Up in the Air
I always enjoyed watching this movie. George Clooney plays a high flying executive named Ryan whose true home is nowhere and everywhere. He spends his life as a business traveler on the road 340 days of the year. I can definitely relate to him as I have spent a career traveling all around the world for close to 19 years. (Albeit thankfully not that many days away). Many of the lessons are very relevant for all of us even if you don’t travel.
Routines:
You need a sense of routine & comfort while travelling. You need a touchstone when everything around you is different. This allows you to process the differences & acclimatize quickly. You want some change and some exoticism but not too much. It’s a balance, if you do not have some touchstones, you start to feel lost and out of control. I personally think this is one of the reasons franchises like Starbucks or McDonalds are so loved by many American business travelers. It’s a touch of the familiar. (For the record, i personally hate most American franchises and you would not catch me in them anywhere unless i was using their bathroom)
Motion:
The state of motion allows you to feel like you are moving forward with your life. Although motion doesn’t always equate to progress. But it drives excitement and slows the speed of time. Your awareness of things around you goes up and your life is so much more interesting.
Motion equates to new Experiences. As my old violin teacher told me, in the end all the matters are your experiences and your memories.
Mileage:
Ryan maximized his expense account spend when traveling to optimize getting miles. This is just plain smart, you accumulate miles and good credit while saving all the other expenses you would normally spend while at home. If you are extra smart, you would bank and invest all this money.
Connection:
Making sure you connect with people wherever you are going & making friends in different cities & countries is really what makes business travel so special. But at the end of the day, despite the apparent sexy lifestyle of business travel, you do need to land and return home. Having loved ones to return home to is probably the best part of business travel. At least it is for me.
Watch this old movie. It’s a funny & sad yet eye opening look at business travel. And a glimpse of that pre-Covid world we took for granted.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 30th, 2021
“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
It’s been another nutty crazy week. So short one this round. Gonna be saying NO to many things a lot more for the rest of the summer and probably year. I’m supposed to be on sabbatical.
Talk about the long con.
"Kurniawan seemed to have boundless cash and a knack for finding extremely rare vintage bottles that lifelong oenophiles had only ever dreamed of — 1920 Petrus, 1945 Romanée-Conti, 1947 Château Lafleur.
In a few short years, he would sell off millions of dollars’ worth of his wines to some of America’s wealthiest connoisseurs.
But behind the ever-flowing stream of Burgundies, Kurniawan harbored a dark secret: He was carrying out history’s greatest wine fraud.
And it would take a vengeful billionaire, a French vintner, and the FBI to get to the bottom of the barrel."
https://thehustle.co/the-man-who-sold-millions-in-counterfeit-wine-to-rich-collectors/
2. Down with Tbilisi, Chiang Mai and HCMS!
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/12/01/top-5-best-cities-live-bootstrapping-young-entrepreneur/
3. Cool story.
4. This is worth listening to if you want to understand what's happening in tech. 2 of sharpest guys in Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbnDay35L8I&t=2477s
5. "With the pullback in growth stocks and the crash in SPAC prices and now crypto, I imagine we will see a reset in seed stage pricing at some point soon, but this is all anecdotal through my eyes and ears.
Chasing/pushing prices higher at the seed stage puts so much pressure on the founders and companies to deliver immediately. It is really disappointing to see this sloppy behavior so early in the company life cycle."
https://howardlindzon.com/tiny-bubbles-seed-stage-edition-and-sunday-reads/
6. "This is the beauty of bitcoin. The countries that seek freedom and true economic competition will embrace bitcoin. They will encourage their citizens to participate in the revolution. The authoritarian countries will fight the technology. They will do their best to prevent entrepreneurs and investors from participating."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/china-gave-us-a-gift-last-week
7. This is so awesome.
"One such Twitch food streamer is L.A. Geronimo, a Florida-based former sushi chef and the creator behind the Twitch channel The Hunger Service. Geronimo’s livestreaming centers on sushi and other Asian dishes stemming from his ten years of experience in Japanese and Asian restaurants. But he also leans heavily into pop culture, creating dishes inspired by anime like Food Wars and Studio Ghibli films along with video games like Final Fantasy XV."
https://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/l-a-geronimo-the-hunger-service/
8. Yikes. Although if I am honest I'd be okay being called Darth Vader.
"In Russian political circles, Sechin is known as “Darth Vader.” They call him that because he’s particularly ruthless, notably venal, and kind of a dick. While colorful and provocative, this nickname misses the point. The Star Wars villain, father of Luke and Leia, was supremely talented in his own right. Through years of disciplined training, he harnessed the Force.
Igor Sechin has no such mystical powers. He’s a crony and a thug. True, he is a linguist by training, fluent in both French and Portuguese, and thus more refined that your average brute. But in practice, this just means he can say “Give me my fucking money” in three different languages. A goon who enjoys jazz is still a goon."
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/igor-sechin-russias-darth-vader
9. This is bar none the best guide to becoming independent in 2021. All young people (and old) need to read this & follow the formula (wish I knew about it earlier).
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/1m-us-token-10-years-or-10-btc-no
10. Its about being long term greedy, so many people (investors, LPs & founders) forget about this.
https://bothsidesofthetable.com/playing-the-long-game-in-venture-capital-97f017811707
11. Good to know!
https://blog.coinbase.com/fact-check-is-bitcoin-mining-environmentally-unfriendly-3559823af6f1
12. "With this in mind, the timing of the CCP’s latest wave of regulatory scrutiny could not have been better. The ensuing miner exodus currently taking place is one of the most positive fundamental developments for Bitcoin in 2021. Even if we see short term drops in monthly Implied Hash Rate figures as miners emigrate, it would be for an important cause."
https://medium.com/coinmetrics/bitcoin-miners-are-escaping-china-d3937e8f018c
13. 110% agree with this view.
"The content I create works for me when I'm having downtime with my family. When I'm sleeping, it's still going. Making new connections, generating opportunities, and creating deal flow.
By creating content, I'm building leverage. By activating an audience, I'm applying it."
https://davenemetz.com/audience-leverage/
14. Longevity: so very interesting and the next big code to crack.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live-up-to-150-years-new-research-suggests/
15. Rise of Pseudononymous future.
"Anonymity is key. Being a virtual creator is about enjoying the self-expression and creativity that come with creating content, while avoiding the scrutiny and invasion of privacy that have traditionally accompanied fame."
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/transhuman-the-rise-of-digital-identities
16. "The realization that if workers can be productive from anywhere, why not look abroad where the cost of living is lower and thus, cost of labor is lower. Meaning that in time, companies will realize they can cut human capital costs without sacrificing quality of work by looking abroad. A globalized labor arbitrage will take place.
This further reinforces the reduction in localized real estate needs. It also validates a move away from hybrid models to purely remote. And the ultimate consequence is further pressure on corporate real estate values in the developed world."
https://dougantin.com/a-meta-consequence-of-remote-work/
17. "Bitcoin was launched in the 2008 financial crisis as an antidote to bad central banking policy. What policymakers did then was unprecedented in all recorded financial history.
But that pales in comparison to 2020 when policymakers completely abandoned any rational long-term thinking.
This is why Bitcoin was created, to protect against recklessness by the financial elites."
https://danheld.substack.com/p/inflation-is-coming-0a6
18. "The first is that you MUST learn the basics – of anything. There are no shortcuts or easy paths to success. I’ve written about this over and over and over again in The Agoge, and it is an absolutely critical lesson. You must always focus on learning the basics of anything – or, as I’ve said in the past, “learn the rules – then break the rules”. That is how you achieve mastery of any practice or art.
The second is that multitasking is a sure path to failure. Having had to engage in plenty of that sort of nonsense in the past, I agree entirely with this sentiment. Multitasking ensures mediocrity. Focus on doing one thing at a time – and doing it to the absolute best of your ability. Then move on to the next thing. That is how you focus and how you win."
https://didacticmind.com/2021/05/guest-post-lessons-learned-from-erich-fromm-by-the-male-brain.html
19. "For now, Russia has financial reserves to weather near term economic storms, and Putin still has an approval rating above 60%. But that number is falling, and while Russia’s rainy-day funds are in solid shape, the Kremlin’s inability or unwillingness to diversify the Russian economy ensures there is little reason to believe things will change for the better.
That’s the bad news for Putin. The bad news for Ukraine and the West is that as conditions get tougher, Putin will feel the need to look tougher still."
https://time.com/6004236/russia-ukraine-border-putin/
20. I actually think China is the major illiberal threat to the West and we better get our act together ASAP.
"COVID-19 was a test of the American and Chinese systems, and one side clearly did better. Even if China made mistakes at the beginning, given the way that the West has failed in its COVID response, it’s simply not credible to think that Europe or America would have done better if they had to go first.
This is why 2020 saw China make up more ground on the US economy than in any other year on record. If COVID-19 is any indication, China is better suited to deal with unforeseen disasters than the US is, meaning that I may be underestimating the extent to which it will overtake America as the most powerful country in its region, and ultimately the world."
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-most-china-analysis-is-just-cope
21. "The bottom line is that cyber attacks are going to become more frequent. The economic consequences will become more severe. And at some point, a cyber attack will lead to kinetic warfare. As individuals, we can take steps to prepare for these outcomes and reduce the economic burdens when they happen."
https://dougantin.com/economic-damage-by-cyber-attack-is-the-digital-age-attack-vector/
22. “For most of us, the goal of financial independence isn’t to just check out and quit life,” he says. “We just want the freedom to work on what we choose. When you take money out of the equation, you can spend your time doing more important things for yourself and society.”
https://thehustle.co/how-to-retire-early
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
The Future of Work: Are You Above or Below the Algorithm?
There was this old joke in the 1980s about Factories of the future being made up of Computer, a Dog and A Human. The job of the human is to feed the dog, while the dog’s job is to keep the human away from the computer which is running the factor. Now as we enter the age of software as robotics and automation are starting to really accelerate, this joke is becoming less funny and more dark. There is this new term called a “Dark Factory” which is run without lights because there are no humans working there. Robots only.
This does not just threaten blue collar manufacturing jobs, this has come for white collar jobs as well. As Software-driven automation starts to penetrate corporations and firms, we will start seeing employees start taking direction from algorithms. If you take a look at a disruptive bottoms-up example, let’s look at Uber or Lyft.
The driver takes whatever jobs or riders that are assigned to them & where to go. The App or an alternative like Waze or Google Maps tells them how to get there. The Algorithm for all intents and purposes controls them. This is what I mean by being “Below the Algorithm”.
As Naval Ravikant says: “If they can train you to do it, then eventually they will train a computer to do it.” Sadly with Autonomous driving coming to fore in the next 5 to 10 years, even drivers won’t have work anymore.
Contrast this to the software engineer or Product manager at Uber/Lyft who is designing and programming the App with the rules and setting the criteria. This is “Above the Algorithm”.
The question for you as you are thinking about your career: where do you want to be career wise? Telling the computer what to do or having the computer tell you what to do. The answer is very clear to me.
But I would go even further, the ultimate job security in the future is not having a job. Be an entrepreneur and build a business. When I say business, it could mean a one-person consulting company, a small SaaS software co or agency, all the way to a Silicon Valley type venture funded high growth startup.
Yet many people would argue: a job is more safe and secure! But is it really? If you are running a business you probably have multiple customers and thus multiple income streams. If you have a job, you have literally one income stream. Also seems very clear to me.
So to close off again with Naval: “Creativity is the last frontier…automation over a long enough period of time will replace every non-creative job…that’s great news. That means that all of our basic needs are taken of, and what remains for us is to be creative, which is really what every human wants.”
Entrepreneurship, mark my words, is and will be the ultimate creative activity of the 21st century.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Riches Among “Supposed” Ruins: The New Era of Globe Trotting Capitalists
I recently finished an autobiographical book by Robert Smith called “Riches Among the Ruins” which detailed his adventures buying and selling debt in what at that time were very scary and risky markets during the 70s to 90s. Places like Nigeria, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nigeria, Russia. It’s a grand story of how one man went where others did not to make his fortune. One I highly recommend.
I had the fortune to stumble on international business when I was at Yahoo! And it was the reason why I ended up spending over a decade at the company. I was so lucky to be able to work with across 35+ countries during my stay there. In fact, in what was one of my more “risky moves” I joined my boss in the newly formed Emerging Markets group to run, start and build our business in the MENA (Middle East/North Africa), Africa & Eastern European region. Best move I ever made career-wise, as I got to visit a whole region of countries I had never been to. But these are now ones that are clearly growth markets. I made friends and learned more than I ever thought I could. More importantly I fell in love with the region of Central/ Eastern Europe. The much ignored and overlooked part of Europe. And the best and most interesting part in my personal opinion.
As Richard Smith states …”the real riches I pulled from the ruins weren’t the spreads on my bond deals. The riches came from a lifetime of unforgettable experiences in some of the most exotic and remote corners of the world--riches I pulled from the ruins of my own young life.”
I was definitely influenced by my previous travels as a young student but also by the legendary global investor Jim Rogers of the Quantum hedge fund fame & his many books such as “Adventure Capitalist” and “Investment Biker.” I’ve always been fascinated by folks who were able to make a living traveling to far corners of the world and making their fortune.
These are the Indiana Jones of the business world. Folks like John Templeton and Mark Mobius who are renowned for their investing in global financial markets. Or Adolf Lundin who gallivanted around the globe buying up natural gas companies in Qatar & Russia in the 1970s. Even the hard core libertarian Doug Casey going all over Africa chasing natural resource companies or real estate.
In our present age, the people i would list as being on the forefront of international business are Andrew Henderson of the Nomad Capitalist, Simon Black of Sovereign Man, Swen Lorenz of the Undervalued Shares & Ladislas Maurice of the Wandering Investor as well as my venture investing friend Paul Bragiel.
I think as the trend of “Digital Decolonization” continues, the regions in the southern Hemisphere will be where all the action is. Digital Decolonization as coined by investor David Halpert is where the dominance of the big US tech giants slowly reverses as local and regional tech giants emerge. Examples abound but some examples here are MercadoLibre in Latin America or Gojek and Grab in Southeast Asia. In 2020, it became very clear where the action is and I have heard several smart people now say instead of calling it “Developed World versus the Developing World”, we should now call it the Rising versus the Declining World.
There are fortunes to be made by young people with a sense of adventure and a willingness to be a little bit (or ALOT) uncomfortable. The frontier is where opportunities lie as my friend Taylor Pearson says:
“If you were an entrepreneur that wanted to get new things done, a country with a vast frontier is a good place to do it.”
Also instead of scrapping it out in highly competitive places like Wall Street or Silicon Valley, if you get off the beaten track you will have more of the field to yourself. So for young people these days I’d advise you to not “Go West” but “Go to the Southern Hemisphere”! This is where the future growth will be.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 23rd, 2021
“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.” – Tony Robbins
This is one of the best new newsletters out there. My Friend Dmitri started this and I wish I had thought of it. Weekly Actions that will make your life better. Check it out.
https://newsletter.weeklyaction.club/p/weeklyactions-database
2. WOW....this is bit too close to home for many of us I think. Most of us, if we admit it are "looking good not feeling good."
"Maybe you are also fed up with your current way of life, the hiding, the lying, the sense of not being really present with what’s there inside of you. Well, if you work on it, then don’t get your hopes up too much. The reward you get from doing it isn’t particularly great. After many years of this process, the reward is that occasionally you’ll feel good, meaning more connected to yourself and others than you’ve ever felt before in your life, in a warm, cuddly, open, and spacious way. And in plenty, honestly most of the other moments of your life you will feel shit, hateful, angry, sad, lonely, tight, shivery, shaky, and so forth.
And however bleak that is, it’s still a million times better than the perfect story that looks good from the outside."
https://leowid.com/looking-good-vs-feeling-good-a-true-story-about-success/
3. Can't say I was a big fan of social media influencers. Even less so now. F--ing douchebags.
"Social media influencers – who are drawn to the island’s photo-perfect, emerald-green paddy fields, its scenic temples and beaches – have proved a particular problem. “The key for Bali recovery (from the pandemic) is the low number of (Covid-19) cases. But the foreigner who has (online) followers creates content about violating the health protocol, leaving an impression that Bali is not safe,” Niluh said.
