question I raised at the end of the last section.
How can investors believe a company that went from $20M to $100M ARR in 8 months could eventually get to $2.3B in revenue? They probably didn't! They just had to believe that someone ELSE could believe that something like that was possible. This is literally an academic representation of "passing the bag."
One of the most un-dealt with ramifications of a 13-year bull market is the institutionalized belief in "the greater fool." People can make money, not because a business is sound, but because there is always someone else down the line who will buy you out. And that was true for 10+ years!
But I think businesses whose operating model and valuation mechanisms were crafted between 2009 and 2021 all have a fundamental flaw of believing that the institutionalized belief in the greater fool will allow the next investor (the bag holder) to hide a multitude of sins."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/institutionalized-belief-in-the-greater
27. Jack Hopkins is one of the emerging creator entrepreneurs who exemplifies the triumvirate of getting your mind, body and money right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdqExVCZr3c&t=1631s
28. "The Indian establishment is increasing taking the view that a conflict in the Taiwan Strait will have an adverse impact on India and its economy. So, a section of the Indian leadership is of the opinion that Taiwan should be backed against China’s aggressive tactics."