Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads June 30th, 2024
"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." – Joseph Campbell
"These are what I call “The Three C’s.” Communication means that you’re transparent, you telegraph change, you get on the phone quickly to walk through scenarios that might not be easy to address, you can meet conflict head-on, with depth, reason, and calm. Coachable means that you’re humble in conflict, you can take feedback, you have a backbone but you also listen deeply, and think about how to integrate new ideas. Cadence refers to your pace of problem solving. It’s not running around chasing shiny objects, to reinvoke the metaphor of the “Rocking Horse” founder who is always in motion but never progressing.
In contrast, high cadence refers to a founder who can prioritize rigorously, not waste effort or motion, and laser in on the most important pieces of the puzzle, knocking down outcomes quickly. When things don’t go as planned, they’re quick to reasses, cut losses, change direction decisively. A high cadence founder solves something in hours, not days, and not weeks. They need not always be right, but they’re directionally accurate, and iterating at a high pace.
This is perhaps a controversial opinion, but start with “Why Now.” Ask yourself where you can most authentically attack an explosive market with high communication, coachability, and cadence. What’s more important than even size of market is the rate of change in that market. Then once you’ve identified these table stakes, then begin thinking about the “What.” What you build certainly becomes hugely important, but don’t get stonewalled by early Product VCs that over analyze what you’re building. Focus on People and Velocity VCs who recognize your talents, and help you find those markets with explosive rates of change, where you need not be excellent to win."
https://ideas.scotthartley.com/p/product-founder-and-velocity-vcs
2. "Real social consumer products (and I am not talking entertainment à la Tiktok or what Instagram has become over the years…) often start with a single feature that capture the attention of the audience, express a strong sentiment that people want to repeat. Until they get bored and move on because those applications don’t serve as a home to nurture real connections on the long term.
It’s like you renting a place and organising parties versus owning a place and welcoming friends and family. Like AMO is doing. Social consumer is very much alive and its next generation is already hidden in plain sight :-)"
https://2lr.substack.com/p/bereal-voodoo
3. Important discussion on how to build talent driven organizations and societies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfLUxVHbXSA
4. "If the regime can make the people around you partake in absurdities, you are less likely to challenge it. You will be more likely to obey it. Of course, this doesn’t mean regimes are not interested in indoctrination. They would prefer if people really did hold pro-regime attitudes and values.
But the purpose of propaganda is not limited just to instilling desired beliefs. Often, demonstrating the regime’s strength, capacity, and resources to intimidate people is a more important goal."
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/the-true-purpose-of-propaganda
5. Lots of nuggets for one of the most successful solopreneurs around: Justin Welsh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93xvBq-88K0
6. "Since taking office, Milei, 53, has frozen public-works projects, devalued the peso by more than 50%, and announced plans to lay off more than 70,000 government workers. So far, he sees signs that his economic “shock therapy” is working. Inflation has slowed for four months in a row. The International Monetary Fund has hailed Argentina’s “impressive” progress.
Two days before we sat down on April 25 for an hour-long interview, he had given an address to the nation celebrating the “economic miracle” of the country’s first quarterly budget surplus since 2008. Milei thinks he is pioneering an approach that will become a global blueprint. “Argentina will become a model for how to transform a country into a prosperous nation,” he tells me. “I have no doubt.”
Others do. While Milei vowed the “political caste” would bear the brunt, his austerity measures have pummeled ordinary Argentines. The annual inflation rate is still nearly 300%, among the highest in the world. Many Argentines have been forced to carry bags of cash for even small transactions; some stores have given up on price stickers entirely. Milei’s moves—cutting federal aid, transport and energy subsidies, and getting rid of price controls—have caused living costs to spike.
More than 55% of Argentines are mired in poverty, up from 45% in December. Milei may be running out of time before his popular support crumbles. “Everybody knew the cost would be huge,” says Argentina’s Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, a close adviser. “What we’re experiencing, nobody likes it. But there’s no other way.”