Over the past few months, reports of disrespectful, brash stunts, careless partying and even insulting behaviour by social media influencers have angered the public."
4. Glad to see this: Fellow introverts unite!
https://thehustle.co/why-introverts-make-great-leaders/
5. What a wonderful story. This makes me hopeful for humankind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/05/14/college-graduation-uber-passenger/
6. Good health and longevity tips from an expert.
7. "Now that you get the big picture:
1) money printer has gone mad,
2) inflation will likely increase,
3) asset inflation causes problems between rich and poor,
4) Bitcoin solves this by acting as a store of value with a fixed supply and
5) Ethereum – or a competitor similar to Ethereum – will dismantle all businesses with middlemen… It is time to take action! This means you need to get involved."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/beginners-guide-to-the-future-decentralization
8. "If you can’t hold the dollar, what else can you hold? Real estate? Stocks? Bonds? Commodities? They are all underperforming bitcoin. Bitcoin remains the apex predator of financial markets. It is continuing to gain adoption, which can be seen by wallet addresses, trading volumes, on-chain transactions, hash rate, and registered users at various platforms. Bitcoin is winning. It is winning despite the billionaires and Wall Street bankers."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/there-are-no-gods-among-us
9. Not saying the stupid Woke movement in western world is anything like the awful Chinese Cultural Revolution (its no where close....yet), but directionally its not good.
"If you disagree with a company’s woke politics, stop buying their products. Honestly. If you hate the fact that Disney is ultra-woke, but you’re not willing to give up your Disney+ membership, then you may need to rethink your priorities.
Same goes for Woka Cola, or any other major brand.
There’s also the vote you can make with your feet.
If your state or local government has totally lost its mind, consider moving. You can’t fix your neighbors’ way of thinking, but you can might be able to find greener pastures elsewhere."
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/two-ways-to-push-back-against-the-cultural-revolution-32245/
10. "Every great artist and writer in history has been an outlier. Every great entrepreneur, scientist, and technologist has been an outlier. Without robust experimentation, and a culture that protects our weirdest handful, we will absolutely stagnate and decline into oblivion. Among people who feel out of control of their own lives there tends to be an impulse towards aggressively policing the perceived weirdness of others out of existence. Increasingly, such efforts are succeeding. But what’s America without a little chaos every now and then?
High-level, I think it’s always worth asking if you’re on the side that’s burning books, and try to be honest if you are: do you really think you’re the hammer-wielding heroine of this saga, or are you the aging Orwellian villain, terrified of change?"
https://www.piratewires.com/p/making-space-for-monkeys
11. "The data showed that the most significant trait among billion-dollar startup founders is a history of entrepreneurship, whether that's building a company, a side hustle, or a smaller project.
Those who had created something that generated value--even on a small scale that would be considered a failure in the venture capital world--were more likely to go on to found billion-dollar companies than those with shiny resumes filled with brand-name employers and universities."
12. Coming out of the pandemic we have an opportunity for a restart of our lives. Let's not waste it, I know I won't.
"In one recent survey, the specific things people said they yearned for most were traveling (24 percent), visiting family (19 percent), and hanging out with friends (16 percent).
I haven’t been able to find any surveys of what we most don’t miss from pre-pandemic times. But there is research that gives us clues. Studies have shown that spending time on people or activities that bring us down depresses our sense of meaning in life; unpleasant exchanges with bosses, customers, and co-workers lower our sense of well-being."
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/05/happiness-end-pandemic-start-over/618870/
13. I'm a fan personally.
"This kind of financial virtuosity has made Palihapitiya a billionaire, not to mention a hit on social media. He has 1.5 million Twitter followers, a popular weekly podcast, and an audience of day-trading millennials and zoomers who hang on his every word. He’s 44, cocky, blunt, and seems like the kind of guy who’d take pleasure in calling BS on current stock market hype."
14. Sucks to be a tech tycoon in China.
"Today, new rules are fast emerging for China’s wealthiest tycoons: don’t publicly criticize the Party; keep a low profile; give workers a fairer shake; and make state priorities your priorities. “It’s really significant and could have a major impact,” says Rebecca Fannin, author of Tech Titans of China. “These companies had been allowed to flourish without a lot of scrutiny. This crackdown could just be the beginning.”
https://time.com/6048539/china-tech-giants-regulations/
15. "The world may yet explode into another WW2-style conflagration, or the kind of nuclear holocaust we feared during the Cold War. If so, then my bet is that drones will dominate that battlefield. But most of the modern military technologies led themselves to a very different kind of great-power war — a war of constant sniping and harassment.
Assassin drones, cyberattacks, info ops, and bioweapons raise the possibility of never-ending low-grade attacks that are below the threshold of massive retaliation."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-future-of-war-is-bizarre-and
16. "r/WallStreetBets, Crypto, Tinder, NFT’s, wagering — adrenaline! Financial platforms are now trading at a fraction of a second — co-locating at the exchanges and limited only by computing processing speeds. At the May 1 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, Warren Buffett lamented the rise of Robinhood, dubbing it “a very significant part of the casino aspect” of investing today. Guess what? The casino aspect is the point.
The games business is built on adrenaline. According to Grin Gaming founder Nick Bucheleres, the future of entertainment revolves around it. Free to play. Virtual goods. Creator Economy. Mobile. Global. Last year, people spent over a trillion hours watching and interacting with other people playing games! Valve’s Steam platform (including CS:GO and Dota 2) regularly exceeds 25M concurrent users.
And just wait until 5G hits."
https://johnkosner.medium.com/the-adrenaline-economy-9175829ba03b
17. Like many folks watching the Fed's moves, it’s very concerning.
https://www.kevinrooke.blog/investor-letter-004/
18. This is such a great podcast. This show particularly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRZJ_ObyRE4
19. "Sinclair says there are a host of science-backed lifestyle changes people can make in order to live longer. If you want 14 extra years right off the bat, simply do what many doctors recommend: eat less, exercise regularly, stay away from cigarettes, and get enough sleep.
Finally, aim for a mostly plant-based diet: On average, meat is eaten only five times a month in the Blue Zone hot spots, the regions where people live the longest, like Nicoya, Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy; and Okinawa, Japan."
https://www.instyle.com/beauty/health-fitness/reverse-aging-longevity-research
20. "In this bulliest of markets, with prices popping on everything from stocks to bitcoin to corn futures, Litquidity has emerged as a giddy and astute observer of finance high and low, followed by Reddit day traders and private-equity sharks alike."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/litquidity-capital-wall-street-memes.html
21. "Over the past decade, digital nomads leveraged their global mobility to pursue distributed work and borderless living. Many newly remote workers will follow this path in the years ahead. Visas are legitimizing the lifestyle, and startups are emerging to support and simplify globalized hiring. More people will now choose between being a nomad and a settler, as early adopters like me already do.
Nomads already exist as an online and more occasionally offline community, never restricted to just one territory. This puts us in an ideal position to begin organizing and building on the foundations we've laid. Old nation-states and new internet countries will soon come to exist in an ongoing battle to attract and retain the most desirable people as citizens."
https://lraz.io/minimum-viable-state/
22. Pretty interesting. For some odd reason, really in portfolio management these days.
https://www.radigancarter.com/dispatches/the-florentine-portfolio
23. Pomp is crushing it. Setting the roadmap for the Multi-SKU Solopreneur.
https://mobile.twitter.com/anneleeskates/status/1395105774817267712
24. "The US does not have to physically cut off global trade routes like the Ottomans in the 15th century. In the electronic age, the ability to cut off access to the world reserve currency and banking system has just as drastic and immediate consequences to regimes around the world.
The old world powers in Europe and Asia are very much aware of this strategic disadvantage and are constantly looking for ways to lessen the US’s dominance on world trade.....
This is why China started to build the One Belt One Road Initiative and why China is moving full speed ahead with the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) program. China dreams of a day when they have a digital centralized currency which any company that does business in China must use as an end run around the US dollar.
The One Belt One Road Initiative is being built for the same reason Europe launched ships off the map in the Age of Discovery.
China needs to find a way to circumvent and neutralize the maritime power of the US Navy and the soft power of a weaponized US Dollar which threatens to cut it off from global trade."
https://www.radigancarter.com/dispatches/why-i-invest-overseas
25. "China has certainly been willing to incur widespread diplomatic opprobrium in the defense of its declared national interests; witness its mass internment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and its suppression of pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong. An attack on Taiwan would risk vastly more, including massive military damage and punishing economic sanctions – not to mention significant technological setbacks, as a U.S.-China armed conflict would imperil TSMC’s operations."
https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/taiwan-at-the-nexus-of-technology-and-geopolitics/
26. "More important than cash for Hamas, though, is Iranian military know-how and tech. The Iranians have a Manichean view of the world. It is Haq versus Batel, (truth and righteousness against falsehood) and Dar al-Islam (realm of peace and belief) versus Dar al-Harb (realm of war and disbelief). They perceive themselves to be underdogs in a just battle against overwhelming odds — and they fight accordingly."
https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-hamas-became-so-deadly/
27. "It seems that Facebook's private groups have created a kind of dealer economy, where the barriers to entry are just a bit of extra time (which the pandemic has given many of us in spades), a certain level of geekery in whatever you'll be dealing, and the willingness to hold some inventory and take a bit of risk.
Apart from the fact that these dealers operate informally on Facebook, the other main thing that makes them different from old-school dealers is the side-hustle factor. If any of the dealers I've encountered are doing this as a living, I'd be surprised. Mostly it seems they do it in order to participate in their hobby in a way that's subsidized."
https://doxa.substack.com/p/the-dealer-economy
28. "Accurately identifying which new habits — WFH, working out at home rather than gyms, remote meetings rather than business travel, car ownership, the great migration out of cities, food delivery — that formed during Covid are durable vs. ephemeral is going to be essential.
Accurately identifying which cheap consumer cyclicals permanently improved their business models such that they can sustainably grow off 2021 numbers vs. those which did not invest and improve their business models is going to be critical."
29. Super interesting. Good summary of leading gaming trends.
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/gaming-trends
30. "Right now there's a lot of noise from people who believe monetization is the single most important problem for the Creator Economy to solve. I tend to disagree. The real battle in front of us is not monetization, it's ownership. How can you realistically hope to monetize something you don't own? As it stands, creators are giving away ownership at the moment of publication and consumers are renting this content from platforms."
https://uncutfm.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-ownership
31. "If you’re going to take financial advice from an athlete, make sure that athlete’s Shaq.
Did you know 60% of the pro athletes end up broke within 5 years of retiring? They’re not joking when they say professional athletes die two deaths in their lifetime.
Meanwhile, basketball’s friendliest giant is making more money as a retiree than he did during his legendary 19-year NBA career."
https://contrarianthinking.substack.com/p/shaq-400m-from-carwashes-and-franchises
32. Hmmm......
"Instead of only subsidizing us, investors will pay us directly to consume. Instead of protecting our money by keeping it in cash and bonds, we’ll gamble it on bets that, at least, promise to generate a return. And instead of getting paid for productive work, we’ll pay to contribute to projects that give our lives meaning."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/explicit-economics/
33. Useful data on state of VC for investors and founders.
https://www.wing.vc/content/the-sharpest-of-recoveries-the-2021-v21-analysis
34. "Once the purview of heiresses like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, it seems that influencing has become fully democratized, making a Jay Gatsby out of every intrepid Jimmy Gatz. Or as one collab-house press liaison puts it to me:
“It’s the new A-list celebrity except it’s attainable for anybody. You can be in Cleveland, Ohio, alone in your bedroom, and you can get a million followers overnight. That’s fucking crazy. That’s never been possible. Wealth, fame, status has never been more attainable for anyone in the history of the world the way it is right now.”
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/tiktok-house-collab-house-the-anxiety-of-influencers/
35. "People are scrambling for leaders who can give them a sense of what reality is or should be, and we call these community builders. We call these content creators. But really, I think these are reality entrepreneurs.
Fans are not just followers or consumers, but they’re investors in that leader’s model of reality. My friend calls this kaleidoscope theory, where culture fragments into thousands of shards. Each culture plays out its fantasies alongside all the other cultures, and the result is skyrocketing cultural innovation at the cost of shared alignment on anything."
https://www.nfx.com/post/rise-of-reality-entrepreneurs/
36. This is absolutely spot on. Substitute China for Spain, USA for England and this story rings true.
"Problem is the more I thought about this, bitcoin is exactly the right asset at exactly the right time for the CCP, too.
Lets take a step back in time for a moment to show why the CCP is so dangerous. It is not based on strength, but on desperation as you can see from the demographic chart above."
https://www.radigancarter.com/dispatches/bitcoin-weighing-risks-and-life
37. Massive trend in making.
"Play-to-earn games have been life-changing for members of the community. One 75-year-old man plays from 4am to 10pm and says, “This is my only entertainment.” His wife adds, “We’re praying to the Lord that Axie doesn’t go away. It’s how we pay for our medicine.” During the pandemic, playing Axie became a viable source of income in many developing countries: players in the Philippines comprise about 30% of global Axie players; Indonesia comes in second with 15% global share.
What’s fascinating about play-to-earn games is how they foreshadow future labor structures—structures that will become more common in an increasingly-digital, borderless economy.
With new technologies—first, the internet and now, blockchain—there’s no reason that economic classes should be stratified into the investing class and the salaried class. Everyone is an investor. Anyone can trade stocks on Robinhood, buy and sell Axies on OpenSea, or claim an economic stake in someone’s work on Mirror."
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/how-people-in-the-philippines-are
38. Title says it all. Although it might just be because I am old and don't understand.
39. I personally think if you can, always better to be more generous than not. Ie. Tip over and above expectations.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22446361/pandemic-gratuity-covid-service-work
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Let the Sleeper Awake!: Change and Discomfort is Growth
"A Person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without Change, something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The Sleeper must awaken." --Duke Leto Atreides
There is so much depth and insight in Frank Herbert’s classic Sci-fi book “Dune.” This quote happens as the Atreides family is about to leave their watery paradise of Caladan for the water parched but rich desert planet of Dune. This was one of the most profound quotes for me which I didn't really understand or appreciate until much later in my life.
I think we all end up following comfortable routines in our lives. For me, growing up in a very pleasant suburb of Vancouver, Canada, I never expected that I would leave the city let alone the country as a young boy. Life was safe, good & comfortable. Thankfully my parents encouraged me to go take that high school trip to Japan in 1989.
My life was never the same again. Imagine going from a country of less than 25M people at that time to visiting a 30M person metropolis of Tokyo that was in the tail end of an economic boom. My eyes were opened and my perspective expanded dramatically. I was never the same person again. I also attribute my deep love of travel and exploration to this trip. Probably also why Japan still holds a very deep place in my heart.
Humans are wired to dislike change. This goes back to our caveman days where making big changes to our lives could lead to our deaths through starvation or being eaten by sabretooth tigers. The cautious ones lived to pass down their genes, the less cautious did not live to do so. But this was hundreds of years ago. We are in a very different time where the world is changing very quickly and the risks of being eaten or starving have gone down dramatically. In fact, if you aren’t able to adapt to change you risk falling behind in your career and life.
Complacency kills literally. Humans were made to be challenged. I find that when you get too comfortable you literally stop growing both mentally and physically. At the gym, it’ s why you keep adding on weights and why it’s a good thing your muscles are sore after.
Stress is actually a good thing assuming you understand that this is the body giving you signals to step up and overcome. In our present world, a healthy paranoia coupled with a sense of adventure is important.
Change is hard. Discomfort is hard. But as Tim Ferriss says:
“The more you schedule and practice discomfort deliberately, the less unplanned discomfort will throw off your life and control your life.”
And the best way to do this is to change your environment. Travel or take a new role at your company. Or join a new company or maybe even start your own.
Basically if you are not doing something uncomfortable mentally, you probably are not growing, evolving or learning. So let the sleeper in you awake.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Financial Independence is Personal Independence: How to Become More Sovereign
Probably one of the smartest guys on the planet, Balaji S. Srinivasan did a talk on the Network State in February of 2021: Balaji S. Srinivasan: The Network State
The key lesson for me coming out of this is the importance of becoming financially independent.
