Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 21st, 2023
"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."--Wayne Dyer
"Although the coming Ukrainian offensive will do much to set expectations for the future trajectory of this war, the real challenge is thinking through what comes after. The offensive has consumed planning, but a sober-minded approach would recognize that supporting Ukraine will be a long-term effort.
It is time, then, for the West to start planning more actively for the future, beyond the coming offensive. History shows that wars are difficult to end and often go on well beyond the decisive phases of fighting, including as negotiations continue. For Ukraine and its Western backers, a working theory of victory must be premised on endurance, addressing Ukraine’s long-term force quality, capability, and sustainment needs.
The United States and Europe must make the necessary investments to support the war effort well beyond 2023, develop plans for successive operations —and avoid pinning their hopes on any single offensive effort."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-war-beyond-ukraines-offensive
2. I got a lot out of this interview. Understanding talent and making good decisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsMvGZmW9MI
3. I'm gonna watch this. Arnold!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2AEI26LBpA
4. I agree, it’s a bad time to invest in real estate in Western Europe.
https://mailchi.mp/9cfa77a51b64/do-not-invest-in-real-estate-in-this-city?e=123a1c25c4
5. Hmm.....Seems like this will be a long war. But some possible scenarios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbiAyWBI0fE
6. Painful truths to listen to but this guy is one of the best Global Macro investors on the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAm2S1M_IU
7. So happy to see this. Well done UK. #SlavaUkraini
"Overall, the Storm Shadow should give Ukraine a powerful new ability to hit key targets, including command nodes, supply dumps and bridges, deep behind the front lines.
As such, if Ukraine demonstrates the value of the Storm Shadow, and the precedent for supplying advanced long-range weapons is already set by it, more of the weapons from other operators, such as Italy, or even the very similar SCALP missile, as used by the French Armed Forces, could follow. This could also open the floodgates to other donations by other countries, especially those by the U.S., which sits on a massive stockpile of advanced standoff weapons.
It will be interesting to see not only how effective an advanced cruise missile might be in Ukrainian hands, but also whether it will now open the door to other long-range strike weapons also being approved for transfer to Ukraine. Regardless, which ever way it plays out, it is very bad news for Russia."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraines-storm-shadow-missiles-are-a-big-problem-for-russia
8. "But for now, my view is that SaaS companies have a good chance to survive the shift to AI and come out of it even stronger — delivering more value to customers and doing it with a lower cost base by leveraging AI to increase productivity — IF they go all-in on AI now. That is a big IF, though.
When an asteroid hits, only the species most responsive to change will survive. Generative AI is an asteroid impact event for B2B software, but unlike most on-premise software companies in the 2000s, the SaaS leaders of today aren’t doomed. It all depends on how fast they can adapt."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/generative-ai-asteroid-impact-event-b2bsoftware-christoph-janz
9. "China is essentially willing to patiently invest DECADES of painstaking effort to achieve its intelligence objectives. And that’s pretty normal for the Chinese; their leadership tends to establish clear goals and long-term strategic visions that often look 30+ years into the future. A single decade is nothing for them.
Now, China’s authoritarian government obviously has a mountain of reprehensible flaws, and they have no intention of changing for the better. But one thing’s for sure: they know how to play the long game… and use it to their advantage.
Contrast this with the US government, which at present cannot even plan beyond the next few weeks.
Quite simply they’re unwilling and/or unable to play the long game. And the country is worse off for it. The whole world is worse off for it.
This is why it makes so much sense to have a Plan B– something which requires long-term thinking."
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/these-people-are-incapable-of-playing-the-long-game-147382/
10. "Not flying the aircraft first means not making operational changes that you normally would because you are fundraising, or believe you soon will be. It means running your business differently because you are trying to raise money.
As one VC said to me, “We don’t invest in perfect companies. We invest in companies where the upside is greater than the downside. I have invested in companies where the CRO, CTO, and CFO were all recently or in the midst of transition. The important thing is that we talk about the changes and understand them. We’re going to be investors for the next 5-10 years.”
What does that mean to me? If you, as CEO, think something needs to be done, then do it. Always fly the aircraft first."
11. "The main theories we have all seem to be largely in-line. A few things certainly messed it up a bit: 1) banks failing - delaying layoffs a tad, 2) changing of mortgage standards to prolong the inevitable, 3) slow impact of regulation change, 4) elongated decline as it relates to tech layoffs - usually faster and 5) the slow adjustments to tax payments on properties - taking longer than expected to roll through.