Argentina’s economy has been bad enough for long enough that polls show a majority of the nation’s 46 million people remain willing to give Milei a chance."
https://time.com/6980600/javier-milei-argentina-interview/
7. A very solid conversation on tech this week. Really worth listening to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP4dEDMAPR0
8. This was an instructive interview on micro-PE from one of the best in the business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKKf7S0oSmM
9. “Apple Intelligence” is more than a great brand move; it encapsulates the company’s strategy. Take something invented elsewhere; make it more consumer friendly, easier to use, and more reliable; mix in world-class industrial design; and print billions. Artificial intelligence is for tech bros and data scientists. Apple Intelligence is AI for the rest of us. Shrewd.
The tech press has spent the past 18 months telling us Apple is behind on AI. While in the next breath reporting on the AI gaffes produced by its rivals. And that’s the point. Apple is always behind. Apple is a distinctly inventive company — its $30 billion R&D budget generates 2,000+ patents per year. But it’s mainly improving vs. inventing: ways to more precisely cut white cardboard boxes to deliver its new devices; new glues to bond layers of glass and plastic together in its phones. For the big stuff, like the mouse, digital music, and multitouch screens, it lets someone else traverse the Sierra Nevadas first."
https://www.profgalloway.com/second-mouse-ai/
10. "Autonomy starts with Industry. And Europe’s industrial base has been declining for some time. Perhaps more important than that, Europe is amidst an energy crisis at the moment. Can the Continent be autonomous without cheap abundant energy?
In our opinion, no.
No one can be the master of their own destiny if they do not have an economic engine or reliable security that is underpinned by energy stability. Cheap reliable energy is a cornerstone of both. Europe has neither at the moment. They have sacrificed their Industrial Capacity and by extension Autonomy, for imagery.
Europe is trying to play both sides against each other, but with Trump on the horizon; and Economic volatility; Europe will once again be forced like many countries to choose sides.
It is clear that the people of Europe are unhappy with their current situation, but will their efforts to alter their destiny be in vain?
Only History knows."
https://mercurial.substack.com/p/the-battle-for-the-soul-of-europe
11. "The Rule of 50 score of 50 is a solid target representing a variety of businesses like high growth with lots of losses, medium growth with modest profitability, or something with low growth and tremendous profitability. Most of the 2020 and 2021 heavily funded startups should aim for medium growth plus limited burn in the near term to achieve a level of viability. From there, the belief is that as spending on software and investment in tools increases, they will be in a good position to accelerate their growth rate.
The Rule of 50 and a score at or better than that number is a good target for entrepreneurs who want a sustainable, healthy business. However, a score of 50 is not high enough to raise venture capital. Entrepreneurs should think through their goals and aspirations and target their Rule of 50 score accordingly."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/06/15/rule-of-50-and-venture-funding/
12. Lots of good insights into how cities are run. Why they work and don't work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG8kVEDk3Yc
13. Very inspiring discussion on Tech trends from one of the best thinkers here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezv9jmrjRco
14. "As I mentioned in the piece on war and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific—war is not usually won by what you bring at the start. They are mostly won by what you can build or acquire while they are fought. This is certainly going to be the case with the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Both sides have already chewed through most of the equipment that they had on February 24, 2022—and both are desperately building what they can, while they are also scouring the world to acquire all the weapons of war possible.
The Russians have been successful at this, particularly in continuing their trade with countries outside by circumventing existing sanctions. For instance, much of Western trade to Russia has simply been re-routed to Russia through other states—often in Central Asia. Here are just some examples (and I’m not doing this to dump on Germany—other Western states are doing exactly the same thing)."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-economic-war-escalates
15. "Finding ways to protect yourself from an impending crisis is not an easy task as there are so many variables to consider, and each one might require a different action. That said, it’s fair to say that the 60/40 traditional stock/bond portfolio is no longer valid.
Owning bonds is a guaranteed losing proposition in an inflationary environment. Stock picking will be a lot trickier than the passive ETF investing strategy many are accustomed to. I would rotate out of overpriced tech stocks and move into more defensive stocks. Your portfolio should be heavily skewed to hard assets, including commodities such as metals, energy and food which have traditionally done well in inflationary times.
Geography is important as well. U.S. stocks are extremely overvalued as compared to emerging markets. It’s also perfectly legal to have bank accounts in other jurisdictions denominated in other currencies. This might provide protection in the event of capital controls."