How to become Financial Independent?
Move away from expensive geographies (goodbye San Francisco & New York City). Cut personal consumption & live like a grad student. Basically digital nomadism and geo-arbitrage. His example: Instead of making $120k & spending $100K to live there, get a remote job and make $120k but live on $40k. Save and invest the rest. Save enough money to last you for a few years and start a company or just continue to invest. This buys you freedom to do whatever you want. Reducing consumption and having less physical stuff gives you more mobility. Mobility is leverage against the state.
These are an extension and a more tactical recommendation from the classic book “The Sovereign Individual.” A Must read by the way.
WHY is this important?
As a well travelled observer, I’ve noticed some things over the last half decade in the western world that have definitely been exacerbated by the encroaching growth of the State and large technology platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon. Even more so during the 2020 Pandemic.
1. Freedom of Speech is diminishing fast as we have seen people on both sides of the political fence be deplatformed or just shut off for no explanation.
2. Cancel Culture Reigns supreme in western World where people are “cancelled” or fired because the unthinking mob deems what they do to be wrong (or thinking differently)
3. Rising Tribalism and Nationalism leading to closed borders. How many countries shut their borders to others in 2020. Pretty much most countries & you learned how useless your passport really is in these situations.
This is why it’s more important than ever for those independent minded people to build resiliency and build geographical as well as financial diversification. Do not be too dependent on one income, or one job or one company. It’s never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. You never know when the cancel mob will come for you, sometimes even based on just one tweet taken out of context or you liking someone's tweet. Yes, it’s becoming that stupid in America, Canada & Western Europe. Insane when we have so many major problems in healthcare, climate and inequality to solve.
For the sane & rational ones among us, we just need to survive through this mess as the world is transitioning fully to the future Information Age. We are moving from a world of farmers staying in one place back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle of old that is now enabled by technology. This is “Digital Nomadism” where one can pick up stakes and go where both the weather and the culture is better or more receptive. One example is the exodus of many talented techies to Miami most recently in 2021 and this is a quality over quantity conversation.
This will be an age where Countries and States will fight for talented people to stay relevant. This transition will happen but it will take a while (like a decade or two). For those who don’t believe this is happening, just take a look at what Singapore, Estonia, Portugal, Georgia, Taiwan, Dubai in Emirates, Finland or North Macedonia are doing. They are all small countries focussing on creating business, capital and immigration friendly policies combined with attractive lifestyles, environments and good infrastructure. They are clearly software centric and forward thinking countries that act as signals for what the future will look like. This is the exact opposite of the old & large lumbering countries and State entities that dominated the 20th Century.
As the famous Schumacher book states “Small is Beautiful.”
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 16th, 2021
“Practice creates the master.” – Miguel Ruiz
Short write up this week. Made the mistake of overcommitting to way too much stuff.
"Almost every decamillionaire I know or have read about is well diversified. Like the centimillionaire crypto investor, there are a few who aren’t, but if you want to be sustainably wealthy, diversification is key.
We regularly discuss diversification strategies here at Nomad Capitalist, including:
Having bank accounts in multiple countries,
Having money that is more than just a number on a bank computer,
Having a cash position,
Having precious metals,
Having real estate investments and rental real estate,
Owning the properties you live in, and
Doing everything within your power to ensure that you don’t have to start over again.
That is, after all, one of the greatest fears of the wealthy. What if it all falls apart?
Being diversified eliminates that threat."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/06/22/how-to-become-a-multimillionaire/
2. "We’re dead serious about staying low-key *for now*.
Why? It is clear. In 2018-2019 it was okay to have some luxury goods. Rolex, a nice car and a nice home. Today? It is no longer as cool/interesting. People lost their jobs. People had their businesses shut down. Well off people lost tons of money and many even went bankrupt.
Back in 2018-2019 driving a flashy car was totally fine. Totally. Fine. In 2021? It is not smart.
Recently, Pop Smoke an up and coming popular rapper was killed by a 15 year old for a Rolex watch. That is insane. The reason? People are suffering. Before? If you had some flash to your lifestyle it was “aspirational” now it is just insulting. You’re driving by as hundreds of people are struggling to survive. Basic living expenses are rising and they lost a huge part of their savings in 2020. Be socially aware!
Start tipping 50% at restaurants when things open up. Tip everyone you can. Waiter, bartender, spa services, auto mechanic, coffee shop, hair salon etc. This will allow you to build up your surrounding community. These individuals will appreciate the money 100x more than you could possibly imagine.
They don’t care about your Lambo. They care about survival."
https://bowtiedbull.substack.com/p/announcements-bet-on-winners-flex
3. "At the end of the day, it’s important to focus on the unit economics of UA which is ultimately what the debt is financing. Compare the cost of capital versus ROI on ad spend over the lifetime of a user gives a predictable spend pattern and it’s pretty simple to model. If you don’t get a positive return on investment on the UA (after pricing in the cost of servicing the debt), don’t draw the credit line and buy ads. Pretty simple when you strip it right back.
It's great to see a wider acceptance of debt funding become mainstream in mobile gaming."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-supercells-180m-credit-facility-metacore-signals-macmillan/
4. This is quite interesting. Title says it all.
"When it comes down to it, I am driven by learning and having two jobs is my way of ensuring I am maximizing my hours and keeping me stimulated. I love getting to use my brain in various ways every day.
With a finite number of years on this planet, I think it’s crucial to be intentional with your time and for me, I feel most fulfilled with these two commitments."
https://caseycaruso.medium.com/engineer-by-day-venture-capitalist-by-night-585929430c21
5. It’s good to be King I guess. World of Super Yachts.
Jeff Bezos and the secretive world of superyachts
6. "My father dealt with racism throughout most of his life by acting as if it had never happened—as if admitting it made it more powerful. He knew bullies loved to see their victims react and would tell me to not let what they said upset me. “Why do you care what they think of you?” he would say, and laugh as he clapped me on the shoulder. “They’re all going to work for you someday.”
“Don’t get even, get ahead,” was another of his slogans for me at these times. As if America was a race we were going to win.
These lessons my father gave me—to be the best you can be, to fight off your enemies and defeat them, to swim to safety if the boat sinks, and in general toughen yourself against everything that would harm you—these I had absorbed alongside certain unspoken lessons, taken from observing his life as a Korean immigrant. To have two names, one American, known to the public, and one Korean, known only to a few intimates; to get rid of your accent; and to dress well as a way to keep yourself above suspicion. Did I need to train like a superhero just to be a person in America? Maybe."
https://www.gq.com/story/korean-fathers-lessons-self-defense
7. "I’m not yet 100% sure this is true, but I am starting to think it might be: seed funds and “accelerators” basically can no longer work together. Choose one path and you self-select out of the other."
https://medium.com/angularventures/the-great-acceleration-of-seed-investing-a3057f7b3b83
8. "Robinhood has become successful in Silicon Valley by following a trajectory similar to that of other tech companies: behaving aggressively in pursuit of fast growth. In the first four months of 2020, more than three million people opened Robinhood accounts, bringing the total number of users to more than thirteen million. The median age of Robinhood’s users is thirty-one; about half of them are first-time investors."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/17/robinhoods-big-gamble
9. This man knows what he is talking about. One of the best Hedge fund guys ever......It's a scary world we are entering now monetary policy wise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScAeHsXIUqI
10. "A side project is an incredible way to bridge the gap and cover the dip as you move between ladders. Just one note: I said, “a side project” not “side projects.”
It’s so easy to get carried away with dozens of exciting ideas, working on each one as motivation and inspiration are there. But if you keep that cycle going it’s so easy to be spread thin between so many projects that will prevent you from making any one of them actually successful."
https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/
11. "But while we might wish that economic life were more pleasant, Milanovic thinks we should face reality. Capitalism has channeled our private vices into public benefits, directing human acquisitiveness into forms of competition that increase our overall well-being. All we can really do is soften it around the edges.
“Capitalism,” he argues, “has successfully transformed humans into calculating machines endowed with limitless needs.” We may be disturbed by the way these calculating tendencies have burrowed into our private lives and eroded our moral commitments, as many left-wing critics of commodification are, but we have chosen to participate, and now there’s no going back."
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/branko-milanovic-capitalism-alone/
12. MONK MODE!
"Monk mode is as much about learning self-discipline as it is engaging in self-improvement. When you manage to sustain monk mode as a way of life you’ll be on your way to cultivating a lifestyle of success. You will be wrapped up in the self-importance of improving all the facets in your life, managing them with a keen eye and watching all your personal investments flourish (much like a stock portfolio.) Your schedule will be so packed that you won’t have time to waste on low quality, frivolously time hungry exercises. If someone’s got something going on and you know you’d get more done doing your own thing, then keep doing your own thing.
You are the basis for your sense of direction; don’t get drawn in by other people’s whims. You should never feel like being the tag-along, you have the ambition, the vision and the determination to keep moving towards the top. Your time is far too valuable to even contemplate wasting it as a “tag along.”
https://illimitablemen.com/2014/04/13/monk-mode/
13. "Financial freedom -> Personal freedom -> Ideological freedom
But what good are you and your wealth without guiding principles to live by? In a world today where we are all starved for leadership, maybe you will find something thirst-quenching in the lessons I’ve learned from the painted warriors."
https://contrarianthinking.substack.com/p/what-i-learned-from-my-navy-seal
14. "The great thing about outbound is every single company I talk to, I'm already interested in investing in them.
90% of the companies Yohei meets with come through his own research and vetting followed by targeted cold outreach. Counter to conventional wisdom about vetting for credibility via closed networks, Yohei vets by product, positioning, and category before connecting with the founders. Because of this, he can form an opinion without being influenced by the typical insular, exclusive signals of the venture funding world. And the state of the business itself can be a testament to the team’s capabilities."
https://automatter.substack.com/p/recap-a-fireside-chat-with-yohei
15. "The world is entering its darkest moment at least since the 1970s, when it saw the Cultural Revolution, Indira Gandhi’s brief dictatorship, and a resurgence of expansionist Soviet authoritarianism under Brezhnev. The key difference is that this time, as Freedom House’s report warns, all of the world’s most powerful countries are trending toward illiberalism at the same time."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-darkness
16. "Ending a partnership — personal or corporate — is generally seen as an admission of failure, and one that sticks. Frequently on administrative forms, the options for marital status are single, married, and divorced. (How is “divorced” a status? Isn’t that just single?) Five years after my own divorce, telling people about it still inspired a depressing mix of pity and judgment from those whose (married) lives rested somewhere between denial and awful.
Companies, likewise, experience shame after a failed marriage. To avoid looking foolish, firms resist writing down the value of an acquisition or selling it outright (as Verizon did with Yahoo). After unwrapping the gifts and evangelizing the synergies to shareholders, they’re loath to admit they were wrong. The disarticulation of any union is expensive and painful, and most people and corporations would be better served to acknowledge the mistake … sooner."
https://www.profgalloway.com/divorce/
17. "Crypto is a non-specific amplifier: it has the potential to create a hypercapitalist libertarian nightmare, or a mutually-beneficial interdependent utopia. One thing I do know is that the only way we can influence which outcome we get is by radically participating in its creation.
This time, the stakes of sitting on the sidelines are too high: the imagined darkest possible timeline a certainty only with our inaction. The call to adventure for every burnt out technologist is, therefore, not to surrender to the mundanity of the Silicon Valley of the past or the imagined outcomes of the future, but to bring our full attention to co-creating meaningful and human-centric digital environments that we can be proud of."
https://gold.mirror.xyz/6ZUtkEg7kR2IM5sjkf74DhHvIehZ6GOfr56rE6wvAog
18. The new cycle begins in Corporate Venture Capital. Why does it feel like they never learn.
https://sifted.eu/articles/corporates-spinning-out-cvc/
19. "Here, we describe an abstraction we call the network union, a social graph organized in a tree-like structure with a leader, a purpose, a crypto-based financial and messaging system, and a daily call-to-action."
https://1729.com/network-union/
20. Interesting.....
"To stick to the example of cars, the fund management industry has not yet seen its Henry Ford. Cars only became affordable mass products once Ford came up with the idea of an assembly line. However, new funds are still assembled by hand, with many professional advisors asking for payments along the way, often for work that is 90% standardised.
Hold that thought and imagine how a "fund assembly line" should look like in the Internet age:
A web platform that lets you choose what kind of fund you want to create, as well as all its features and parameters.
Artificial intelligence software that creates all the documents based on templates, instead of hiring expensive humans each time a document needs to be created.
A commoditised process so cheap that you can easily set up investment funds even if you want to pool a relatively small amount or buy just a single investment.
That's exactly what Vauban.io has created: a digital platform where you can set up and manage a fund without ever having to leave your house. The process is fast and comparatively cheap because everything is automated and web-based. What used to be done by lawyers, will (mostly) be done by artificial intelligence and a proprietary platform."
21. "Long feedback loops, by their very nature, cannot be pleasurable in the way short feedback loops are. Basically: the thrill will disappear. And that’s okay.
In the best case scenario, we create routines to hypnotize ourselves into repetition. We have loved ones and mentors who tell us to keep going, and help us figure out when we’re on the wrong track. We look for signs that we’re getting better, but we also understand that the process of getting really, really good at something sometimes just feels like a incoherent slog. If we’re lucky and resourceful and creative, we’ll eventually break through the membrane and find ourselves on the other side we’ve been clawing towards for so long."
https://ava.substack.com/p/long-feedback-loops
22. "The reasons we do not have an approved aging drug today are not due to the science - the biological blockers to a first-generation aging drug have been clear for at least ten years. The primary reasons there are no approved aging drugs today are much more tricky - they are regulatory, societal, structural, and cultural.[a]"
https://www.celinehh.com/aging-field
23. I fully agree with this advice. Its served me well too.
"I focused on learning potential at pretty much the cost of anything else, and it’s served me well. What a lot of young people don’t understand is that if you bet on increasing your learning potential, your earning potential compounds over time. The money will be there if you gather differentiated skills the market values (my knowledge of obscure electronic music, for some reason, is not one of those skills the market values).
This advice is fairly easy applicable and, I think, well understood by a lot of people. If you are making a choice between learning and earning, the former will almost always make sense not only from a happiness perspective, but also from a financial perspective long-term. I want to talk about what happens after you self-actualize in this direction."
https://caseyaccidental.com/personal-mission
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Builders as Venture Capitalists: The Paypal Mafia leading the Charge (As Always!)
Technology and platforms are shifting so fast these days that it is very hard to keep up. More so if you used to be an operator and become an investor. This is why it’s important that everyone, especially Investors should make or build something.
The biggest reason is you get far more insights from the frontline. You also gain a practical edge of understanding the process of creating (or where there are gaps). Sahil, founder of Gumroad & angel investor is an example of this. He built his startup on top of Stripe and this was what allowed him to get early insight into Stripe and how fast they were growing. Or the founders of Shippo or Klaviyo who had early insight into the Shopify ecosystem and how much business they were getting from Shopify stores. They saw the monster growth happening at Shopify back in 2015. I really wish I bought Shopify stock back then.
And no surprise the Paypal mafia is very far ahead on this. Looking at recent examples:
Max Levchin’s Sci-Fi VC (formerly HVF) started Glow and Affirm.
Joe Lonsdales 8VC incubated Quaestor among others
Khosla Ventures when Keith Rabois was there, started the now publicly traded Open Door
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund helped start Anduril Industries and Varda Space.
You use your skills as an investor to be a talent scout and conductor for building a company.
Thinking like a builder, you can go look at spaces and find conceptual gaps which helps you as an investor evaluating deals. Building in a sector or space, leads to all the dealflow coming to you and your firm. Additionally, the more you are a builder, the more respected you are by founders.
Despite the risks of and accusations of lack of focus when both building and investing at the same time. There are now some clear albeit exceptional cases where the skills and insight do compound and become a virtuous cycle. Watch this development closely!