Other than those small time frame changes the message is the same: banks are going to be forced to consolidate. If you look at what the Fed is doing, there is no way to avoid more consolidation. The average person has no idea what it means to “insure deposits”. We have a grand total of two smartphone companies and no one cares.
They certainly won’t notice when we get to 3,000 banks instead of 4,5000 (rough numbers)."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/cpi-acceleration-phase-cycles-and
12. "But the greatest success of Ukraine’s frontal resistance has occurred behind the front, with the gradual build-up of an increasing large, well-trained, and well-armed operational reserve of combat units that could be held back from combat because the frontal forces proved sufficiently strong to stop Russian advances without need of large reinforcements.
It means that, for the first time since the start of the war, Ukraine’s war leaders can now take the initiative, instead of just repelling one Russian attack after another in different sectors of the very long front."
https://unherd.com/2023/05/ukraines-path-to-victory/
13. Solid profile on the impressive Netflix executive leading the charge of expansion across the globe.
She is affecting tastes and interests everywhere. Also shows the power of media in culture.
14. "But optimism pays more - both in money and life. We owe it to ourselves and others to be mindful of reality - when things are good, when things are bad, and to plan how to maintain and improve all of that. It’s something I have to work on too. But there are a lot of little things that can make our world beautiful."
https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-art-of-the-doomer
15. "So basically, whether LLMs are economically good or bad depends on what kind of information they figure out. If they find stuff that humans were never going to find, because the patterns were just too complex and subtle, then that’s good. But if they find stuff humans were going to find anyway, just a little bit faster, then that’s a waste. Again, we won’t really know til we try (and maybe not even then!)."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/generative-ai-and-the-finance-industry
16. I look forward to visiting Kharkiv one day in a victorious Ukraine. #SlavaUkraini
https://www.vox.com/c/world-politics/2023/5/10/23630754/russia-ukraine-war-kharkiv-city-transformed
17. I think people just hate flashy rich tech people in general. #HFGK
"Guo has a penchant for extremes. The centimillionaire (on paper) rose to Silicon Valley fame after co-founding Scale AI, a San Francisco–based startup valued in 2021 at $7.3 billion. She left the company back in 2018 “due to differences in product vision and road map,” she told Forbes. Since then, she has traveled the world, launched her own firm, Backend Capital, and in 2022 founded Passes.
Along the way, she’s gained fans and critics alike for her over-the-top antics—like the time she hosted an entire music festival for her birthday, complete with fire dancers and brand sponsors. Or when she tweeted a letter from her homeowners’ association scolding her for letting a rented lemur and snake slink around her luxury apartment during a Miami Hack Week party.
Her freewheeling lifestyle makes her one of tech’s most captivating figures, and a magnet for online vitriol—the kind most often reserved for female founders. As Guo put it in a tweet: “I go out once a week and am a party animal. Other male founders are constantly doing lines of cocaine, clubbing at 2 am, abusing adderall at work, but it’s fine, they’re brilliant!”
18. Scary new world here.
"Nearly all media can be faked, but now, with the help of AI, it can be manufactured easily. That distinction is essential. Until this year, we used to evaluate the integrity of media partly based on its complexity using the following formula:
--The more complex the media, the harder it was to manipulate (time, money, and skill),
--which meant that the more complex the media and obscure the topic, the less likely it was to be fake — from conversational videos to scientific papers.
--This complexity heuristic (a simple rule of thumb used in fast decision-making) doesn’t work anymore. In an AI-fueled world, everything digital can be faked."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/deepmedia
19. "Putin initially connected Ukraine to a dream of posthumous glory. But now he has no choice but to connect Ukraine to earthly politics, since he cares about retaining power to the end. To keep power, Putin must control all Russian armed forces, which is not the same thing as keeping them in Ukraine.
Those two things might well contradict: the recent spectacle of disunity around Bakhmut shows how. The better Ukraine does on the battlefield, the more they will contradict. More broadly, keeping power is not the same thing as pushing for victory in Ukraine. If Ukraine seems likely to win, Putin will seek another story of power. His propagandists are good at changing the subject."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/war-and-politics
20. "After bagging the role of a supposedly perfect human being, you could forgive another young actor for stunting on social – gym brags, red carpet flexes, on-set pranks, Comic Con selfies – but that’s not Poulter’s style. Instead his feeds are a regular stream of activism: standing up against bullying, sounding out economic insecurity and championing racial equality.
