Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads Jan 8th, 2023
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” —Walt Disney
Very bullish on Japan. Some of these predictions do seem very feasible.
https://japanoptimist.substack.com/p/japan-surprises-2023
2. "Remember when Carmack complained about Meta? He said the company was working at “half the effectiveness” and had “a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort.” You could use those words to describe any other big company right now. Carmack wasn’t complaining about the resources or the talent.
He was complaining about the ineffectiveness of management by committee and the fearful attitudes of business experts who entered the boom towns of the 2010s and turned them into boring Victorian villages full of business majors sniping each other to climb the greasy pole of modern success.
I saw this happen once before. In the early 2000s, during the dot-com boom, I saw lots of business majors streaming to the Valley to turn companies like Palm and Cisco into behemoths. Like the aforementioned wasps, they feasted on the energy of those companies and turned them into also-rans and then, when they had made enough cash, the became VCs themselves.
Therefore the rich dudes who sank Yahoo and turned eBay into a den of scams are now the rich dudes who are sinking Twitter, Facebook, and crypto. Fear not, however: more rich assholes will pop out of the corpses of those companies to fund the company that will finally convince us to connect PCs to our brains via a hole drilled between our eyes."
https://startupstrats.substack.com/p/the-musk-method
3. Old profile but we can learn a lot from Mr Beckham.
"It’s a little odd, if you think about it: Three years into retirement, at that moment when most athletes begin their slow fade into paunchy irrelevance, David Beckham seems somehow bigger, more handsome and fit in an interesting way, and more ubiquitous as a cultural phenomenon than when he played. How is this even possible? He was recently dubbed People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, in part because he represents a different ideal of manhood...... With endorsement deals and fashion launches of his own, he made more money in his first year of retirement—$75 million—than he did in any of his playing years."
https://www.gq.com/story/david-beckham-cover-protecting-kids-brooklyn
4. "Any kid under Grandma’s quilt knows they are in a world someone has lovingly created for them. Maybe that helps explain why many people are walking away from their jobs. They seem to be committing to doing a different kind of work. If you happen to be unhappy in your work, maybe the answer is to love yourself.
Walk away. There’s a labor shortage out there. Dream up a new world that will inspire your creativity and actually pay you for it. Tomorrow’s economy may be richer for the self-investment that seems to be underway today. But don’t think every cosmopoiesis succeeds. Few do.
Technology is turbocharging the race for an economy that is ever-more efficient at producing an ever-higher standard of living. But our psychology needs to change if tomorrow’s world is to arrive at all.
What is enough? Do you have enough work and efficiency in your life? Do you have enough love, awe, art, magic, beauty, joy, and laughter? The economy needs both the efficient and the seemingly inefficient if it is going to generate and even survive the arrival of abundance."
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/wishes-love-and-cosmopoiesis
5. What a surprise: a fast growing and poorly managed startup. In this case African darling Flutterwave in Nigeria.
This is the norm everywhere btw. Most founders are new to managing people & managing growth.
https://restofworld.org/2022/inside-the-scandal-at-flutterwave-nigerias-fintech-champion/
6. "Your plan for 2023 should be to increase your effective output.
This isn’t hours worked that I’m talking about. This is product shipped.
Whether that’s blog posts, videos, Tweets, or other exposure methods for your brand, you have to create way more output than you’re currently doing."
https://bowtiedopossum.substack.com/p/your-lack-of-output
7. I miss Anthony Bourdain, not sure if people knew he was really into Brazilian Jiujitsu & quite good.
Also he is an incredible writer as seen here: a very unique style.
https://www.bosshunting.com.au/sport/anthony-bourdain-brazilian-jiu-jitsu
8. This is a masterclass of venture investing & macro investing too. Power Law & Super cycles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfb00_wXqnI
9. This is an important discussion on the most critical sector of the economy and geopolitics: Microchips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgUBktTdygQ
10. "The Swedes were neither the first nor the last European army to suffer the ravages of “General Winter” on Russia’s frontiers. Exacerbated by the vast expanse of the Eurasian landmass, winter fighting there has often proved to be the downfall of great armies. For centuries, this phenomenon has often worked to Russia’s advantage, as a succession of powerful militaries have succumbed to inadequate equipment, deficient supply lines, and poor preparation.
But as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine enters the harshest months of the year, there are many indications that this time it may be Russia, rather than its adversary, that suffers the worst consequences.
As both sides enter a far more challenging season of fighting, the outcome will largely depend on morale and determination. While Russian troops curse their shortages and lack of hot food, Ukrainian troops are now benefiting from supplies of insulated camouflage suits, tents with stoves, and sleeping bags provided by Canada and the Nordic nations. Putin seems to be in denial about the state of his army and the way that General Winter will favor his opponents."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/russias-new-winter-war
11. "Yet Ukraine, as viewed from Europe and North America, and trumping other strategic and humanitarian crises, has monopolised political and media attention, aid and assistance efforts, and the popular imagination to an unprecedented degree. Knock-on cost of living increases ensured the war hit home in the west.