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Hard Times Breed Hard People: Necessity Facilitates Innovation & Opportunity
There is much to learn from history. I recommend the Netflix series“Age of the Samurai” which detailed the surprising rise of great lord Oda Nobunaga. He was a lord from an obscure, factionalized, tiny clan of a tiny province surrounded by larger and more powerful enemies in the Sengoku Warring States period.
This forced him to utilize technology (guns), finding untapped & overlooked resources (Ashigaru peasant foot soldiers). They also introduced new tactics and changed the rules of fighting utilizing surprise/night fighting. Oda also raised the level of brutality and ruthlessness at the same time, so much so they called him the “Demon King of the Six Heavens”
That’s how they won over bigger and more conventionally trained enemies. This allowed him to conquer and unify most of central Japan after almost 300 years of chaos.
Ironically, the same forces of privation and necessity also created one of his fiercest enemies during his rule. The Iga from a small/ poor province of the same name, has to adapt by utilizing irregular warfare to fight larger more conventional enemies. They became particularly adept at infiltration, espionage, assassinations & pioneered the use of explosives and poison. These folks are what we now know as Ninjas. They were in the end only pacified by much effort, time and overwhelming force in a policy of what we would now call genocide.
What can we learn from this? Many of us just came out of a brutal 2020 pandemic lockdown.
I think this pain and suffering has sadly broken many people and we will be dealing with a mental health epidemic for a long time. But it has also created a new generation of mentally strong individuals who until last year had a fairly smooth ride. Great challenges and suffering are the crucible that strength & character comes from. This pain and these challenges are also what pushes them to find new insights or ways of thinking. Otherwise known as innovation.
The best startups came out of the carnage of 2000 and 2001, as well as the Great Financial Crisis from 2008-2009. It’s the analogy of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. They need to feel great pain breaking out of the cocoon but it’s this process that strengthens their wings.
This is why I would only invest in founders who have done “hard” or crap jobs. This is why I would only hire people who have had some setbacks in life but have persevered, grown and learned from these setbacks. These are people who are proven and are less likely to fold when things go wrong. This is a better signal of potential and success to me than any of the outdated credentials like where one went to school or where one worked before.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 9th, 2021
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” — Benjamin Franklin
Personal Appeal: please support this kickstarter for a Children’s book. I’m biased but it’s a great project. For all fans of Asian food & Night Markets.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arielchang/night-market-0
2. Here is to the rise of weirdos!
"Talent aside, this is Doja’s charm: To her fans, she is proof that there’s room for the weird kids at the top."
3. "The same year People crowned Jordan the Sexiest Man Alive, he was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people for his work pushing Hollywood toward better racial diversity onscreen and behind the scenes, both above and below the line.
But he is still in uncharted waters. He’s a young man navigating an industry where every choice for Black creatives is one of consequence and responsibility, and he’s stepping into a period in his life when he’s fully aware of his purpose—and calling all the shots.
“I’m playing to be autonomous,” he says. “That’s liberation, because you’re really controlling your own destiny, and it gives you the freedom to make an impact where you see fit. It’s like, ‘All right, I can do what I need to do, when I need to do it, and there’s no asking."
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a35651743/michael-b-jordan-without-remorse-interview/
4. "So the choice is now: “I’m going to find this niche obscure thing, or I’ll get the mass market thing.” It’s either Paul Skallas or Malcolm Gladwell. Aesop Rock or ASAP Rocky. Boutique brand or Amazon. You get the idea.
And you’d think removing friction creates a more level playing field — if it’s easier to find & purchase someone’s products, you’d think consumers would pick the easiest option. But that’s not always the case. Instead we see the familiar barbell with global mega hits on one side and a long tail of niche creators on the other."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-middle
5. "So here is where I come out on all of this after having the weekend to think more deeply about it. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are two of the greatest investors in history. They have not performed well during the internet age. There is a big gap between what they know (cash flow focused industrial age companies) and the most valuable companies in the world (software businesses). This isn’t a bug, it is a feature.
As the saying goes, “what got you here, may not get you there.” Should we really expect anything different from two investors who have historically stayed away from anything that wasn’t a cash-flowing business? Of course not. We should simply understand that their expertise in one area does not necessarily mean that they have expertise in another area."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/buffett-and-munger-highlight-bitcoins
6. "Miami makes even more sense as an outpost for international technology when you realize that it's been the Singapore of Latin America for generations...... It's an entrepôt that has always welcomed entrepreneurs, it deserves its success, and it's a great place to build technology.
For many years, international technologists have been aware of what's been happening in Silicon Valley, but often not vice versa. Now that is changing. In the remote economy, in the cryptoeconomy, in the Starlink economy, in the post-COVID economy, real estate is being repriced worldwide. Dense cities are less valuable and time zone colocation is more valuable. Asia is rising and traditional capitals are falling. It's not just about Miami or Austin anymore, but about Estonia, Singapore, Taiwan, Israel, Dubai, and New Zealand — and about Culdesac, Starbase, and Prospera.
And that's the fourth lesson of Miami Tech Week: startup cities are now feasible because the market for cities is now manifest. The overnight collapse of Silicon Valley, California as the undisputed tech capital means that cities are suddenly just as subject to competitive pressure as tech companies and national currencies."
7. "The web in its current state is like a city without public spaces. People can only interact in places owned by someone else, and a small group of landlords captures an oversized share of all economic activity.
Cryptocurrencies offer an alternative. Most people think of bitcoin when they hear the word crypto. They think of trading and speculation and “digital gold” and whatnot. But the more interesting aspects of cryptocurrencies are the ones that are abstract and harder to explain: the infrastructure that currencies run on and how applications that have nothing to do with trading or speculation can use this infrastructure.
This infrastructure is still young and relatively unproven. But it is fascinating and offers a glimpse of a possible future — even if that future might end up relying on entirely different technologies to achieve the same ends."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-token-society/
8. USA is one woke mess but agree Basecamp did not manage this well either.
"Fried and Hansson’s moves last week, and the discussion around them, revealed clear fault lines between executives and workers that go far beyond Basecamp. Founders at Coinbase, Basecamp, and other companies have sought to quash internal dissent that, in their view, distracts workers from the company mission and makes everyone miserable. To a manager, the exchange that led to Singer’s departure could lend credence to the idea that addressing social injustices on company Zoom calls is bound to be disastrous.
Meanwhile, employees at those companies have recoiled at what appear to be transparent efforts to prevent their workplaces from becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive."
https://www.platformer.news/p/-how-basecamp-blew-up-8c7
9. Interesting M&A approach from Apple.
"Apple has used acquihires to speed expansion in fields where it needs technical talent or it sees a specific technology that could set it apart from its rivals. While the acquihire is a common technique among big tech companies, Apple's near-exclusive focus on smaller transactions sets it apart.
"We have seen companies such as Google, Facebook, Intel and Amazon going for many billion-dollar deals," said Nicklas Nilsson, analyst at GlobalData, a firm that tracks M&A transactions. "Apple is buying more smaller startups while others spend more on established players."
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/01/how-apple-does-ma-small-and-quiet-with-no-bankers.html
10. I love this. Patent trolls are scum.
"A few years ago, Cloudflare got its first patent troll lawsuit, and decided to take Newegg's never settle strategy and kick it up a notch or three. Instead of just saying it wouldn't settle, Cloudflare set out to completely destroy the patent troll who sued it (an operation called Blackbird Technologies). In response to the lawsuit, Cloudflare launched something called Project Jengo, in which it sought to crowdsource prior art not just for the patent used against Cloudflare, but every single patent in Blackbird's portfolio -- and to hand out cash awards to those who found such prior art. It also went after the lawyers at Blackbird for violating legal ethics rules.
Cloudflare's campaign against Blackbird was a huge success. The company easily won in court and Blackbird became a shell of its former self. Prior art was discovered on some of its patents, the firm filed way fewer troll lawsuits, and it appeared that its staff had dwindled."
11. "To that end – in this Digital Age, to build wealth and gain influence, your goal should be to embrace anyone and anything that can expand your network. The people that promote you and your work are valuable to you. The people and advertising mechanisms that can extend your reach are valuable to you. Most importantly, your ability to create ways of gathering, organizing, and retaining your network into communities is what will drive value on a personal level.
In the Digital Age, the most important network nodes have become the people and information that meaningfully contribute to the global network. The more that people that join and are effectively organized into communities and the more information that is productively curated into actionable information, the more value the network has."
https://dougantin.com/global-network-value-in-the-digital-age/
12. I think this is a good thing. Also smart thing in this day and age.
“They are not sharing celebratory instances with broader social groups right now because they don't want to get lynched and they want to be perceived as responsible people with the larger social circle online,” she says.
“The same people are sharing celebratory instances within their smaller social circle via WhatsApp.”
13. "Employees are going to vote with their feet and I feel for People Ops teams who are going to be having a tremendous number of emotional conversations."
https://hunterwalk.medium.com/the-great-talent-reshuffling-of-2021-has-begun-d587c019ed89
14. Reading this, no wonder most founders fear, don't trust and/or hate VCs.
"Zhu's firing has blossomed into a bizarre saga that hits on many of the classic Silicon Valley cultural touchpoints: founders who don't act like conventional businessmen, the search for additional productivity through drug use, and the risks of talking openly about the pressures of the job. It’s also a story steeped in the tense ethnic politics that are currently roiling the tech community and American society at large."
15. "The big picture plan is as follows: 1) you are underpaid at your job/career. Why do we know? No one hires someone who is unprofitable otherwise they would go out of business.
So. Step 1 is knowing that you can always do better and are currently underpaid;
2) step two is a second income stream. No excuses. There are blue collar workers who follow our website that created online income streams related to their work (car repair, home repair etc.) that generate multiple 6-figures online;
3) you do this by building it up while you’re not working. If you have “rules” to follow you simply start a business under the name of a family member. If you cannot trust a single person to help you build a business, your life is in terrible shape & you need to ramp up creativity;
4) while investing is cool, you *MUST HAVE* laser focus on two income streams first. If you have two of them, investing becomes more important. An income stream is defined as anything that pays living expenses – Rent, food, drinks & utilities & 5) once you have a business up and running, you *can* quit *if you want* when it is generating 2x more than you make at your current job/career.
https://bullbowtie.substack.com/p/bowtiedbull-faq-will-be-updated-over
16. "First, China seems less likely to start a world war than Imperial Japan. China has much less of a need for external conquest, its military is not used to conquering places, and it has centralized, consolidated rule that will not let it be pushed into war by rogue factions. Other than a general sense of having been oppressed and humiliated by the West, China has none of the motives for war that Imperial Japan had.
BUT, if China does end up going to war with the West — or even have a protracted Cold War type struggle — it will be an infinitely more dangerous foe than Japan ever could have been. It’s far larger, with endless manpower and manufacturing capacity and vast stores of natural resources. And it has a fearsomely effective and centralized decision-making apparatus. The U.S. was able to overcome Imperial Japan alone, while fighting a two-front war; against China, it could probably only hope to prevail with a significant number of powerful allies."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/contemporary-china-vs-imperial-japan
17. Very observant view.
"Cars. Fashion. Fitness. Sex. Who cares? These things are not important. In San Francisco, we value “ideas.” In New York, we value “greatness.” But let’s attempt a little self-awareness. The physical stuff of San Francisco and New York is literally crumbling, which is something most reasonable people, including reasonable people from San Francisco and New York, find alarming.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence the most openly materialistic city in America also appears to be the American city most committed to new construction, chief among this new construction housing, which accommodates new people, with new ideas and new businesses, which generates new wealth and perpetuates the whole dynamic cycle. Lambo culture isn’t some shameful “other thing” that’s happening in Miami. Lambo culture seems to be the engine driving this entire city forward."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/misery-and-joy
18. Fascinating thread on the super wealthy.
https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1389588498315939844
19. Shades of the Weekend Fund but I think these operator-run micro VC funds are awesome.
20. Yikes. Been there!
"When several employees publicly state: “I found out about this from Jason Fried’s public blog post”, then it’s unambiguously the CEO who’s at fault. He should have ensured that the decisions were adequately communicated to staff before making them public. You can make excuses for him, but, at best, these never rise above ‘whoops! he broke something’.
He still broke something, didn’t apologise, and, as CEO, is ultimately responsible no matter what. He prioritised getting ahead of potential leaks over ensuring good internal communications. No matter how you slice that, that’s pretty irresponsible management right there."
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2021/you-are-what-you-do/
21. Learned something new.
"What’s important to recognize here is that this isn’t something that requires someone to be a huge celebrity, just someone that’s popular in their own particular sect.
And I believe that social media layers on cues that strengthen these quasi-parasocial (IE: very light communication, through likes or retweets or the occasional reply) or parasocial relationships.
Someone following you on Twitter creates a certain level of attachment - we believe that we are connected somehow, even if said follow never actually results in any kind of other reaction."
The weight of certain social media-based reactions is such that we can, in our minds, say that we “know” someone that we don’t."
https://ez.substack.com/p/how-parasocial-relationships-have
22. "Indeed, there are, as you might have seen, a lot of others in the market pursuing the “FBA rollup” model — consolidating businesses that have been built on the back of Fulfillment by Amazon, with the pitch being they can apply more sophisticated economies of scale, analytics and management to grow great cottage industries into high rises, so to speak. But Razor believes its point of differentiation is its focus on technology to improve its responsiveness to the market, both when it comes to identifying and buying brands, and then growing them.
It’s a big opportunity. By one estimate there are about 5 million third-party sellers on Amazon today, and their ranks are growing exponentially, with more than 1 million sellers joining the platform in 2020 alone. Thrasio has in the past estimated to me that there are probably 50,000 businesses selling on Amazon via FBA making $1 million or more per year in revenues."
23. I would never move to Guernsey but love the concept and they are definitely doing it right.
"One likely winner are micro-jurisdictions – countries such as Singapore, Monaco, or Liechtenstein. These small countries tend to be faster at political decision-making, and during times of crisis they often benefit from a higher degree of societal cohesion. Their agility and stability will prove an asset during the coming years of rapid change and potentially unprecedented turmoil."
24. "Inflation is not some potential issue down the road. Inflation is already here.
As Warren Buffett told investors only days ago, “We’re seeing very substantial inflation.”
25. I will admit, I was a bit surprised and saddened by this. Guess there are many lessons here. Marriage is just tough.
https://time.com/6046072/bill-melinda-gates-divorce-couples-therapists/
26. "So how do we get the best of cities and the best of the internet? What if creative, ambitious people found each other online and then decided to get together in the same place?
It's not the place that matters, it's the density of creative ideas and interesting people. When I think about where I meet interesting people, it’s increasingly not in a physical place at all. It’s on Twitter threads and Discord channels and WhatsApp groups.
In the Facebook era, people met in person and then became “friends” online. But it makes more sense to do the opposite: find your friends online and then meet up in person."
https://www.meatspacealgorithms.com/decentralized-cities/
27. Very interesting data that I am sure VCs will be putting in their decks.
"This new analysis shows half of all VC funds launched between 2009 and 2017 generated returns to investors, net of all management and performance fees, that outperformed the public market equivalents (PME) of both the S&P 500 and Russell 2000."
https://dan-malven.medium.com/why-institutional-investors-should-double-down-on-vc-5a0f103c1ae9
28. "TL;DR It's never been easier than it is today to be a creator. To create content online. To find an audience. To monetize. And that — that's absolutely amazing because we're seeing more and more creators emerge. We're witnessing a rebirth and renewal of connection that technologies previously disrupted. And we're only at the beginning. The Creator Economy is representing an important shift in our society — for creators, but also for consumers."
https://uncutfm.substack.com/p/creator-economy-how-did-we-get-here
29. This is a credible new VC fund for Europe.
"You’re looking at utilizing software, automation, and machine learning. If you look at any industry that is what happened – software is eating it up. It touches every component of your process from discovering companies to managing them, evaluating them, helping them with support. So we still have our thesis-driven approach, but what we’re doing is pairing it with software, like a bionic suit, so this is how to augment what we do and do it bigger and better.”
He added: “The European ecosystem is a lot bigger today, so relying on gut instinct, relationships, networking is not going to be efficient. Utilizing software is going to be critical for us."