16. "This is why one belief I have is that the future of application software in a world of AI agents probably looks a whole lot more like database software…These worlds are merging (database and applications). At the end of the day, most software today is just a UI on top of a database. We need the UI for human consumption. But we don’t need it for AI agent consumption.
I’ve long STRONGLY believed that data and data infra are one of the core beneficiaries of AI. Most of my venture career has been spent investing in data businesses. One of which, Tabular, was just acquired by Databricks for >$1b. Others, like dbt Labs, Clickhouse, Airbyte, Prisma, etc are seeing really strong growth. The value of differentiated, high quality data infra has never been higher.
But let’s take this one step further. Both Databricks and Snowflake have heavily foreshadowed (or released products) that enable applications to be built on top of them. I think this is clearly the future. Applications built more for AI agent consumption, built on top of leading data platforms. The data platform companies will BECOME the application providers themselves. I’m excited for this future!"
https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-61424-is-seat-based
17. "Instead of saying, "I wish I'd put $1,000 in Amazon's IPO when I was 7," you should focus instead on "what story would I have believed if I was investing in 1997 that would have led me to put money in Amazon's IPO? And what is the comparable story I should believe today?" And sometimes you'll be wrong, and sometimes you'll be right. But most of the time, the most important things in life are determined by the decisions you get right. Not by the decisions you get wrong. You can often get 99 decisions wrong, as long as you get one right.
In general, I think the mindset of focusing on the present, and the lessons to be learned, and the stories to be believed; that is the most important takeaway. To paraphrase Mark Twain: "we should be careful to get out of a regret only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/regret-porn
18. "Taiwan faces a similar dilemma. With a population of just 24 million compared to China's 1.4 billion, and vastly less resources and manufacturing capacity, Taiwan probably can't prevail in a straight-up naval battle with Chinese naval, air and missile forces, not even with the help of allies Japan and the US.
But it doesn't have to win. It can succeed by showing China that a battle for Taiwan is simply too bloody and fraught with risk. Taiwan would need to sink or damage enough transport vessels that near the island to make a beach landing or blockade untenable. With insufficient troops, heavy weapons and supplies ashore, the beachhead would be vulnerable to being swept into the sea by a Taiwanese counterattack.
Similarly, enough kamikaze drones could force China's large fleet farther off-shore in hopes of creating openings for air drops of supplies from Taiwan's allies."
19. What a fun interview. Justin Waller is a good man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plT6XO8dN3E
20. "Anyway, I think the reports of China’s scientific dominance shouldn’t be causing policymakers in the West to panic. But it’s becoming pretty undeniable that China has now taken a commanding lead in applied physical science research, and Western leaders need to ask themselves whether they can really afford to cede leadership in those fields."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/is-the-west-falling-behind-in-science
21. "Lamont’s long-term approach to such relationships, which can span decades, paid off again when she backed Park’s later venture, Devoted Health. With Devoted Health now valued at $12.9 billion, her initial $20 million investment in 2017 into the Medicare Advantage insurance plan provider is now worth about $1 billion to Lamont and her backers at Oak HC/FT, the investment firm she cofounded in 2014.
Those investments, and others in the healthcare and fintech space such as early bets on primary care provider VillageMD and prepaid debit card provider NetSpend land Lamont back on the Midas List, Forbes’ annual ranking of the world’s top tech investors. It’s her fifth appearance but the first since 2015, a reflection of the long game approach that Lamont takes to startup investing.
“These are friends, these are comrades,” she said. “We're in battle and we're there not just for the length of 10 years for one company, but 20 to 30 years for three or four companies.”
For Lamont, 67, the $5.3 billion-in-assets Oak HC/FT is the latest chapter in a career that spans multiple firms and four decades, with lifetime investments in at least 80 companies. She’s returned an estimated $1.5 billion to investors over the last decade, according to a source familiar with the firm’s finances. Lamont’s a prominent figure outside of venture, too: the spouse of Connecticut governor Ned Lamont, she’s served as First Lady of Connecticut since 2019.
The secret to Lamont’s sustained success, she says: an ability to spot and embrace new tech cycles, even if they force her to turn her attention away from a currently lucrative path. With the advent of the internet, she switched her focus from life sciences to digital health. And as online payments became ubiquitous in the years since PayPal’s dotcom rise, it called for a more recent, increased focus on fintech startups, too.