All the same, other international crises, actual or looming, will demand increased attention and resources in 2023. Three geopolitical battlegrounds in particular may be harder to ignore: China’s domineering behaviour in east Asia, the Middle East quagmire, and US-Europe tensions."
12. Japan is arming up fast, understandable as China under CCP takes an increasingly aggressive stance across Asia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9MQRg-c9aU
13. "A chip war for global AI supremacy between China and the US, new kinds of chips proliferating, the consolidation of MLOps companies into a LAMP stack for AI, a coming burst of dedicated training and inference powerhouses, and the rise of AI driven businesses and foundation models as a services, FMaaS all mean one thing:
The dawn of the age of industrialized AI.
That's where we start to see the rapid acceleration of AI chips, software, ideas and uses as companies around the world pour money, people and time into the pursuit of ever smarter software and machines.
The spark is already lit. AI busted out of the walls of Big Tech R&D labs. Now regular people and traditional coders and business people are getting their hands on super powerful models and taking them in bold new directions. Synthetic medial images. Image to 3D. Mega music creators. Powerful virtual assistants. Self-driving tractors and trucks. AI driven businesses will sprout like mushrooms after a long rain."
https://danieljeffries.substack.com/p/the-age-of-industrialized-ai
14. It’s important to learn from the greats in VC investing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOa7GJyafoM
15. This is an excellent fireside chat with the controversial Chamath. But there is a lot of good insight in investing.
How do you build heat? Have something interesting to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09N5tE7G24
16. 2023 is gonna be rough as globalization unwinds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARuhc4TwYY&t=320s
17. This is a great discussion on geopolitics in the Middle East.
American foreign policy is just so thoughtless and short term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhX-YAdCIds
18. This looks interesting: takes place in John Wick universe.
https://manofmany.com/entertainment/john-wick-spin-off-ballerina-gabriel-byrne
19. Investing is not a team sport. Interesting view. Rings somewhat true to me and contrary to tropes everywhere.
Good interview here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcWbyS_ovaI
20. Good convo on climate tech investing. Sacca and LowerCarbon capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-jLpICAGOc
21. "What goes on inside Beijing’s forbidden city is, as ever, inscrutable. But one thing China’s leadership knows or should know is this: the economics of a move against Taiwan is not good. An invasion or blockade would cost China’s already beleaguered economy dearly.
Economics, of course, can never tell the whole story, and often takes a back seat to geopolitics and national pride. But to the extent that anyone in Beijing is listening, the economics makes a strong case for the moderation."
22. "Finding the key to prolonging life would benefit us all, but money to fund the search is hard to come by. Healthcare investors typically want to see short-term returns — unlikely, in metformin’s case, since its patent has long expired. Governments, meanwhile, prioritise research into diseases.
Into this gap have stepped tech billionaires including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Israeli entrepreneur Yuri Milner, and through Alphabet, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who are funding new models that aim to combine the best of business and academia without the pressure for short-term returns. Barzilai hopes to pitch to some of this class of investors at an upcoming longevity conference.
The billions being made available to longevity researchers could be a gift to a humanity too distracted by today’s problems to fund a long-term revolution in healthcare. Their interest could be a “win-win”: billionaires tempted by the idea of living ever longer fund a longevity field that would not thrive without them."
https://www.ft.com/content/649b0446-698c-4363-82ad-0be5b5faa68f
23. "The lesson, as always: big companies suck.
Don’t get me wrong—they didn’t always suck. At some point they were just like you. A startup fighting for product market fit or creating predictability in go-to-market or expanding geographically or something else that actually matters.
They were focused. Focused on hiring trajectory-changing people and giving them more responsibility than they knew what to do with. They were working their a**es off to create something out of nothing. They had desperation-induced focus.
But now they are different. Most big companies aren’t focused on creating things out of nothing. Someone else made the magic money-making machine, and they assume that it will just keep working. With the one thing that actually matters taken care of, they care about luxuries like making sure as high a percentage of the company as possible feels included in the planning process.
Or creating performance review frameworks with an ever-increasing number of boxes and categories. Or something else that matters even less than that. This lack of focus is a luxury and a disease."
https://rkg.blog/desperation-induced-focus.php
24. "This is a crucible moment: My friend sent me a note at one of Instacart’s crucible moments. It ended with “You have a chance to become anti-fragile. How lucky you are.” I would echo those sentiments here. This is a painful time. It is also an amazing opportunity. Go get it."
https://rkg.blog/anti-fragile.php
25. Doing VC school today. Listened to this great interview with Singerman at Founders Fund.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo29D0Q0TJw
26. This is a very good discussion on venture. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_52rbKrMFHQ
27. "The reasoning is simple: Risk Management and Building
Smart people do two things: 1) build their income at all costs and 2) *only* reinvest when they can’t figure out anything else!