30. It's a fascinating take & alot of folks (on East Coast) will disagree.
"Over the course of 2020, public health failed, public schools failed, fire departments failed, and police departments failed. National, state, and local governments failed. Media corporations failed and even the US military failed. Just about every Western institution run by a political heir failed, because it was presented with the unanticipated shock of COVID-19. The widgets these heirs' factories were cranking out were no longer suited for the occasion. And their failure has caused a crisis of faith in American institutions specifically, and in the postwar order more broadly.
Where heirs failed, founders succeeded. The internet stayed up. The state couldn't deliver checks, but Amazon could deliver packages. The legacy universities were closed but the MOOC platforms were open. The restaurants were shuttered but the delivery apps were shipping. The media corporations reported that the virus was at best a remote threat while the tech companies prepared for remote work. And the billions spent on military biodefense didn't do much (see above), but the millions invested in Moderna did."
https://1729.com/founding-vs-inheriting/
31. "My biggest takeaway from Munger's comment is to recognize that everyone thinks they're a great investor because everything is going up. Coinbase and Robinhood have been on top of the US App Store leaderboard all week, ahead of TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
It seems like everyone is on high alert for the next big thing, and most won't get what they're looking for.
If there was ever a time to turn off your phone and stick to your investing strategy, it is this moment right now."
https://www.kevinrooke.blog/investor-letter-002/
32. "Basically, there are structural inefficiencies that prevent incumbents from competing. And they did it to themselves because for the last 100 years they put up all of these barriers of lobbying and regulation. Now, they can’t compete."
https://www.nfx.com/post/outsider-to-spac-in-six-years/
33. "In fact, the government could also pay signing bonuses to companies that hire workers at significantly higher wages than what they were paying before — a temporary wage subsidy. Not only would that provide additional impetus to hire, it would help normalize the habit of offering higher wages to attract workers.
So these policies could help kick the labor market out of its current doldrums and produce the rapid recovery we’re all expecting from the end of COVID. They won’t represent a rejection of Pandemic UI — instead, they’ll simply represent an acknowledgement that as conditions change, policy has to change too. Pandemic UI was never meant to be permanent, and it’s time to replace it with something better."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/lets-give-a-fond-farewell-to-pandemic
34. "But our idolatry of innovators and the algorithmic media ecosystem have distorted the allocation platform. In the spectacle economy, it’s about the show, the now, the short-term hit. We’re the richest country in the history of humanity, and we can’t garner the political will to fix our bridges, let alone reach for the stars."
"If there is a glitch in the matrix, it’s us. One in five U.S. households with children is food insecure, and we have a man telling his 53 million acolytes to purchase a digital currency so he can sell it at a profit to pad the earnings of a company that’s worth more than automakers producing 60 times the vehicles. And why wouldn’t he? When you tell an innovator he’s Jesus Christ, he’s inclined to believe you. Once we idolized astronauts and civil rights leaders who inspired hope and empathy. Now we worship tech innovators that create billions and move financial markets. We get the heroes we deserve."
https://www.profgalloway.com/the-martian/
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Be Long Term Greedy
Paraphrasing Goldman Sach’s Gus Levy, this has been my hard learned attitude from being in the tech industry & business in general for the last 2 decades. Growing up in Canada, my experience of the general culture was that it was pessimistic, parochial, cynical & small minded (thank you British Empire). It was culture shock for me when I first moved to the San Francisco Bay area in the late 90s.
The Tech industry was fast emerging and the culture was optimistic and cooperative. “Pay it Forward” was the dominant culture. You also learned to not cut “winner take all deals”, basically you always leave something on the table in business negotiations. It might sound utopian but there were very practical reasons for this.
The tech industry is incredibly dynamic and yet somewhat small despite its massive growth. So someone who is a nobody today, could be a billionaire tomorrow. Someone who is working at a startup, which would usually be acquired by Google or Facebook or Salesforce and then end up running a key part of their business. The person you end up screwing in a deal, will most likely end up on the other side of the table down the road. And with way more power and leverage over you, plus a long memory. So it just does not pay to purposely screw someone over if you intend on having a long career in the tech business.
As an early stage investor, you are always surprised. What attracted me to the pre-seed and seed stage is that you are basically in the human potential business. You are investing in the arc of the entrepreneurs career. I used to be very judgemental on someone’s potential: the reality that I’ve learned over the years is that you really never know. The winners turn in losers and vice versa. But most folks who stick it out never stay down for long and this is why this industry is so challenging and encouraging at the same time.
The key Lesson: Never ever write anyone off. Think Win-win. And probably the most important point: It really does pay to be Optimistic ie. Be Long term Greedy.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
How to Make “Remote Work” Work for you
For those fortunate to be doing paid knowledge work, 2020 was a blessing as formerly anti-remote workplaces were forced to allow it from the government mandated lockdowns.
I’ve been a proponent for Remote work since the mid 2000s, having experienced it as an executive based out of San Francisco/Sunnyvale while my team and business group were split between London, Geneva, Dubai, Mumbai, Barcelona and serving customers and partners across the entire EMEA region (Europe/Middle East & Africa in case you were wondering).
And this was before the days of Zoom video calls, Slack, Google Docs in case you were wondering. We did it via painful conference call lines, Yahoo! Messenger & expensive mobile phone calls. I would get a text from finance admonishing me for having one of top 10 most expensive phone bills every month for the last 4 years of my tenure at Yahoo!
Well, this has now become the more mainstream new reality in the post 2020 covid world.
The big questions:
How do you manage time zones when working with people all over the world?
How to optimize your life around this?
You will end up having weird hours and it’s something you have to accept. My days at Yahoo! were crazy. I was on the road most of the time. But when I was home in San Francisco, I would start my week on sunday evening. Kicking off the week on team calls if they were in Asia or Europe. I’d do calls for a few hours, then sleep for 5-6 hours and get up to do more calls until Europe's evening, my late morning.
I’d save the afternoon for email, coordinating with key folks in HQ in California & do any deep work. And sometimes take a nap or do the gym. Early evening was for family time and then the calls would begin. Needless to say this was not sustainable. Also something I did because I was younger and didn't know any better.
But I did learn some key lessons since then and have adapted a schedule that worked better for me (and was much healthier).
1) I’ve gotten better at utilizing the weird hours by batching video calls/meetings into specific mornings or evenings. Preferably 3-4 days a week at most for me.
2) Saving specific blocks of time where my time zone did not overlap with my teams, clients or colleagues. This time was when I could relax, do the reading, writing and thinking, all components of valuable “Deep Work” as coined by Cal Newport.
3) The Batching of tasks. Something I’m still trying to get better at. Ie. not checking email & slack so frequently
4) The weird working hours can be tough but it does open up much time with family and friends.
5) Also the lack of office face time gives you better control of your schedule and forces you to focus on real work that drives visible results. I will not be surprised that many companies will end up firing a large portion of their staff because they realized many of them don’t really do any real work.
There are aspects of the in-office workplace I miss. The camaraderie and serendipity that happens when you run into . But to really make remote work work, you have to force yourself to schedule and plan better. And basically be much more deliberative in what you do, how you do it and when. Not a bad thing.
And considering that most big companies have publicly stated they will not be opening their offices until this september, a good part of 2021 will be similar to how we spent 2020. Remote work is something we need to get used to. It’s here to stay for a while so we might as well get good at it.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads May 2nd, 2021
“For the master, surrender means there are no experts. There are only learners.” ― George Leonard
"Making hard decisions can cause analysis paralysis aka FOBO (Fear of better options). It can lead to indecisiveness or what I call, half in half out decisions. And as we face more hard decisions on a daily basis, our minds can become fatigued from the constant weighing of options.
We also experience analysis paralysis and doomsday scenario building. When we drag our feet with making hard decisions even when we know the decision we ought to make. We do this when our minds come up with crazy disaster outcomes from the choices we contemplate."
https://dougantin.com/a-guide-to-making-hard-decisions/
2. "In particular, as you get a little bit older, the greatest secret that has been the most liberating thing to me was as soon as I stopped trying to be right all the time, everything clicked. Everything. When I stopped trying to be right and instead to be loving, or instead to learn something, everything else, all that insecurity, fell away. That artifice and bravado vanished. I really found projects and life fulfilling in ways that I hadn’t before, which is part of what our Wrexham journey is about. I don’t want to be right; I want to learn."
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a35928206/rob-mcelhenney-ryan-reynolds-interview/
3. Cool story.
"The product she would eventually create — Liquid Paper, a white correction fluid used to conceal handwritten or printed typos — would become one of the world’s most popular and enduring office supplies.
Graham wasn’t a chemist or an engineer. She was a single mom from Texas who had a brilliant idea while working a 9-to-5 job as a secretary.
But she was also a budding product marketing genius: Over several decades, she identified a need in the market, organically grew her business, staved off competition, and bootstrapped her way to a $47.5m exit — $173m in today’s money.
And she did it all during a time when women were discouraged from pursuing business ventures."
https://thehustle.co/the-secretary-who-turned-liquid-paper-into-a-multimillion-dollar-business/
4. I have this problem myself.
https://radreads.co/trevor-lawrence/
5. Form Capital: One of the top new micro VC Funds coming out. They have a very differentiated offering and I have heard good things.
"I do think there are a number of funds that raised more than they should have; I think there’s a danger zone somewhere around $80 million where you’re forced to be a lead investor and you can’t be a collaborative investor and so it becomes this slug-it-out, duke-it-out [situation] with other other funds as to who’s going to be the lead writer on a given deal . . .
part of the joy of being a small fund manager is more flexibility in terms of constructing a portfolio. In the cases where we may get squeezed down a little bit, or we want to invest at a slightly higher valuation than is typical, we can paint outside the lines a tiny bit more."
6. Jeff Yass & SIG, the Hedge Fund Powerhouse very few have heard of.
"Yass bootstrapped Susquehanna in part with startup capital plucked from racetrack pots and poker tables in the 1970s and early 1980s. He then applied his gambling instincts to options markets during the 1980s bull market, and his skill for handicapping odds and finding an edge set him apart. Yass’s number one trading rule is also the mantra of every poker pro: there is no surer way to win, than to bet against someone who is dumber or less experienced than you, otherwise known as the “mark” at any poker table. On Wall Street, Robinhood is in the business of cultivating and serving up millions of marks daily.
“All of sports betting, all of playing poker, and all of options trading is making sure you’re betting against someone you’re smarter than,” Yass told the Bet The Processpodcast a year ago. “If you’re not asking yourself, am I the sucker, or am I the [bait], you get arrogant and you get crushed.”
7. Great write up on Prospera in Honduras. One of the latest and most promising Charter cities. ht/ Garrett.
"The idea behind charter cities is: Shenzhen, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the rest of the rich world aren’t rich because their citizens are morally superior to those of their poorer neighbors. They’re rich because they have better legal systems, less corruption, stronger rule of law, and more competent administrators.
Próspera’s not a place, it’s a platform. It’s a government with a charter, laws, legislators, officials, contracts, partnerships, etc. Anywhere can become part of Próspera - if someone has land in a totally different part of Honduras and wants to be part of Próspera they can."
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera
8. "the way that you earn reputations in both cultures is by facing challenges and overcoming them successfully. In commerce, the way you earn trust and status is by finding opportunities to do a hard kind of commerce, that people really want, and then successfully following through. Same with software development: the way you earn trust and status is by finding opportunities to take on hard, complex problems, that people really want solved, and then successfully following through.
Without those challenges, these worlds stop working. The participants’ purpose requires challenge, and requires unforeseen stressors. Without them, commerce becomes frictionless, low-trust Amazon purchases. Without them, software development becomes just a 9-to-5 chore with no joy or craft."
https://alexdanco.com/2021/04/24/worldbuilding-and-antifragility/
9. "One of the best analogies I've heard: When a musician starts out, they're playing at a dive bar for like 10 people. And then at some scale, they end up headlining Coachella and there's hundreds of thousands of people in the stands. But when they're in the little dive bar, after they're done playing, they go have a beer with everyone and meet them. And the bigger you get, you kind of lose that connection with people. So that's what we're trying to solve."
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/04/25/icebreakers-cameo-ceo-steven-galanis
10. What a great write up on Miami. I kind of want to visit now after over a decade.
https://devonzuegel.com/post/field-notes-miami
11. "You should not think of investing as a method of preparing for retirement. Instead, you should think of it as a tool for empowering the lifestyle you want at various life stages. Lifestyle investment strategies are different from much of the common investment advice out there. It’s a method that promotes adaptation, short and medium term planning, and a willingness to take on risk."
https://dougantin.com/why-lifestyle-investment-strategies-should-constantly-evolve/
12. Not quite the same as feudalism......but.....
"A thousand years ago, noblemen, from time to time, became overly confident in their ability to keep the serfs on the farmland and demanded taxes beyond the customary “one day’s labour in ten”. When they did, the serfs of old often voted with their feet and simply moved. Today, this is still possible.
If the reader presently contributes more than one day’s labour in ten to his government, he may wish to consider voting with his feet."
https://internationalman.com/articles/escaping-serfdom/
13. Their company, they can do what they want. I think its a good idea.
"It's precisely that. We're compressing X to allow for expansion in Y. A return to whole minds that can focus fully on the work we choose to do. A return to a low-ceremony steady state where we can make decisions and move on. A return to personal responsibility and good faith trust in one another to do our own individual jobs well. A return to why we started the company. A return to what we do best."
https://world.hey.com/jason/changes-at-basecamp-7f32afc5
14. "But although the fact hasn’t received much media attention, China’s government has stumbled badly on a couple of things in the past few years. These state failures aren’t big enough to threaten the country’s development, but they’re small narrative violations that may indicate that the omnipotence of China’s rulers has been oversold.
It’s not clear yet whether China is suffering some kind of long-term institutional issues — ossification of vested interests, complacency, internal struggles, etc. — or whether it’s simply the case that no government can win them all. But observers outside China should quietly take note of the government’s modest stumbles, and question any tacit assumptions of Chinese state omnipotence they may hold."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/chinas-government-is-starting-to
15. This will end well. NOT. But no surprise as it is a bull market.
"Many employers are experiencing an exodus in the workforce of young people who are looking to make their fortune trading amidst the current crypto bull run."
https://www.coindesk.com/young-koreans-crypto-wealth-alernative
16. "From getting us through the most extreme lockdown to emerging as a cryptocurrency stock almost overnight, it’s been a big year for memes. But while the burgeoning impact of memes can be felt across various industries (including those NOT owned by Elon Musk), it's the entertainment industry that appears to have massively capitalised on these humorous short snippets of content."
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kv99e/music-producers-memes-viral-remixes-tiktok-reels
17. No surprise. The Oscars suck. And pretty much have for the last decade.
https://mgs.medium.com/2021-oscars-ratings-ouch-9d995a39bafb
18. I like this.
"I always thought I was actively carving myself a path towards freedom. Or at least I thought I was. After reading his tweet over and over again, I realized I wasn’t.
I’m living in my dream apartment, dating an amazing partner, making good money, living in my favorite neighborhood in the world, and have a tight circle of friends.
But none of that means I’m free.
Sure, I can buy a fancy car and book a cabin in the mountains for the weekend. But where would my mind be on that drive?
It would be running through what work I’m behind on, which clients I need to check in with, and endless plans to grow quicker and go faster.
It wouldn’t be on the road. And that’s my point. That’s why I’m not free, because I know if I bought that car and booked that cabin, I still wouldn’t be present."
https://www.theproofwellness.com/freedom-is-an-open-road
19. Lots of good quotes here from one of the most underrated & hated short sellers around. Muddy Waters. I understand his rage.
"Block runs a small firm — its assets are now around $260 million — but punches above his weight in influence.
Block, says Anderson, isn’t just “messing” with people for fun. “He enjoys holding truth to power. He’s going after people who are running scams and crooked management teams and their supporters, whether it be investment banks or auditors who are earning handsome fees to look the other way.” "
"Block, who’d studied Mandarin and once believed that China was the future, was disillusioned. “What I saw there was a society where rules didn’t matter and everybody was breaking rules, and it was a fucked-up place as a result,” he says."