Although conscious of sounding “worthy”, he likes to be something of a human billboard for good causes, naming individuals like Alex Holmes, of the charity Anti-Bullying Pro, or Lavinya Stennett, of The Black Curriculum, as people “who are actually doing the real work and affecting change in society.”
Over a handful of conversations, at the game and afterwards, Poulter opened up about his next chapter."
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/will-poulter-interview-2023
21. "My Twitter timeline is full of people preaching the profitability of “unsexy” businesses.
It makes sense — there’s a ton of profit in bringing modern strategy and operations to legacy services, and the target demographics are always clearly defined.
But I think there’s something to taking the exact opposite approach: creating products that feel novelty, fun, simple, and unnecessary.
People don’t need these products — but people feel like they need to share them with other people.
These products live outside of the latest AI, AR, and no-code crazes. They’re not hyper-optimized for profitability. They are often marketing “drops”. They don’t sell themselves — the ideas behind them are awesome enough to create conversations, both online and in-person, and that’s enough to drive conversions.
And most importantly, in an internet-enabled world, they spread like wildfire."
https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/making-products-that-spread-like
22. So much good life advice in this conversation. Kevin Kelly should be on the list of candidates for the most interesting man in the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ3Y_rjKvIE
23. "AI assistants are the ultimate helicopter parent, bulldozing obstacles and the risk inherent in establishing new relationships. We are breeding a generation of asocial people who don’t know what it means to be rejected, forget a name, miss a flight, and find unexpected joy. AI, and mobile technology, have strip-mined a key component of what it means to be human, what it means to be a mammal.
Happiness is a function of your willingness to take an uncomfortable risk and have something wonderful … really wonderful … happen in person. Technology offers productivity and prosperity. However, joy is in the agency of others. The most important skills are forged, not taught."
https://www.profgalloway.com/ailone/
24. Important discussion on global macro. The USA is going off the cliff due to really bad policies in USD, weaponizing the dollar and awful overspending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRPMHinrFKQ
25. "The economics of nightclubs and national banking systems have a lot in common.
Patronising a nightclub is a lot of fun. You get to listen to good music, hang out with your friends, and for some, find a mate. However, after all the fun is had, there is always a bill to pay — and sometimes it can be quite substantial. Absent an agreed upon set of rules on how the cost should be allocated, the conversation as to who pays and how much can get quite heated."
https://medium.com/@cryptohayes/the-denominator-536a8de34bf0
26. "It’s great to see more innovation in the non-dilutive SaaS financing space. Entrepreneurs would do well to consider all their financing options, and not just venture capital, when looking for ways to grow faster. Hopefully customer value financing catches on and becomes more popular."
https://davidcummings.org/2023/05/13/customer-value-saas-financing/
27. "Despite the uncertainty about the true meaning of these Ukrainian attacks around Bakhmut, I think one thing is certain. The attacks at Bakhmut show the Ukrainians are ready for a fight. And if they show the same creativity, determination, leadership and purpose they have throughout this war, the Russians are in a huge amount of trouble."
https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut-9d8
28. Fascinating.
"The film’s remarkable success showed Blum the path forward: make a lot of low-budget horror films and hope a few break out. For this model, the goal is to produce 10 or more films a year with a budget in the $5m-range (cheap by Hollywood standards). Compare that to a major film studio, which puts $200m behind a few blockbusters every year.
Blum’s approach is similar to that of an angel investor who is trying to find the next startup unicorn. Instead of giving a single $500,000 check to one company, he cuts $10,000 checks and hands them out to dozens of intriguing founders.
But why horror? It is the best genre for fictional low-budget films. You don’t need special effects, because gritty and raw is actually scarier. You don’t need superstar talent, because an A-list actor can actually detract from the scariness (if you’re watching Tom Cruise, you’re thinking “wow, that’s Tom Cruise” and not “dude, get out of the house!”).
With a $200 million superhero or summer action film, you need to have CGI and A-list stars as table stakes.
One common theme was the importance of being stubborn in one’s taste and seeing it through to the final product. By setting clear financial constraints and offering big upside, Blumhouse gives its directors an opportunity to actually see their tastes through."
https://trungphan.substack.com/p/blumhouse-the-hollywood-horror-hit
29. Wow, what a story. This is a must read.
"When we make the effort of getting to know people at their core, we reduce the possibility of cheap mimetic interactions. Knowing someone at their core requires sharing and listening to a particular kind of experience: stories of deeply fulfilling action. Knowing and relating to these stories produces empathy and a greater understanding of human behavior.