“It is not about being a one hit wonder in venture. It is about reinventing yourself across different cycles,” Lamont said."
https://archive.ph/IYHyr#selection-575.0-597.123
22. I am a fan of Justin Waller. Build yourself and be secure in yourself. Lots to learn here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzFpulW5m4c
23. A very sober discussion on the state of the world and geopolitics in 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4t_4S1h4Zg
24. "In the end, I’m not sure that it’s possible to avoid the ~60 hours/week we all spend on emails/meetings/etc., and the most productive people on the planet aren’t working that much more than that. Perhaps someone like Elon can breathe/sleep his work and increase it +50% more, but not 3x or 5x. It’s just not possible. To achieve more, it’s more about how you fill the time you have.
By its nature, the opportunities for 10x work are not really something you can optimize. Sometimes it’s a random work idea, or a random meeting, or a off-hand tweet (like my “growth hacker is the new vp marketing” tweet from 10 years ago) that creates a lucky break. Combine this with skills built up with years at the technology frontier, and skill and serendipity can come together. As comedian Steve Martin says, “Be so good they can't ignore you.”
Reject the core loop, the checklists, and all the email. Embrace serendipity!"
https://andrewchen.substack.com/p/10x-work-versus-1x-work
25. What a wacky story.
https://thehustle.co/originals/the-first-fugitive-caught-by-the-internet
26. "Even if there is only a 5% chance that he might do it, we must do everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen. Invasion of Taiwan would result in a disastrous war that would cause a global depression, and countless losses for the Taiwanese, for our allies, and for us if we get involved.
Even if the risk is small, we have to make sure that we drive it down to zero as much as possible. That needs to be the overarching focus of American foreign policy."
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/cold-war-ii-grand-strategy
27. "Founders need to shift their thinking to an assumption of understanding—that investors who see thousands of pitches per year probably do understand what a founder is doing the vast majority of the time, and have simply decided that the risk/reward for investing in their company simply isn’t as good of a deal as others they’re currently looking at."
https://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2024/6/5/is-my-startup-fundable-venture-capital
28. This is a masterclass from VC investing from one of the best in the business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI301hP2gVA
29. What a freaking scary new world of war.
30. Some hopeful news coming from Ukraine soon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwDomFk2o84
31. "The two years of full-scale war has seen Ukrainians from across the country come together in the face of the Russian threat, and the country’s Vietnamese community is no exception. At least one Ukrainian soldier of Vietnamese origin has already been killed in the war, and Nguyen said the community rallied in solidarity when he was wounded.
“Before the start of full-scale war, I didn’t know many Vietnamese people, but now they support me a lot. Lots of Vietnamese people wrote me messages of support, people brought food to the hospital,” Nguyen said."
32. "Huang’s moves reflect his paranoia as a founder who has survived multiple moments of near doom during the company’s history, including after it went public in 1999. The Christmastime meetings last year, for instance, could merely be part of the formula that has carried the company to great heights—turning its GPUs into the lifeblood of OpenAI, biotech and pharmaceutical firms, quant trading firms and scores of other AI developers.
“There’s no complacency at Nvidia,” said Jeff Herbst, a venture capitalist who spent two decades at Nvidia leading business development and acquisitions until 2021. “You wouldn’t really know whether times are good or times are bad from the tone or the tenor of the meetings.”
33. "Because the one secret to living a great life… is to be in the present moment.
The present moment is about your life as it is right now. It’s about the hill you’re already standing on. It’s about the thrill of breathing and the sound of your heart pumping.
It’s about your children, your parents, your friends, and all the people who love you and whom you love back. It’s about the grace of God and the Universe and the 14 billion years of cosmic history that have brought you to… this precise moment.
Live in it."
https://www.sanjaysays.co/p/the-one-secret-to-living-a-great-life
34. "I couldn't help myself. I have purchased in my retirement account large amounts of Sibanye Stillwater (SBSW), Impala Platinum Group (IMPUY), and Sasol, LTD. I have discussed all of these names individually and Sibanye especially has been excruciatingly difficult to own for a while (my first entry was around $6). Gut feeling, the next five years in South Africa are going to look very different than the past five."
https://calvinfroedge.com/south-africa-its-time/
35. "Hit making is the strategy of cultural influence. In the post-mono culture, media, and retail, brands are pushed to operate like a portfolio of products and categories that target different niche audiences. Mass is achieved through aggregation of niches. By targeting its different audience segments, a brand creates many doors in and increases it hold on the market.