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1rgry7qgc7t9f/The-Rage-of-Carson-Block
20. Awesome news. Go Ouriel & the ZenGo team!
21. "In accessing global opportunities as an investor, we are operating in a similar manner as large scale enterprises that also look globally for corporate development: the very companies that venture is funding and building will need to be truly global in order to be successful and get to the size to deliver the returns that most investors want and need to see.
Furthermore, if you invest in a certain sector it is almost illogical to not look at a sector globally. Do you invest in agri-tech, drones, health tech ? What is happening in each area in Europe and Asia? And if you start researching that and you come across great opportunities you would love to invest in but your mandate restricts you from doing so, would that be palatable? Of course not."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/going-global
22. "It’s not just the countries you know and are familiar with that are developing, it’s all of them. And among them, there are some that will do extraordinarily well in the foreseeable future.
That is where you will find your best investments – where the world is growing and developing. Higher interest rates, better yields, wide-open opportunities… they are all out there. You just have to shift your mindset and think globally."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/04/21/best-investments-think-globally/
23. "Now (finally!) the technical and business tailwinds are coming together to make it possible. The cost and ease of getting to space are about to improve by many orders of magnitude. This will drive the space industry to be one of the biggest sources of growth over the next 10-20 years.[1] It will make existing technologies cheaper and more ubiquitous, like allowing worldwide high-speed internet in even the most remote, rural areas. It will also open up a host of new possibilities previously only imagined in science fiction."
https://futureblind.com/2021/03/03/the-future-of-space-1/
24. I'm with Mr Solana. Media bashing of tech is getting tiresome. Maybe we do need more hard-driving leadership. (I should note, I am not a Jobs- style of abusive management either).
"Travis became the media bogeyman he did by performing things the media loathes: unapologetic “baller” business ambition, masculinity (as defined, at least, by nega-masculine writers living in Brooklyn and San Francisco), and an apparent contempt for local government.
But none of these things are necessarily bad, and it’s actually quite bizarre our cultural gatekeepers have internalized a sense that phrasing so uncontroversial as the “champion’s heart,” for example, should be termed a “radioactive value.” I’m not sure where everyone else has been living for the last year, but it seems to me the United States is presently embroiled in an existential fight with rot. Champions are in short supply. The champion’s heart? I don’t hate it."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/temple-of-bros
25. Probably one of the most proficient "Meme" VCs right now. New breed of small fund VCs.
“It just kind of happens where [my investments] are people who understand the culture of the internet, to understand memes and understand wit and humor and appreciate that a little bit more,” he said. “Those are probably the people that are more naturally intuitive investments, so it definitely does skew that direction.”
https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/27/banana-capitals-fund-1-turner-novak/
26. It's all trade offs. I definitely jumped at these roles in my 20s.
“You know what you're getting into, and like most jobs, if you want to reap rewards you’re probably going to have to jump through hoops and do some stuff that’s painful along the way.”
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210426-is-extreme-working-culture-worth-the-big-rewards
27. I'm a customer and fan of this company. Congrats Chris Herd & team.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/29/firstbase-raises-13m-to-make-remote-work-suck-less/
28. 110% agree with this. Mixing is the key. This leads to a much more interesting life.
"So many interesting artists, designers, ideas and entrepreneurs are successful because they find a unique combination of passions at a synergistic intersection.
Pursuing several concurrent paths of personal development opens you up to so much. By embracing several passions that feed off each other, you open up a world of possibility you otherwise would miss."
https://adamsinger.substack.com/p/interesting-results-always-happen
29. Still the best podcast around. Smart folks talking rationally and thinking for themselves about political, business, geopolitical and cultural issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLS3osXJY54
30. So many great places listed here. The point is about having a great quality of life at a good price. ie. Value which is not something you will get in most US/Western European cities.
Then you invest any remaining money into assets. On the list: I favor Taiwan, Georgia (the country), Argentina & Vietnam & Mexico. Ukraine, Portugal & Serbia goes without saying.
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2021/04/28/places-to-live/
31. "many Bitcoin critics see it as just a Visa-like payment platform, and analyze its performance and costs by “transactions per second.” But Bitcoin is not a fintech company competing with Visa. It is a decentralized asset competing to be the new global reserve currency, aiming to inherit the role gold once had and the role the dollar holds today.
The world relies on the U.S. dollar and U.S. treasuries, giving America unparalleled and outsized economic dominance. Nearly 90% of international currency transactions are in dollars, 60% of foreign exchange reserves are held in dollars and almost 40% of the world’s debt is issued in dollars, even though the U.S. only accounts for around 20% of global GDP. This special status that the dollar enjoys was born in the 1970s through a military pact between America and Saudi Arabia, leading the world to price oil in dollars and stockpile U.S. debt.
As we emerge from the 2020 pandemic and financial crisis, American elites continue to enjoy the exorbitant privilege of issuing the ultimate monetary good and numéraire for energy and finance."
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-petrodollar
32. I like this story. Leaning into what makes u different. Good for her.
"In modelling, looking different is a blessing not a curse and it gives me a platform to raise awareness of albinism."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56464881
33. This is one of the best tweet storms on predictions for future of work that will appear before 2025.
https://mobile.twitter.com/chris_herd/status/1388099111774265351
34. I normally bag on these things but this could work. Another influencer trying the VC thing. But glad he is thinking big & understanding the importance of ownership and equity.
"A lot of social media creators get pigeonholed or told they have to grow their account really large, go for brand deals, try to become a musician or become an actor," Richards said. "They're kind of held to that stigma. We want to break that. That's what we're all about, proving people wrong."
35. This politicization of everything is the reason the USA, Canada & Western Europe are going down the tubes. This is why freedom of speech, rational discussion and questioning media narrative is even more critical these days.
"In other words, knowledge is useful in large part because it leads to more knowledge. Suppressing a piece of knowledge also suppresses everything else you might subsequently learn as a result."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-politically-guided-science-is
36. This sums up Digital Decolonization. Great write up here.
"Most societies around the world are nearly two-thirds under the age of thirty-five. They were not raised with the mindset of people of my generation with a certain view of America’s role of leadership in the world. They have assumed access to technology with easy, convenient, available information, products, and services. They are global day one, because bottom up experiences are one click away. And dissatisfied by top-town institutions’ inability to act, they are taking the reins of impact themselves.
In my world, the old American playbook as access to technology increased was to show up where a market was big enough, or outsource where labor markets were cheap enough. And for years overall, that worked. The Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google, or Intel of almost anywhere has been, well, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google, and Intel.
This is no longer the case. For the first time, billions of people have local and regional choice. They no longer have to accept only one-stop-shop products from the United States but have access to services more attuned to their realities and cultural differences."
https://christophermschroeder.substack.com/p/america-is-back-but-to-what
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Why Most Venture Capital Content Marketing is So Bad: Actually why MOST Content Marketing is BAD in general
I was chatting recently with a new Venture Capital friend about content marketing. As a new Fund, how do you standout? VCs now have a well worn playbook of becoming media companies, particularly in Silicon Valley. But this has led to a massive deluge of content ranging from medium posts, newsletters, Podcasts, Youtube Channels. As a regular reader and admittedly very amateur investor, I try to read or follow all of them, especially from the top tier firms. And let us be very honest, most of it is AWFUL, Useless or even worse...plain BORING. Rene Girard-esque Mimicry. They all seem the same. Bland.
Yet there are some standouts. The firms I would rank highest are NFX, First Round Capital, Village Global, SaaStr Fund & the grandmaster A16Z. I think most founders and even their investor competitors would admit that these listed firms are able to provide amazing content. I always learn new things. No one firms come anywhere close.
I think the universal thing they all do well is: Voice, Format & Consistency.
1. Voice:
Having a very clear editorial positioning, reflecting other media players ie. taking a clear opinion or point of view. So for example Financial Times is conservative, New York Times is leftish. So in our specific case for Venture Capital content, First Round Review is about sharing the lessons and practical learnings from operators and investors across Silicon Valley. A16Z is almost always talking about future trends and implications, which started from Marc Andreessen’s “Software is Eating the World” 2011 Op ed. Basically building the content strategy around this key voice and theme.
2. Format:
The choice of medium is really important. Whether it is podcasts from Village Global VC, written long form and write ups like First Round Review, useful frameworks from NFX. A16Z has done a great job for their video interviews and thought leadership pieces in Enterprise software, Consumer, Crypto and Biotech: all the key categories they invest in. Many new investors have done a great job building up content and followings on Twitter (Sheel Mohnot or Leo Polovets) or Clubhouse (Zach Coelius and Sheel Mohnot again). Jason Lemkin of the SaaStr Fund pretty much kills it on Twitter, Linkedin and written content. Garry Tan is crushing it on Youtube.
3. Consistency:
You want to have a regular publishing schedule. It’s better to do fewer pieces of content say once a month versus putting out 10 pieces of content irregularly, so 10 one month, zero the next month. Readers or watchers want to know when to expect the next piece of content. If the content is good, they even expect it. Ask any top newsletter writer. Once again, I’m incredibly impressed with what SaaStr Fund has done. They are so regularly prolific I am tempted to ping Jason to see if he is alive when I don’t see any new posts or tweets for a few hours in a day. :)
If you look at most of the other content strategies of other VC funds, they only follow some of these. To do content marketing well, these are the basics that you have to follow and do well.
I should also note in my humble opinion, that these are highly relevant for any content marketing initiative outside of venture capital.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Time Management in the Age of Leverage: Filters for Prioritization
This has been well stated many times, we all have 24 hours a day and nothing we can do can change that. Yet there are those around us who seemingly are able to get 10X the amount accomplished compared to us mere mortals. I’ve spent a lot of time reading, analyzing and asking around to figure out some tips and tricks to optimize my own schedule.
I use and recommend a very simple framework.
The first is Valuing your time per hour. So for example if you are a founder, each hour should be worth $10,000 usd or if you are Jeff Bezos it could be $1 Billion dollars per hour.
This can be helpful to judge how you spend your time. If the expected outcome or ROI (Return on Investment) is less than the valued amount, then say NO, give it to someone else, or outsource it for less than that amount. This also works well for startup founders in prioritizing how they use their precious engineers or designers.
2. But I would add one overlay on this: Do you enjoy the activity you are spending time on or not?
I think this is the most important piece that people miss. So for example, if you enjoy cooking or folding laundry, then keep doing it. ROI does not have to be purely financial. Hobbies are fun and are meant to bring color to their lives. We aren’t robots. Also what a sad & pathetic way to live if everything is done through the filter of ROI.
This is why it’s important to keep a “Mood Journal” and do a diary. I also do a weekly calendar review on the weekend to go through my previous week’s schedule. I review my calendar in the context of my mood journal. And modify my schedule accordingly by blocking out times for enjoyable work or activities. Also by cutting out some activities and conversations with people that bring me down, something I know worker bees at big companies don’t always have the luxury to do.
Our time on this planet is short and I truly believe you can have it all if you put enough effort into managing your day properly. YES, you can be insanely productive and get alot done and at the same time also squeezing great joy and pleasure out of your life. This is what freedom is: how you spend your hours.
As they say, “The Days are Long but the Years are Short.” It’s so easy to let time get away from you. This framework has helped me personally and I hope it can help you get the most out of your time and day too.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 25th, 2021
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” ― Japanese Proverb
I always learn something new from the Balaji conversations.
#11 Balaji Srinivasan - Crypto is the Future of Our Society
2. "Once a small port on the edge of a desert, Dubai has become a global hub of influencer culture, a magnet for social media stars desperate to tweak their image in what has become the ideal Instagram city. The emirate is home to a vast industry of aspiration: agents and producers trained to boost follower counts; hotels and luxury brands eager to use social media as cheap advertising."
"Already built on the illusion of unlimited indulgence, Dubai has at times appeared a parallel universe as other countries wrestled with Covid lockdowns. Tourist arrivals peak annually in the Gulf’s temperate winter months, and since July last year, the emirate has allowed travellers from almost anywhere in the world to enter, so long as they have proof of a negative PCR test."
3. I remember the Beardstown Ladies!
"Aged 41 to 87, the women hailed from a small agricultural town 200 miles south of Chicago. They were retirees, teachers, homemakers, and hog farmers. Before their rise to fame, many of them had never picked up a copy of The Wall Street Journal.
Yet, during the bull market of the 1980s, they reportedly turned a few hundred dollars into six figures, outperforming even veteran bankers.
Dubbed the “Beardstown Ladies,” they pumped out best-selling investment books, embarked on multi-state speaking tours, and made the rounds on primetime TV.
It was the perfect story about a group of underdogs who used common sense, intuition, and Midwestern grit to beat the market.
That is, until it all came tumbling down."
https://thehustle.co/the-midwestern-grandmas-who-became-stock-market-celebrities/
4. Invaluable reminder.
"Suffering is universal, Eger says, "but victimhood is optional." We're all likely to be victimized in some way through the course of our lives. At some point, we will suffer some kind of affliction or abuse, caused by circumstances or people over which we have little to no control. "This is victimization," she says. "It comes from the outside. It's the neighborhood bully, the boss who rages, the spouse who hits, the lover who cheats, the discriminatory law, the accident that lands you in the hospital."
On the flip side, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you."
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/why-ultimate-freedom-lies-in-the
5. Good description of Tiger Global's approach. High Velocity Venture Capital.
https://davidcummings.org/2021/04/17/high-velocity-venture-capital/
6. "The basic idea behind BitClout is to create a token-based marketplace for shares in someone’s (or something’s) reputation and influence. Go viral on Instagram for something delightful? Bull run. Say something stupid on Twitter? Could be the start of a bear market. In theory, every public action and utterance from anyone becomes tradable by anyone else."
7. Social media influencer marketing coming to real estate. Seems to be working in DC.
"This is all unusual, to say the least. Sure, there are other local agents on TikTok, but with smaller audiences (and no Lamborghinis). Washington is a city where the luxury clientele often includes politically adjacent names who would die if their home were all over the internet, let alone filmed by a drone and set against a Megan Thee Stallion song. But Heider—to the consternation of some critics—sees the norm-breaking as a plus (even if TikTok has generated only a couple of clients so far). For his team’s Blue Steel–like headshots, Heider purposely wore a turtleneck because he didn’t want to look like every other DC agent “in a navy suit with a tie and a white shirt and, like, a mahogany background.”
“This is about attention,” Heider says, sipping a cappuccino made by one of his colleagues. “I like things that are big and extravagant and fun and over the top. It’s just me. I love it.”
8. Not a Bieber fan but glad he has turned around his life. It's just not healthy to be a child star in Hollywood.
"And we as a society are all too familiar with what happens next to kids like Justin Bieber. We are particularly familiar with what happened to Bieber himself—the litany of distasteful and sometimes dangerous stuff he did that he won’t defend, the equally unkind things people said about him as he did that stuff, etc. But I will share a personal view: Being famous breaks something in your brain.
Especially when your fame comes as a result of your talent, from the thing you’ve loved and nurtured and worked at since you were young. Bieber earned his success while he was still a child; then his gift turned into a snake and bit him. How do you become a good or well-adjusted or normal person when you don’t have access to a single normal thing in your entire life? You can’t. You don’t."
https://www.gq.com/story/justin-bieber-cover-profile-may-2021
9. Very critical that the USA & Quad get closer to Vietnam. Very important rising country.
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/ally-with-vietnam
10. "So fab equipment goes from the west into Taiwan, where TSMC puts all the parts together into fabs that can turn raw materials into advanced chips, and the chips then go back out to the west and rest of the world.
Thus the semiconductor market in 2021 is a fully baked cake. You can’t just swap some ingredients out in response to a one-off military invasion, and then keep trucking along. No, we’ll have to bake a whole new cake if TSMC goes bye-bye. And that will be painful for everyone, everywhere."
https://doxa.substack.com/p/why-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan
11. The richest man in the world.
"So here we are a generation later. Putin is still in power and there are no signs he has any intentions of leaving. A few things have changed about him: he gets nenaturalny doses of Botox, he’s gotten divorced, he doesn’t take his shirt off as often for calendar beefcake, and he seems to have forgotten all the German they taught him in the KGB. He lives in palaces that would make a Bond villain whimper in impotent envy. Because after twenty years of skimming double-digit percentages off of one of the world’s largest commodity exporters, nobody on this planet has more personal money than Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Even Crown Princes have to share with the rest of the House, but Putin is a Dynasty of One."