A negative mimetic cycle is disrupted when two people, through empathy, stop seeing each other as rivals. Dave changed my way of thinking and my reactionary impulses by modeling something different—a core desire that is common to every person, but which often goes unfulfilled: to know and be known by others."
https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/my-life-saving-lesson-from-a-hitman
30. "In 2023 with few exceptions acquihires are dead as we knew them. The majority of typical acquirers (large and small) don’t have incremental headcount budget. Those who do, often believe they can hire from the open market without the hassle of an acquisition. Cash is at a premium so it’s not going to cap tables (preferred or common walk away from the deals with no dinero).
In fact, sometimes acquirers are asking for the remaining cash on hand from the startup in order to ‘zero out’ the salary burden they’re taking on [HW note: 99.9% of the time my answer is no fucking way]. And when they’re giving stock to existing shareholders instead of cash it’s at high 2021 valuations, buried below a preference stack."
31. "Now Italy’s newest billionaire is pursuing his passions, tinkering with plans to—as he puts it, “revolutionize”—businesses across a range of industries. Eighteen months after the sale, Iervolino has spent at least $200 million on everything from a soccer team and a cybersecurity firm to real estate and a media company that owns one of the country’s most storied magazines. He says he wants to focus on tech, with investments in several startups and venture capital funds.
Still, the vast majority of his wealth is liquid: Forbes estimates Iervolino is worth $1 billion, with more than two thirds of it held in cash and stocks.
"I really see the world split in two. There's positive people, who have passion and fury in their blood, those who make it. And then there are the pessimists, the techno-skeptics,” he says. “I'm always on the side of the optimists. I see a rosy future for young people and especially for Italy.”
32. We need to be watching this trend and it should not stop the US from managing the deficit and USD better (its been pretty shambolic as we have seen). But the USD is still the reserve currency for lack of anything better (at the moment).
"The numbers are still showing that the dollar is still the dominant currency,” Subacchi said.
Beijing will keep trying, and keep failing. The yuan’s not convertible, the government controls capital flows, and even its value is manipulated by Beijing. You can’t do business with IOUs, but you can always do business with a bushel of greenbacks.
“I think there will be incremental moves to make greater use of the yuan to denominate China’s trade with commodity-exporting countries,” Setser said. “And then I think China will discover that it is difficult to fully go much further and to really radically change the structure of how it settles its trade, because it still wants to sell to the U.S., still wants to sell to Europe. Its economy doesn’t balance without significant exports.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/12/dollar-dominance-global-trade-china-yuan-brics-currency/
33. "Every creator will distill their expertise and attract a school of students that resonate with their teaching style.
Creators will evolve and their following will evolve with them.
This eliminates saturation in the creator economy because life isn’t saturated – and we are all making the transition into the digital society."
https://thedankoe.com/generalists-are-taking-over-the-world-in-the-digital-golden-ages/
34. I like this concept of skill stacking.
https://thedankoe.com/the-1-million-dollar-skill-stack-learn-in-this-order/
35. "In a career spanning more than 50 years, Dalí produced a vast number of paintings, etchings, lithographs, and sculptures. But fake reproductions of his art constitute a larger market.
In the 1980s, during an art investment bubble, experts believe hundreds of thousands to millions of fake Dalís began to circulate, leading to $625m to $1B in sales of fake Dalí art in the US. Worldwide, fraudulent sales may have reached $3B.
The fraud led to prison sentences for unscrupulous art dealers and gallery owners, sunk the value of many authentic Dalí works, and continues to confound hobbyist art collectors — like Ewell’s client in Alabama — who often find out their family’s prized art is worthless."
https://thehustle.co/why-salvador-dali-is-the-most-faked-artist-in-the-world/
36. I'm bullish on Japan as they rise in the geopolitical landscape. Japan will be an important force for good in my opinion because of their high awareness of their troubled history.
"Kishida is preoccupied by more earthly issues. In Japan, he has launched a “new model of capitalism” to grow the middle class through redistributive policies. Overseas, he has set about revolutionizing the East Asian nation’s foreign relations: soothing historical grievances with South Korea, strengthening security alliances with the U.S. and others, and boosting defense spending by over 50%.
Buoyed by a White House eager for influential partners to check China’s growing clout, Kishida has set about turning the world’s No. 3 economy back into a global power with a military presence to match."
https://time.com/6278122/fumio-kishida-japan-prime-minister-interview-g7/
37. Excellent discussion here on the latest in culture wars and what’s happening in tech.