The first step in the process of implementing hit-making is to figure out the cultural moment and mood, and those setting it. This mood is going to turbocharge a brand’s cultural influence and be a fertile ground for its cultural products, increasing their chance of becoming hits. Hit making is the strategy of cultural influence that defines which cultural products should brands produce to tell their story, who is this story likely to influence most and in which context, what is the most opportune cultural moment, and what are the expected financial returns."
https://andjelicaaa.substack.com/p/hitmakers
36. "Powell is a superhero around here nowadays. In the past three years, he’s carved himself out as one of the few leading actors who can reliably juice up the box office. Forgetting Top Gun: Maverick, in which he played the cocky antagonist Hangman, his value in the eyes of Hollywood decision-makers is higher than ever thanks to a movie that virtually no one predicted would become so big: Anyone But You, the Shakespeare-inspired romcom in which he starred alongside Sydney Sweeney, which has pulled in a staggering $218 million since its release.
Powell has just co-written and starred in Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater, which was so warmly received on the festival circuit last year that Netflix coughed up $20 million for it in September. This summer he’s the lead in Twisters, a throwback sequel to the 1990s action film Twister, which looks set to revive another worn-out genre: the climate-panic blockbuster.
It’s a sharp reminder of how far he’s come. In his mid-20s, when Powell was working as a script reader for legendary producer Lynda Obst, he would sit outside the cafeteria on the Sony lot reading, waiting for someone to notice him – believing he was just one accidental run-in away from glory. Now, when he walks around one of these lots, there’s every chance the head of the studio will drop what they’re doing and make a beeline for him."
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/glen-powell-interview-2024
37. "Investors do not like risk. Media companies want to please investors. So there’s huge economic pressure on the executives of media companies to turn volatile hit-driven business models into stable predictable business models with recurring revenue. And the way you do that is to stick with existing properties — sequels, remakes, and adaptations of already-popular source material. Franchise continuation gives you someidea of who your audience will be and how your movie or series might perform. Thus, it partially de-risks the entertainment industry.
So the rule here should be: Evolve, don’t subvert. When you catch lightning in a bottle, don’t let it go and assume that you can catch it again just because your bottle has the same label on it.
Ultimately, both filling in lore and subverting themes are shortcuts — ways to continue a franchise without figuring out how to write a compelling new story in an existing fictional universe. But although franchise continuation makes storytelling less financially risky, it doesn’t actually make it easier. Just because an IP comes with a built-in audience doesn’t mean that audience is going to be easy to please.
An age of adaptations, sequels, and remakes might sound boring and stale, but it really doesn’t have to be."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-some-franchises-go-downhill-while
38. Investing in AI. How Benchmark thinks about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2wDuxmbXLg&t=1s
39. "Yes, other people might judge you based on your past – but so what? All of that is just part of the video game starting situation. You just work with it and deal with things and people as they come.
You start TODAY. Today is day 0. Everything before was just backstory.
God created you and the world this very moment and put your past as memories in your head.
What are you going to do with the situation and resources you have been given?
My advice? Do not ponder too much upon past negative events and faults because it gives you nothing of benefit and only weakens your confidence and spirit. Leave the past behind.
What counts is TODAY.
Spend your TODAY in a way that it brings you closer to your desired future life."
https://lifemathmoney.com/you-are-not-your-past-you-are-not-your-mistakes-you-are-not-your-failures
40. A good conversation on the state of AI & tech between two smart VCs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJpWKAZmGsQ
41. Excellent conversation from a very experienced VC. I agree with most of his views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgiwcus79I8
42. "Just as many began to wonder where the next jolt of dollar liquidity would come from, the Japanese banking system dropped Origami cranes composed of crisply folded dolla bills upon the laps of crypto investors. This is just another pillar of the crypto bull market. The supply of dollars must increase to maintain the current Pax Americana dollar-based filthy financial system."