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/plunder-tsar-putin-the-plutocrat
12. There is going to be a day when we see these Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and slaughterhouses as major crimes. Awful awful. (yes, I know I am a hypocrite as I eat meat but US food system is messed up).
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22344953/iowa-select-jeff-hansen-pork-farming
13. Gaming space is on fire! These are good predictions.
https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/01/the-deanbeat-predictions-for-gaming-in-2021/
14. This is quite good. Learning investing from the best.
"He analyzed every investment and trade made by these 45 managers and found that on average they only made money on 49% of their investments with some of the best ones only making money on 30% of their investments. Despite this, almost all of them made money overall — and yes, slugging % vs. batting average is well understood by anyone reading this. Shor’s most powerful point is that investment performance is largely dictated by what an investor does after they buy a stock, specifically by how they deal with both losing and winning positions over time (obviously an investor needs to be correct in their initial purchase decision at least some of the time)."
15. “South Korea was able to flatten the epidemic curve quickly,” researchers from Harvard and Seoul National University wrote in a review of the country’s response. Among the top reasons for its success: “conducting comprehensive testing and contact tracing and supporting people in quarantine to make compliance easier.”
https://www.vox.com/22380161/south-korea-covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-contact-tracing-testing
16. This attitude in the long run is a good thing for most emerging tech ecosystems.
“There is a sociological shift here,” said Mohammad Alshahrani, an advisor for a Saudi fintech firm with a startup of his own. “Tech has changed the way that young people are thinking about money,” he told Rest of World. “It’s not just about making money anymore — it’s about making money in a way that people perceive as impactful and smart.”
Alshahrani said Saudi’s cafés are brimming with young and often wealthy founders. “You can see it from their cars; they’re driving to the cafés in [a] Porsche,” he said. For young Saudis with money, the appeal is less about the fabled and lucrative exit: there is a new respectability to “tech.” “It’s hip, it’s young, it’s the cool thing to do,” said Alshahrani."
https://restofworld.org/2021/saudi-arabia-tech-not-oil-the-hot-new-thing/
17. Impressive rags to riches story, driven by alot of grit and hard work. Very inspiring.
"His success was built the hard way: from independence, self-discovery and the pursuit of knowledge. He believes that no one is limited or defined by the circumstances of their past – only by the choices made in the present. From sleeping on the floor of Walmart to becoming the founder of an eight-figure international business conglomerate, this is Song’s story."
18. Kyiv is pretty awesome. Big fan in general & one of my Heptagon cities. (7 places I'm spending most of my time in)
"But to sum it up, I like the freedom and personality responsibility of the Ukrainian culture. There's no such thing as playing the victim card, or expecting everyone to conform to your extreme beliefs regardless if you're left, right, vegan, carnivore, feminist, men's rights, socialist, or capitalist or anti-capitalist. People here are realists and have real problems, but even more than that, they respect and allow everyone to have their own beliefs and don't try to force others to believe in what they think is the only way. Personally I like the traditional family values that Ukrainians have, which in the west is quickly disappearing.
Plus it's just an awesome city to live in with tons to do, unique architecture, tech, great wifi, amazing food, people, and relatively low costs of living or a big capital city. As for the weather, I think it's the best place in the world from Mid April when Spring starts to around October when it starts to get cold."
https://www.johnnyfd.com/2021/04/why-i-bought-property-in-ukraine.html
19. Very interesting discussion on what being "rich" means. Good stuff.
https://www.johnnyfd.com/2016/02/soam-i-rich-yet.html
20. "The first phase of the internet empowered the business models of the old world: It made it cheaper for big middlemen to distribute mass-produced content to a mass audience, and it intensified the competition between these middlemen. But ultimately, new business models emerged to make the old middlemen redundant and address what only the internet can deliver: a relationship between individuals and their fans, at scale. The internet is not a cheaper television; it's a matching engine for personal connections.
The new European Super League is an example of the first phase. It allows one group of powerful middlemen to wrestle power away from another group of powerful middlemen. It also helps some soccer stars make more money, but it does not liberate them.
This is a temporary phase. What comes next?
The stars will realize that even the new middlemen are far less necessary than they seem."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/lovers-and-leavers/
21. "In the fall of 2020, when no single person could protect themselves, there was at least some utilitarian argument in favor of the Forever Lockdown (which is not to say it was a good argument, or a moral argument, or that the tradeoff ultimately made sense — just that there was some argument). But in a world of abundant, accessible, free vaccines it’s much more difficult to link the assumption of individual risk to the assumption of risk on behalf of the greater public. We all have the choice, now, to vaccinate or not.
If you want the Bill Gates microchip flex, that’s on you. If you’d rather risk permanent lung damage, that’s also on you! For my part, I went with the Borg implant. But I’m also not here to do a Pfizer commercial. This is America, baby, choose your own adventure."
https://www.piratewires.com/p/science-and-safety-porn-1fb
22. "Most people think product innovation and growth are what drive $Trillion+ outcomes. In practice, operational excellence is the key driver to executing consistently for the long term. This is how you harness creativity that compounds value over time."
https://www.nfx.com/post/the-ceo-that-jeff-bezos-called-his-teacher/
23. Neat picture book here. Soviet Monotowns.
24. Sabbaticals are an important tool to recharge, retool and think about your future. Have done 3 of them now and have completely changed my life and also what has taken my career into completely new and exciting arenas.
"A sabbatical is not something you do, which can be optimized to do more efficiently. Instead, think of it as a space where you can be. It takes a while—a lot longer than you’d think—to disentangle yourself from your work identity. Just think about how long it can take some evenings after work to transition from executive to mom, from boss to creative hobbyist, or from product manager to loving partner.
Most people in our study described needing at least six weeks(!) just to lose the anxiety around tasks piling up, phantom phone alerts, and old responsibilities that were no longer theirs."
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/sabbatical-time-off
25. This makes me sad that this is even happening. Big fan of both Russia and Ukraine. Both being cursed with evil self serving politicians making a mess for their respective peoples.
“Seven years on, the war continues. And seven years on, I see the truth of what Sasha told me that winter in 2014: Russia may keep on attacking, but Ukraine will not surrender."
https://unherd.com/2021/04/ukraine-will-never-surrender-to-putin/
26. "They’ll tell us that the inflation is ‘temporary’ and ‘transitory’, and not to worry because they’re still in control of the situation.
But anyone who visits a grocery store, fills up a gas tank, or pays tuition, will know the truth.
I’m not suggesting the sky will fall and we’ll see some Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. But a return to the painful inflation levels in the 1970s? That’s absolutely a possibility."
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/its-time-to-start-thinking-about-inflation-31989/
27. "This is a battle just beginning over who will control the communication satellites so central to our economy as well as the vast resources of other planets. But ultimately, the new space battle represents a war over opportunities for colonization, for an increasingly resource-stretched and crowded earth.
This may sound like apocalyptic sci-fi. But space is already becoming big business, and it's certain to get much bigger. Boosted by a huge surge of investment, space-industry global revenues are up more than twofold since the early 2000s, from $175 billion in 2005 to almost $424 billion in 2019. By 2040, Morgan Stanley projects annual global space-industry revenues to reach $1.2 trillion."
https://www.newsweek.com/who-will-control-21st-century-whoever-controls-space-opinion-1584024
28. These are great Biohacker tips from one of the best in the biz. He literally wrote the book on it.
https://mailchi.mp/biohackercenter/teemus-routines?e=82a25f4378
29. Good concept. "Micro-coach" who is there when you need guidance in certain point of negotiation in deal whatever it is. A good investor, advisor or fellow founder friend can serve as this when you need.
https://also.roybahat.com/how-to-use-a-microcoach-d4764ebce0ee
30. This is quite the story even by Silicon Valley standards. Grit & great execution.
"Founded in 2011 to help app developers get discovered and make money, AppLovin grew up without the help of venture money, reckoned with a scrapped acquisition, raised a big private equity round and transformed itself into a leading game publisher by going on a buying spree.
AppLovin was valued at $28.6 billion in its IPO ahead of the start of trading on Thursday, based on a reported $80 share price, which was in the middle of the expected range. Foroughi, who created AppLovin after starting a couple other ad tech companies, owns 27.9 million shares valued at $2.2 billion."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/applovin-ipo-mints-ceo-adam-foroughi-as-latest-tech-billionaire.html
31. This makes sense! YOLO!
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/yolo-is-fueling-risky-career-moves-5049108/
32. "The shift in power from publishers to personalities will manifest across mediums. Incumbent organizations will continue to hemorrhage talent until they properly compensate their top performers, offer long-term incentives for building the publisher’s brand, allow co-ownership of persona-driven properties like newsletters and podcasts, and lift up individuality rather than sterilize it.
Media should take cues from sports teams, which intimately understand how spotlighting and retaining stars is crucial to building a popular franchise."
https://constine.substack.com/p/audience-portability
33. This is a good thing in my book. YOLO!
"Some are abandoning cushy and stable jobs to start a new business, turn a side hustle into a full-time gig or finally work on that screenplay. Others are scoffing at their bosses’ return-to-office mandates and threatening to quit unless they’re allowed to work wherever and whenever they want.
They are emboldened by rising vaccination rates and a recovering job market. Their bank accounts, fattened by a year of stay-at-home savings and soaring asset prices, have increased their risk appetites. And while some of them are just changing jobs, others are stepping off the career treadmill altogether.
Individual YOLO decisions can be chalked up to many factors: cabin fever, low interest rates, the emergence of new get-rich-quick schemes like NFTs and meme stocks. But many seem related to a deeper, generational disillusionment, and a feeling that the economy is changing in ways that reward the crazy and punish the cautious."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/technology/welcome-to-the-yolo-economy.html
34. Wow. This is actually quite impressive on so many levels when you think about it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56822571
35. This seems really bizarre but its a strange time. I've actually subscribed to some of Agora Publishing's newsletters & am a fan of Rickards, Bonner, Stansberry, Rees-Mogg & Davidson's writings.
36. "Modern creation is always-on and the creators who define the next generation of culture will be the immersive creators. They will glide so effortlessly between the real and digital realms that they’ll nearly always be producing content. Emma Chamberlain is one example of such a creator: there’s rarely a moment in Emma’s life when she’s not filming or livestreaming. The camera is a fluid extension of who she is."
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/the-two-way-mirror-of-art-and-technology
37. "So why are people choosing to earn 0.6% or lower, when they can earn 8% or higher? There is a lack of education in the market. This will change very quickly though. From finance professionals to corporate executives, the world is going to wake up to the massive arbitrage opportunity that exists in simply holding your dollars in digital stablecoins rather than electronic CUSIP cash."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/yield-arbitrage-is-coming-to-corporate
38. "To create new value, publishing needs to unbundle and then rebundle in much more rational ways. The destruction of the cable bundle was a necessary and messy step. We’ve seen the start of the unbundling of publishing with Substack. The defection of many well-known writers heralds the needed collapse of the op-ed pages.
But the people who dismiss Substack and newsletters as just hot takes sound a lot to me like the people in the early 2000s who dismissed bloggers as dudes in their parents’ basement with pizza stains on their t-shirts and a desperate need for vitamin D. How things start are not how they end."
https://therebooting.substack.com/p/the-unbundling-of-publishing-1x
39. This is a really interesting idea. Universal Creative Income. Makes sense.
"For platforms, the idea is simple: use company revenue to fund a Universal Creative Income program for emerging creators on the platform. For instance, companies like Facebook or YouTube could carve out a fund to support creators on the platform and send them a monthly check to cover basic living expenses, regardless of skill, training, or background.
UCI differs from most prevailing platform creator funds in terms of consistency of payments, transparency of eligibility criteria, and focus on smaller emerging creators. To the last point: we believe focusing on creators who are in the greatest financial need would create the largest impact on participation in the creator economy."
https://li.substack.com/p/the-case-for-universal-creative-income
40. "George Floyd the man is dead, and his family have received the justice they deserve, but George Floyd the icon will live on, a powerful symbol for the faithful as they strive to build a third age of racial equality.
(This) political ideology mostly offers only rewards — status, popularity and often jobs and money.
This kind of moral confusion is the perfect environment for bullies and sadists because it is far easier for people to be punished for using the wrong language, or having the wrong opinions, and for many it is a ruthless competition to reach the top. Most of the nastiness is mercifully online, but we had a taste of the medieval at one point when a latter-day mini-Münster — the CHOP — sprang up in Seattle.
The victims of that utopian experiment, not being part of the litany of the saints, have been largely forgotten, but the underlying violent energies of the social justice movement shouldn’t be."
https://unherd.com/2021/04/how-george-floyd-became-a-martyr/
41. Have heard good things about these folks. Also from LP perspective it seems like a differentiated offering too. (which is unlike most VC funds these days).
42. "Welcome to the TINA Economy. There is no alternative. Embrace risk, or suffer guaranteed decline."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-tina-economy/
43. "What’s in store for the new head of the SEC? Gensler is taking over an agency whose situation is not unlike the CFTC in 2009. The SEC’s influence significantly faded under the Trump administration. Insider trading cases are near all-time lows. Repeated budget cuts have severely hindered the SEC’s ability to track & prosecute fraud.
Celebrities walking the legal tight-rope like Elon Musk have blatantly taunted the agency with little consequence. While I believe Gensler will have the power to reverse some of this, the hole his predecessors have dug for him is a deep one. The equity markets are as close to the Wild West as they’ve been in a long time."
https://frontmonth.substack.com/p/the-man-with-no-name-returns
44. "It is a little naive — or then disingenuous — to discuss Bitcoin’s energy consumption while leaving out the profound links between traditional finance and carbon emissions. Have those impetuous Bitcoin critics at the Financial Times heard of the petrodollar?
As large volumes of oil revenue from energy-producing countries were invested directly in Treasuries and in other financial markets of the major industrial economies, a perpetual motion machine quickly developed: those financial markets could not work as planned without an ever greater supply of petrodollars and thus an ever greater extraction of fossil fuels.
Should we inquire about the carbon footprint of the greenback or are those sins reserved for Bitcoin?"
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/does-bitcoin-hurt-the-climate-not
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Be Like New Zealand!
Andrew Wilkinson talked about going after companies that are like New Zealand. It’s a brilliant analogy and what his Private Equity firm, Tiny Capital focuses on.
Sometimes the best businesses are like New Zealand:
It’s food and energy independent and safe. Totally self sufficient. No middle man, minimal paid acquisition, no platform dependency.
Middle of nowhere, Hard to Invade: so forgotten by competitors and dominates a niche.
Stable democracy: Loyal and engaged user/customer base. Strong network of customers
These are very simple businesses that can grow over the long term. If these are digital, software businesses, they can also be incredibly scaleable in ways offline or service businesses are not. So for example, you can easily increase revenue 6-10X with the same amount of people and costs versus offline or service businesses where you need to add people in direct correlation as your business grows.
Now that markets are so global and large, the right niche can still end up being a very significant business that grows for decades steadily.
I really hope that there is more media focus on these kinds of businesses as they are a great alternative to the Venture-funded Unicorn (companies valued over a Billion dollars for those living under a rock) strategy so prevalent in our present cultural discourse.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
The Magic 5 Years
This is what I call the epoch that every once great company has. Some examples that come to mind are Microsoft in the 1990s, Ebay from 2001-2006, Google from 2006-2011, Facebook from 2008-2013. For me it was Yahoo! from 2003-2008. Possibly more recently it would be AirBnB from 2012-2018 or Stripe last few years till now.
Ask anyone who works in these companies during this time. The company was expanding so fast. “The Rise” that i wrote about previously here: The “Rise” & The “Grind”
Absolutely magical times. Everyone wants to work there. You are so proud, you are eager to tell people where you work at parties (when they were allowed in pre-covid times). You wear the t-shirt or whatever swag with pride.