Think that through quickly. If you’re hoping to get rich buying $3K worth of stuff per month, it isn’t going to happen. If your plan is to build income over a decade and go from investing $3K a month to $30K a month then to $50K a month? That will work.
Eventually some of those investments you make will go vertical and you’ll blow past your expectations. You’ll also be wise enough to sell some of it back to something safer given how hard it was to earn.
Conclusion: The only people who should be here need to agree on the same old proof point:
1) get career in tech/Wall St/Sales - or any other industry with similar pay as this,
2) spin up wifi biz,
3) work on wifi biz until it makes 2x more than your career and
4) after that you quit and look into investing heavily."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/the-quick-fixes-simple-opinion-on
28. So many nuggets of wisdom here from the very smart & sharp Luke Belmar. I've become a fan, always learning new things from him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuqzo6ygX5Y
29. The bull case for the US dollar & why it will be the global currency for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiR54FPQiCs
30. "For those of you older than 40, it sort of felt like 2000.
If you are younger than 40, a massive tech bubble just burst. I expect you know that. For the past six months, many VCs have been podcasting, tweeting, publicly writing, … and generally prognosticating about what you should do and what’s going to happen next.
I think the best VCs didn’t prognosticate. They knew what was going to happen next. Instead, they worked with each company to help them deal with reality as it unfolded. Each company is different, and the dynamics of the bubble bursting were not generic."
https://feld.com/archives/2023/01/what-just-happened
31. Not surprised but glad it’s happening. Would be great to see even more as there is no better deserving place than Russia (outside of China). #slavaukraini
https://jackmurphywrites.com/169/the-cias-sabotage-campaign-inside-russia
32. This is fascinating. Logistics really does matter in war. And it’s really hard to do well.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/1609946194939154433
33. Micro and Nano VC funds are a big part of the future because that is where the alpha will be.
34. This is a good discussion on Energy for 2023. Europe is in big trouble due to their own idiot policies. USA too.
Lots of concern on a secret war on energy infrastructure all around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIFH1cK68-A
35. Watch this region carefully in 2023. Part of the hybrid war we are in with Russia-China.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-63636181
36. #Geopolitics
"The war in Ukraine has offered two remarkable alternatives to hegemonic war.
First, the Russian answer: if hegemonic wars are impossible by virtue of the arrival of nuclear weapons, that does not mean that nuclear weapons cannot be used. They will be used not to win a hegemonic war but to threaten a less risk-prone adversary with destruction and thus bring about a compromise by which the global system may be fundamentally modified to reflect a balance of power that is in fact a balance of destruction.
Second, the American answer: if hegemonic wars have become impossible, that does mean they cannot be won. But they must be won not by direct conflict with an opponent but by shaping the war environment in such a way that such an opponent can be defeated before a direct clash becomes necessary. One could say that in this case an artificial environment or metaverse decides the outcome."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/general-dynamics-of-the-ukraine-war
37. This is a must listen to. So many energy myths busted. We need more nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuQ_fyxP7M&t=1s
38. Learning from one of the intellectual giants in investing. Investing in process & proper thinking and DCF vs optionality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6T5lEzflo
39. "So add it up together, you can see why those who believe that the Eastern Front was the dominant front and the USSR was the dominant power in the defeat of Germany would later overrate the Russian army today and misunderstand the war we are seeing.
In short, they overrate the ability of dictatorships to create good armies, overrate the primitive variables such as infantry casualties, and underrate the importance of truly modern forces to undertake complex operations."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/misunderstanding-soviet-power-in-761
40. "That run of projects obscures the fact that it would’ve been easy for someone with Bautista’s biceps and resumé to settle into a string of mindless but lucrative action flicks.
Instead, he’s spent the last decade carving out the weirdest, most artful filmography of any WWE alumnus, working with a murderer’s row of Letterboxd-approved directors: Denis Villeneuve, Rian Johnson, Sam Mendes, James Gunn. “I never wanted to be the next Rock,” he puts it plainly. “I just want to be a good fucking actor. A respected actor.”
He is that now—not just not the next Rock, but a wholly new sort of action star. He’s gotten there against incalculable odds—brawling through financial ruin, familial woes, prejudices against his former career, skepticism about his abilities, and, of course, his own self-doubt. And he's done it by taking off his cap and sunglasses and staring straight into the spotlight. Not that that's gotten any easier.
“I’m afraid of things,” Bautista says. “I’m nervous about things. But I can force myself to do things that make me uncomfortable, because I know I’m not gonna get anywhere if I don’t. I may cringe after the fact, but I’m not going to let that fear hold me back.”
https://www.gq.com/story/gq-hype-dave-bautista
41. The Indiana Jones of Investing: Jim Rogers. Always learn from this guy.