I’ve stated many times, you are only as good as the people you work with and you never want to be the smartest person in the room. I can honestly say from 2001-2009, I was by far the dumbest person in almost every meeting, that was how good and experienced the level of the people were at Yahoo! My learning curve was at a vertical line up during this time. No surprise many of these people ended up populating the leadership ranks of all the top Silicon Valley companies from Facebook, Zynga, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple & eBay. Many have ended up joining many of the top media companies & ad agencies in New York and globally in all major rising ecommerce and Adtech startups and giants like Criteo, Alibaba and Tencent among others. Yahoo! Alumni have been well represented in Venture capital as well.
This network has been an incredible resource for learning and opportunities. This is why I tell anyone young or old, follow Sheryl Sandberg’s famous advice: “If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on.”
I was fortunate to be able to get to do this at Alibris, Yahoo! & 500 Startups. You may not get rich, and the companies may or may not end up doing well. In some cases, the “rocket ship” implodes. But regardless, if you are able to do this, it will literally change your life and the trajectory of your career. These magic five years in a growth company is something very few people in the working world get to experience. I look back very fondly at those times & consider myself very lucky to have gone through this in my career.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads April 18th, 2021
“The difference between a strong man and a weak one is that the former does not give up after a defeat.”― Woodrow Wilson
"With two major money making operations now stood up in options & ETFs, Susquehanna followed other upper echelon trading firms and began diversifying its investments. In 2006 Susquehanna founded its own venture capital firm focused on startups across the US, Israel and China. Noteworthy portfolio companies today include Credit Karma, eToro and Pyoneer, each worth billions in market value and some undergoing public listings in 2021. In a way, Susquehanna isn’t straying very far from its core strength when it comes to venture capital - like options, startups provide a convex risk/reward opportunity with limited downside but truly massive upside.
No company better explains this theory at work than ByteDance, formed in 2012 with Susquehanna as an early backer. A $5 million investment in ByteDance’s founding year bought 15% of the company and a board seat. As TikTok grew in Asia and was launched in the US in 2017, returns started to build. By the end of 2020, TikTok had become the #1 most downloaded app in the US with over 800 million monthly active users - more than Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat or Reddit. That 15% investment is now valued at over $30 billion, rivaling the value of Susquehanna itself."
https://frontmonth.substack.com/p/the-susquehanna-six
2. I love Japan and Japanese culture (pop and otherwise) and am definitely a Weeb.
"But while some people refer to anyone who loves Japan as a “weeb”, the connotation of the term is usually more specific. It generally means someone who loves Japanese pop culture — cartoons, comics, video games, music, costumes, and so on. Cartoons above all; it’s hard to imagine a weeb who isn’t a fan of anime.
....as the generations turn over and a larger and larger percent of Americans grew up enjoying Japanese pop cultural products. Just as “geek” became a positive thing when the Star Wars generation came of age, “weeb” will probably shift first to an ironically positive word (“LOL, I’m such a weeb!”), and then finally to something lots of people want to be."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/weebs
3. "Citizenship insurance is having a contingency plan in place in case you no longer want to live in your home country. It is having a backup citizenship and passport so you and your family can leave quickly, safely and legally if you decide where you are is no longer conducive to your comfort and happiness."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/03/04/why-you-need-citizenship-insurance/
4. "To me, using business knowledge garnered in the toughest place to do business on earth – the United States – to start a business that is based and sells overseas is the best of all worlds. I believe just living overseas, while a great start, is half the picture."
"A lot of online entrepreneurs are joining me, relocating to live overseas in some of the best cities in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America to save money and propel their business further.
The idea is simple: by not paying $3,500 monthly rent to live in San Francisco (and the accompanying tab of $200 for a night out partying), you can plow more money back into your business. That money just might be the difference between success and failure."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2014/01/02/the-mistake-online-entrepreneurs-are-making-living-overseas/
5. The Winklevii twins, Bitcoin billionaires helping to drive the decentralized world forward.
“The idea of a centralized social network is just not going to exist five or 10 years in the future,” Tyler predicts when asked about Facebook. “There’s a membrane or a chasm between the old world and this new crypto-native universe. And we’re the conduit helping people transcend the offline into the online.”
6. "The story of the vaccine’s path from development to mass distribution is a lesson in the power of the global capitalist system — the network of corporations and supply chains that, though it can suffocate and disempower us as individuals, can also summon forth immense material and intellectual resources and deploy them for the greater good."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/the-story-of-one-dose.html
7. "In 1891, the Garden State adopted an extremely generous corporate tax law that “would allow business to do as business pleases.” By incorporating there, a company based in another state could save big on taxes and enjoy perks like unlimited market expansion.
A flood of conglomerates took up this offer and New Jersey earned so much from taxes that it was able to pay off its entire state debt.
Pressured to incentivize businesses to stay, other states offered their own lenient corporate tax policies.
In this so-called “race to the bottom,” Delaware emerged victorious.
Adopted in 1899, the Delaware General Corporation Law “reduced restrictions upon corporate action to a minimum” and promised to maintain the most hospitable business enclave in the nation — a place where corporations could frolic in the open fields of capitalism, unencumbered by income tax, bureaucratic policing, and shareholder litigation."
Why do so many companies incorporate in Delaware?
8. The importance of World and Systems building.
"You’ve probably heard a familiar piece of career advice: “Everyone works in sales, even if they don’t realize it.” This is good advice.
I want to propose an updated version for today: “Everyone’s job is world-building, even if they don’t realize it.” It is more or less the same idea, but tailored even more for a world of abundant narrative and complex choices.
The more complex or valuable is whatever you’re trying to sell, the more important it is for you to build a world around that idea, where other people can walk in, explore, and hang out - without you having to be there with them the whole time. You need to build a world so rich and captivating that others will want to spend time in it, even if you’re not there."
https://danco.substack.com/p/world-building
9. So very good.
"...On why voluntary suffering can help prepare you for involuntary suffering:
“The one thing suffering has taught me is that everything is fleeting. Pain is fleeting, feelings are fleeting, how you feel in this moment is going to change. So when I've been through heartbreak, when I've been through breakups, when I've been through job changes, I tell myself, 'I'm really in it right now. I'm really in it. I'm having a really bad time. Life sucks.'
But then I tell myself, 'Focus on what's in front of you, and things will slowly start to change. It may not be immediate. It may be longer than you want it to be.’ But I remember that through racing where it's just you'll go through ups and downs, and you can't always predict those.”
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/amelia-boone
10. "Emerging trends are about a collision between the new – typically a new technology – and an age-old, fundamental human need.
The mistake many people make when they want to think in a structured way about the future is that they fixate on what is changing. Usually, that means a shiny new technology: blockchain, machine learning, and driverless cars.
But taken alone, those technologies aren’t trends. Simply saying, ‘there will be more AI in the years ahead’ tells us little that is useful.
Meaningful trends are founded not only in change, but in fundamental and unchanging human needs such as value, security, convenience, status, and social connection.
Here’s the key: New trends emerge when some change – typically a new technology – unlocks a new way to serve one of those needs. So if you want to start spotting trends, start looking at technology through the lens of human needs."
https://junglegym.substack.com/p/spotting-trends-in-a-fast-changing-world
11. “Our lofty goal is to create the entertainment experience of the future. I think some of that is feeling our way into what feels like it’s going to be a new medium, where it’s this blended entertainment experience that has interactive elements."
https://www.theverge.com/22338403/fortnite-story-narrative-interview-donald-mustard-epic-games
12. "Rae’s deal with Ipsy was but a small part of a major shift in the beauty industry, which is nowhere more complex, and profitable, than the United States. People with clout, from celebrities to social media stars to lifestyle influencers, are changing the way the sell works, exploiting the intimate relationships they have with their fans in a way that wasn’t possible before in the industry.
And while most of their profits aren’t close to comparable to established brands, at the moment, beauty is big business: Americans have long spent more in aggregate on beauty and personal care than any country in the world, about $92.8 billion in 2019, according to Euromonitor, a consumer-research company.
Though revenues dipped during quarantine, over all, global consumers have close to doubled their spending in the past 15 years, as prices of products have risen and beauty has entered a phase of total pop-culture domination, on par with hip-hop and gaming."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/magazine/addison-rae-beauty-industry.html
13. "Consuming, signalling, loving, and praying have been the fuel of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google’s ascents, respectively. That the crypto asset class universe has reached $2T reveals, I believe, that it taps into two attributes we instinctively pursue: trust and scarcity."
https://www.profgalloway.com/scarcity-cred/
14. What a crazy story. 20B dollars gone in 2 days. Still can't get over it. Leverage: it works until it doesn't.
15. "Nowadays, cloud is no longer new — it’s the bare minimum expectation. To differentiate, new startups must aggressively (and at their outset) rethink fundamental assumptions of how to build a software company. My partners and I are convinced that we are in the early innings of the next big transition. This era is all about the user, and we want to focus on three strategic pillars that best-in-class software companies will exemplify: user-centric products and distribution, global distributed teams, and creative monetization."
16. Hmmm......My take though quality of life on many dimensions is WAY better in Europe than in the USA. By far.
"The average European is about a third or more worse off than the average American, and it's getting worse.
What the heck happened? It could happen here too. Maybe it already has, just not as bad.
This should be profoundly unsettling for economists. Everyone thinks free trade is a good thing. The European union, one big integrated market, was supposed to ignite growth. It did not. The grand failure of the world's biggest free trade zone really is a striking fact to gnaw on.
Sure, other things are not held constant. Perhaps what should have been the world's biggest free trade zone became the world's biggest regulatory-stagnation, high-tax, welfare-state disincentive zone. Still, "it would have been even worse" is a hard argument to make."
https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-puzzle-of-europe.html
17. "All healthy relationships start with shared values. They are what engender trust and link relationships together. Many different types of values can emerge in relationships but there are three essential — foundational — values:
Transparent Communication + High Frequency
Clear Ownership
Alignment of Vision
Co-Founder relationships are unique, but nearly any healthy relationship will feature these three values."
https://www.nfx.com/post/the-pyramid-of-cofounder-success/
18. Some good nuggets here.
"Our trends toward strong federal authority and local rot are clearly intensifying, and Americans, when they’re paying attention, focus mostly on how to destroy each other while an antagonistic, genocidal nuclear superpower grows increasingly belligerent abroad.
But with the cold weather finally broken, and vaccinations fully in play, America is thawing. Businesses are open, mass-remote work culture is looking more endangered by the day, and awoken like the kraken comes the most powerful force in the world: single people who want to get laid. The mass psychological shift has been almost palpable"
https://www.piratewires.com/p/mating-season
19. Neat company.
20. "If you find yourself focusing on building up your business, Plan A is going to be the most important camp for you to join.
If your company is increasing 100% year over year, Plan A is going to help you keep more of that wealth in the business so you can continue to grow.
Someone who’s actively earning money needs to start with a Plan A.
But maybe you’re past that stage. Maybe you’ve already scored the wins. Maybe you’ve already seen all the success you want or you’ve developed a Plan A that is working well for you.
Plan B is about creating those insurance policies that will extend the shelf-life of your wealth."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/02/24/plan-a-or-plan-b/
21. A very good write up and why Tiger Global is eating traditional VC's lunch. Approach=Better, Faster & Cheaper.
"The hedge fund most often in the crosshairs is Tiger Global — a tech-focused “crossover" that has dominated media headlines & VC gossip circles for the last 12 months due to its record-breaking deal pace & aggressive style. From an outsider’s perspective, Tiger’s investment strategy can be roughly summed up as:
--Be (very) aggressive in pre-empting good tech businesses
--Move (very) quickly through diligence & term sheet issuance
--Pay (very) high prices relative to historical norms and/or competitors
--Take a (very) lightweight approach to company involvement post-investment
--Above all, deploy capital, deploy capital, deploy capital
And Tiger isn’t the only fund employing this type of strategy. Addition (led by ex-Tiger Global Partner Lee Fixel), Coatue (a “Tiger Cub”, just like Tiger Global), and several others exhibit these tactics to varying degrees2, and have elicited similar amounts of frustration from more “traditional” VCs."
https://randle.substack.com/p/playing-different-games
22. Good to know. I'd favor Portugal, Mexico & would check out Colombia and Vietnam. All nice places to retire.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-10-best-places-in-the-world-to-retire-11617116826
23. "What happens to the job market if people live longer? How about housing? Or like in the controversial case of Joe Biden, what if our leaders are in office later into their lives but suffer more cognitive deterioration? What about the funding and administration of social welfare programs with benefits for retirees, like Social Security? The point – we haven’t had a public conversation about the 2nd and 3rd order consequences of human life extension."
https://dougantin.com/longevity-extended-life-what-we-arent-talking-about/
24. The best show on air these days.....a great discussion on what’s going on in business and America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaU1P5-pzLU
25. PG really nails it.
"Part of the reason it's getting easier to start a startup is social. Society is (re)assimilating the concept. If you start one now, your parents won't freak out the way they would have a generation ago, and knowledge about how to do it is much more widespread. But the main reason it's easier to start a startup now is that it's cheaper. Technology has driven down the cost of both building products and acquiring customers.
The decreasing cost of starting a startup has in turn changed the balance of power between founders and investors. Back when starting a startup meant building a factory, you needed investors' permission to do it at all. But now investors need founders more than founders need investors, and that, combined with the increasing amount of venture capital available, has driven up valuations. [8]
So the decreasing cost of starting a startup increases the number of rich people in two ways: it means that more people start them, and that those who do can raise money on better terms."
http://paulgraham.com/richnow.html
26. "The thing is, some (maybe most) of the stress that we experience in our daily lives is stress that we bring on ourselves via the habits that are part of our regular routine. Harsh to hear, but the good news is that means by modifying these habits we can dump unnecessary stress."
https://www.emergencymind.com/post/how-high-performers-remove-stress-daily
27. Ordered the book. Have a Scout's mindset.
"The central metaphor in the book is that we are often in soldier mindset, my term for the motivation to defend your own beliefs against arguments and evidence that might threaten them. Scout mindset is an alternative way of thinking. A scout's goal is not to attack or defend, but to go out and form an accurate map of what's really there."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-julia-galef
28. This is one of the coolest companies I've seen in a long time. Factory of the future in space.
29. "The lesson here is very, very simple. If you want to motivate yourself – first, BE ABSOLUTELY HONEST WITH YOURSELF. Admit to yourself whether or not you actually want something. If you do, you will act in accordance with your desire. If you don’t, nothing and no one can motivate you to get it."
https://didacticmind.com/2020/11/how-to-light-your-inner-fire.html
30. Love this idea of building Guardrails in your life.
"If you stick to these guardrails every day for a number of years, they’re almost guaranteed to yield some degree of outlier returns.
The compounding nature of some guardrails is easier to wrap your head around than others. Take lifting for example. It’s obvious to anyone that a daily workout will compound over a number of months and get you in better shape."
"Guardrails are just a fancy word for your default settings. Meaning, the best guardrails reduce your reliance on willpower and snap decisions."
https://www.theproofwellness.com/guardrails-rule-your-future
31. "He who pursues his purpose should beware, then, of distractions and troublemakers who wish to deflect him from his path: for it is they who “mix mead with misery.” And in the end it is the quest for knowledge that redeems us all; it is this that transforms every single-minded pursuit of a worthy mission into a virtuous exercise."
https://qcurtius.com/2021/04/17/alive-today-dead-tomorrow-then-alive-again/
32. Pure gold. This is one of the best recent write ups on finding Product Market fit. Also love the overly-simplified Ries vs. Rabois models. Very much worth a read.
"So, for most businesses, instead of measuring satisfaction, measuring retention is the best signal of product/market fit. Measuring retention is pretty easy. Perform a cohort analysis, graph the curve over time and see if there is a flattening of the retention curve.
As I’ve discussed before, what you measure for your retention curve matters quite a bit though. For your product, there is usually a key action the customer takes in a product that best represents product value. For Pinterest, it was saving a piece of content. For Grubhub, it was ordering food online. For your product, there is also a natural frequency to product use."
https://caseyaccidental.com/caseys-guide-to-finding-product-market-fit/
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/